The Dog is never one to encourage anger or rage in political discourse. There are a couple reasons for this. First anger while an effective short term movitator is not the kind of argument which wins elections. When you have a candidate who is angry and is not putting forth a positive vision, that candidate loses. It is true as well when we are working on policy. Too much anger in our tone allows those we are trying to influence to discount what we are saying as unserious. Can there be any doubt why the Right in the form of Boss Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are trying to hang the “angry black man” label around the president?
August 2009 archive
Aug 06 2009
Jon Stewart: Obama Is A Liar
Reports that President Barack Obama was not born in the US have convinced Jon Stewart that he may also be lying about his age. The Comedy Central comedian chided the mainstream media Tuesday for giving President Barack Obama ‘a pass’ on his 48th birthday.
“You would think that the MSM would be coming at the White House hard and fast on this birthday scam but what do we get?” Stewart asked sarcastically. The media bought the hoax “hook, line and sinker,” he said.
“This story is more full of holes than a $30 hooker with a piercing fetish, a heroin habit, a tracheotomy and three anuses,” Stewart joked.
Aug 05 2009
Was This A Joke?
I mean this appearing on the front page?
“Men are about power and sex, and the power to get sex.
Women are about sustaining the species.
Women love people more for their weaknesses, their humanity, are more forgiving.
Women don’t war for “stuff”… they will only fight to protect their own, or someone they see as in need in of protection, the weak. “
As one who has actually gotten out of the house before, I can say with utmost certainty that women are just as capable of evil, greed, power mongering, stupidity, violence, environmental neglect, or any other loathsome human characteristic you can think of, as men are.
Goddess worship may seem appealing in the abstract. I myself, in my younger days, too saw its allure. As a young, idealistic environmentalist, I latched on to the whole idea of matriarchalism as an antidote for the very, patriarchal growth and expansion problem. But over the years, especially looking at real women in power, I’ve realized it’s a fantasy.
I have no desire to debate that here though. Believe what you want. I don’t care. I do have a problem with the sentence I highlighted though. “Men are about power and sex, and the power to get sex?” Really?
The writer presents both an idealized view of women (does Michelle Malkin fit in there) and a wholly offensive stereotype of men. Neither are remotely connected to reality and by no means deserve a spot on the front page here.
Divide and conquer has been the modus operandi for the plutocrats for a long time. And they do it well – gays against straights, christians vs. non-christians. Back in the day, blacks vs whites and women vs. men were very popular distractions from the class warfare being waged against us.
In fact, there has been a long history of plutocrat controlled organizations like the CIA infiltrating and supporting culture war groups just to inflame the divisions within the left. At one point, noted feminist Gloria Steinem was even on the CIA’s payroll.
This has been accompanied by another plutocrat controlled entity, the mass media, coming in to fan the flames even more. This is how they conquered us. And it is all for one purpose, to rip you off. While the people have been fighting over comparatively irrelevant issues, like prayer in school and whether gay people can call it marriage or not, the plutocrats have been carrying your shit out the back door. They have been robbing you of your rights and your wealth. As a result, more and more of us are falling into poverty, sickness, and despair.
They’ve bankrupted our schools, our communities, governments. Right now an Alabama city is so broke it’s closing down courthouses and laying off so many cops that it’s now planning to call in the National Guard to maintain order.
Now you want to resurrect the gender war? As if there isn’t enough division already?
Count me out.
Aug 05 2009
Four at Four
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The NY Times reports Obama tries to put a brighter face on the economy. The White House is trying happy talk to persuade Americans that a jobless recovery means the U.S. economy is getting better. Though, “double-digit unemployment could be a psychological threshold with political ramifications for Mr. Obama.”
“In January, the Obama team predicted that unemployment would remain at 8 percent or lower in 2009 if the recovery bill passed.” Last month, Vice President Biden admitted the Obama Team “misread how bad the economy was” at the start of the year. The White House argues, however, that without Obama’s reward-the-rich economic policies, the economy “could be worse”.
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McClatchy reports Most of the U.S. is ill prepared to help children in disasters, says Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate. “We’ve historically looked at special populations as an afterthought,” Fugate said. “Children are not small adults.”
“The worst prepared states, which had few or none of those plans, include Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana and Missouri, as well as the District of Columbia.”
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AP reports that Small Pacific islands call for big carbon cuts. Seven Pacific island nations say the world must cut by 45 percent by 2020, or their nations will be lost to rising sea levels.
“The group of seven small countries – the Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau and Tuvalu – adopted the position of the global Association of Small Islands States that asks developed nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2020 and 85 percent by 2050.”
The Sydney Morning Herald adds Australian Prime Minister Kevin “Rudd said he was shocked to hear from regional leaders of coastal villages already being abandoned and farmland and water supplies destroyed by rising salt water.”
The IPS reports Oxfam Australia predicts 8 million climate refugees as the island nations succumb to the rising seas. “Climate change could produce eight million refugees in the Pacific Islands, along with 75 million refugees in the Asia Pacific region in the next 40 years”.
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The NY Times reports China seeks climate accord without strict limits. China is “the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide” and “together, China and the United States account for about 40 percent of pollutants linked to climate change.”
Yu Qingtai, China’s climate envoy, “underscored China’s opposition to placing a ceiling on its emissions of greenhouse gases… Limiting China’s development would hamstring efforts to raise its living standards closer to a level that the developed world… China has proposed that the developed world commit to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020.”
“The developed countries, in realizing their industrialization, have discharged a large amount of greenhouse gases in the course of one or two centuries,” he said. “The cumulative emissions by the developed countries have caused global warming. Who should take the historical responsibilities?”
Aug 05 2009
So Yeah, I’m Employed Now, Thanks!
Cross-posted at Daily Kos
After over a year, nearly losing my house, cars and other possessions, I have obtained gainful employment. It came after applying for hundreds of jobs, not just in my area, but across the country, for anything I am qualified for.
I didn’t do it myself. It came with help from friends, my network, my family, this community, and from the government.
Follow me over the fold to tell you about how I see us all as interdependent and what a truly great this country is, if you choose to see it.
Aug 05 2009
Did the 2008 Election ever really happen?
Quite a good article posted at www.CommonDreams.org that sums up my feelings about the state of our Country some 8 months after we had been promised “change” (and voted for it).
See: Hey, Did You Hear That Democrats Won The Election?”
Some excerpts:
I’m not shocked that he’s not FDR. But why is this guy carrying water for George Bush, covering up his worst crimes?
Why are his civil liberties positions so bad that one attorney described them as “the good old Bush-Cheney inherent presidential power theory” all over again?
Why is he working so hard to make sure Wall Street sucks every drop of blood it possibly can out of the pale-white corpse of the American middle class, even while it ruins the global economy in yet another get-rich scam, then turns to the government for a bail-out when it all comes a cropper, all the while – and without a hint of irony – still loudly singing its effusive praises of Ayn Rand?
I might also add, why is he so personally heavily invested in the legal protection of Dick Cheney?
Aug 05 2009
Keep it stupid, simple. Jon Stewart exposes Sen. Grassley as flat out screwing with us on HCR
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Honestly, this is just flat out pathetic.
Cardboard caricatures of “Sir Tax a lot” and “The Debt and Deficit Dragon”, ala Senate Republicans and Ranking Senate Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley are not only ridiculous but is a slap in the face of every American who takes health care reform dead serious. Further, it is proof to three facts that are undeniable at this point.
1. Bi-partisanship with the Republican party is NOT to be taken seriously anymore, if it ever was to begin with.
2. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Sen. Grassely are flat out jerking us around.
3. If Health Care Reform fails, or is FUBAR, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should be the one who suffers our wrath.
More below the fold, and a call to action.
Aug 05 2009
Health Care Reform Town Hall Advice
The Dog has been talking to some of his friends in the thick of the fight for health care reform. We are doing a moderately good job of calling and e-mailing and faxing Reps and Senators, but now with the August recess about to be in full swing there is more we need to do. We have seen the Astroturf forces from the Insurance and Health Care lobbies working to disrupt Town Hall meetings, which show our next area where we need to put in some time.
“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“
Aug 05 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 Climate change deal crucial for Pacific: Rudd
by David Brooks, AFP
16 mins ago
| CAIRNS, Australia (AFP) – Striking a new global deal to reduce the impact of climate change is crucial to the future of vulnerable Pacific island nations, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday.
Rudd was speaking in the northeastern Australian city of Cairns at the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum summit of regional leaders, where climate change has emerged as a key issue. Leaders from Australia, New Zealand and 13 Pacific Island nations will also tackle the impact of the global economic crisis and Fiji over two days of talks. |
Aug 05 2009
Blackwater (Xe): Murder Inc.
Causing the Deaths and Maiming’s of our Soldiers in the Blowback, easing the recruitment of more insurgent fighters and support for same, and in the long term will cause the blowback of criminal terrorism anywhere, and done on our dime, we share the guilt of their actions even if these statements aren’t true!
Most of these mercs are ex-soldiers, yet for their good paydays they fought on an ideology completely uncaring of their brothers and sisters still serving!
Aug 05 2009
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
 Ruby for Slippers
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