October 23, 2007 archive

Don’t Watch This Video

From Bear Republic Action Group. This is what is being done in Iraq in your name, while Republicans continue to support George W. Bush and the Democratic controlled Congress refuses to stop funding and put an end to George W. Bush’s occupation of that country:

Warning: This video is ugly, savage and without a doubt not for the kids or the squeamish….But it is what George W. Bush and his ‘Rubber Stamp Republican Party’ are doing in the full light of day. Send a link to this to anyone you know who thinks the ‘Surge’ is working or that, in fact, the people ‘running’ this brutal, illegal occupation have any fucking idea what they are doing. And I do mean any idea at all.

[Cross-Posted at Edgeing]

Subversive Video! And open thread

Hello again! Weren’t I just here?

Again, this is not a big converstaion starter in real time….after all, to comment  on the videos, you have to watch the videos first and they are loooooong! But in poking around the innertoobz, I stumbled on to a vid of Naomi Wolf on Colbert

Treat this as an open wound thread.


via videosift.com

….which led me to the longer talk she gave on her book, “The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot.”

Thoughts On Viewing an Anti-Choice Display

A large truck showed up on the main quad of my university campus today.  Some people got out and set up an impressively large display.  Tall photographs and tall signs tacked to tall folding diorama walls.  The group, numbering maybe six people, set up perimeter signs at the edges of the quad, warning folks that graphic images were ahead.  If students prefered not to see the graphic images, they should choose an alternate route to their next class. 

“Warning: Graphic Images”.  “Warning: Images of Genocide”. 

Final Preliminary Round: The Manifesto Project

Howdy Maniacs!

I am posting this here and on Dkos (already up at DK) tonight in hopes of getting a few more responses. But….since you guys are probably pretty talked out on this, in about a half an hour or so I will be putting up some subversive videos to slake your lust for entertainment!

On to the reprint!

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

“Health” Fairs Past and Present

In those good old days open enrollment at work meant signing up for next years annual health care choices and optional benefits packages.  One year I think we had a choice between five different medical plan providers.  Tufts, Bay State, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Blue Cross, those wonderful names where presented to us in colorful books listing all the benefits and in the plan doctors and hospitals.

Today’s “health” fair consisted of a single copied page listing the “benefits” of our new health care provider, United Health Care. There was also a table where they would take your blood pressure.  I thought no, this subject pisses me off to make this particular reading totally bogus.

This studiously crafted document could only be the result of hours upon hours of debate by the highest paid attorneys money can buy.  What is “covered” is not you but them, and the killer keyphrase?
100% of Eligible Expenses
100% of Eligible Expenses
100% of Eligible Expenses
Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad does it?
Nah, think like a lawyer, notice the world, eligible.
But it says 100% covered right?
OK, now think like a lawyer, and his business agent who is employed by Satan himself.  Eligible, do you have a clear picture what eligible means?  Do you have in legalese type writing proof of your definition of “eligible”?

Eligible means you don’t get to decide, they do after you get the bill followed by a minimum half hour phone call to people who won’t resolve your dispute anyway.

http://www.nowpublic…

http://hcrenewal.blo…

But at least HIPPA makes my records private right?

http://www.privacyri…
http://www.healthpri…
http://www.patrickke…

In short whenever a politician opens his mouth on the subject of health care he is one of two things.
Retarded.
An employee of Satan.

This is a true testament from a resident of mAssachusetts, a state where this shit is not only unregulated, people are forced to buy it.  Let this NOT become a MODEL for a national plan.  If it does you might not want to call them on your cell phone either.

http://www.prolibert…

The Democrats Political Gambit

I started to write a comment in response to Armando’s excellent essay asking the question (and I’m paraphrasing), Why are the Democrats given a pass in the media about Congress’s ability to end the Iraq war by doing nothing? But as I continued to write, I decided it was probably more appropriate to be a seperate essay (my first here at Docudharma) rather than a comment, because it was this very issue back in February of this year that led me to my opinions and conclusions about what the Democrats were planning to do.

So with that in mind, my response continues below.

Colbert Outpolls Several Democratic Candidates. Really.

crossposted at Daily Kos and Truth & Progress

In a not so shocking development, my favorite presidential candidate (other than you know who) is moving up in the polls.  With his brilliant one-state strategy, he is fast emerging as a political threat to the front-runners and according to the Washington Post, he’s got momentum

Poll Tries to Measure Colbert Effect

Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, recently completed a national poll of 1,000 likely 2008 voters that included Colbert’s name in both the GOP and Democratic primaries. (He has announced his plans to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.)  In the field from Oct. 18-21, the survey has a 5 percent margin of error.

In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote — good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent.  Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).

Raising the Bar on Lowering the Bar

With every new Republican outrage the calibration on my disgust meter needs to be reset, and things that once tipped the scales now barely move the needle. Years ago we left Orwell in the dust. I now watch with increasingly numbed horror as the Administration works its way through Kafka.

We have secret prisons and hidden trials. I keep expecting Harry Reid to show up on FOX saying that the ‘Metamorphose into a Bug Act of 2007’ was as good a law as we could pass, and that without holding 102% of the Senate, the Democrats had no choice but send the President some sort of beetle transformation legislation that Bush will find pleasing to His royal eye.

Government has become like the weather. Most people feel it is too big and too distant to care about our needs or to be changed through our actions. At best it is simply something we need to plan around while trying to get things done for ourselves. “Is it governmenting outside heavily today? Then you better plan a few extra hours at the airport, and hopefully the government will let up in time for your trip.”

I remember when talking about it would irritate my friends. I would come into their homes dripping with politics and they would not want it on their carpets. They are not that way anymore. The government has been coming down so hard for so long now, that people are starting to pay attention. People are looking for a break in the weather.

Part of the mission of Democrats Work is to bring the scale down and narrow the distance between problems and answers. We literally put the tools in people’s hands to change their neighborhoods. With rakes and boots, cans and boxes, we are planting, cleaning, feeding and repairing. Hidden behind poll numbers are people. We walk up to those people and say, “Democrats are not some sort of institution out there in that unreachable realm of Washington wrestling. Democrats are you, me, and the person next door, and today our concern is with that tree right there, in that park right there, and we need a hand with this shovel.” It isn’t about budgets and votes and quotes in newspapers. It is about being the answer when someone asks, “Who is going to pick up that crumpled newspaper now that it is blowing down my street?”

So we work with a thousand small hands in a million small places, and suddenly politics is personal again.

Pony Party: Favorite Costume

Light Emitting Pickle here to bring you the most recent open thread. First, a few words about Pickle Pony Parties:

Please do not recommend a Pony Party when you see one.  There will be another along in a few hours.

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