Everything Old Is New Again

I remember a history lesson from when I was in College. No linky, but the story went that back in the bad old days of the Gilded Age the New York legislature was about award someone the right of way to build a railroad through a part of New York state.

In those bad old days there were two major competitors. One went to the legislature with a bag of money. The other went with two bags. The guy with two bags got the award to build the railroad.

All I can say is thank god that isn't the sort of thing that happens now a days.

Obama, Gates, and the Cop

More Stuff to Be Crazy About

OK, so he is right. I've said it before, that we won't get any real change until things get so bad something will have to be done and then it will probably be too late: See Global Warming, Not Doing Anything Until The Sea Rises About 300 Feet From The Melting Icecaps.

Why is it that when a minority gains power they act like a caricature of the reactionary white guy? See: Thacther, Gandhi, Meir, Powell. But I'll admit it I was really hoping that the Black Guy would make a difference.

Let's face it I'm just:

Fuck Them All

For god's sake. We luvs us some mushie middle of the liberal road shit. Fuck 'em all. I got mine seems to be what most of the people in Washington say, even those who are identified as liberal. Why is it that a guy who ran as being just a little liberal needs to be pushed to be even just a little liberal? No one ever sees the need to push him back from a radical leftist position to something more "centrist." He always starts from the right, ALWAYS!

When the public option is destroyed, he will not use that defeat to push a more progressive agenda, he will curl up with the right wingers of both parties and hug and kiss them and tell us all what a great deal we've gotten. Then he will throw more money at the banksters because that will again be necessary. And there will be more and more people who have no health insurance, or perhaps they will be required by law to buy it, and they will get the same kind of coverage that minimum auto insurance provides.

Health Care

Oh my god. Is this guy real? Why yes he is. He is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be stupid and lazy. Pravda on the Potomac cannot self destruct too soon for me. Leaving only reactionary pieces of shit in it's place. Good better the enemy we all know than one that pretends to be our friend when it suits them!

The second point, is that I am positive that it will be better not to pass a health care "reform" that doesn't have a very strong public run by and completely owned by the government insurance package.

Stopping real health care reform by the blue dogs and republicans will not be Obama's Waterloo (depending of course on how he handles it), but to move our historic metaphors back a dozen or so centuries a Pyrrhic victory for the right wing corportists.

It should be obvious that we can run against those ass holes, using the fact that they kept us from getting decent health care. That is I am positive a better outcome than to try to get some piece of shit through that really helps no one except the incredibly wealthy insurance company owners. Because we are really not going to be able to "build" on a piece of shit legislation.

Nutz

Lost an O.V.I. yesterday. Nutz. I had testimony that the guy had only had one drink. That the HGN test is only 70% accurate. That diabetes and time of day and even nicotine affect it it. Unfortunately, he volunteered that he takes 42 pills a day and "probably all of the bottles say do not drink with this drug."

The guy is a diabetic, is on a list for heart lung transplant, smokes, etc.

Still probably no reason to appeal. The guy had about four different driving under suspensions. So the magistrate gave him 70 days each on each of his M1s all to be served concurrently. So even if we appealed and won he'd still have to serve 70 days.

Jesus H. Christ

Well Hell.

Marginal Tax Rates

Why can't people have a rational discussion about taxes? In the 1950s under Eisenhower (a republican who had a republican congress for two years) the marginal tax rate was 90 fucking per cent on the wealthiest.

Why the fuck is it that 35% fucking marginal tax rate on the wealthiest 1% of the of the income over $250,000.00 is such a big deal for the vast majority of us. Oh wait there is not a single talking head who makes under that is there?

Dogs

Loki with his blankey.

Loki trying to get Ming's attention.

More Medical Stuff

Why is it that we seem unable to get ourselves the same kind of medical care that every single other educated, democratic, industrial nation in the "Western World" (and many third world) nation has?

Instead we are left with:

The Professor Speaks

This is, to put it mildly, interesting. Something other than the cops view.

Professor Gates etc.

A couple more thoughts about the Gates thing and BHO's back peddling on his calling the actions of the cop (not the cop) stupid. (Although, the people who control public discourse, quickly changed the quote to calling the cop stupid, not his actions.)

First, and most importantly it allows the media to just skip away from the Health Care debate and go on to something so much simpler (racist vs. not-racist, abusive cop vs. cop abuse, dirty fucking hippys vs. decent lawn order types [all the rest of us], uppity blacks vs. just us down home decent white types).

I suspect, as people have already commented the white house press corp, was bored with Obama's press conference (except the part about Gates). Because, dare I say, it involved policy that helps the middle class and the poor and it did not involve shooting or beating up somebody (or a lot of somebodies). I now suspect that most of the press are simply not smart enough to understand even the simplest economic and political ideas, short of the shoot up beat up kind. (OK, they may be smart enough [although I'm not sure about that], but they are too lazy to really learn even econ. 101 or to take a couple of weeks and drive through Canada or the British Isles (both countries where English is the language) and talk to the average person who enjoys socialized medicine. Of course, it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, they also know on which side their bread butter blah blah. Or to put it more elegantly: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it."

Second, it allows the right wing to ratchet up their usually high decibel level to the screaming level again and by doing so to try to force (and let's face it they did force the prez.) to back down and to show their power.

Finally, it does amaze me that we are having the discussion on whether or not to enter the last half on the 20th century concerning health care, and we are doing that now well into the 21st century.

All in all, a kind of depressing end to the week.

Health Insurance Documentary

Gee What Important Things Are Happening

Let's see a cop admits hassling a small 60ish guy (who just happens to be black) and arrests him for clearly no reason, as the case is dropped within hours of being filed.

The President says the cop acted stupidly. Now the Prez. apologizes.

People are really not sure where Obama was born, perhaps Kenya then jet flighted to Hawaii to appear in the local papers. So that's all over the news.

I guess nothing else interesting is going on in D.C.



The media at work.

Obama vs. FDR

So I've been thinking about Obama and wondering why he isn't more attuned to the needs of the poor and really middle class given his background and history.

Then I started to wonder just what is his back ground? Since, he graduated from high school, at least, he has always been on the fast track and in the, how does one say it, midst of the well off. One of the best undergraduate schools, one of the best law schools, one of the better law firms, some time off to help organize, but not too much.

Into politics and an unbroken string of successes there. So hey, buddy why can't you do the same thing, huh? I'm not saying he is as bad as a Goldberg or Bush, but he really doesn't know what the average person, or poor person faces. I suspect if he wasn't obviously partly African American, he would be another wealthy white person "born on third who thought he'd hit a triple."

So what was the difference with FDR, Truman, JFK and Johnson? Well FDR was born with that silver spoon, but he lost it all in one afternoon. He knew what loss was and he knew what it was to need help. Truman and Johnson were essentially saved by the New Deal. JFK, I do suspect that the PT Boat thing did something to him in terms of his ability to relate.

Or perhaps I'm just full of it and trying out to be a wealthy pundit?

More Weird

This is just weird. Not the fact that most of our senators are crazy enough to want to require all states to recognize the most lax concealed carry laws of any state. (I've given up on expecting any kind of real rational action by a majority of our legislators.) Nor the fact that the NRA keeps pushing more and more extreme gun laws (by the way are you watching and learning HRC and NARAL?).

But that apparently now we require a super majority of 60 in the senate to pass any legislation. When the fuck did this happen? It certainly wasn't the case when the republicans controlled the chamber.

Fuck it, lets filibuster night and day from now until the end of time, at least it will be entertaining.

The Physically Ill and the Mentally Ill

A couple of kind of interesting personal things today, or rather this week.

First, the little woman came down with some kind of flu on Sunday. In fact I can tell you almost to the exact minute. She started saying she was cold about 2:00 p.m. Sunday and at about 4:00 p.m. we suddenly realized she was sick.

She had incredible muscle aches for the next three days and yesterday at about 11:00 a.m. had a temperature of 102. So we gave up and went into the doctor's. We got there by about 3:00 p.m. by that time her temperature was back to normal and the flu was over. Verrrrrrrrrry interesting.

Then this morning we got up and she put the Saint's food out while he was outside doing his thing. He came in and she tried to feed him, but he refused to eat because he always watches when she fixes his food, and this time he didn't. So when I went into the kitchen he was just laying there looking at the bowl. I picked up the bowl and took stuff out and pretended to put it into the bowl and gave it back to him and he ate it. Weird.

Well Well Well

A little something from Kos about the lies the anti-health care contingent keeps spreading.

Doctors

So my brother and his daughter both are scheduled to have heart caths tomorrow morning. She is only twenty-six years old.

A Little Sunday Sleeping Music

I Fucking Told You So

We are not going to leave that "country" at all. We are going to stay there and keep a major presence in Iraq until Hell freezes over or until we can no longer afford to do it. We are going to replay, not Vietnam, but rather Indochina. And this time we are not going to be us, but we are rather going to be the French.

Unhealthy Sunday

Sonny after a trim to get the clumps he can't reach because he's too fat.

See.

Convalescing.

Stuff

So it appears as though the little woman has come down with the flu. Which has the dogs very worried since she is the only one who knows how to make the dog food and the yogurt that the dogs eat. Actually they seem to be looking at me and licking their chops.



I'm sure she'll be alright.

Sunday Morning

A little bump to get you moving in the morning.

Book Report

I've stared reading The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and wow is it good. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in writing.

Later In the Day

Forty three years ago today:

How About a Little Zevon to Wake Up To

Why do they do it?

Another far left radical

I have long wondered why the right becomes so enraged and hysterical about policies and people that are just kind of, well really "moderate" and not really progressive or liberal at all.

I think the reason is if they can paint the Clintons and Obama as far left liberals, then they can prevent any kind of change and then roll things back to those glorious days of yesteryear, when Robber Barons roamed freely over the American land scape.

So any minor change, one (like government health care) that brings the USofA into the middle 20th century and up with all modern democratic governments becomes a radical far left liberal (I don't understand it, but "far left liberal" seems to be the phrase du jour, if you define jour as decades) agenda to destroy our freedoms.

I would guess that what they are trying to do, the smarter ones at least, is to make any progressive move so painful that no politician will want to experience that sort of pain, so they will fore go it. The rest are just dumb fucks.

I watched it happen with Clinton, and at that time I wondered. He managed quite a few real conservative changes, yet he (and Hilliary) were both constantly attacked as being radical far left liberals (oh yes, and major drug dealers and murderers). WTF?

Of course they have successfully moved the discourse so far to the right that the kind of health care that was enacted by Bismark is too far to the left for us. So what happens instead of real health insurance is that we have now apparently come up with a mandatory insurance plan that includes penalties for those who don't buy private insurance. Some far left liberal plan.

I suppose that if the entire house of cards collapses again under Obama or doesn't recover then the "far left liberals" will get the blame and we will be back with another "Bush/Chaney moderate" of some sort. If it happens under the reactionary right then any change will be so moderate that we will end up with ...........................Obama and no real change after all.

More Disturbing Science Stuff Which I'm All For

According to P.Z. Myers we are not planning on creating a race of slave beast men. Why not?

Well at least we can be sure that our representatives are working hard for us to keep this horrible thingy from happening. Personally I'm in favor of it.

My Style of Deposition

Where We Be At

So lets see:

For some reason Obama has lost something like 14 per centage points among Ohio voters.

1. We are still in Iraq with as large a force as we had when he was elected, but we are out of some of the major cities. (If I hear right we are still on to build the largest "embassy" ever in down town Baghdad.)

2. Obama has doubled down in Afghanistan.

3. Obama has poured our money into the top level of the banking industry without getting any control over how they do things. Without fixing the cause of the collapse. And essentially not fixing anything, but just throw money at them in the hopes that the people who screwed things up will fix things.

4. Obama has decided that the very worst of the civil liberties acts of the Bush administration need to be supported. He needs to cover up for torture, and to let those who ordered the torture off with a complete free pass.

5. Obama has apparently decided that he is not going to push for any sort of real health care, rather a bail out of the insurance industry, much like TARP.

6. Obama has decided that he won't do anything to help the people in the military who are gay and lesbian.

Did I forget anything?

Why do I feel much like Bogart:

My Sad and Difficult Childhood

So through the miracle of Google Maps I was able to discover that I did not walk ten miles, through two feet of snow up hill to school. Rather I walked a half mile. But I still think it was two feet of snow, in June.

And it was up hill both ways thank you.

Not Much, But Sunday

So my trials both went much more quickly than I expected and didn't happen.

My permanent custody case ended after the state presented its' case. My client, after hearing all the evidence concerning her child's mental disabilities ended up agreeing with the state that she could not care for him. I have never had that happen before.

The jury trial didn't happen because there was some guy in jail who wanted one. So my case gets knocked back to the end of August. That's what happens when you work in small towns, a lot.

The little one, the chow is not happy with the gentle leader. It was tried at the dog training session and she did a back flip when it was put on. Loki is doing great with the training, which is a good thing because he now stands at least 34 inches at the shoulder and maybe a little more he is over three feet tall at the top of his head.

The Real World Again (Or My Trials As I See Them In My Mind's Eye)

The real world is intruding again. A permanent custody today and a DUI (that's OVI to you people here in Ohio) jury trial tomorrow.

Our days are just filled.

McNamara Dead at Last

So it is true, only the good die young.

You know he is definitely an example of failing up. Screw up Vietnam and go on to screw up the whole world.

Do not rest in peace, please. How many dead on his hands do you think? Not only those he managed to murder in Vietnam and the other countries near by, but all those whose lives he destroyed as head of the World Bank. Always the handmaiden of the wealthy and powerful.

Protests Approved By Our Rulers

Approved Protest Above

So the riots and protests in Honduras are almost no place or at least very few places on the web in the U.S.A. (BBC) or in the old fashion media.

Meanwhile the protests in Iran against a, at most questionable election are front page everywhere with calls to invade for days.

On the other hand, of course, the coup in Honduras was a democratic coup, don't you know. It merely prevented a popular referendum, which we can't have. Oh yeah, it also prevented the empowerment of the people. So it was wrong. The questionable election in Iran, well now that was the worst affront to democracy ever.

More Pictures From The Wilds

Loki

Do you think he's getting bigger?

Tea Party

So there was a tea party here in town yesterday. I didn't know about it, there were no signs or really any information that I saw before the event. I would like to have gone, but I did have a thing I had to be at in the afternoon. So perhaps even if I have known about it I couldn't have been there.

There were a series of photos in the local paper. I would guess there were probably a couple of hundred people from the photos. Interestingly enough the only signs that looked professional were anti-health care signs. I guess that it is probably wrong to just look at the pictures and guess the socio-economic back ground of the attendees, but what the hell.

Poor people opposed to good medical care for poor people. How strange. As Mencken said: "No one ever went broke underestimating the American public." People who have the information can explain that health care in countries like Canada, England (oh heck, the rest of the civilized world) is cheaper than in the U.S. by a long shot.

Then the people like those at the tea party tell you that it is rationed in those countries. They completely ignore the fact that it is rationed here. People with money get good health care and the rest of us get the scraps from the rich man's table. When this is pointed out the response is to simply deny it. These other countries cannot have health care as good as us because we are, well we are just the best, don't you know. Even though we all know people (if it isn't us) who have been denied health care because we don't have the money for it. Or we've denied ourselves health care because we decided that we need to spend our money on say food or rent rather than medication.

People generally get good emergency care, because hospitals can't turn people away, but then the follow up can really suck if you don't have money. Yet the fear of any change is so great. It seems that the less one has the more one is afraid to change it or to try for something new.

Thought for the day

“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air—however slight—lest we become unwilling victims of the darkness.”

William O. Douglas

Happy Fourth

Happy Fourth of July from the land of the truly delusional. Those who think they are "free" just because we don't have a system of socialized medicine.

It is the day to drink heavily and the to set off explosive devices.

Kafka, no Orwell

So we are now being told by the powers that be including the Christian Science Monitor (no fucking link for that kind of shit), that the coup in the Honduras is the perfect example of democracy in action. That the proposed elections would have been an example of dictatorship. Go to Counterpunch over there on the right to find out the truth.

Let's face it the exact same arguments were made about Venezuela back in '02.

So a reactionary Supreme Court held that the coup organized by authoritarian oligarchs was perfectly legal. Thank god that couldn't happen in this country.

Kafka (and a happy birthday to you) meet Orwell.

[Un]Employment

You want to see a scary figure check this out and scroll down to U-6. Happy Fourth of July?

Health Insurance

So after years and years of being told by the powers that be that socialized medicine is not very good and is just well wrong, is it a surprise that most people say that they would keep their insurer rather than go with a public option? What is surprising is that a huge majority think that there should be a public option. Available, I guess, for the hoi poli, for those peasants who need it and not for us middle class who are well just doing so well in this society.

A guy I know, a couple of years ago got cancer and had to be off the job for several months. He works for a good employer, and had good insurance, but after some time the employer would not (or could not I never understood which) stopped covering him, in the middle of his illness. Because of the law he was allowed to purchase it himself. He was able to do that for several months and keep it. Then when he went back to work (his employer kept his job for him) his employer then picked up his insurance again.

He had good coverage by the standards existing the the United States, not by any other industrialized nation, however. Would he have been better off with socialized medicine? You betcha.