July 2009 archive

Glenn Beck: Fox News Evangelist Of The Coming Obama-Pocalypse

Glenn Beck’s unique brand of asylum-spawned demagoguery has drawn comparisons to some notable cranks in history and fiction. Most often he has been likened to either the 1930’s fascist radio priest, Father Coughlin, or to the prototypical, paranoia-crazed tele-pundit, Howard Beale, from the film “Network.”

While both of those models contain poignant resemblances to Beck, neither by themselves comes close enough to capture the full spectrum of his dementia. They don’t even begin to explain his silly costumes and props; his facial tics and nonsense, gurgling noises; his panic-laden admonitions of doom. This is a man who, every day, adds new items to his list of things that cause blood to shoot from his eyes. Were he to be taken literally, he would be severely anemic by now, and his studio would be a quarantined biohazard zone.

However, I think I have just found someone with whom Beck shares a more striking resemblance…

The Great Healthcare Schlep

So I’m reading the indefatigable NYCeve’s Diary The August Plan to Secure the Public Option yesterday morning and click the link to the FDL “Whipcount Tool.”  Now, as you might be able to tell from my nom de Kos, I live in the most azure, indigo part of the bluest borough of the bluest city in the country — the People’s Single Payer, Socialist, Zabarist Republic of the Upper West Side.

My own Rep., the estimable Jerry Nadler, is obviously with the program, having taken the FDL Pledge to vote against any bill that doesn’t have the Public Option.  What to do?

Well, my mom, 93-year old (bless her heart) “Grandma West” (as my kids call her) lives in NY-18 in Westchester – which was not listed on the FDL tool.

cross-posting on Kos

Rep. Lowey is having a healthcare conference call at 5:00 pm (est) today.  Call her office for phone in information.

Beer Spazz Hissies

President Obama’s attempt to ameliorate angst between a cuff-happy cop and a Harvard professor is causing a certain amount of spazz hissy fits amongst the American craft brewing scene. The New York City Homebrewer’s Guild e-list is abuzz with discussion of the Wall Street Journal article describing the reactions of American breweries, large and small, to the choices chosen for the President’s table.

First of all I am glad he invited Professor Gates as well as Sgt. Crowley, because that is only fair. I therefore retract my comments yesterday about drinking beer with stupid people. Inviting the professor makes the gesture more genuinely about fairness and enlightenment, a real effort to promote what we valkyries call “frith” (sacred hospitality) and “grith”, the “peace” which is part of my username, Randgríðr.

Initial announcements did not infer that Gates would be invited too, which was making it look like the President was willing to reward over-enthusiastic law enforcers who end up victimizing innocent citizens. That really pissed me off. But the issue is now moot, so enough said on that, and I am pleased that the President has chosen a way of solving this issue which is well known to be linked to (if not founded in) my own religious tradition.

Anyway, it would seem that Jim Koch of the Sam Adams brewery, Bill Manley of Sierra Nevada, and several other craft brewers have weighed in on the subject of what frosty libations should be offered at the Presidential table. One unfortunate but notable absence is Garrett Oliver, one of the founders of the 22-year-old NYC Homebrewer’s Guild; brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery; and author of “The Brewmaster’s Table”, an authoritative reference on the pairing of food with beer. I am guessing that Mr. Oliver is probably in his way trying to be classy by not saying anything, but I am just another sarge-mouthed tough cookie from Brooklyn and have no such worries, so I am willing to pipe up, LOL!!!

The article is a bit silly in that the thrust of it’s message of protest is that the three beers chosen (Red Stripe, Blue Moon and Bud Light) are apparently all owned by foreign corporations. It is true that Red Stripe is a beer based out of Jamaica, but Blue Moon originally hails from a small craft brewery in Tennessee that was purchased several years ago by Coors, who now distribute it nationwide.

As to Anheuser Busch, don’t EVEN get me started. Does Barack Obama know that John McCain paid for his eight frigging houses by marrying the sugar momma who was heiress to that fortune? As if that beer wasn’t a joke already. Never in my lifetime will I pay money for that stuff. I will only drink it if 1) it’s free and 2) it’s the only thing around. However I will most gladly pick up and cash in the empties, and I say that with a vengeance. That bastard can bloody well help ME pay for MY house, he already has enough of his own, LOL!!!

As for my own brewing activities, this is a very busy time of year for me as a mead specialist brewer. Pennsic, the SCA’s two week private renaissance event, is in progress and all my medieval re-enactor friends who are heading off to it this week are wanting to bring bottles of my own frosty libations; plus there’s a contest to enter and bulk varietal honey to arrange delivery logistics for. So the BrauFrau is bizzy bizzy. I must get back to it, in fact.  

Reclaiming American Democracy.

Also on Daily Kos.  Presented here without change, although the venue here needs lesss apologetics.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Watching Baucus try to sell out the President’s plan and all the roadblocks put in the way of what is essentially a half measure, a tepid reform, reminded me of the reality in American politics many wish to deny.

GreenSooner mentioned that he was “actually surprised that real(ish) reform has gotten as far as it has.”  This is because

Our political system has essentially been reengineered to prevent things like actual health care reform.

(Link to comment)  President Obama and progressive Democrats have really worked hard to push some reform in health care against overwhelming odds.  But this fight has once again exposed the reality of Washington.  It’s broken.

More, after the fold.  

Baucus/Conrad did NOT win the election. No more $ w/o Public Option

Simulposted at Daily Kos

   Simply put, I voted for Obama/Biden, NOT Baucus/Conrad. If these fools want to try to squander away our electoral victories through Bipartisanship with the party of “No/Birthers”, I will not give one more cent to any organization that might fund Baucucrat Senators.

    Tell your Senator:     If there is no public option in health care reform, there is no public option in our Democracy.

    I am NOT holding my breath and hoping this Senate will hold Baucus/Conrad and others accountable. They didn’t do shit when Liberman sided against Obama and with McCain, they won’t do it now.

    In my opinion, the ONLY way to force these Baucucrats accountable, the only way to force Senate Misleadership to do something is to hit em in the one place they care about, their election funds.

    Therefore, I propose that we withhold ANY and ALL financial support from groups that fund incumbent Senators until a bill with a robust public option is on President Obama’s desk.  

A prescription that makes the patient sicker

Original article, an interview with Dr. Quentin Young, via socialistworker.org:

The Obama administration is giving up on its August deadline for Congress to pass health care reform legislation, according to press reports. But far worse is what the administration has given up in the substance of the proposals–caving to pressure from a health care industry determined to maintain its power and profits.

Dr. Quentin Young is a veteran of struggles for civil rights and social justice, and a leading member of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). He talked to Elizabeth Schulte about why the proposals currently being discussed in Washington fall short of what’s needed.

Docudharma Times Thursday July 30




Thursday’s Headlines:

Lucrative Fees May Deter Efforts to Alter Troubled Loans

Obama’s ‘beer summit’ draws near

Iraq in throes of environmental catastrophe, experts say

What happened to Arab science fiction?

Miracle escape for civil guard families in massive barracks blast blamed on Eta

Move over Virgin – now Aeroflot is upgrading its air hostesses

Public flogging holds no fear for woman who dared wear trousers

Fears of Zimbabwe plot grow after minister is held for stealing old mobile phone

Bangladesh to pull out soldiers

Thailand cracks down on Web users for royal ‘slurs’

Possible US-Colombia military deal raises regional tensions

House Seems To Be Set on Pork-Padded Defense Bill



By R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, July 30, 2009


The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund next year, acting in many cases in response to defense industry pressures and campaign contributions under an approach he has decried as “business as usual” and vowed to help end.

The unwanted equipment in a military spending bill expected to come to a vote on the House floor Thursday or Friday has a price tag of at least $6.9 billion.

The White House has said that some but not all of the extra expenditures could draw a presidential veto of the Defense Department’s entire $636 billion budget for 2010, and it sent a message to House lawmakers Tuesday urging them to cut expenditures for items that “duplicate existing programs, or that have outlived their usefulness.”

More protests planned in Tehran to mark end of 40-day mourning

From The Times

July 30, 2009


Martin Fletcher

Defiant opposition supporters will return to the streets of Tehran today, emboldened by tales of prison abuse and an eruption of hostilities between President Ahmadinejad and his fellow hardliners.

The occasion is the passing of 40 days – the official end of the mourning period for Shia Muslims – since Iranian security forces killed Neda Soltan and protesters during a demonstration on June 20.

A mourning ceremony in the Grand Mosala prayer hall, which can hold 100,000 people, has been banned so the opposition is planning demonstrations in at least nine locations around the capital.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, the defeated presidential candidates, will visit the grave of Ms Soltan whose death, which was caught on video, made her a global symbol of the regime’s brutality.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

2009 Poems


Tears

Releasing Fear

One day the Girl

had had enough

She called the Fears together

and they all held hands

And they marched away

from Despondency

Pain was afraid of falling

Humiliation was afraid of failure

and looking foolish

Loss feared leaving behind

what they had

Loneliness feared being separated

Death feared the crocodiles

For an instant

the Girl lost her resolve

and the crocodiles appeared

and the fears wanted to turn

and run away

but the Girl screamed

and lightning struck

and the forest burned

as the Girl and the fears

crouched in the swamp

until the forest

was no more

The Girl led the Fears

to the edge of the swamp

and sent them on their way

And she walked

proudly forward

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–June 5, 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

Mysterious Glow-in-the-Dark Arctic Clouds Invade USA

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Photo By VinceVarnas, Oregon FishOutofWater

Electric blue clouds, literally at the edge of space, have been recently seen glowing in the dark from Oregon to Colorado to Virginia, further south than they have ever been seen. Noctilucent clouds were first reported in the far north after the Krakatoa eruption. Until the last several decades they were always seen north of 50 N Latitude. No one is sure why the clouds are moving south but global warming is a suspected cause.

In orange

Pony Party: Caption These!

Pony Party is an Open Thread: please do not rec.

But please feel free to re-caption any of mine, to add your own captions to the rest, and to post your own pics, vids, or whatever in the comments.

funny pictures
moar funny pictures

Obama feeds the beast

The extended sausage making saga that is the American health care “reform” process is teaching us valuable things about how our government works. Perhaps the most important lesson is that the predatory corporations that control our government feed on the complexity of government legislation. Simple laws provide little room for evasion and deceit, but bills that run to a thousand pages invite cheating, chiseling, ducking, dodging, and all manner of lawyer-enabled avoidance of the spirit of the law.

Although we do not know what form the final health care bill will take, we can be absolutely sure that it will be grotesquely complicated, because it has effectively been written by lobbyists. After the bill is passed, month after month we will see revelations of “legal” methods by which hospitals and insurance companies evade the intent of the health care reform by exploiting fine print and ambiguities in the legislation and administrative guidelines.

It didn’t have to be this way. But by electing a politician owned by the corporate establishment, we assured ourselves that Obama would generate a bumper crop of legislative complexity to fatten the profits of predatory corporations and the salaries of their lobbyists. This is the reason single payer was killed off immediately at the start of the health reform negotiations: it is too simple a system.

The proposed health care system will be a four-ring circus of private insurance, a government-run insurance plan, non-profit cooperatives, and Medicare/Medicaid. If anyone believes that this can be implemented efficiently and that the insurance companies will be any more responsible, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Obama is giving the corporate predators exactly what they want, and he is packaging it as reform. This is a cruel deception, and it remains to see how many of the American people will be deceived.

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