February 2009 archive

Watch where you drop it … you could hurt your feet!

There must be something about the number, but Republicans truly don’t seem to like 1100 page bills.

At the White House meeting, Mr. Gingrich said, he told Mr. Clinton that any “attempt to ram through an 1,100 page bill, which is what I am told the Mitchell measure is, would so embitter the process that I don’t think anything else would pass. I think this is crazy.”

Perhaps if the page count had been different, Americans would have universal health care today.

Hat tip to Dandelion Salad: http://dandelionsalad.wordpres…

I normally wouldn’t post a diary on something so short, but I think this would be of interest to the Docudharma community. Senator Patrick Leahy has posted his proposal of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission at Progressive Blue: http://www.progressiveblue.com…

As this is a boutique blog in the style of Docudharma, I think there’s a fair chance that the senator or his staff will read all of the comments in the thread. With that in mind, feel free to stop on by and voice your praises or concerns with his idea.

Many thanks 😉

Original article, By Rob Sewell (vice-chair, London Central, National Union of Journalists), via Socialist Appeal (UK):

The present struggle of construction workers in defence of their national agreement on terms and conditions has been deliberately distorted by the British media and press. One not unexpected aspect of the recent wave of wildcat strikes in the construction industry has been the way that the media has reported them.

So I go to the little straight NYC after hour mafia run dive where I am queen by virtue of the fact few women go there and I meet this porn actress, Precious, we play for the crowd pretending to be vying for dominance but really I’m just fascinated because I’ve never met a porn lady before and she was so pretty.  (This was, by the way, during the tail end of the era in NYC when the most hard core gay male sex clubs were fashionable for many famous hipsters and bored rich folks who wanted to go slumming.)

Eventually I just started talking with Precious, my curiosity winning out over giving the club some performance art (as I saw it) and she, I don’t know, didn’t have much to say and somehow we ended up taking a cab to a very straight sex club called Plato’s Retreat.  There was a chain of them, don’t know if they’re still around.  She said she could get me in for free.

And I’m really wanting this to be fascinating, here I am with a porn star!  Woo hoo, a chapter in my one day best selling novel!

(Lou Reed & Velvet Underground, “Venus in Furs,” courtesy YouTuber melgallagher)

Advice from my oldest son on the eve of suing Washington Mutual and their successor JPMorgan Chase. Follow me below the fold for why it is much more than playing it safe verses being on Olbermann and I need to have it all.

1. The LA Times reports that Sen. Dianne Feinstein says missile-strike Predator planes are based in Pakistan. According to the Democratic senator from California, “unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.” This is the first disclosure “a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.”

2. The NY Times reports President Obama’s special envoy arrives in Afghanistan. “One day after a coordinated series of Taliban suicide attacks in Kabul”, Richard Holbrooke has arrived in Kabul. Security forces are on high alert, because “a Taliban spokesman claimed eight bombers remained at large in the city and were still ‘looking for a chance.'”

   Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald reports at least Five children were killed in a battle. “Five children were killed in a night-time gun battle involving Australian special forces in Afghanistan, the Defence Force said yesterday. The battle, which also resulted in the death of a Taliban fighter and injuries to two children and two adults, comes amid a rising civilian toll in the eight-year-old war and marks a further setback for efforts to win local support against the insurgency.”

3. The Washington Post reports a Suicide bomber kills at least 35 on Iraqi pilgrimage route. “A woman wearing a vest rigged with explosives killed at least 35 Shiite pilgrims Friday morning at a checkpoint south of Baghdad… The attack was the deadliest in Iraq this year and marked the third consecutive day of bloodshed against Shiite pilgrims en route to Karbala… At least 67 people, mostly women and children, were wounded in the blast”.

4. ProPublica has A detailed list of the spending in the economic stimulus plan that the House approved today on a largely party-line vote. According to the Washington Post, the “Congressional Budget Office put the price tag of the stimulus plan at $787.2 billion over 10 years”.

A bonus story about Neanderthals is below the fold.