Author's posts
Jul 26 2009
Sunday Morning Global Warming Open Thread
Jul 25 2009
It Still Sucks
t s b |
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The president sucks. I mean, he really sucks.
The last president sucked too. The next president is almost guaranteed to suck, since all presidents either suck, have sucked or will suck. Some presidents have even been sucked. Sucking is what presidents do.
The Congress sucks. They really suck. They won’t impeach him. It sucks. They won’t arrest him. That sucks too.
Nancy sucks. I don’t know why anyone would let her, but she does…
The attorney general sucks. Did suck. And will suck.
It all sucks. I mean everything sucks. All of it. It all sucks.
The war sucks. The other war sucks. The last war sucked. The next war sucks even more. Sucking is what wars do.
I mean it. It all sucks.
Now the economy sucks, too. The last economy sucked. The next economy will probably suck too. The economy has always sucked. Sucking is what the economy does.
Even girlfriends suck. All my girlfriends have all sucked. And they probably thought I sucked too. But then most boyfriends probably suck, usually.
My job sucks. probably because I don’t have one. But even the last one sucked. They all sucked. Your job probably sucks too. Or did suck. Or will suck. Sucks, huh?
Jul 24 2009
Health Care: “Has Canada Got The Cure?”
Has Canada Got the Cure?
Holly Dressel, Yes Magazine
Publicly funded health care has its problems, as any Canadian or Briton knows. But like democracy, it’s the best answer we’ve come up with so far.
Should the United States implement a more inclusive, publicly funded health care system? That’s a big debate throughout the country. But even as it rages, most Americans are unaware that the United States is the only country in the developed world that doesn’t already have a fundamentally public–that is, tax-supported–health care system.
That means that the United States has been the unwitting control subject in a 30-year, worldwide experiment comparing the merits of private versus public health care funding. For the people living in the United States, the results of this experiment with privately funded health care have been grim. The United States now has the most expensive health care system on earth and, despite remarkable technology, the general health of the U.S. population is lower than in most industrialized countries. Worse, Americans’ mortality rates–both general and infant–are shockingly high.
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The United States spends far more per capita on health care than any comparable country. In fact, the gap is so enormous that a recent University of California, San Francisco, study estimates that the United States would save over $161 billion every year in paperwork alone if it switched to a singlepayer system like Canada’s.3 These billions of dollars are not abstract amounts deducted from government budgets; they come directly out of the pockets of people who are sick.
Jul 20 2009
So, Who Are You… Really?
Samadhi and the God-laugh of creation I found myself one night sitting back with my eyes closed and witnessing what I could never truly describe but what I can best suggest as the dynamic, uncreated, convulsing, primordial energy of the universe; the fiery, orgiastic rippling cauldron of molten prima materia, cascading about within me, and then pouring out into the world as form; and it was upon opening my eyes that I recognized what I had never conceived as plausible- that I was carrying within myself this living, undulating, cosmic clay which I was projecting out and thus manufacturing the world; which is to say, I knew then that …I was God, and that we are all God, effortlessly producing a world yet without a clue of how we are doing it. I was making everything that night. The whole thing. That is, I was making the world, but not the I who the world thought I was, not even the nobody who I was, but the I which lives before the me in all of us; the original self, casting out the glowing, red, swirling energy of creation, out of the core, out of the mind of God, out into the realm of form, figure, and content.
And let me tell you I was laughing. I was laughing a laugh I had never laughed before in my life. I was laughing God’s laugh- the God-laugh which has never known care, nor worry, nor entrapment; the God-laugh which sprays out the universe from the immanent, infinite, incomprehensible bliss of formless consciousness; the great, emancipating God-laugh of hilarious nonexpectation, disbelief, and ambitionless wonder at the impossibility and unavoidable realization that I, God, was creating the miracle of creation.
Jul 18 2009
Insanity Open Thread
Ahem. Here’s one that I missed last week.
Wells Fargo Sues Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Denies Allegations
by CalculatedRisk, Saturday, July 11, 2009
From FoxBusiness: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself
(ht Rama)… I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla.
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In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.
… court documents clearly label “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as the plaintiff and “Wells Fargo Bank NA” as a defendant.
Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself.
And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm — Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. — to defend itself against its own lawsuit, according to court documents.
Wells Fargo’s defense lawyers even filed an answer to their client’s own complaint.
“Defendant admits that it is the owner and holder of a mortgage encumbering the subject real property,” the answer reads. “All other allegations of the complaint are denied.”
Your TARP money hard at work…
Jul 18 2009
R.I.P. Walter…
CBS Legend Walter Cronkite Dies
“Most Trusted Man in America” Passes Away in New York at 92
Walter Cronkite, who personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News,” has died Friday night in New York. He was 92.
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As Cronkite said on March 6, 1981, concluding his final broadcast as anchorman: “Old anchormen, you see, don’t fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that’s the way it is.”
Jul 11 2009
Holder May Probe Bush-era Torture Anyway?
Daniel Klaidman at Newsweek has a somewhat tantalizing article up just a little while ago today that may indicate a little hope for war crimes prosecution is not unreasonable…
Independent’s Day
By Daniel Klaidman | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 11, 2009
Obama doesn’t want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.
Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. “You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation’s laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort,” Holder says. “But the reality of being A.G. is that I’m also part of the president’s team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values.”
These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. “I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,” he says. “But that can’t be a part of my decision.”