Ten Gallon Liberal
Thugs in the night
Josh Marshall introduces the hammer to the nail: The health care debate is now being driven by a perverse nonsense feedback loop in which the Palin/Limbaugh crowd says all sorts of completely insane lies, gets a lot of… how shall we put it, impressionable people...Whistleblower extraordinaire
Ah, what fun. Take an afternoon off, and the comment section gains orbital velocity, takes a couple of laps around Saturn and crashes into Titan. Better that than crickets, I suppose. At the risk of igniting more, I'll say this–to me, it's a simple...Hopfrog, or The Eight Chained Ourangoutangs now with Harmonicas
While the back, forth and further back of the healthcare situation continues to descend into something resembling an Ionesco play or a Bosch painting, the rest of the world continues to proffer interesting details. And, though I hate to abandon the amusing dynamite...Astroturfing for fun, profit and profit
It's not just the healthcare "debate" that's being flooded with activists who've been worked into a froth by the particular industry in danger of being reformed. The oil industry one-ups the health insurance gurus with a whole new level of...Just wondering
How many days after the inevitable "bipartisan compromise" will it be until the crazies start talking about the failure of the reform that got watered down to soothe all their twitching? ADDITIONAL: The Obama administration, whose record on civil liberties I...Talk About It
Obama in a radio interview today: "I guarantee you, Joe, we are going to get health care done."Uh-oh.As you can see way down below, this makes it personal. LAND O' GOSHEN:Will people arm themselves over health insurance profits? It's a good thing...When Majorities Attack
Nancy Pelosi seems to have figured out that a country that votes in Democratic majorities in both houses of congress and a Democratic president–get this–actually supports Democratic policies (It's a hard lesson for Democrats to learn): I agree with the...Cheney singes his pants again
Dick Cheney says torture worked. Now we have the (redacted) CIA memos which, he claimed, would prove his case. Only they don't prove his case. So now Cheney's language has changed. Now he says the people who were tortured provided good...The Gnostics were right after all
How about "we" hire a PR firm to make sure reporters embedded with the military offer fluffy coverage? I used to figure some plague or other would destroy the world, but I have to revise that. PR will destroy the world. The only reason the Bible says the...Are you concerned that the sky is definitely falling at 6 p.m. today (with extreme prejudice)?
Wonder where all the insane health care misinformation comes from? Well, at least one source is clearly identifiable: the Republican Party. Recently, the Republicans sent out a "survey" full of some of the most despicable push-polling questions I've ever...The Pentagon does the right thing
A few days ago, I took a look at a Stars and Stripes story detailing the Pentagon's hiring of a PR firm to gauge whether reporters embedded with the military had previously offered "positive" coverage: U.S. public affairs officials in Afghanistan...Cage match?
Sarah Palin has a great act she's put together. But lest we forget, she stands in the shadow of her predecessor, the original (and sadly, too often unsung) Lipstick Republican UberQueen of Comedy. Who would win a real showdown?Sarah Palin: “The America I...Northampton's finest tow away a wheelchair. Plus: health care troll bait!
Little matches the vein-popping frustration of a Noho parking ticket. I don't say Hamp, because these tickets seems particularly of the new Northampton. It's an awesome feeling to get a ticket in the fashion I last got one–I happily cruised on down the...Soapy
"Why do you trust the government?" has become a predominant question from tea party land in the town hall shouting matches.Pardon the soapbox, but, well, it's lying here, all dusty, the "Dove" on the side barely visible anymore.It is, when you...En vacances
For your viewing pleasure while I hang around on the ocean for a while: First, the transcendently wonderful/awful John Carpenter film Dark Star. Hang in till the music starts. In that scene, you can catch what, I'm convinced, is the genesis of a later incarnation...Going all Aquinas on 'em
Whatever you think of his personal foibles or political positions, Ted Kennedy, in an exclusive memoir excerpt at Talking Points Memo, exemplifies what it means to reach for the moniker "statesman" instead of merely "politician." Those in power who...Screw democracy, we've got guns
You've got to love Glenn Beck's capitalizing on 9/11 with his 9/12 Project, considering he said this in 2005:"You know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families. … I don't hate all of them. I hate about, probably...Why political parties are bad for your head
I think it's far better to remain true to one's ideals instead of one's party. Identifying too closely with a party can do weird things to your head, as was explored in this fascinating NYT article about the 1909 claims and counterclaims of competing...U.S.A., Inc.
Sonia Sotomayor's views, thank heavens, chip away at the foundations of the corporate state we all now enjoy. The Wall Street Journal reports on her recent comments in the current case regarding corporate rights and political campaigns. If the corporate view...I seen a UFO, Ma!
Just when you think you've finally seen the P-Funk mothership, it turns out to be something entirely different. I was walking my dog Saturday night when I looked up to see what I assumed was Jupiter shining through a cloud. Then I realized there were no clouds...Fun with your brain
Perhaps it's post-Grand Band Slam numbness (it's over for me, and now hitting the stands), but I can't quite re-enter the political fray just yet. So here's something purely for the psychological thrill of it. A little sort of experiment.First, count...Project Censored unleashes the info
Project Censored–the top 25 stories that we ought to know about, but which got swept under the rug by our corporate media types: Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010 Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street2. US Schools are More...You can have my Internet when you pry it from my typing hands
It's good to be back in the saddle. I'm still hacking and I sound terrible, but I'm back to moving dogies along. This flu business–I don't recommend it.And item one on the agenda is something I've been meaning to get to since before I got...The upside of swine flu
Because the doc says I have flu, and the CDC says 99% of flu right now is the swine version, I can with some unpleasant confidence say that, hooboy, I seem to have got the stuff! I'm happy to report that all seems well after 3 days (one of them an absolute...[Republican] Jesus [hates] me, this I know, for the [re-translated] Bible tells me so
Jesus, of course, was a Jewish hippie who preached peace, love, forgiveness and sharing of wealth. This is a major problem for bootstraps-loving free marketeers who are partial to the death penalty and marching off to war. At least that appears to be the (often...A reasonable health care compromise?
Is it safe to trust the new compromise on the health care public option? The Democrats in Congress are so often like Lucy with the football it's hard to know. Is there a non-silver lining to what appears to be a reasonable compromise?What I'm talking about is...ZOMG! The world is going to end (again)!
Re: 2012–I plan to clear out my Y2K bunker, slather myself with ham squeezins and do a Mayan rain dance. Unless this guy is right. But what does he know?–he's only a Mayan elder:Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions...Phsyics gone crazy
Are Higgs boson particles preventing their own creation? Two scientists have proposed that the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator designed to smash things together and create ever-more-exotic subatomic particles to study, is being sabotaged from the...Sick of fancy sycophancy
It's a weird aspect of a career in arts criticism that you get, sometimes, heaps of criticism for your criticism. So one must needs acquire one of those little Goresque lockboxes. As a musician and a creative writer, I was/am used to critical reactions (both...Go ask Alice
An observation about the new industry-funded study saying health care insurance premiums will go up if we dare pass reform: this is perhaps more properly deemed a threat than a prediction. Premiums are, after all, set, just like any other price.They aren't...Lucy with football time?
TPM reports that Harry Reid is working the public option. One possible outcome of all of this health care wrangling, provided those reports are correct, is the creation of a public option despite the infinite well of objections of just the sort that can be seen in the...Atlantis found? (so far, no Ramtha)
A sunken Greek city, first discovered 40 years ago, is finally being surveyed with modern technology, and it's a very likely candidate, considering when the sea overran it, for being Homer's Atlantis. How cool is that? The site covers around 30,000 square...Perhaps they should have steeped longer?
According to an ABC/Washington Post poll, all the teabagging didn't work. At all. From the Post: On the issue that has been perhaps the most pronounced flash point in the national debate, 57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40...Will.he.was?
When I taught Freshman English, it was often comically obvious when a student plagiarized. Not 'cause I'm necessarily Mr. X-Ray Eyes or anything–I simply had people start everything in class by putting pen to paper, turn it in as a first draft and then...Beyond Deja Vu
Ever wondered if there's some way to quantify the subjective experience of time passing quickly or slowly? Here's a fascinating article about the experience of time and how it relates to the brain. It has some answers, and they're pretty cool. There's...Bush: A Slight Return
My hometown gets a load of Bush as motivational speaker. (Quotes below from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.)Bush confuses, understandably in his case, our economic system with our form of government. It does rather explain his pre-presidency statement “This is an...Best Health Care System in the World?
The beginning of an online exclusive at Vanity Fair called "The Sick Business of Health Care Profiteering": With median annual compensation of more than $12.4 million, C.E.O.’s at the big health-care companies make two-thirds more than their...Looking at the details
"Just the facts ma'am" post for a very busy day: the Congressional Budget Office director says– CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have just issued a preliminary analysis of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, as...A wooden leg full of boredom
As I listened to election coverage last night, I got as bored as a peg-legged pirate at a podiatrists' convention. While I'm not entirely sure what Long John Silver would think of that metaphor, I'm relatively certain of one thing–when it comes to...Welcome to Argleton, which doesn't exist
How strange to find life imitating Philip K. Dick in such a precise fashion. The town of Argleton, England exists only on Google Maps, and, just exactly like PKD's protagonist in the story "The Commuter" going to find a non-place, someone goes to find...On Being the Right Size
I’m several days into Leslea Newman’s 30 poems in 30 days challenge. I’m finding it oddly easy to generate lines every day, but I am quite curious to see if, 30 days from now, they’ll prove to be anything other than clever mash-ups of words. It...The march of socialism
So there was a Democratic pickup in the House, in a district which hasn't been Democratic since the Civil War, last Tuesday. In California, a liberal Democrat replaced a more conservative Democrat in a House district. And over the weekend, the House health care...A little farther down the line
I've spent plenty of time chugging out that cool Johnny Cash train beat on the big red rockabilly guitar I souped up. And it's because, like many an American musician and non-musician alike, I've found Cash to be one of the ultimate purveyors of a wide...Not so Swift
I'm not a fan of modern country (give me Hank Williams and Bob Wills, thanks) or of television, but last night I caught the opening of the Country Music Awards. Taylor Swift is certainly a pop star worthy of more respect than usual for maintaining her personal...What the conservative said…
I find it intriguing (and pleasant) when I agree so wholeheartedly with a diehard conservative. (I find, however, that I often agree with old-school conservatives, just not "neo-conservatives.") There isn't a word of this blog entry by Daniel Larison,...Ilk alert!
Warning: the endangered ilk has returned to its habitat. Just snapped a pic in my back yard: Also worthy of note–a wicked conspiracy gets unmasked near the end of our current commentary. One about which we should all be informed, involving jihadis, purity of...Chuck E. Cheese, fighting terrorism one bouncy house at a time
Sarah Palin is still crazy. I know that's not news, but it sure is infotainment. I hate to feed her terrifying ego, but I'm already over the event horizon: on Hannity's show, she said she already knows that the Fort Hood shooter was a terrorist. (Well, he...The Tunnel Bar: haunted by a scary coat?
Call me a skeptic, but I find reports of ghosts to be immediately suspect. I can believe that something causes the phenomenon of "seeing ghosts," I'm simply not convinced that has to be something supernatural. Imagine telling someone in 1850 that one day...A little Hellmouth for you
A really cool band whose second album just arrived at our offices–Hoots & Hellmouth. Sort of bluegrass-y, but with healthy doses of about 18 other things if you listen to a few songs. They're coming to town soon, and here's a video for your...Tora Bora, plasma deodorant and Stonehenge
There's interesting cancer news today–how about nanoparticles that travel to a tumor, get inside cancer cells and basically tear them up? Seems like a flanking maneuver with a lot of promise.It does, however, raise an interesting question in light of the...Going old-school
Remember conservatism before all the crazy? Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson, a rightward key player in the documents controversy regarding Bush's National Guard service that got Dan Rather fired, has thrown down the gauntlet. He's done some...A codebreaking near-miracle
You know, I was planning on decoding the Voynich Manuscript this weekend. I guess I won't have to now. Just a little something entertaining for a Friday: The Voynich Manuscript, a strangely encoded Renaissance-era herbarium of sorts, has been unsuccessfully...Off to the Straits of Bosporus with ye
Just got a telephone call from Istanbul, so I'm away to the Aegean for a few days. Well, if by Aegean you mean what the crafters of particularly ugly words have termed a "staycation."I may check in a time or two, but may everyone (even our naysaying...A Ten Gallon award
We've had a Wicker Man before, but the comment section below clearly occasions a new award: BACK FROM BOSPORUSTurns out it was a wrong number from Istanbul–just some dude wondering if the special was still on with the two shirts for the price of one...Trying to care in the Age of Lieberman
Come back from vacation, and the place goes crazy. One can only answer the furor of internet trolls with silence or silliness, and the silliness at least can be amusing (see last post for a wild ride). More on that later, but in the meantime, here's some of that...Maybe it's time for WIlliam Jennings Bryan?
Thom Hartmann certainly seems correct that there is a lot of anger on left and right, but we've grown so accustomed to the sniping between left and right that we've almost not noticed that there is a common enemy. (Maybe try up and down instead?) Hartmann: The...The vodka conundrum
Must be something in the zeitgeist about this whole corporate manipulation as enemy thing. Someone identifying as "the enemy" posted yesterday (at DailyKos) a truly fascinating take on the subject of who really controls opinion in America. I can't say I...And now a soupy conundrum
Eat this, critics… Today I'm writing next issue's food piece. A question for further contemplation by any who care to weigh in on matters beyond liberal/conservative mortar fire–upon browsing the cookbook my mother gave me from First Baptist Church...The Exhausting Decade
How were the Aughts for you? Seems like most folks think they were pretty much crap. At least that's the conclusion of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. I'm personally quite glad to see them gone, for reasons political and otherwise. Some numbers: According to...E-Edition
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