rank amateur

City of Blinding Lights

2009-01-20T22:59:00.000-08:00

I have no words for how happy and hopeful I am on this day. As Barak Obama, 44th President of the United States of America took his oath of office, I cut off the black wristband I have worn in mourning and protest every day since Inauguration Day 2005. I have an art piece planned for it.

And I cheered as the outgoing Criminal-In-Chief took his leave. Yes, Dubya -- we survived you and your disastrous reign, because we are a greater nation than even your evil regime could tear down. We have shaken you off at last, and look ahead with hope and renewed purpose as your rotted administration crumples to the ground.

Good riddance, you incompetent, arrogant, selfish bastard. May you rot in hell.

I watched the entirety of the day's festivities, from the official start at 7 AM PST to the last of the parade around 4:30 this evening. In the parade, I saw the Crow Nation Horse Mounted Unit from Crow Agency, Montana -- the reservation some 70 miles north of my hometown of Sheridan -- and Shoshone and Arapahoe representatives from Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, all three tribes in full native regalia, march past our new President and First Lady. There were 11 Native American tribes represented in the parade. After 8 years of being ignored and insulted by the Bush Administration, tribal elders from Native American nations across the country are the most hopeful they've ever been that the President will work with them for a better future for their people. Our people.

Members of the AFL-CIO marched, too. Men and women of all backgrounds and colors and creeds marched together in matching blue jackets with the yellow emblems of the "Change to Win" movement, carrying uniform banners that said things like "An Economy that Works for All" and "Great Public Schools" and "Good Jobs, Green Jobs" and "Health Care for All". They pushed strollers with children bundled for the weather, everyone grinning from ear to ear, greeted by the enthusiastic smiles and waves of our new President and First Lady. These are my people, too. My tribe.

The living members of the Tuskegee Airmen were there, too. They were saluted by all those watching in the President's viewing platform. And marching bands from high schools and colleges and military academies across the country played their hearts out in freezing temperatures, traveling hundreds and thousands of miles and waiting patiently for their turn to shine, smiles wide and heads held high while the President and First Lady looked on, watching and waving to every single group that passed by their box. President Obama's high school was represented by the school's marching band, the first time they had ever been invited anywhere to march. They traveled more than 6,000 miles to be there.

Satellite photos of the Washington Mall show millions -- millions -- of people come to watch and celebrate. The vast majority could not see or hear anything of the events, knowing to cheer only as the wave of cheers from the crowds before them rolled in their direction. There were more people gathered in the Mall, and along the parade route from the Capitol to the White House, than the entire populations of 25 U.N. nations.

America celebrated today, and the world celebrated with us. It's a new day, everyone.

President Obama

2008-11-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

It's the dawn of a new day. Hope is here.

Hope is on the way

2008-11-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

Hope is on the way.

That was the motto of the 2004 Democratic ticket. An election that broke my already-broken heart. I've thought of that motto so much in the last 6 months, and if you've been emailing with me about political stuff, you've seen that little phrase throughout.

Hope is on the way. I want so much to believe that I can hardly stand it. I'm optimistic in spite of myself, and my secret fear that tomorrow is going to be like that Wednesday 8 years ago, when I got up only long enough to check that it really wasn't just a bad dream, then spent the rest of the day in bed, and for the time I was asleep, I lived in a world that hadn't completely lost its damn mind. I feel good about this election, and I think tomorrow, I'm going to wake up with tears of joy instead of utter sorrow, but still...I remember the hope I had 4 years ago....

But I'm all in. We had to submit our bets last night for our Election Day Betting Pools and I bet my money on the most optimistic outcome I can foresee. Here's the electoral map I predicted:

It's wildly optimistic. Delusional, even. I'm going to lose everything I bet, in all the pools, because I went all in on every one -- the number of electoral votes, the percentage, the Senate seats, the House seats, all of it. The polls are saying somewhere between 330-something and 360-something for electoral votes, and god, if that happened, it'd be fantastic. But still...still...I keep thinking, "hope is on the way", and I see the pictures of 100,000 at rallies, and the lines of people for early voting, and all the inspirational stories of first-time voters, and switching voters, and die-hard voters. Hope is on the way, I think, and I decided that my 411 electoral votes are incredibly unlikely, but how can I possibly hedge that bet? Hope is on the way, you guys. I'm all in.

Game over, man. Game over.

2008-10-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

I know, I'm Posty McPostsALot tonight, apparently. But since a friend requested my post-debate reaction, how could I say no?

Well, this was probably McCain's strongest debate of the three. Which is probably the best thing I can say for his performance tonight. He started out weird with the "voters are hurting and angry and they're angry and I understand that and they're hurting and they're angry and hurting" thing that had me telling my television "someone please bump the record player, the needle's stuck". What the hell was that?

He was hateful and negative, which he clearly can't control because he has to know it's hurting his candidacy and yet he's still doing it. That fake smile he has plastered on is so obvious it makes the skin crawl. And he continues to lie, lie, lie, and oh yeah, lie. In fact, he'd told so many lies in the first two minutes -- THE FINANCIAL CRISIS HAS NOT BEEN CAUSED BY FANNIE AND FREDDIE YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT -- that I actually had to switch the channel for a second to keep from hyperventilating.

And his contempt and arrogance and condescension were on full display tonight. He is pissed off that he even has to campaign for a job that he feels is his rightful due, and having to be on the same stage with that black guy that everyone likes better is an insult. What a jerk.

But really, the hands-down best moment was the when Barak smacked down McCain's lie that Obama would fine businesses for not providing healthcare plans. I couldn't believe the look on McCain's face, and it just kept going and going and I thought maybe it'd finally happened, that maybe Obama had finally vaporlocked him. I've never seen anything like it in a presidential debate, and I've seen every presidential debate since Reagan vs. Carter (when I was 7...my dorkitude began at a very early age).

And what the hell with the blinking??? Christ, hook his eyelids up to a generator and you could probably light Las Vegas.

Barak was, as ever, the definition of cool and self-possessed. He's smart and his rhetoric is a thing of beauty. His command of facts and policy is practically savant-like. (And btw -- wtf with McCain continually equating Down's Syndrom with autism??) He doesn't get rattled, doesn't get thrown off track, doesn't lose his temper. The contrast is devastating and I think that under all the analysis, it's been the contrast in demeanor that's hurt McCain in the debates more than anything else. Obama exudes Presidential, and he's calmly and patiently made his case.

I think it's safe to say that the election is now over and all that's left is the counting. (Which doesn't mean we should rest. We should, in fact, press even harder...we want this election to be a landslide, to blow it out of the water and leave the GOP completely broken.)

Fun with teh internets

2008-10-15T17:58:00.000-07:00

To balance the reading assignment I gave you earlier today, here are two fun activities:

First a hilarious timewaster called Palin As President -- I love stuff like this where you just click random stuff to see what it does. I think I've found everything...see if you can, too! And be sure to click on things multiple times -- many of them do several things.

Second, an ad that had my husband rolling from across the table within the first few seconds, even though he couldn't even see the screen. It's that good.

ETA: Oh, and Heroes may be sucking right now, but Claire still has her priorities straight.

See more Hayden Panettiere videos at Funny or Die

One the perks of being a liberal is that we have all the awesome creative people on our side. :)

Reading assignment

2008-10-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Your assignment for today: a must-read essay by Tim Wallis (reproduced on Dark Christianity) that nails a concept to the door that I think we all recognize, but struggle to articulate. What he has to say is challenging, and draws on some generalizations to make his point (in other words, it's not meant to be precise, nor to say that all people that belong to a group or category are as he describes them), and it's the kind of thing that when you finish reading it, you say to yourself, "If only I could make everyone read this!"

Well, I can't make everyone read it, but I can ask you guys to read it. :)

His essay is called This is How Fascism Comes: Reflections on the Cost of Silence, and it's a take on Sinclair Lewis' famous quote: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

Correcting the record

2008-10-08T23:21:00.000-07:00

Watching the debate last night redlined my Rant-O-Meter yet again, and there were so many half-truths and outright lies spewing from McCain's rubbery lips that it would be akin to Factology Whack-A-Mole trying to correct them all.

However.

I just wanted to be sure that we're all clear on one big lie McCain tried to push, and he said it in passing so that it wasn't even the main point of the larger lie he was telling. Which was that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were the cause of the current crisis. No, no, and oh hay-ell no.

Daniel Gross says it so I don't have to:

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor Congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.[...]

The Community Reinvestment Act applies to depository banks. But many of the institutions that spurred the massive growth of the subprime market weren't regulated banks. They were outfits such as Argent and American Home Mortgage, which were generally not regulated by the Federal Reserve or other entities that monitored compliance with CRA. These institutions worked hand in glove with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, entities to which the CRA likewise didn't apply. There's much more. As Barry Ritholtz notes in this fine rant, the CRA didn't force mortgage companies to offer loans for no money down, or to throw underwriting standards out the window, or to encourage mortgage brokers to aggressively seek out new markets. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on packages of subprime debt.[...]

Lending money to poor people and minorities isn't inherently risky. There's plenty of evidence that in fact it's not that risky at all. That's what we've learned from several decades of microlending programs, at home and abroad, with their very high repayment rates. And as the New York Times recently reported, Nehemiah Homes, a long-running initiative to build homes and sell them to the working poor in subprime areas of New York's outer boroughs, has a repayment rate that lenders in Greenwich, Conn., would envy. In 27 years, there have been fewer than 10 defaults on the project's 3,900 homes. That's a rate of 0.25 percent.

On the other hand, lending money recklessly to obscenely rich white guys, such as Richard Fuld of Lehman Bros. or Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, can be really risky. In fact, it's even more risky, since they have a lot more borrowing capacity. And here, again, it's difficult to imagine how Jimmy Carter could be responsible for the supremely poor decision-making seen in the financial system. I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33 to 1, which instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients' money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Bros. to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can't find it.[...]

Lending money to poor people doesn't make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does.

This wasn't the worst or biggest lie McCain told during that debate. But it's exactly the kind of thing that because it was of just middling error in comparison, infiltrates the public conversation as fact and the next thing you know, it becomes accepted as common knowledge, like the myth that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet. Once it becomes entrenched like that, it's impossible to budge.

[Also? The fucking "That one" comment?? Holy hopping fuck on a goldfish fucking cracker does that make me want to kick some shriveled old man ass every time I see it replayed. I am still boggled that he actually said it. DIAF you racist patronizing asshole.]

And the hits just keep on comin'...

2008-09-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the good news is that the American people are pretty pissed off about this whole bailout deal and will probably go medieval on pretty much any politician who actually votes for it. Which doesn't mean Democrats won't still be suckered -- they are, as has been famously said, experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- but perhaps there's hope.

The latest developments:

People have gotten suspicious about the timing and the push to get the bailout approved. Turns out there might be even more reason to be outraged. For one thing, apparently this plan was put together months ago. Kind of puts the lie to the whole "this is an emergency" notion, huh?
The bailout included not just banks in trouble, but banks that aren't in any trouble and are, in fact, quite flush. And, as if that weren't already ::headdesk::-worthy, it included foreign banks. That sound you heard was the collective "WHAT THE HOLY HOPPING FUCK?" voiced 'round the world.
Paulson told Congress that of course they want oversight! Despite the, you know, article in their proposed bailout that said expressly the opposite. In other news, Happy Opposite Day!

Some quick reads about why this entire "crisis" could very well be manufactured:

AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

This morning:

Paulson said that "it pains me tremendously to have the American taxpayer put in this position but it is better than the alternative."

Both Paulson and President Bush have argued that the alternative would be credit markets that remain frozen, meaning that businesses will fail because they can't get the loans they need to operate and the economy will grind to a halt because consumers won't be able to get loans to make the purchases that keep the economy moving forward."

So basically, "Our economy is so fucked up that it depends entirely on everyone spending money they don't have, so to make sure this house of cards doesn't come crashing down, we need to remove cards from the bottom and balance it all on a single card. Then turn on a fan."

You suppose Prozac will help with this Depression?

2008-09-20T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be working right now -- and I'm going to regret this when it's 2 AM tonight and I'm trying to make up the time I'm taking here -- but after watching our financial system essentially dissolve in the span of five days...well, I have a lot to say.

If you're not terrified about the future right now, you are stupid.

Let me repeat that: If you're not contemplating how you can change your lifestyle to survive in an economy that might very well disintegrate, then you are dumber than a bag of fucking hammers.

Since I know that you guys are, in fact, quite intelligent people, I know that you're paying attention and you know that what has happened in the last week is pretty goddamn scary. But with the release of the preliminary plan for the bailout, things have taken a turn from bad to worse.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.
[Note: I'm mostly linking to blogs that summarize the source articles of information, rather than the articles themselves. Although I think you should definitely read the articles quoted for yourself, the summaries provided in the blog posts I'm linking boil it down to something much more understandable when we're talking about high-flying financial concepts that are confusing (and that it turns out, even the vaunted financial experts don't really understand themselves, which is part of what got us into this mess). These are blogs I've been reading for years and thus, I trust their insight and opinions. But as always, I encourage everyone to find out facts for themselves and develop your own opinions.]

First, the best summary of where we're at this week was posted by Atrios a few days ago:

Through this crisis, there's this underlying narrative that something can be done, that there's just a wee liquidity problem. But underlying all of this is the fact that banks made a bunch of stupid loans which aren't being repaid. A bunch of people made highly leveraged investments in securities backed by those loans. A bunch of other people sold insurance on those securities and related debt.

Lots of money is being lost and there isn't any way to fix that.

The fundamental fact is this: buying up the assets to bail out these companies and keep our economy from tanking completely, for however much we pay, isn't going to fix anything because those assets aren't worth anything. Or put more correctly, the amount of debt owed on them is due to a hyperinflated market on crack, and the assets that back those values (houses/property) are not going to suddenly regain those imaginary cracktastic values again. Not only that, buying up the assets of these failed companies is predicated on the idea that we'll be able to make the money back as people/companies pay back what they owe. But they won't. They might pay back some, but they're in the same boat the rest of us are: they hold loans on property that is worth far less than they owe on it, far outside their abililty to pay, in a credit market that's seized up, a job market that's a minefield of uncertainty, and more than 25 years of government deregulation that pushes all of the liability onto the government, raising their taxes.

This thing was a looooong time in coming. Real estate values have been overpriced for years and should've popped much sooner, given the other economic factors going on. And in fact, I was reading in 2004 and 2005 that the people whose opinions I trusted expected the bubble to pop sometime in 2005 or 2006. When that didn't happen, they all seemed kind of puzzled, and the bubble just kept growing far past what any realistic market correction should've allowed.

What they (and I, because of them) started to understand around 2006 was that the bubble was being artificially maintained by policies and rollbacks that no real economic model can predict. You know why they can't predict those conditions? Because to do so, they have to operate on an underlying assumption that the economic actors involved are deranged. Since no economic model is predicated on this idea, and the idea is inherently impossible to model, all bets were off as to when it would crash.

Not if, but when. Because sooner or later, the crash would come. The markets could be artificially inflated and defy the natural predictions of ecconomics, but eventually, economic evolution would assert itself. And just like a drug addict on a binge, it turns out the only thing that was going to stop this out-of-control car was a brick wall called Reality, that we'd have to hit rock bottom before we could hope to turn things around. Hence the ever-ramping speculative markets, the increasingly bad mortgage instruments on outright bad/no credit, etc. etc., the ridiculously out-of-touch profit expectations, the exponential explosion of credit and simultaneous negative growth of savings, the volatility of the market and the dollar, the irrational exuburance, the delusional quarterly forecasts.... We've been playing a game of musical chairs and the music was playing so fast that everyone's just racing around a single chair hoping to be the one to grab that last seat when the music finally stopped. Turns out, not only are there a whole bunch of people and only one chair, we're finding out that there was no chair.

Among other things, turns out that the SEC, which is supposed to regulate this industry (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA) pretty much handed the aforementioned drug addict an 8-ball and the keys to the car:

As we learn this morning via Julie Satow of the NY Sun, special exemptions from the SEC are in large part responsible for the huge build up in financial sector leverage over the past 4 years -- as well as the massive current unwind.

Satow interviews the above quoted former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right -- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1. Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up."

So while the SEC runs around reinstating short selling rules, and clueless pension fund managers mindlessly point to the wrong issue, we learn that it was the SEC who was in large part responsible for the reckless leverage that led to the current crisis.

You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

Although Matthew Gross does go on to note something that I fervently hope is true:

This point may be lost on the average voter, but it is firmly grasped by millions of the pro-business Republicans that John McCain needs to win the White House.

Add to that their disgust at the reckless and seemingly random government intervention in the markets, and you have the makings for a major backlash among a critical segment of the Republicans [business] base this November.

It's no wonder McCain's post-convention bounce this week plummeted faster than the Dow on Monday. Bush has bankrupted this country -- the Republicans have wrecked America -- and the end result for the GOP is a coalition in complete tatters and disarray.

Funny what eight years of plundering by the masters of the universe will do to a country, eh?

Indeed, if there's some good news to be had out of all of this, it's that McCain has been flailing around all week, trying to figure out what he can say that won't get his head handed to him. He has NEVER been interested in market regulation, and his entire economic advisory staff consists of true believers in the so-called unfettered market. If we're very, very lucky, we can finally consider the Republican "fiscally responsible" zombie well and truly dead.

Okay, so it's bad. And no one's happy about the government bailing out the fat cat crooks who ran their companies into the ground and are walking away with their golden parachutes intact. But judging from the market response yesterday, it seems to've calmed the freefall we saw on Wall street, and that's good news, right?

Well sure, if you're rich and you're a Republican and you're one of those fat cat crooks, it's great news! For the rest of us, not so much. And for more than the obvious reasons. For one thing, the people in charge of fixing things don't seem to really get the nature of the problem. Atrios again:

This has been the problem all along, the pretense that all problems are just liquidity problems. Until another bank goes under. Then, well, they were bad, but for everyone else it's just a liquidity problem!

Again, the problem is that lots of bad loans were made, lots of people made highly leveraged investments in those bad loans, and still more people bet on those loans by insuring them. The loans are bad. The mortgages are not going to be repaid in full. Housing prices are not going to magically shoot up 50% over the next 6 months. People gambled and lost and now the Democrats are racing to bail them all out.

I don't have enough information to really know what should be done, but I do know that the people talking about the problem are largely still misdiagnosing it. If they don't know what the problem actually is, or if they're being dishonest about it, the solution is unlikely to be a good one.

Now, it's entirely possible, as Kevin Drum lays out a pretty good case for, that in order for any bailout to work, they have to first determine the size of the problem.

The purpose of the bailout, then, isn't to recapitalize the banks, it's to put a firm value on the toxic sludge once and for all. Maybe it's a dime on the dollar, maybe it's 50 cents on the dollar. Whatever. When that's done, some banks will turn out to be insolvent, and perhaps they'll be allowed to fail. Others will turn out to be in bad shape but still solvent, and they'll continue doing business. Once that's sorted out, the commercial paper market will loosen back up since everyone will know who it's safe to loan money to and who it's not.

Which is entirely possible, and if that's the case, then Bernanke and Paulson are far more capable managers than I would've given Bush appointees credit for. But considering today's announcement about their proposed bailout plan, I think it's safe to say that once a Bush Administration toadie, always a Bush Administration toadie. As Matthew Gross puts it:

The bankers have put a loaded gun to Congress' collective head and asked for the taxpayer's wallets.

Paul Krugman does a very nice, succinct summary of the proposal which I highly, highly recommend you read. And not only does the new deal propose a $700 billion blank check from the Treasury, but "this bill also appears to constitute the greatest transfer of political power from the Congressional to the Executives Branches ... Possibly ever". The "Shock Doctrine" portion of the proposal is boiled down these three important points:

The broad reading of the Secretary's power: so long as s/he claims to be acting pursuant to this statute, there is no limit nor review of their authority.
It appears that entering into crony-capitalist, no-bid contracts a la Iraq and New Orleans, are part of the authority.
The Secretary's power is unreviewable, not by the legislature, not by any administrative agency, and not by the Courts.

Right up to the end, the Bush Administration will stop at nothing to take any and all power. There are no words in the English language to adequately desribe how despicable and evil these people are. They are thoroughly corrupt and vile and they feed like the parasite from Alien on the body politic of the United States:

Second, whatever else is true, the events of the last week are the most momentous events of the Bush era in terms of defining what kind of country we are and how we function -- and before this week, the last eight years have been quite momentous, so that is saying a lot. Again, regardless of whether this nationalization/bailout scheme is "necessary" or makes utilitarian sense, it is a crime of the highest order -- not a "crime" in the legal sense but in a more meaningful sense.

What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism -- where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? We've retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. Watching Wall St. erupt with an orgy of celebration on Friday after it became clear the Government (i.e., you) would pay for their disaster was literally nauseating, as the very people who wreaked this havoc are now being rewarded.

A few further notes:

If you bank through WaMu, you've probably considered switching banks, and that probably isn't a bad idea. But if you bank through Bank of America, you should consider switching banks, too. "But wait," you say. "Didn't they just purchase Merrill Lynch? Doesn't that mean they're actually in a pretty good position, since they're able to take advantage of the market conditions and buy up a pretty major institution for a song?" Well, yes. But remember, our economy has been in the charge of lunatics for the last 8 years, and crooks for more than 20. Which is how you get decisions like this:

But Bernanke and Paulson are really going all in on this, they're letting banks play with depositor money:

"The Fed added that it was suspending a rule that normally prohibits deposit-taking banks from using deposits to help finance their investment banking subsidiaries to allow them to fund activities normally funded in the repo market on a temporary basis until January 30 2009."

This is a dangerous game, because instead of firewalling that money away from investment subsidiaries, it allows banks to gamble that with depositor money they may be able to turn it around. This was exactly the sort of thing that Glass-Steagall was designed to make impossible - banks to not be in the brokerage business, insurance companies not in banking, and so on. Glass-Steagall was partially repealed in 1980 (part of what made possible the Savings and Loan fiasco), further parts in 99 under Clinton, and now the Fed has violated the fundamental principle that banks shouldn't be gambling with depositor money. Because, be real clear, if you don't really know how much in the hole you are, or how much further you could get, lending money to the unit that's in the hole is gambling.

And in fact, when Bank of America announced its purchase of Merrill Lynch, it announced that it would be funding the purchase largely with depositor funds. Which is, again, insane, but wouldn't potentially be disastrous. If what they were purchasing weren't itself a terrible purchase. They're gambling that it'll all work out in the end, but this week we've seen how those kinds of gambles have turned out so far. So, you know, if you're the gambling type, by all means...donate that money to B of A's Vegas Fund and tell them to put your money down on black. Hopefully you'll get your money back, but I wouldn't count on it.

Well, but your money is insured by the FDIC, right? Sure, but you may not want to put too much faith in that. From the same article:

It's also putting the FDIC (the organization which insures deposits) even more on the hook, and the FDIC does not have infinite money except in the sense that the Treasury can lend it infinite money. At this point the FDIC has about 50 billion. Banks have about 4.7 trillion in insured deposits. Yes, that's a bit of a gap.

And in fact just a day later, the AP reported that the FDIC fund is dwindling:

Eleven federally insured banks and thrifts have failed this year, including Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bank, by far the largest shut down by regulators.

Additional failures of large banks or savings and loans companies seem likely, and that could overwhelm the FDIC's insurance fund, said Brian Bethune, U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight.

"We've got a ... retail bank run forming in this country," said Christopher Whalen, senior vice president and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday that the country's commercial banking system "is safe and sound" and that "the American people can be very, very confident about their accounts in our banking system." FDIC officials also have said 98 percent of U.S. banks still meet regulators' standards for adequate capital.

But fear is growing on Main Street as well as Wall Street about the likelihood of multiple bank failures and the strain that would put on the FDIC.

The fund, which is marking its 75th anniversary this year with a "Face Your Finances" campaign, is at $45.2 billion — the lowest level since 2003. At the same time, the number of troubled banks is at a five-year high.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair has not ruled out the possibility of going to the Treasury for a short-term loan at some point. But she has said she does not expect the FDIC to take the more drastic action of using a separate $30 billion credit line with Treasury — something that has never been done.

Heck, after reading that, your mattress is starting to look like a much safer place to stash your money, isn't it? Well, that's probably going overboard -- and panicking about the health of your bank can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is what happened when the market crashed in 1929 and there were catastrophic runs on the bank. So I wouldn't want to make anyone panic and I am the LAST person you should take financial advice from.

Okay and if you were thinking T-bills...well, so was everyone else:

And the flight from bank debt to safe treasury debt is in such full flight that U.S. treasury bonds now have a negative return, the first time that's ever happened.

Oh, but it's not ALL doom and gloom. If you're a ~~football~~ soccer fan, you'll be excited to learn that as a part owner of AIG, you are now a sponsor of Manchester United. Of course, they're not doing so well this season, but still, how many people can say they sponsor a world-class soccer team?

Well, about 250 million Americans, I guess.

I thought we could all use an injection of hope right about now

2008-09-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

I love this picture. This man has to be our President.

Sarah Palin hates women

2008-09-19T09:06:00.000-07:00

So you may or may not have heard the Sarah Palin rape kit story, but whether you have or haven't, you should take a few minutes to do this.

I've been following the rape kit story for a couple of weeks now. At first, I was horrified, but then I thought, "Well, she wasn't the one who actually cut them from the budget..." Trying to be reasonable, you know. Then I learned that she spoke out specifically against the Alaska Legislature when it passed its bill to make her town's practice illegal, angry with them for interfering with her decisions. (The fact that the Legislature passed the bill specifically to address a single city in their state -- Wasilla was the only place this horrible practice was done -- was lost on her.)

And then I learned something else.

Alaska has the highest reported sexual assault rate in the country. Not "one of" the highest. THE highest. More than 2.5x the national average, in fact. And Wasilla has consistently been at or near the top for the state. Childhood sexual assault and incest in Alaska is also one of the highest in the country. Alaska continuously ranks in the top five for the highest domestic violence rate in the country. It has the highest homicide rate of women in the country. (stats here: http://www.hss.state.ak.us/dph/ipems/injury_prevention/akfvpp/bkgnd.htm)

And of course, she fired the guy who was leading the charge in protecting all those women and children and who was trying to make things better for them. Because he wouldn't fire her ex brother-in-law. (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/16/11402/8612/999/600050)

But why would she make women pay for their own rape kits? I mean, sure, she needed the money for herself to get paid for living at home, but the rape kit thing seems sorta like a gimme...surely she knew it would open her up to criticism? Well, turns out her scary religious views may have played a role:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/17/175430/636/888/601186

Speculation, of course, but entirely in line with the particular brand of Christian dominionism she belongs to. They just love cramming their beliefs down everyone else's throats.

But get this: did you know Joe Biden is one of the leading proponents of legislation against domestic violence? That he is, in fact, a crusader on this issue? That one of his highest achievements was the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which gave the feds the authority to enforce domestic violence laws and flooded local police departments with funds specifically earmarked for combating domestic violence? He's one of the good guys, you guys. Literally.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/17/163633/273

Ray of sunshine in a hurricane of bad news

2008-09-19T00:41:00.000-07:00

Well, the economy is imploding and we may all be on the barter system soon, but here's some good news: Sarah Palin's popularity is fading and McCain's numbers are slipping! Huzzah!

Fun with hypotheticals!

2008-09-17T00:24:00.000-07:00

We'll be doing a really terrific Second Saturday about abortion in the not-too-distant future (not October) that I've been working on and planning for quite some time. But in relation to a friend's question, I thought I'd share some food for thought that we'll be discussing when we do tackle that topic.

Want to have fun? Get into a debate with a rabid anti-choicer and pose the following scenarios to them:

If abortion is illegal, then what should the penalty be for women who have one? Should they be charged with murder? If so, how long should their sentence be? Should there be a different level of punishment for women who abort for "unacceptable" reasons (poverty, not ready to be a parent, don't want kids, abusive situation, too many kids already, etc.) vs. women who abort for acceptable reasons (rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother)? If so, why? Also, what method will be used to determine the mother's reasons for committing the crime? Answers should be in essay format.
A fertility clinic is on fire. You believe life begins at conception and thus, heroically charge in to save the thousands of frozen embryos about to be destroyed, when you discover a two year old child trapped inside the clinic. You only have time to save either the child or the thousands of frozen embryos. Which do you save? Why or why not? Show your work.

Scenario 1: Most anti-choicers recoil at the idea of charging women with murder, yet that's the logical progression of what they're advocating. If they're truly committed to the idea that abortion is murder, they should have no compunction with the logical consequences of murder. Additionally, if the woman's reasons for having an abortion can determine her punishment, then how can it be justified that abortion is the taking of an innocent life? After all, regardless of whether the woman aborted her pregnancy because she has too many mouths to feed or doesn't want to carry her father's child, it's not the fetus' fault how or why it was conceived, and murder is still murder. And although the law does allow the consideration of extenuating circumstances in determining punishment, it doesn't allow no punishment at all when a crime is committed. What would be the appropriate criminal punishment for an incest vicitm's abortion?

(If you do happen to get an anti-choicer who agrees the woman should be charged with murder...well, at least they're consistent. :)

Scenario 2: If they truly believe life begins at conception, there should be no reason to choose the child over the thousands of embryos.

Palin-eotology

2008-09-16T00:50:00.000-07:00

I have lots of comments to make on here but I wanted to post some miscellaneous related links so I can clear them off my browser.

First, I came back from the coast to emails from friends who had all sent me the same two email forwards about Sarah Palin -- one a tirade from a famous playwright, the other a call to action by a group of women asking us to voice our objection -- which made me glad to see that they're getting such wide dispersion. It's not often that lefty viral emails get the same wide distribution that right wing nutso emails do, so keep sending those out, everyone. And here's one to add to your list. It's a terrific editorial by Anne Lamott that has infilitrated my f-list, I'm happy to say, so spread that one around, too.

(Oh, and don't forget to find out your Sarah Palin Baby Name! Mine is Chisel Dustup Palin. Awesome!)

Also in the vein of women standing up to object to Sarah Palin, here's a heartening firsthand report from the "Alaska Women Reject Palin" rally that took place Sunday. (The Mudflats blog, by the way, is your go-to source on all things Alaskan politics. It's the perfect example of citizen journalism, too. One day, this blogger is just laboring away on his (or her?) little-noticed blog about local Alaskan politics to a tiny readership. Then his state's governor is given the nod for the GOP VP and his comment threads skyrocket from 3 or 5 comments -- 30 on a busy day -- to 1500. It's thanks to the Mudflats blog that the liberal blogs had so much well-researched oppo info on Troopergate within hours of the announcement, among other things. Viva la revolucion!)

Speaking of Alaskan natives speaking out against Palin, my dear husband called me on the way to work to tell me to tune into Air America. Ed Schultz did a townhall type broadcast from Alaska today and boy, were people pissed off! Not at Ed, at Palin. It was a really terrific few hours of radio and I highly encourage you to listen to the podcast.

Lest we forget that Palin's appeal has rallied the base -- and how truly terrifying they can be, and what's at stake here -- they're making comparisons of Palin to Deborah of the Old Testament, the prophet who called herself "the mother of Israel" and led the Israelites to purge their land of invaders. Anyone who tells you that the right-wing Christians aren't on a crusade are deluding themselves or speaking in tongues.

But I've saved the best for last, to be sure we don't end on a down note. If you missed it Saturday night (like we did), here's the opening skit, in which Tina Fey (whom Palin has been described as looking like) and Amy Poehler make me question my sexual persuasion because OMG I LOVE THEM.

Healthcare for nobody!

2008-09-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so next time you hear someone say they don't vote because the parties are both the same, and they're all corrupt? Or, OR! Someone opines that yeah, the American healthcare system sucks, but, you know, it's better than those pinko commie Canadians and Europeans with their government funded healthcare?

You, um...might want to share this little factoid with them that McCain? Wants to tax our healthcare benefits. You know, the benefits that already cost you an arm and a leg? Yeah, those.

Putting on the rosier glasses

2008-09-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

So in counterpoint to my freakout in my previous post, I'm going to now give you some reasons to be optimistic. About the election, about the world, about people in general.

First, here's an op-ed putting the election in perspective. It addresses all our freaking out topics: "Palin's pushed Obama's coverage off the page!", "OMG they're big fat liars and blaming Obama for it!", "Why is Obama just sitting there and taking it?", "It's the Swiftboat Veterans all over again!", "HE'S DOWN IN THE POLLS OMG WE'RE GOING TO LOSE!". It's a good op-ed, and it's a quick read. You should read it.

And you know how I keep saying there's a lot that can happen between now and election day? Guess what you guys...there's A LOT that can happen between now and election day. Like, say, a scandal involving employees of big oil bribing Administration officials with sex and money in exchange for favors. Oh, this ought to be juicy. Now, I hear you saying, "But , this is just the latest of the seventy gajillion scandals and crimes of this Administration, how will this catch everyone's attention when nothing else seems to?" Well, did I mention the sex? We might as well be dangling string in front of kittens. This country loves a good sex scandal. And it's two months before a major election. And both the GOP candidates are so immersed in the oil lobby that they're bathing in it. And also SEX, you guys. Should be good times.

Next is an analysis of a poll that shows that people's views of having religion injected into politics is shifting. The fundies are still as crazy and militant as ever, but everyone else is backing away from the pit of crazy. (Actually, judging from the numbers, they're running away as fast as they can.) So Palin, for all that she fires up the base, is very likely to scare the shit out of the rest of voters. See for yourself.

And speaking of religion, for all that the right-wing Christian crazies seem to suck up all the oxygen in the room, there are actually lots and lots of really amazing and inspirational progressive Christian leaders and followers out there. Even if you're not a Christian, or particularly religious, you can find lots to be inspired by at the new progressive Christian blog community run by Christian Century. It's being headed by Gordon Atkinson, aka Real Live Preacher, one of my heroes and a huge, huge spiritual inspiration to me. They're worth your time.

In environmental news, there's a new site that can help you track your carbon footprint by helping you determine the footprint of the goods and services you purchase. It's still in the development stage, but could be a very helpful tool as we navigate our way toward living a more progressive life. Check it out.

Continuing in a scientific vein, if you haven't been following the Large Hadron Collider (and okay, maybe I'm the only one who's excited by the prospect of slamming protons into each other at incomprehensible rates of speed to simulate the Big Bang), you may not know that it was tested for the first time yesterday. And, AND! Despite worries by some (probably home-schooled religious freaks who wouldn't know science from a hole in the universe...hahahahaha, a little geek humor there) that the the LHC would create a black hole that would swallow the earth and kill us all...we're all still here! But lest you be concerned that that was only beginner's luck and that we might be sucked into the event horizon at any moment, there's a website just for you called hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheearthyet.com, which has up-to-date information on the status of our existence. So, you know...Has The Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The Earth Yet?

Freaking out

2008-09-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else freaking out at how close this thing is, and how quickly the Republicans have taken the ball and run in the other direction?? I am seriously, seriously freaking out at how quickly the Obama campaign has lost control of the media narrative. This was my number one concern with Obama's candidacy, that he'd never faced the right wing smear machine in a full-on election. Even wresting against Clinton -- his most formidable opponent to that point -- is NOTHING compared to the GOP propaganda operation.

I'm tryng to temper my anxiety with the knowledge that races always tighten at this point, that the week and a half immediately following the conventions are always completely skewed, that it'll be a week or two before the polls will be an accurate snapshot, that the Palin candidacy is only two weeks old and there're plenty of skeletons ready to come tumbling out, that once the immediate frenzy dies down it'll still be scary and washed-out McCain vs. energetic and inspiring Obama...

...BUT.

But I remember 2004. I remember 2000. I remember -- VIVIDLY -- how it all went down in those last two months. I remember watching the debates with Kerry and Bush, and how incredibly awful Bush did, and when he didn't actually start eating his own shit or bite the head off live chickens, the media declared it a victory for him. The cynical panders, the transparent reliance on hate and fear, the outright lies, the ridiculous pearl clutching and salt smelling.

And I'm getting terrible, terrible bouts of deja vu, you guys.

I mean, it's early. There's a lot that's going to happen in the next two months, and all that stuff I said above about polls and skeletons and stuff is all still true. So I'm not depressed and I haven't given up. Indeed, far from it -- I'm pissed off and willing to do anything necessary to win.

But it's close. It's goddamn close. After 8 years of the worst administration since fucking Caligula, there's a very real possibility that we may lose this election. And part of the reason it's close is because our side never fucking learns.

ETA: And the media even knows it's being played, but still doesn't do anything to stop it.

Pining for a bygone era that never existed

2008-09-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

I remember when we watched Jesus Camp and we were all a little bewildered about the obsession with abortion. I remember in the discussion that followed we all talked about that and someone asked me why abortion was singled out so much. Like, why abortion and not, say gay marriage? (I mean, obviously they're obsessed with gay marriage, too, but the way in which they tie everything to abortion is baffling and just plain weird.)

Well, I remember struggling to put into words what my thoughts are about why it's abortion that the fundies are so obsessed with. I couldn't really articulate my half-formed ideas on how it all fit together. But in a post on Pandagon a few days ago, Amanda Marcotte manages to pull it into one cohesive argument that finally coalesced my own thoughts on it for me, and gave me that "eureka!" moment that I've been struggling to get to for so long now.

I think she absolutely hits it on the head that abortion is really a gateway to a deeper, much larger issue for the people who are obsessed with trying to return to that mythical America that only exists in their fevered imaginations and Leave It To Beaver reruns. It's not so much abortion per se (although there's plenty in that issue alone for them to hang their hats on), but an entire feminist bingo extravaganza that has very little to do with saving every last blastocyst and everything to do with returning women to their rightful place. As she puts it so well:

But for the small cadre of hardcore anti-feminists, you have to understand that they’re deeply invested in a fantasy and in the fantasy that they can vote that fantasy into existence. That fantasy is, as cliched as it is to say, a fantasy version of the 1950s, where women knew their place and everyone was happy all the time.

...

And dismantling reproductive rights is the key to this fantasy. Topple that, topple feminism. There’s a weird logic to it---women generally maintain careers because they can limit their fertility and aren’t always taking time off to manage a brood of 5-10 kids. Once the cost of day care outstrips any salary you can command, you have to quit your job. PTAs and church bake sales depend on housewives to exist. Feminists were right to think that the right to contraception and abortion are fundamental to women’s liberation, and anti-choicers agree, so they want to take that away.

There's a whole lot more to her argument so I hope you'll take the time to read it, because I think she's hit on a very valuable insight.

Two things

2008-09-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

Republican Convention: I tried, guys. I really did. I tried tuning in, but my brain started bleeding within minutes. Seriously, there may have been a virtual lobotomy involved. THEY'RE ALL FUCKING WHITE. AND WEARING SUITS. It's just a sea of puffy, pasty faces and suits and OMG I FUCKING HATE THESE PEOPLE AND THAT'S NOT GOOD AND I HAVE TO TURN OFF THE TV BEFORE I GET ALL HULK SMASH AND HAVE TO SPEND MY EVENING PICKING SHARDS OF ELECTRONICS OUT OF THE CARPET. (Although thank the ever lovin' almighty for The Daily Show and Colbert Report, for serious.)
While the majority of the country is doubting McCain's sanity over the Sarah Palin pick -- and is that a gift that keeps on giving or what??? -- there's a sizable contingent of the Republican base that's loving her. LOVING HER TO A TERRIFYING DEGREE. Wanna know how much? They're praying for McCain's death immediately after taking office. I shit you not.

We HAVE to win this election. Otherwise, it's going to get even worse, and even I don't have the imagination for contemplating how that's even possible.

women: like people, only not

2008-07-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

The very real fact is that we stand on the cusp of a devastating loss of the rights of half of our population. I'm not just talking about abortion or reproductive freedom -- although those are both fundamental aspects of our freedom -- but our very right to exist as equal human beings in this country is under attack. It's actually been under attack for decades (in truth, that attack never ceased), but with the rise of Christian fundamentalism and the open flaunting of their misogynistic collective id, they are turning up the heat on the frog in hot water that is women's rights in this country.

I've got a few more links to add in that vein, that I hope you'll also read.

The "Pro-Life" Movement -- now with more oppression for that fresh authoritarian smell!

2008-07-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

FUCK.

I am sitting here so angry that I'm shaking and crying. Literally crying.

HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion

"Pro-Life" Pharmacies

John McCain Thinks Rape Jokes Are Funny

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 51 [note: the carnival itself -- a kind of marathon of blogging on a single topic by like-minded, participating blogs -- is actually a must-read, and very pro-feminism, pro-choice, pro-everything good; it's the topics themselves that are headdesk-y]

And since now seems as good a time as any, some links I've been saving up for a huge post on feminism that I'm now too fucking furious to write:

Because I possess a vagina, a uterus, and breasts, I am expected to provide physical proof of a man's prowess and virility by bearing his children. I am not allowed to enjoy my body nor the act of sex. I am not allowed to engage in any sexual activity that is not expressly for the purpose of reproduction or for the enjoyment of a man. My virginity belongs to my father, until it is passed over to my husband. My job is to satiate any sexual hunger a man may express, whether I derive any pleasure from it or not, whether I want to or not, whether I feel like it or not. There is no such thing as rape, only unwillingness to cooperate. I am expected to bend over on command to service men and to do nothing but pump out baby after baby until my body no longer functions and I either drop dead from exhaustion or childbearing. There is no circumstance under which a termination of a pregnancy is permitted and if my life is threatened, I can be expected to be treated like any brood-mare. I am not allowed to work any job other than raising children, pleasuring my husband, and running a household efficiently and perfectly while always looking like a supermodel and with nary a cross or angry word. My only fulfillment as a woman is as a wife and mother. It's my duty to do anything and everything a man wants me to do, answer meekly only in the affirmative, never complain, always smile, never think for myself, never have dreams or hopes, always subvert my will for that of men and those of my children, teach my sons that it is their God-given right to treat their mother and their sisters, their wives and their daughters, and all other women, as their own personal slave, teach my daughters that their entire future will consist of nothing but pleasuring men in whatever way they demand and to do so without question.

This is my future.

NO.

If you do not want this future for yourself, your children, the women in your life, or anyone else, it's time to do something. Speak up. Protest. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Donate to Equality Now. Volunteer to escort patients at a clinic that provides abortions. Write Congress. Have that conversation with your neighbor. Call your coworker out on that sexist joke. Expect more. Teach your children. Be proud.

Refuse to allow this. Don't stay quiet. Stand up. Fight.

I am easily amused

2008-06-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Go forth and send this to everyone on your email list. Especially the Republicans.

History in the making

2008-06-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

Mark this day in history:

Today, the Democratic Party selected the country's first African-American Presidential Nominee. Five months from tomorrow, Barack Obama will be the first black President in American history.

Remember what you were doing today. You'll want to tell your children and grandchildren where you were on this momentous day.

Every woman is a serial killer, every man commits genocide

2008-05-06T12:31:00.000-07:00

We haven't talked a whole lot about reproductive rights and women's health as a political football, but I think we can all agree that it is a foundational issue of a progressive life, of allowing the freedom for women of every age, background, and social strata to determine their own reproductive destiny without restraint. I'm not just talking about abortion here, or the pill, but complete and total sexual autonomy, including the right to have a sexual life that is free from repression.

This topic has been on my mind a lot of late and yes, we'll be discussing both sexual education and abortion in a couple of back-to-back Second Saturdays in the near future (haven't decided when yet). But in the meantime, I may be spamming the community with links that are related to start fleshing out the field of debate and explore what it truly means to be a feminist*.

So, read about the latest brainstorm by the so-called "right-to-life" movement (don't buy into that framing...they should be called anti-choice and/or anti-woman) that pretty much outright confirms that their movement has nothing whatsoever to do with saving the widdle helpless babies and everything to do with controlling women's sexuality.

*Also, because this is as good a place as any to post it, the all-time internets-winning rantalicious manifesto on what it means to be a feminist.

FMLA

2008-03-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Just received this email from Working America about an attempt by the Bush Administration to gut the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Not all of us has made use of this critical right, but that doesn't mean we won't need to at some point, nor that we shouldn't all have the ability to do so.

If you're a parent, think how much different those first few months would've been if the FMLA hadn't been an option. (Nevermind that it's unpaid leave, which is a freaking crime anyway, but at the very least, you should be assured that you can take time off to be with a sick family member or a new baby without losing your job. We should never have to choose between family and work.) Or if one of your beloved family members became ill and you had to take care of them, if our medical information or that of your loved ones became available to your employers and coworkers...do you want that PITA from management to know medical details without your knowledge or consent? I don't. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to make more visits to the doctor just to satisfy some Orwellian requirement, especially at a time when medical bills would no doubt make my financial situation precarious (thanks to the fucked up insurance and health industry perpetuated by those same Republican assholes).

Please take the time to read the following and submit your name to the list of people demanding that FMLA be left alone.

They're doing it again.

Last year, the Bush administration's Department of Labor took
the first step toward making it harder for working people to
take unpaid leave for medical and care-giving purposes under the
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

They postponed their attack--because people like you spoke out
about the importance of family and medical leave. Today, it's
time to act again.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Why? Because they've proposed new rules that will make it more
difficult to take FMLA leave. But before they make any
decisions, the Department of Labor is accepting public comments.
This is your chance to tell them you oppose the restrictive
proposed changes to the FMLA rules.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Here's one of the changes they're proposing:

:: The Labor Department wants to let employers contact medical
providers directly, sometimes without employee consent. If these
proposed changes are approved, your boss-- or anyone at your
workplace--could be allowed to call and question your doctor
without your knowledge. This proposed change to the FMLA could
open the door to violations of your medical privacy.

That's an extra burden working people don't need, especially
when dealing with serious illness. Will you tell the Department
of Labor that you oppose this proposed change to the FMLA rules?
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA

Here's another change they're trying to make:

:: The Department of Labor wants to require more frequent
medical visits for workers who request FMLA leave. Who will pay
for these extra medical visits? You guessed it--you will, either
outright or through co-pays, and through lost time at work.
Plus, you could find yourself footing the bill for all the extra
paperwork your health care professionals will have to undertake.

Potentially sensitive communications with an employee's doctor
should be left in the hands of other medical professionals--NOT
placed in the hands of employers. Please respond now to let the
Department of Labor know that you're against this proposed
change.
http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/J1SjcYd1wqRQ/SaveFMLA
Our strength is in numbers--we will compile your comments and
submit survey results before the deadline.

We only have a few days to tell the Labor Department how we feel
about their proposed changes to the FMLA. Together, the members
of Working America can make an impact. We've done it before--and
with your help, we can do it again.

Sincerely,

Working America, AFL-CIO

We're all wearing the blue dress now

2008-03-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

As much as I LOATHE the Republican Party, there's a certain unabashed verve with which they perpetrate their crimes and misdemeanors that's impressive to behold, even if it makes me absolutely livid at whatever the latest shenanigan is.

Exhibit A: the entire Spitzer debacle. I'm still in shock at what happened, and it all happened so quickly that I don't think anyone's had time to absorb the magnitude of it yet. Like pretty much everyone else in the liberal blogosphere, I've been following Spitzer's career for years, since his time as a NYDA and then AG. He fucked some people's shit up, and they were the kind of people that aren't used to getting so much as a disapproving look while they lie, cheat, and steal, let alone indictments and verdicts. To say that the man has made some powerful enemies is the understatement of the year.

So the fact that he left himself so wide open with the prostitution thing is perhaps doubly boggling, and whatever else you can say about the situation, it's both sad and infuriating that he had such a massive Achille's Heel that he either couldn't or wouldn't fix.

HOWEVER. The way in which it all went down, and the severity with which they came down on his head smells exceedingly fishy, or should, to everyone that's not actually a, you know, fish. Conjuring up some 60+ year old law that hasn't been used in ages to get him on, and throwing the kind of federal resources on the kind of case that the feds normally don't even handle because they have far more important crimes to prosecute? Yeah, that's not suspicious in any way.

The good folks at firedoglake are on the case, as ever. And today, they've got a nice timeline of the whole affair (pardon the pun), with links to some very interesting documents that I think you'll all find interesting. Valentine's Day in particular.

Just What DID Trigger That Investigation of Spitzer?

I'm not saying we should excuse Spitzer for obtaining the services of a prostitute. It was wrong and he shouldn't have done it. But I'll note that David Vitter -- the Repub busted for visiting prostitutes for years (and whose predilections apparently involve wearing a diaper and other unusual kinks, according to the reports that floated around after that news broke) -- is still in office with nary a word that he ought to resign, even though he's in trouble for using campaign money to pay for his extracurricular activities. To say nothing of guys like Larry Craig, who's actually been convicted of a crime in relation to his extracurricular activities, and yet currently holds office AND all of his Committee assignments. And to my knowledge, there were no federal agencies involved in either of those cases, and certainly not the 5 or more that were/are apparently involved in the Spitzer case. Apparently, as in all other things political these days, IOKIYAR.

Sick Days

2008-03-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

Ezra Klein regularly posts his graph about Americans' paid time off vs. that of the rest of the (CLEARLY MORE INTELLIGENT) industrialized world, and since he's posted it recently, I thought all y'all might be interested:

Ezra Klein: Sick Days

I think we're all aware that comparatively speaking, the paid time off (PTO) benefits in the U.S. suck massively, but that graph is a stark illustration of just how much it sucks. Note his clarifier at the bottom about how the U.S. stat is actually recorded on that graph.

Yes, that's it exactly

2008-02-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

You're not likely to find a truer description of Republicans in power vs. Democrats in power:

Government as a Lemon

Short, sweet, and straight to the devastating point.

Guidelines

2008-02-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

So, a little diversion from all the primary shenanigans.

Yanno, those things called "laws"? To paraphrase Captain Barbossa: "They're more what you'd call guidelines."

Discuss.

One America

2008-01-30T10:33:00.000-08:00

John Edwards is giving his campaign withdrawal speech, and my heart is breaking. I've known it was coming -- how could you not, after the blatant and egregious lack of coverage of his campaign at every turn -- but it's not any easier.

I feel about John Edwards as a candidate the same way I felt about Al Gore as a candidate. It's only by dint of seniority that Al Gore takes a slightly higher place in my heart -- I campaigned for him every year he ran for the Presidency since 1988 -- but I feel about them both that they were two of our best potentials for the greatest presidencies of my generation, and destined to be marked down among the truly great in our history.

I (We) have been donating to Edwards' campaign every month since the day he officially announced in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. I've argued on his behalf in discussions about presidential politics, hoping to encourage people to check out his positions, his platform, his candidacy. He was the candidate truly invested in you and me, the every day people of this country, and a passionate advocate for the poor, a very large constituency that's been shunted aside and ignored by both parties for far too long. Unions, universal health care, progressive tax policy, education assistance, retirement insurance, federal work programs...these are honest-to-god progressive, populist reforms. They are the heart and soul of what makes a democracy truly great, what prevents the power and wealth from being concentrated in the hands of the few and privileged, what fulfills the promise of the American Dream, what ensures that your children will not have a lower standard of living than you do. And John Edwards was the first candidate in over 60 years who was running on this unabashedly populist platform.

Despite his withdrawal, he accomplished something great, which was to push the two frontrunners to move to more progressive, populist policies. Obama's rhetoric on the power of the people? That came directly from Edwards. Hilary's far-reaching healthcare platform? Almost verbatim from the Edwards plan. (And Edwards had his up months before either of the other two.) When one of those two become president, you will have Edwards to thank for their promises to make povery reform a central part of their presidency. You will have Edwards to thank for any push toward more and better health coverage. You will have Edwards to thank for the change in labor policy toward unions and organizing. You will have Edwards to thank for the move toward "rewarding work, not wealth".

We are facing what I believe will be the most difficult and challenging period in our history. And the next President is going to have monumental problems to fix, gigantic messes to clean up, and a morass of troubles to calm. An economy in freefall, skyrocketing energy costs, unsustainable consumption, inadequate/nonexistent healthcare coverage, an environment in crisis, criminal government activities, horrible foreign policy, an utter boondoggle of a war...you know the list as well as I do. I believe we are on the downward slope of the American Empire. Frankly, I think that's for the best -- we have been wielding our club of power like spoiled children without a concern for whom we hit or how much damage we do. But it will take a truly great and strong President to help us navigate our way into the brave new world ahead, this difficult journey from singular world superpower to something much more humbled (and deservedly so).

We are now faced with two history-making candidates. We are blessed as a party with an abundance of possibility, for I think they can both be outstanding Presidents, leaders we can be proud of and support fully. They were not my first choice, but I'll be solidly behind whomever the nominee ends up being. And I'll hope that they'll have the wisdom and the political savvy to choose Edwards as their Vice Presidential running mate.

Because in either 4 or 8 years, I expect to be campaigning for candidate John Edwards once again.

Peace go with you, John.

Baptism in the Religion of Science

2007-10-13T13:10:00.001-07:00

This is a reprint of something I wrote for last month's Second Saturday. The topic last month was science, and the importance of a well-funded and well-supported scientific community to a nation's health and survival. I'm posting it here because I'm really proud of what I wrote and I hope maybe someone might chance to read it and contemplate my message.

Baptism in the Religion of Science

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy. -- Shakespeare, Hamlet

When we think of politics, science isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. And really, it shouldn’t, generally speaking. After all, science is a discipline ruled by logic and systematic testing of ideas and theories, not the sometimes erratic-seeming dance of compromise and diplomacy and arcane rhetorical maneuvers. While politics could certainly benefit from the injection of science – real science – science should never be held hostage by the fickle tendencies of politics.

But in the last decade – and most especially since the election of the Bush Administration – the sciences have been under a sustained and not-so-covert assault by the world of politics. We see it in the debate over stem cell research, over the question of whether to teach creationism as a science, the insistence that abstinence from is the only education that prevents teenage pregnancy, the regulation of mercury emissions, the unavailability of emergency contraception, the argument for clearcutting in the interest of “healthy” forests, the skepticism about whether global warming is really happening, and on and on.

The damage done to science and scientific advancement by this Administration cannot be overstated. As Chris Mooney, a leading journalist on science and intersecting politics, makes clear:

The broadest way of stating the problem is that throughout his presidency, Mr .Bush has let politics rule everything and left virtually nothing to dispassionate analysis. Preconceptions, rather than critical thinking, have driven policy. Indeed, the US federal government is staffed with legions of political appointees who think in raw political terms, often with a disregard for the long-standing professionalism of the agencies they find themselves lording it over. As a consequence, the US government has become a place where loyalty and the rewarding of prior supporters wins out again and again over careful analysis and expert judgment.

– Chris Mooney, “Out of the bushes”

The fact is that alongside the many egregious crimes – both literal and figurative – committed by this Administration, the assault on science and advancement in this country is damage that will take years, decades, possibly even a generation, to undo. The scientific philosophy – that underlying principle known as the Scientific Method – poses a very real danger to the parochial, small-minded, and backwards thinking of those who currently control Republican Party. Whether conservatism plays a role is debatable, but the conservatism currently exemplified in today’s GOP reflects the very antithesis of science. And thus it is threatened by the ideals of science, which, not so coincidentally, share a foundation with progressivism.

Which isn’t to say that progressivism is somehow “right” or scientific fact. Of course it isn’t, and believers in a progressive political worldview can be as susceptible to close-mindedness and logical fallacy as our counterparts on the Right. Nonetheless, today’s Extreme Right live in an insular world that neither understands nor allows the introduction of uncertainty, the questioning of What Is, the exploration of possibility. To do so is to undermine their carefully crafted illusion of rightness, and that is a threat they will fight to the end.

…the inescapable fact of both science and reality is that that we never know everything, and never will. Yet this pervasive state of uncertainty hardly lessens the moral imperative to take whatever it is that we do know and use it to improve our lives; and if we fail to do so -- because the issues are too politicized, say -- in the end we will have only ourselves to blame.

– Chris Mooney, “The Intersection of Science and Progressive Values”

One of the many unfortunate side effects of this trumping of politics over all else is that as a nation, our fellow citizens are themselves succumbing to the rising tide of ignorance and superstitious regression. In a country of critical thinkers, whose minds are disciplined by logic, the suggestion that our planet is only 6000 years old, that we all descended from a single man and a single woman, and that dinosaur bones were embedded in layers of rock by the devil would be – and should be – soundly ridiculed and laughed into oblivion. Nonetheless, in the year 2007, we are having serious discussions about whether to teach this mythology as science.

Thus the work to be done isn’t just in repairing the damage done by this Administration and putting controls in place to ensure that such an egregious crime against human intelligence and knowledge cannot be repeated in this country, but also to undertake educating ourselves and those around us. It means engaging their superstitions – and our own – and taking the time to understand how and why the natural world and the universe works the way it does. To learn to question, to be skeptical, to never be afraid of learning, to be open to possibility, to pursue knowledge.

It means reacquainting ourselves with the wonder and excitement we felt as children when we were overcome with awe at the knowledge that there once walked lizards that were hundreds of feet tall, that creatures more bizarre and fantastic than anything on a movie screen once lived on our planet and live here still, that our highest mountains were once under water, that molten rock regularly spews to the surface from our Earth’s deepest core, that there are worlds in our celestial neighborhood covered in gases that turn their alien skies yellow, that rains of hot acid fall from their turbulent clouds, that our Sun hurtles through the heavens at thousands of miles an hour, that stars can end in spectacular explosions that result in a gaping vacuum from which nothing escapes, that there are galaxies colliding and particles so small not even our most powerful microscopes can see them…in short, we must renew our faith in science, be born again in the philosophy of knowledge, and be ever vigilant of the twin temptations of apathy and ignorance.

The feeling's mutual, assholes

2007-05-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, it's been awhile. And there's been, like, fifty bazillion topics I could be posting about, all of them something that would have an equal probability of making my head explode. But you know, life happens sometimes and I just haven't had the time.

But for whatever reason, I have time to post a quickie. Let's file this under "I goddamn hate these fucking bastards"

excerpted from Bush's 41-Second Flip Off to America posted at Daily Kos:

...And lo and behold, the Daily Digest reports a 41-second pro forma Senate session, from 12:00:04 PM to 12:00:45 P.M., on that date. The Senate convened, immediately adjourned and thus began a "recess in the middle of the session," not meeting again until January 18, 2006.

The day following the less-than-a-minute convening, of course, Bush made his recess appointments—now officially during a session of Congress—which allowed his eminently rejectable appointees to complete the "balance of the session in progress plus the full length of the session that follows." Meaning we’re stuck with this gang of uncomfirmable, incompetent, unqualified losers for an extra year....

In light of everything else that's been going on, it's just one small drop in the bucket of evil awfulness. They pull shit like this ALL. THE. TIME. I don't know why this just happened to piss me off particularly more today than all the other crap they do. It's just a perfect example of exactly how much utter, arrogant disdain this President, this Administration, and this Party have for our country and its principles. As the poster's title says, this was nothing but a great big "fuck you" to the American people. This is what they think of me and you. This is how much respect they have for us.

"The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly."

2007-03-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2003, I was still trying to recover from the 2000 election, still trying to courageously soldier on as the reality sunk in that Al Gore, my Alternate Universe Boyfriend, had decided to step out of politics, still trying to recover from the loss of another Possible-Alternate Universe Boyfriend, Paul Wellstone. I was finally going out again, accepting invitations from John Kerry and politely rejecting Dick Gephardt's advances and sometimes flirting with that charming tease, Wes Clark. By the end of the summer, I'd begun a rebound relationship with Howard Dean but we weren't serious and I was free to see other people. Howard's real understanding like that.

In August 2003, I happened to catch John Edwards giving his "Two Americas" speech TV -- CSPAN, I think, or maybe on public access at a local event -- and my populist-loving heart went pitter patter. I was still being courted by Dean at that point, and indeed, we were getting pretty serious by October of that year, but I just couldn't commit myself to a monogamous relationship -- that John Edwards fellow, there was just something about him. And then I saw an interview with John and his delightful wife Elizabeth and they had me at "this country rewards wealth, not work". I've been an Edwards girl ever since.

Since the 2004 election, he's chosen to focus his attention, his hard work, and his considerable talents on one of the knottiest, least popular topics in American politics today: poverty. There's no special interest money to made in advocating for the poor. The poor don't have PACs that can raise millions of dollars for your Presidential campaign and the solutions to their problems require more than just throwing lots of money at them. Worse, the poor have some of the lowest voting percentages of any voter demographic.

But there are 16 million Americans living in severe poverty. Sixteen. Million. That's not a crisis, people, that's a fucking travesty. And that's not poverty, that's "severe" poverty -- less than $5,080/year for an individual, less than $9,903/year for a family of four with two children. Think about those numbers. Think about what it means that this, the richest country in the world, with wealth that surpasses our ability to imagine it, has over 13% of its total population living in poverty and 5.69% of its total population isn't just living in poverty, but is living at half the federally-defined poverty level, on an income $423 per month. Although we can hardly call that living, can we? It's barely surviving and some days, it's not even doing that much.

In an age when corporate profits and CEO pay is skyrocketing and the nation's fraction of a fraction of the wealthiest are getting obscene tax cuts, the fact that the number of people falling into severe poverty increased 26% from 2000 to 2005 is buried somewhere on page 17 of the paper, if it gets mentioned at all. This is not the kind of headline-grabbing issue that's sure to make you a darling of the punditry and beltway media in the race for the presidency.

And yet, John Edwards has made this his signature issue. Not only that, he's embraced a related issue that doesn't make you popular with those big companies signing checks: labor. Since my own strong feelings about labor go without saying, I'll instead quote Edwards' campaign manager, David Bonior:

"I haven't seen someone as a national figure do as much on workers' rights and poverty in my lifetime. That includes Bobby Kennedy and people in politics in the ‘60s. He helped organize people in probably 85 different actions, from hotel workers to university janitors to people who work in buildings and factories. He was out there demonstrating, marching, picketing, writing letters to CEOs, demanding that [workers] have the right to organize and represent themselves. He started a center on poverty and became the director at the University of North Carolina. He traveled the country and was a leader in getting a minimum-wage bill passed in eight states."

His championing of the unionizing efforts of hotel workers' in Nevada and tireless work on their behalf has practically guaranteed that state's electoral votes are his, and he's the front runner in the crucial state of Iowa, where working class families have been particularly hard hit. And lest we forget, he made his announcement that he was running in 2008 during a week of working in the Ninth Ward.

Elizabeth has been right there with him every step of the way. She's brilliant, incisive, quick, funny, and one hell of a campaigner. In fact, it's an open secret that people would be as thrilled if she were running instead of her husband. And how can you not completely fall in love with her for this:

Do you find it hard to play the role of the submissive wife?
I didn't know I was.

and this:

What do you think of the title Second Lady of the United States, which sounds so matronly?
It's better than the acronym, which is SLOTUS. That sounds like something that lives under a rock.

So you know where this is leading. Today's news...I cried all the way to work this morning, wondering what they were going to announce at the press conference. It seemed pretty certain that her cancer was back, and the rumors were flying fast and furious that they were going to announce the campaign was over. I don't know which upset me more: that John Edwards might be stepping out of the race or that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer had come back.

Well, the miracle I was hoping for -- that her cancer hadn't returned -- didn't come. But the John and Elizabeth I know and love made an appearance and they're going to fight this thing even as they continue their fight for this country, for you and me. I suspect, as Jane does, that the decision to continue was entirely Elizabeth's. Or as Ezra said:

"There's a sort of subtle insinuation that sick people should crawl back into their caves and stay there till they either die or get better. But when you hear the Edwards's discuss the idea that her cancer is now incurable, that it's not something she will get better from and so not something where they can hit pause, wait for it to pass, and then resume their lives, you have to think that the question they're asking themselves is not how can Elizabeth best get well, but how would they like to spend the rest of their years. And knowing her even casually, I'm not surprised to learn the answer is 'fighting'."

In light of that, how can we not do the same?

So in that spirit, I'm redoubling my own efforts, beginning with two donations: one to the campaign, one to the search for a cure. Because 16 million people in this country are barely surviving. Because more than twice that number are barely getting by. Because Elizabeth Edwards isn't going to let a piddly thing like chemotherapy stop her from campaigning. Because she's talking about living many years. Because she and her husband have committed this precious time, whether they're her last or only a few of many to come, to fighting for you and for me.

meta me

2007-01-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently, because I have many other things I should be doing, it was time to change the template header to one that I made.

I liked the general design of the header that came with this template, but none of the individual elements applied to me. So I basically copied the header they supplied but substituted elements that are more meaningful to me. Because this is a political blog, and it's my political blog, and I'm all about the symbolism and shit so that's why. And here's where I get all meta, so if you're all, "whatever, I have a life, buh-bye"...yeah, the regularly-scheduled political blogging will commence ~~shortly~~ sometime so skip this if it's not your bag.

Okay, and so. Here's the old header, for reference:

(you can see the big picture (ha!) here )

So the #17 didn't mean anything to me, and the text that you can't read probably didn't mean anything to me, either. The landscape is pretty but I don't know where it was taken and the image of the road says a lot of things that I don't agree with so that had to go, also.

I kept the map portion because I'm a HUGE map junkie and it's close enough to a MAX route map that I'm okay with it. I changed the number to 12, which is my personal number. Everyone has a personal number, right? Of course you do, we all do. Yes we do. You' don't? Okay, you're weird, I can't help that.

The little symbol thingie to the left of the number didn't mean anything, either, so I changed it to one of my own. The wheel and arrow symbolize wheels turning, and of course the arrow is pointed left because hello, liberal over here. I like the idea of wheels turning, of directions changing or reversing, of progress in a progressive direction. It seemed to fit.

I changed the unreadable text to the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence for pretty obvious reasons. As I said, this is a political blog, with the unwritten philosophy of Edwin Rolfe, who said, "Write as if you lived in an occupied country." I believe very much that we do live in a country occupied by traitors and bigots and evildoers, and none of those people are the people who regularly get accused of it by the President and his cronies and the rightwing nutjobs and the media. I started this blog to add my voice to the wind, hoping that someday that wind would be a hurricane to obliterate the encroachment of the dark-hearted machinations that currently grind and twist across our political and social and economic landscape.

The Declaration was written by men who lived in a similar time, who lived under the rule of another spoiled and childish and craven King named George, and they committed to paper the most revolutionary idea, I believe, in the history of humanity: that we, we all, are created equal, that we have rights, inherent in our being, and that no government, no king, no laws can abridge them. I memorized the Preamble as part of a U.S. History assignment when I was in junior high and I can recite still them; I carry a pocket-sized copy of this extraordinary document with me everywhere I go, along with the equally-important document it gave birth to, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We would do well to remember these rights and the words that first spelled them out:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

These words are a call to action, a manifesto, a defiant and determined cry out against tyranny and oppression. These men didn't shrug their shoulders and resign themselves to the inevitability of darkness. It boggles me that a country founded on such a radical, revolutionary platform now finds itself sliding down the disastrous slope of Fascism. We were a great and proud country once, and I believe that we can be again if we return to the founding principles that birthed our nation, if we remind ourselves of where our country began and how much it's worth fighting for.

So the flag imagery, then, is also obvious, knowing that I believe so strongly in the foundation of this country. I've shown it here as flying upside down, a signal of distress. During the sixties, my parents' generation were vilified for flying the flag in this manner, and it angered those who didn't understand, who claimed it was a sign of disrespect. On the contrary, it's a sign of an utmost love and respect, to signal that our country is in distress and call out for aid to all that would save it. When my country puts an end to the disastrous reign of the Republicans and more specifically, to this monumentally evil Administration, replaced by a Democrat, then I will right the flag proudly. Until then, we are a country in distress and the call must go out to all who would hear it to stand and fight.

And finally, the imagery of Mt. Hood. This is a picture I took a year or so ago, on a glorious July afternoon when the sky burned such a bright blue that it almost hurt to look at it, the kind of day when you know, on a primal, fundamental level, that there is something larger at work in this universe, perhaps a god or simply something much more elemental, but that there is something much bigger than each of us, and with that understanding, there is peace and there is serenity.

All the places of the earth hold this beauty, this innate connection with the infinite, each in their own way, and we have all felt it and known it. For some of us, it's the rugged and brutal beauty of the Wyoming mountains and prairie, for others, the sun-baked deserts and glorious saturated colors of Morocco. In this miraculous tapestry of our beautiful planet, there are rain forests teeming with noise and light and life, vast and tumultuous oceans that lap so quixotically at our fragile shores, austere and majestic mountains thrust like the thrones of giants into the thin air, fiery rivers of molten rock that roil with the catastrophic power of destruction and creation, great rolling sheets of ice and snow under a sun that doesn't set for half of a year. All of this, all of it, calls and speaks to us and if we but listen, can spark in us a deep and abiding yearning to save it, to preserve it, to be one with it. This Earth, this shining blue jewel on a velvet blackness of space quilted by stars like diamonds, is as much the heart of me and my fight as my fervent and fevered passion for this country I call home.

Tomorrow begins today

2006-12-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

Well, my guy announced his candidacy for the '08 Presidential yesterday, as expected. I'm not going to be heavily into the horserace until about this time next year -- I do, after all, have a life -- but John Edwards has been my guy ever since the last Presidential, when no one knew who he was and everyone was still talking about Howard Dean (whom I adored, but I figured then -- and still do now -- that Edwards is our best chance and hope for taking the Presidency). I saw him do an early, early version of his Two Americas speech, still one of the best and most underreported campaign stump speeches ever, and he had me at hello.

Since the end of the 2004 campaign, he's channeled his energy into his One America Campaign. His signature issue? Poverty. One of the biggest issues in this country not just today, but for at least the last 30 years, and at the root of or intertwined with so many other big social/political issues -- the economy, health care, crime, domestic violence, education, hunger, illiteracy, gender inequality, racial inequality, teen pregnancy -- and it's been a political non-starter since the end of WWII. The last president to seriously address poverty, FDR, fundamentally changed our country and the course it charted through historical waters through his vision of America.

Do I think Edwards is the next FDR? No. I don't even think he's the next Kennedy. What I do think is that he's not just talking the talk, but he's been walking the walk since he committed himself to this issue, and that's reflected by where he chose to make his announcement: New Orleans. And not from a fancy hotel, but in the midst of the ongoing hurricane cleanup, in the poorest of the poor districts of that benighted city, and after already spending days swinging a hammer working on houses there when the cameras weren't rolling. He's been doing it since last year, actually, and while President Cuckoo Bananas gets a thumbs up from the media everytime he manages to string two words together, John Edwards has been doing the kind of thing we'd want our President to be doing.

And this is the kind of thing we want our President to be saying:

This campaign is about each of us taking responsibility for our country's future -- and ensuring America’s greatness in the 21st century.

It is a campaign not just about what we can do in the White House -- but what we can do on the way.

We all must take responsibility and take action now to:

Provide moral leadership in the world
Strengthen our middle class and end poverty
Guarantee universal health care for every American
Lead the fight against global warming
Get America and other countries off our addiction to oil

If we want to live in a moral and just America tomorrow, we cannot wait until the next President is elected to begin to take action.
Tomorrow begins today.

I'll have more to say about John Edwards as the year rolls on and the campaign heats up. And it's entirely possible I'll change my mind on candidates*. But for right now, I see Edwards as our Next Great Hope, not just for a Presidential candidate, but for a President.

*(Especially if Al Gore tosses his hat in the ring. He won't -- I believe his repeated statements that he's on a different path -- but if for some reason he did, I'd have to go with my first love, the very first candidate I ever campaigned for, way back in 1988 when I was a dorky high-school kid. I believe in John Edwards, but Al Gore is my hero and he comes before all others.)

it's the holidays, time to redecorate

2006-12-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

What with the holidays and all, and Blogger's official transition from Blogger Beta to New Blogger, it seemed like a good time to redesign the blog up a bit.

I made the switch over to Blogger Beta a couple of months ago, suffered through the various buggy crap like everyone else who made the switch in beta, and despite some of the headaches, I do like the simpler interfaces and the ease of changing the design and color without having to edit the code by hand. Because messing around with HTML and CSS leaves precious little time for actually blogging, and as I'm sure my devoted readership of two whole people can attest, I already do this infrequently enough as it is.

So. Hope you like the new design and layout. Note the new format for the archive, which I think is my favorite part. I didn't get to pick the pic up top and haven't yet figured out if or how to switch it out with something else, but I pretty much like the overall look. It's nice to change things once in awhile, no?

Corporate promises and other empty words

2006-12-15T08:34:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time (all two of you), you know how strongly I feel about labor issues and that my own personal experience with my family's four-year labor strike played a big role in shaping that belief.

The fact is, organized labor is a a crucial, necessary check against the power of business. And conversely, business interests provide a necessary check against the power of organized labor. These two entities should always been in tension, though that need not be confrontational nor detrimental to either one. When they're in balance, finding common ground and making fair sacrifices on both sides, everyone benefits.

But that hasn't been the trajectory of the last 20 to 30 years. Organized labor's power has been steadily eroded (and to be fair, they haven't always done themselves favors in their long-range thinking) while business -- especially big business -- has steadily amassed greater and greater power to the point that not even governments can control them much anymore. They've overpowered not just labor, but pretty much all other checks on their power, as well. There's lots to be read on this subject in the blogosphere, especially lately -- I recommend Daily Revolution's latest series of posts, which you can sample here and here -- and there are of course books and documentaries on this topic, as well.

But back to labor.

There was a time when organized labor wasn't treated like an enemy to be conquered and eradicated. When businesses viewed them as another interest that needed to be negotiated with as they would negotiate with vendors, suppliers, clients, and governments. Going back to the time that my family was on strike, I vividly remember when Lee Iacocca, CEO of Chrysler, approached the workers with a request that they accept lowered wages and benefits while he attempted to save the company. His plea was couched in the terms that they were all in the boat together, that everyone's sacrifice would be for the greater good, that just as they benefitted when the company was doing well, they needed to sacrifice when it wasn't. If they would put their faith in him, he would get them through this difficult time and when they became the successful company he knew they could be, they would share in the windfall, returning to their regular wages and benefits. The union voted to go along with him and accept wage and benefit cuts. Pride in their company swelled, for they felt invested in something, that they were a team truly working together.

When the company began posting profits, he paid the shareholders and the lowered wages the union accepted to save the company became their regular wages. For this, Lee Iacocca became a legend of the corporate world and is credited with single-handedly saving Chrysler from bankruptcy. To this day, my family refuses to buy a Chrysler.

All this reminiscing was prompted by an email I received today from Working America, the AFL-CIO website/mailing list. It seems Lee Iacocca's betrayal of the workers has become de rigeur in the corporate world today:

Goodyear forced nearly 16,000 workers to strike on Oct. 5, by making it clear the company would not negotiate a fair and equitable contract with the USW members. These workers are sacrificing their livelihoods on behalf of all U.S. workers--including Goodyear's customers--to keep good jobs in America and preserve promised benefits.

USW members and retirees made great sacrifices in 2003 to keep Goodyear out of bankruptcy. Now the company's stock is worth nearly five times as much as it was in early 2003 and top executives have awarded themselves millions of dollars in bonuses--but Goodyear still wants more.

It is unreasonable and unjust to expect USW members to accept additional plant closures and more wage and benefit cuts while other stakeholders reap in the rewards of the company's turnaround. And it is unacceptable that Goodyear intends to walk away from its commitments to workers and retirees.

This strike is a fight for all of America's workers.

Follow the link, read the details, sign the petition. Corporate America needs to learn they have a responsibility to more than just the bottom line and their shareholders. They are responsible to their workers, their governments, their communities, their environment, and their consumers, as well. And these workers -- who're trying to make ends meet and get an honest days' wage for an honest days' work -- these people are trying to hold Corporate America responsible.

They're fighting for your rights.

Everything you need to know about Iraq*

2006-11-16T00:38:00.000-08:00

I wish we had more time to celebrate the Democratic victory, but unfortunately, the bomb we've made of Iraq continues to tick...

tick...

tick...

tick...

*complete with pictures, so even Junior can understand.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...Rahm!

2006-11-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

In between building full-scale suspension bridges out of popsicle sticks and single-handedly finding the cures for cancer, Parkinson's, and that nasty foot fungus that makes your toenails yellow and thick, Rahm Emmanuel won everything.

I guess the rest of us can get back to our everyday lives, now that Rahm's on the case.

Winning: it tastes like VICTORY!

2006-11-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

I have dreamed about this day for so long, I'd gotten used to it being a dream. I'm as shocked as I am elated. I hoped against all hope that we'd win. I even hoped against all hope that we'd win big. I'm the biggest foolish optimist you will ever meet -- I'm the one who still thinks a team can pull it all out in the last three seconds of the game, the one who thinks an election can still be won long after it's been called, and yes, I'm the one who honestly believed -- and believed very, very hard -- that Kerry was going to pull it out even after the news turned bad two years ago.

But part of being a foolish optimist is that you get disappointed in a big way. Often. So you learn to hedge your bets in your internal dialogue, to try to dial down your expectations, to make deals with yourself to mitigate disaster, to shield yourself from the blow. The end result of all of that, of course, is that when you actually do win big...well, it's almost as overwhelming as when you lose big.

I'll take this any day.

We won big, you guys. Several races still not called at this point -- including, Gary Trauner's race in WY! -- but even so, consider this:

National Sweep. Democrats take the national majority in the House, Senate, Governors, and State Legislatures. The only thing Republicans have left--Bush--still sports a sub-40% approval rating.

We won bigger than they ever did. Democrats look set to take the House, and with a larger majority than Republicans ever had during their 1994-2006 "revolution." We also won more Senate campaigns in a single cycle, 23-24, than either party has won since at least 1980.

Republicans shut out: No House, Senate, or Governor pickups for Republicans. That breaks every record for futility. No one can ever do worse than they did this year.

That's right, kids. Progessivism is ascendant and the voters kicked the Rethugs to the curb. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, you criminal hypocritical bastards.

And already, we're seeing the first effects with the resignation of Rumsfeld. I keep thinking of that smug, smarmy little smirk of the Chimp in Chief two years ago, when he informed us he had a mandate and he intended to use it. Translation: fuck you, half of America. So I take great delight in saying, "Right back atchya, big guy."

Lots of work ahead of us. We're going to have some big battles ahead, and it's not going to be pretty. There'll be some frustrations, some losses, some moments of despair. But I think we've finally stopped our unchecked hurtling into the dark abyss. Time to start digging our way out.

As for the Democrats (Rahm Emmanuel) tripping over themselves (Rahm Emmanuel) to claim credit (Rahm Emmanuel) for these stunning victories (Rahm Emmanuel), many of which they (Rahm Emmanuel) actively tried to subvert (Rahm Emmanuel), I have this to say:

This is a party of the people, and this victory belongs to us. Not you. We have very long memories. We took down the Republican Party at the height of their power. We can take you down, too. Do not fuck with us.

Ice skate manufacturers' stock is about to skyrocket*

2006-11-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

As much as I love my adopted state of Oregon, I still hold a warm place in my heart for my home state of Wyoming. I'm proud to be from there, and I still follow Wyoming events with interest.

So you can imagine the glee that's filled me as I've followed the Cubin/Trauner race. We've been donating like mad for months, now, and a disproportionate amount of our donations have gone Tester, Grant, and more specifically, to Trauner. Not just because I would REJOICE to see a Democrat from Wyoming in the House, but because everything I read about Gary Trauner makes me like him more and more. I think he'd be a great representative for the people of Wyoming. But don't take my word for it. Listen to what someone who's actually walked at his side has to say:

Trauner Poised for an Upset

I mean seriously, what's not to love about a candidate who says this when confronted with the fact that he's a New York transplant?

"I can't help where I was born, but I got here as quick as I could."

Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are set to cement my fervent belief that the future of the Democratic Party lies in the West. Whether Trauner wins or loses -- and he has a very real chance to win it -- he will have demonstrated that Wyoming and the other so-called red states in the West share many ideals of the Democratic Party and that with some effort and some really terrific candidates, there's no reason they couldn't be as blue in the future as they've been red in the past.

*A Republican friend of mine once opined that it would be a cold day in hell before Wyoming elected a Democrat to Congress. I hear it's supposed to be pretty cold this coming Tuesday.

You asked, "What can I do?"*

2006-09-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

So I had one of those moments the other day. You know the one...when the people who're supposed to have your back run fleeing from their own goddamn shadows and leave you to face the enemy alone and unprotected. It's been six years of this evil and I don't believe there's anyone who can face it without these crises of despair sometimes. I know I haven't, and if you're a regular reader of this irregularly-updated blog, you know I've experienced more than my share.

My country has legalized barbarism.
My country shredded one of the most beautiful documents humanity ever created.
My country is a shameful and evil place right now.

But there's still a war to fight, both literally and figuratively, and ain't no one else fightin' it 'cept us. You and me. That's all there is. And even though I want to just give it up and call it lost sometimes, I can't afford that luxury for long. Neither can you. Too many people need us to keep fighting.

So read about why we can't afford to grieve the torture loss too long (which is not to say that battle's over, not by a long shot, because I and millions -- yes, millions -- like me are not going to let that evilness stand). There's still a war to fight and ain't no one else fightin' it 'cept us. You and me. That's all there is.

And then when you've read that, either:

Donate some money TODAY (end of the fundraising quarter) to any grassroots or netroots candidate even if you’ve already donated…donate some more. Spread it around among as many as you want, or dump it all in one lump sum to the one that inspires you the most, or that has the least chance of winning but is still fighting like hell anyway, or who’s running against the worst of the worst Republicans. Like, say Gary Trauner, who’s actually making the terrifically horrible Barbara Cubin sweat her race for the sole Wyoming House seat and in my dream of dreams, might even possibly pull off a win in a state that hasn’t seen a Democratic representative, like, ever. And he’s ONLY ONE of literally hundreds of excellent candidates to pick from…Jon Tester in Montana is doing the same thing in Wyoming, looking to get rid of the odious Conrad Burns, and Larry Grant in Idaho is, too, and they’re just a small sampling of the places where the reddest of red states are IN PLAY because Democrats like you and me, people with jobs and families and not enough time already, are fighting the fuck back and trying to save this country.
Call or email a progressive organization and volunteer AT LEAST an hour of your time. There are literally dozens to pick from…ones that’re focusing on a single issue, like stopping the TABOR or parental notification initiatives in Oregon, ones that support fantastic local candidates that’re trying to get rid of people like Karen Minnis, ones that provide general support to Democrats and progressives, like Grassroots Democrats and the Bus Project and hello, the Democratic fucking Party. You may have to make calls, or do voter canvassing, or make signs, or enter numbers in a database, or run errands, or any number of equally unglamorous things that don’t seem like they’re Saving The World…but they are.

If you can, do both of these things. And keep up on your blog reading, and make those phone calls of outrage both to the Senators and Representatives that have a “D” after their name and also to the ones that don’t, because they ALL work for you, they’re YOUR employees, and when they’re fucking up, they should know that their bosses are fucking outraged and they’d better be in fear for their jobs because this shit ain’t gonna float anymore, by god. Write letters and call radio talk shows and post comments online.

And just one more reminder before I stop metaphorically browbeating you with all this nagging… Eight months ago, I wrote the following words, words that you told me you loved and that moved you and that you agree with:

“…you fight every day, not because of what you hope to achieve, but because it's the right thing to do. You'll never be guaranteed a win, no matter how righteous your cause; fighting the good fight doesn't mean you get a happy ending. But you fight for what's right anyway, because it's what's right. And if you're very, very lucky, others will stand to fight alongside you. This is how great changes happen.”

It’s time to fight for what you believe in, people. Please.

* Dedicated to a friend, who's more passionate and dedicated than she realizes.

Something to ponder

2006-09-14T21:02:00.000-07:00

Daily Revolutions, a site I came to a few months ago via a rescued diary on DailyKos, is now one of my absolute daily must-reads. Amidst the blogs of information and outrage and hope and humor on my blogroll -- all likewise indispensible -- I save this one for last when I work my way through my daily reading because it provides a much-needed salve to the daily wounds of my soul.

I've made no secret of how worn down I've been by this Administration and its seemingly endless supply of horrors. That's really the reason I started this blog* in the first place, as a small online corner to rant and scream and gnash and wail about the horror, my god the horror. But outrage and fury and desperation and bitterness are neither nurturing nor sustaining, and at some point, we all need something to replenish the emptiness and refresh our well-being.

Today, as with every day, Daily Revolution fulfills that role, by both challenging my philosophy and providing inspiration for facing forward with courage and peace. An excerpt:

Treasure everything you have, and be prepared to lose it all. Accept all that comes to you and be ready to give it back. But ownership is a distortion of nature: in the real universe, no one owns, and nothing is owned. You can have all you need; but you cannot own a single thing.

Live this principle; understand it in every cell of your being, and you will never want for anything.

*Coming up on my three year anniversary. Huh.

"Who the hell is JonBenet Ramsey?"

2006-08-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

Title taken from one of the best commentaries on this entire fucking travesty of a media I've seen in awhile.

As usual, I've got a lot to say but not the time to say it. But the great thing about blogging is that there's usually someone who's already said it, and said it better:

georgia10 tells us about some people who aren't John Mark Karr. If ever a thing needed to be said...
And there's this diary, which I've had bookmarked for almost a month now, that just so perfectly captures how I feel, and have felt for so many years now that I've forgotten what it was like before. Before I screamed as Americans were left to die in a city that was drowning. Before I faced a future of losing my rights as a citizen and a woman. Before I learned how broken our voting system is. Before I saw the picture of a young Iraqi girl, covered in the blood of her family. Before I read about everything, every front, every issue I ever cared about, under a brutal and sustained assault by the most evil agenda imaginable. Before I watched two shining towers of gleaming steel and glass crumble to the ground and before my country lost its collective fucking mind.

Kung Fu Monkey puts things in perspective

2006-08-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

How can you not want to read a post that says this?

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

So about that hurricane...

2006-08-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

A little less than a year ago, I began the blog post that would eventually kick my ass. It's the Katrina post, the real-time post I was writing in a separate place on my computer while that horrible week -- all those horrible weeks -- happened and just...happened. It was a garbled mix of links and lists and lists of links and gut reactions and pictures and visceral horror on a page. It was garbled and impossible to follow, a stream of consciousness that made no sense to anyone but me.

That's writing. It's editing that turns it into something readable, but sometime during all of that, I lost my heart? nerve? energy? strength? courage? and I just couldn't finish it. I thought eventually I'd come back to it, edit it -- all 11 pages of it -- down into something readable, but I don't think that's going to happen. I kept it just in case, but I don't think it's going to happen. It kicked my ass.

So read this instead. Please.

It's been nearly a year since a great American city and an entire region of a once-great country drowned. It didn't die, not exactly, but perhaps it's just going slowly, slowly, suffering the painfully awful spiral of a terminal illness. I hope that it's not dying. I really, truly hope that. But either way, what happened during Katrina will forever remain one of the darkest, most horrible and shameful events in the history of this country.

Read this please. Please.

They are not coming.

History repeats itself until it's blue in the face

2006-05-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

So I've been watching the unfolding wiretapping story with horrified interest, what my high school English teacher would call a "fascination with the abomination", and mentally shaking my head with disgust. I wouldn't say disbelief, because I've long since come to expect the worst that I can imagine -- or rather, expect that it will be worse than I can imagine -- but certainly disgust. At this Administration, at the media, at the infuriating American public, who are seemingly somewhat disturbed by the news that their government is keeping records on every phone call they make and receive, but not, you know, fucking rioting in the streets, demanding the heads of the people in power on the proverbial platter. Apparently, the news that we're officially not a functioning democracy, that we are now officially no different than any tinpot totalitarian regime anywhere in the world, simply isn't enough to get people's ire up these days. I wonder why I still bother, and then I remember that I am genetically constructed to care, I simply cannot not care, and well, you can see my dilemna. Bah.

Anyway, here I am, wondering how much worse it's going to get, and I see today that as the Fourth falls, so goes the First, and thinking how I've seen this before, in a movie about another Presidency that ended around the time I was born, and I find that Digby, my hero and idol, has already said anything I might wish to say on that subject.

Well, except perhaps for the inimitable TBogg, who said the day after the 2004 election:

I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I've been locked in a room with the slow learners. We have become the country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut.

West or South?

2006-04-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

Neil the Ethical Werewolf, guest blogging over at Ezra's place, posted yesterday that the Democrats' hope for victory lies with a Southern presidential candidate and that the "Look West, Democrats" strategy that's popular amongst some in the blogosphere (me included) is, well, wrong.

To say that I disagree vehemently with this is an understatement. I posted several lengthy comments arguing my side (as did several others), and between us, I think we convinced Neil to maybe reconsider the benefits of a Western strategy. I won't say we changed his mind, but we definitely gave him food for thought.

Anyway, a great discussion took place in the comments thread to that post so you should really take a look. My first comment appears at Apr 1, 2006 12:44:16 PM, with two more following, and lots of really excellent commentary from others both before and after.

Religious Addiction

2006-03-19T22:49:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I don't know what's up with all the posting today, either. Better not to question it at this point and just to go with it before it disappears again.

Anyway. Via Pharyngula comes this thought-provoking and, quite honestly, dead-on take from Dr. Bob Minor over at The Fairness Project about how to deal with the religous wingnuts we know and love. The angle? That the religious extremists so obsessed with regulating who's sleeping with whom and which godless celebrity uttered exactly what naughty word during a live telecast instead of, you know, following the principles in that book they're so fond of thumping are actually addicts.

In fact, you could say they're strung out on religious X-stasy. ::rimshot:: Thank you, folks, I'll be here all week.

In all seriousness, though, Minor's point is a good one, and I think the parallels, whether anecdotal or indicative of a true underlying pathology similar to other recognized addictions, serve as an excellent guide in how best to deal with these people. Consider:

You can’t argue with an addict. Arguing religion to one so addicted plays into the addictive game. Arguing about the Bible or tradition is like arguing with the alcoholic about whether whiskey or tequila is better for them. It’s useless and affirms the addiction.

This is a mistake I think we make when we try to "discuss" religion and politics in this country. And I'm as guilty of it as anyone. The honest debater in me has tried on several occasions to engage especially fervent believers in religious debate on an intellectual level and it never, ever produces anything but awkwardness and in some cases, hard feelings. Not because I was ever condescending or unfair to them, nor because I had any intention of trying to make them "see the light", but because they simply weren't having it. You can't engage them in an honest intellectual debate on this topic, because they're not coming from an honest intellectual standpoint.

And here's where I insert the standard disclaimer that I'm not talking about all religious people, nor about religious people who believe strongly as they do, whether I agree with them or not. those who can engage on a level, with the inherent understanding that theirs is one interpretation amongst many -- not the people I'm talking about. So no angry screeds about how I'm an anti-religion commie-loving devil worshiper in my email inbox, alright?

That being said, the religious debate, insomuch as it intersects politics and social issues in this country, has been overtaken by a very dangerous kind of "true believer" that, as Dr. Minor points out, is no different than a crack addict. Think about that for a minute. If, every time you hear some wingnut religious bloviator introduced as "National Director of the Association of Concerned Christians" or whatever, and you substituted the word "Alcoholic" for "Christian"...puts them in a whole different light, doesn't it? And in that sense, what they have to say really has about as much merit:

Don’t accept that the addiction needs equal time. Stop debating as if there are two sides. Get over any guilt about a free country requiring you to make space for addictive arguments. You don’t have to act as if here are “two sides” to the debate. Addicts and their dealers already have the power of the addiction and addictive communities behind their messages.

It really is time to stop acting as if these people are honest players in the debate. They aren't. They're too muddled by their addiction to do so.

Three Simple Things To Remember

2006-03-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

This time last year, the future solvency of Social Security was the hot topic, due entirely to Republican fearmongering that was nothing more than an effort to kill a program they've hated since its inception. Unfortunately, many very smart people, including many smart liberal people, fell prey to the misinformation and downright deception about this topic, and though they didn't agree with Bush & Co., they too wondered if perhaps we ought to maybe do something about Social Security.

At the time, I posted several links to Kevin Drum's series that explain exactly why Republicans are full of shit on Social Security (continuing their undefeated record on bullshittedness) and that the program isn't in any trouble. Period. And just to drive the point home a little further, Kevin's got another short 'n sweet summary of why Social Security continues to be Perfectly Fine, Thank You Very Much.

MORE SOCIAL SECURITY DOOM-MONGERING

Sure, the debate was killed deader than the dismembered-and-finely-chopped corpse of a B-movie zombie last year, but I see no reason not to set that baby on fire, just for good measure. So, to sum up:

Social Security is in no danger.
Social Security will be available for many generations to come.
Republicans are full of shit.

Got it?

BEWARE: Shameless pimpage below

2006-02-26T17:39:00.000-08:00

I just posted a long diary over at Daily Kos about my experiences when my stepdad went on a labor strike that lasted four years. It's something I've been working on for awhile, and it's the first time I've ever written about that experience. I hope you'll check it out, if you're interested, and maybe recommend it if you're registered over there and you think it's worthy.

(As I said, shameless pimpage.)

ETA: Made it (nearly) to the top of the recommended list! And that's higher than I dared hope; I expect by the time many of you read this tomorrow, it'll have been pushed off the list, but I hope you'll go read it anyway. I was inundated with a wave of insightful and encouraging comments that've inspired me to expand this essay further and spread it around to other blogs, possibly even to some publications. We'll see where it goes....

ETA2: Jordan over at Confined Spaces graciously excerpted parts of the diary and linked it (and also crossposted over at NathanNewman.org). I've also been responding to some emails from other readers and the essay may be destined for a printed publication...stay tuned.

ETA3: Well, the excitement continues apace. I submitted a slightly revised version of the original diary to several online communities that have a similar structure as DailyKos and it's hopefully being seen by more eyes. To wit:

One America Committee (currently on the front page under the "Open Mic" section, will eventually be archived under "Arguments & Analyses" and cross-indexed in other sections) -- this is a particular honor, since it's John Edwards' community blog (or more specifically, what his official campaign site became after the 2004 election) and since he was my candidate in the '04 Primaries.
Political Cortex (currently on the front page, will eventually be archived under "Frontal Lobe")
Booman Tribune (entered as a diary, may or may not make it to the Recommended List)
MyDD (entered as a diary, may or may not make it to the Recommended List)
My Left Wing (entered as a diary, made it to the Recommended List)
Benny's World (blogger who linked it from the One America Committee site)

Game over, folks

2006-01-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

coup

n 1: a sudden and decisive change of government illegally or by force [syn: coup d'etat, putsch, takeover]

I think most of us have had a sneaking suspicion that our government is being slowly subverted by the Bushistas from a democracy into a military dictatorship for awhile now. What I think we're just now coming to realize -- especially with the revelation of the illegal wiretapping a few weeks ago, along with the torture bill's "signing statement -- is that the coup we keep seeing on the horizon? Already happened.

I'd be hard pressed to give an exact date -- this isn't like a military coup, with guys with guns storming the Congress like we're used to seeing in unstable Central American countries. But at this point, any pretense that we're still a functioning democratic republic is, frankly, laughable. I mean, when the President states, on camera, that he's breaking the law and will continue to do so, when he signs bills into law with the express caveat that he is exempt from them, when he's overridden the power of one branch of government and entirely ignored the power of the other...that's a coup d'etat, my friends. Via Digby:

"It's nothing short of breath-taking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible, and pre-empted the judiciary."

Also via Digby:

Weldon Berger puts it this way:
The upshot of this is that until someone gets around to challenging the White House, Congress is just an advisory body with the authority to dole out bucketloads of cash. For now, we have a coup.

Digby verbalizes it better. And deserves a Pulitzer for the dead-on phrase "pusillanimous gluttony" in context.

Occasionally, there's good news -- HOLIDAY EDITION!

2005-12-17T09:34:00.000-08:00

Since I'm sure your head is as close to exploding as mine is with the recent news that ~~King~~ George has declared himself above the law without batting an eyelash, I figured now's as good a time as any to point you to a blog I've added recently to my blogroll called Rose Colored News. Their tagline says it all: "good news for progressives about politics, the environment, health, and more". As I've said, I'm an optimist by nature, so I don't do the "glass is half empty" gig very well. But I figure whether you're like me or not, we can all use regular doses of good news about battles/skirmishes we're actually winning in these dark days, when it seems like so much of the world is on the Hellbound Express.

Today's good news? Deforestation rates have decreased in the Amazon.

Oh, and in case I don't update again before, oh, June or whatever (considering my recent track record), Happy ChristmaHanuKwanzaaRamadanTetSolsticeSaturnaliaRegularDay*, everyone!

(* Those "Save Merry Christmas" dumbshits can go fuck themselves. Ho ho ho, assholes.)

Apparently, they actually do have a pair

2005-11-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

Oh, man...how much do I love Harry Reid tonight?!

Reid shuts down the Senate.

Frist practically chokes on his own tongue.

Hunter summarizes better than I ever could.

Goddamn, it's good to finally see them stand and deliver.

Glad I partied on Friday

2005-10-31T21:16:00.000-08:00

'Cause I knew they wouldn't waste any time making me want to puke all over again.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

I posted a quick little background on Scalito first thing this morning but of course throughout the day, I learned just how bad this horrorshow really is. It's bad. Really, really bad. Between the Frothing Freepers who're anxious for a throwdown in the Supreme Court confirmation battles and Alito doing a photo FUCKING op in front of Rosa Parks' coffin*...I'm worn out by the depth of depravity involved.

I woke up to "Breaking News" that Bush had nominated Alito, then was treated to Scalia's Mini-Me, escorted by Frist (or was that Hatch? honestly, I've tried to block out the entire memory) traipsing up to the cordoned-off pathway around her coffin, lying in state. They chatted like they were on their way to lunch, waiting in line for a table or something. Not attending a solemn pilgrimage to honor a woman worthy of their respect and reverence. I went downstairs to get ready for work with my stomach churning, bile sitting high in my throat. It was all downhill from there.

And as I said, the details flowed in all day, and that bile just rose higher and higher. He's against Family Leave. Against Racial Equality. Against Disability Equality. And against many, many other basic rights and freedoms.

And of course -- of course -- he's against the right of a woman to control her own body. It's not just the fact of it, but the breadth to which he believes that women are little more than property that's so mind-bogglingly terrifying. Think I'm exaggerating about that property thing? Then you explain to me why he voted that women should have to nofty their husbands before getting an abortion.

And don't give me that old saw about how it's "his baby, too". We're not talking about situations where people are happily married, here. The very fact that a woman might be reluctant to tell her husband that she's pregnant should clue you into that. The idea that she would have to, in effect, get his permission before terminating the pregnancy...you name me any other medical procedure where this is a requirement for a healthy adult in full control of their faculties. I can guaran-goddamn-tee you that if any man had to ask his wife's permision before getting a vasectomy, or viagra, or any other penis-centric procedure...well, that Supreme Court would be overflowing with liberals who believe a person has a right to control their own body.

But that's what this is all about, isn't it? The penis, I mean. Those who possess them have fundamental rights that cannot be taken away. (Unless, of course, you're non-white, and then all bets are off.) Not fortunate enough to be gifted with the special endowment of a penis? Well, them's the breaks, lil' miss. Guess you'd better hope you find a kind and gentle penis-possessing master who doesn't knock you around too much. 'Course, he might knock you up every chance he gets, but then, that's your whole purpose, right?

Mark this date on your computer, ladies. This is the beginning of the end of our first-class citizenship. It was a good thing while we had it. I hope maybe someday our daughters' daughters will know the freedom we tasted oh so briefly.

"Scalito"

2005-10-31T08:48:00.000-08:00

Wondering who this Samuel Alito fellow is and just how scary he is (because you know he has to be if he's nominated by Bush, even if you don't know anything about him)? Dark Christianity, an LJ community that tracks the Dominionist Christianity movement, has the goods. The gist: be afraid, be very afraid.

The man they call "Scalito". Oy.

Guessing Fitzgerald's Game Plan

2005-10-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Gadfly over at the Booman Tribune has some insight into yesterday's events and what they maytell us about future proceedings.

In short: no one at the White House, especially Darth Cheney, should breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

Happy Fitzmas!

2005-10-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Vice-President's right hand man -- or, as several pundits have said repeatedly today, "Cheney's Cheney" (vomit) -- has been charged by Patrick Fitzgerald for all kinds of crazy hijinks. Five counts -- 1 count of Obstruction of Justice, 2 counts of Perjury, 2 counts of Making False Statements. Oh, that Scooter, what a rascal, what a scamp. What does the "I" in "I. Lewis Libby" stand for? "Indicted, bee-yotch!"

Ha ha I kill me.

But seriously folks. First time since the Grant Administration that a sitting White House official has been indicted. I'll save you the Wikipedia lookup...that's 130 years. In other words, first time in well over a century that a serving member of the White House has been busted for wrongdoing while in office, and that includes the Nixon Administration, people. Couldn't happen to a more deserving administration.

Wonder if he'll plead out or risk a trial. Neither option probably seems particularly appetizing, considering he'll have to hand someone juicier over in exchange for a plea -- this being a felony, after all, and the sentencing guidelines for this particular crime being especially high bars to clear -- and any trial will require calling Rove, Bolton, Hadley, and yes, Cheney, to testify under oath and causing a lot of embarrassing questions this Administration doesn't want asked to be asked. Including the Big Kahona, the Brass Ring, the Ultimate Prize: the casus belli for the Iraq War. I've already heard the questions being asked by the MSM in the last couple of days, which just goes to show that even lazy journalists can put two and two together eventually.

As for Rove...well. Like everyone, I had hoped to his name one the paper from Fitzgerald today, too, but I've decided Fitzmas is more like Hanukkah than Christmas...as Adam Sandler once sang, "instead of one day of presents, we get eight cra-azy nights!" It appears this investigation will be the gift that keeps on giving, as Rove remains under investigation. That has all kinds of delectable possibilities. (Including that he's possibly already reached a plea agreement late last night and it just hasn't been announced yet. On the delectability scale, this is lower down the list, but it does raise possibilities of its own.)

Oh, we've been good girls and boys and our stockings are chock full this year. Jeebus bless us, every one.

George Clooney: Heartthrob. Activist. Dragonslayer?

2005-10-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

Ever since Three Kings, George Clooney has had a special little place in my heart. Today, that place just quadrupled:

"(Ann Coulter) did something to me which I would never do to her, which is question her masculinity."

Oh, how this makes me laugh. I heart you, Mr. Clooney.

Perspective

2005-10-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes guilt can do good things.

Global Rich List

It's not February, and yet it feels like it's my birthday

2005-10-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

Eight months ago -- the day before my birthday, in fact -- I quoted a commenter on another blog:

"Take heart. All empires contain the seed of their own undoing. The arrogance of this administration is that seed."

Well, reserve that keg and order some party platters, kids, because Festivus has come early this year and the party? It's gonna be epic, man. A sneak preview:

Mr. DeLay is about to get his picture taken and spend some time with Mr. District Attorney.
Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby are clearing their calendars for an upcoming engagement.
As are several of their closest friends.*
Mr. Bush is preparing for a little lesson in history repeating itself.
And Mr. Cheney is contemplating a nice retirement.
Meanwhile, Mr. Frist has been sent an invitation to upcoming festivities in his honor.

Kevin Drum predicted some of these, oh, about a year ago, as well as some I haven't listed here, and many, many more that are on their way. The world may be going straight to Hell in a Bottomless Handbasket, but at least we'll get some live entertainment along the way.

[*ThinkProgress has an excellent summary of all the players in the WHIG (White House Iraq Group), including their role in the whole sorry mess, what they've said on the record, and how they fit into Fitzgerald's investigation.]

What I've been up to

2005-09-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Have been busy getting ready for this, and will be occupado all weekend. Our little activist group is doing a poster presentation at the conference on one of our major projects, Export the Oregon Vote. Read all about it, and if you're in the Portland area, check us out at the conference.

Buy your ice skates now...

2005-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

...because hell is about to freeze over:

DeLAY INDICTED!

I have a sudden powerful urge to do the Snoopy Happy Dance....

What was that seventh plague, again?*

2005-09-22T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm still not any closer to getting my Katrina post(s) up and already, a bigger and badder hurricane is set to swoop down on a section of the Gulf and swallow it up whole.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE DECREASED TO NEAR 165 MPH...270
KM/HR... WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA IS A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON
THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME SLIGHT WEAKENING IS FORECAST DURING
THE NEXT 24 HOURS BUT RITA IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN AN EXTREMELY
DANGEROUS HURRICANE.

I guess we can hope that at least some good will come from the Katrina nightmare and that everyone will take Mother Nature seriously this time.

God, let us have learned our lesson this time.

*reference here

"Their people"

2005-09-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

Via slacktivist comes this incredible post from Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk, who interviewed the infamous mayor of Gretna, Louisiana about his decision to force people fleeing New Orleans back across the bridge, away from rescue and salvation. It's...wow. Just wow.

I think Big Monkey's take on it is the right one. From the mayor's perspective, what he did was the right thing, but as Big Monkey notes midway through, the way he words it is very telling. And slacktivist's own perspective expands on it further, on the idea that there's always room.

I think this is one of my fundamental problems with so many people I disagree with on the other side. And I'm not really talking politically, but morally, or spiritually, or...well something. Although it is interesting how much those things line up with political alignments these days. But anyway, this idea that there's always room, it's one that's as much a part of me as my eye color. And I thought for the longest time it was that way for everyone, but of course I realized it wasn't.

Which I think is why we have such a hard time overcoming that divide, because there are people on "the other side" who can't see past the bridge to the people beyond. To them, taking care of "their people" is the point, which of course misses the point..."their people" are all people. But so many of them just can't seem to see it.

The Working Society

2005-09-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so y’all know John Edwards was my guy during the last election. I can’t remember if I told you the whole story about why, but it boils down to the first time I heard him give his “Two Americas” speech way back in the Fall of 2003. And I still think he’ll be President some day.

Well anyway. I’m still on his mailing list and today, I received the email about his latest speech, “The Working Society”. I don’t know, maybe it’s what I needed right now, because I’ve been feeling a little low and pessimistic about the future. Or maybe I’m still hoping to find that candidate that’s going to be the bright shining star during the next election and I think he’s the one (I mean, I am and I do, but it’s entirely possible I’m not entirely realistic about his chances). But whatever the reason, it’s...well, it’s good. Really, really good. Like I’m finding again that optimism that I felt the first time I heard him speak. No, not just that, but the optimism that led me to support Gore not just in 2000, but waaaaay back in 1988, when I stumped for him the first time. In Wyoming. In high school. God, I was such a dork.

So anyway, read it. Seriously. Like now. Not only does he not run away from liberal ideas, he embraces them. Hell, he proposes new ones. Not just rhetoric and vague talking points, but actual, honest-to-god ideas and proposals and solutions. It’s too early to know if he can sustain this kind of proaction and lead the candidate field in the next couple of years, and who knows what other candidates might emerge between now and then, but for the time being...well, I'm hopeful.

Pest Control

2005-09-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

Via Sisyphus Shrugged, we learn that tons of MREs donated by the British government to feed hungry victims of Katrina...are set to be incinerated in a big bonfire salute to the monumental evil of this Administration. That's right -- our government has decided that they'd rather put the match to tons of much-needed food generously donated by another country at its own expense rather than pass it on to the folks it was intended for, the people who have little or no access to the most basic needs of daily survival and who're entirely dependent on us to feed them.

At some point, you've got to stop thinking this is colossal incompetence. Nobody, not even the High Holy Asshats of this Administration are so fundamentally stupid on this large of a scale. This is deliberate. Everything -- everything -- this Administration has done since those first reports of Katrina's looming potential has been to actively, deliberately, purposely leave these people to die. "If the storm doesn't get 'em, the flood waters surely will, and if that doesn't, then perhaps leaving them out in the hot sun with no food or water for days will do it. And if that doesn't work, well, there's a million other ways to squish out the remaining stragglers like the bugs they are." I'm not saying they've actively planned this (at least, not at first), but in the end, does it really matter? Considering the result, the line between Conspiratorial Evil and Stunning Indifference pretty much vanishes, don't you think?

UPDATE: Yeah, read this and then convince me I'm wrong that this entire clusterfuck was deliberate.

Fuck it -- I'm back

2005-09-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, kids... I've dusted out the corners of this poor neglected blog and shined a little daylight in. My spare time has gotten increasingly short since, oh, about May, and I've had to set aside many of my ongoing projects including this blog. Not for lack of wanting to write about the fifty-three bajillion ways my head has exploded on a daily basis, but you know how it is.

And then Katrina happened, and I descended into a funk of Gaussian proportions (I don't really know what that means, except it sounds pretty fucking horrible, right?) and turned to the blog to write about the High Holy Asshats and their Fucked-Up Passion Play of Depraved Indifference. Every day in that first week, I added dozens of must-read links to my draft and wrote pages and pages of written screaming and anger and blah-de-blah-blah. This draft-not-yet-posted-post has become downright epic in both scope and size and it's still sitting on my desktop, waiting for me to wade into the midst of it with three weeks of perspective and the slow burning inferno of primal rage to make some kind of sense of it.

Well, my life isn't looking to calm down anytime in the near future and at this rate, the thing's never going to be posted and if I keep waiting until it is to update this blog, it's going to continue to gather dust and be of no use to anyone. Just now, literally minutes ago, I just said to myself, "fuck it, time to start posting again."

So...I'm back, bitches. And I'm more pissed off than ever.

It happens again

2005-07-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by today's bombings in London. I wish I had something more profound to say, but I'm utterly saddened by today's events and the ongoing realization that as long as we're fighting wars of arrogant hegemony instead of pursuing the terrorists who would do this to innocent people, we leave ourselves vulnerable to attacks like these.

May we find peace and wisdom soon.

Bush is approaching 30%, must be time to heat up the culture war

2005-06-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

We interrupt our irregularly unscheduled break in posting to bring you a moment of wit and wisdom:

No one... I repeat, no one ever died for a flag. They may have died for freedom, which, by the way, includes... the freedom... to burn the fucking flag."- Bill Hicks

Also? If Bill Hicks were still alive, he'd say, "Shut your fucking pie hole, O'Reilly."

[The aforementioned follow-up promised in the previous post will be coming soon.]

“Here’s what you said, and here’s what you did. You were wrong. Apologize.”

2005-06-08T18:32:00.000-07:00

Go. Read. Now. Seriously.

d r i f t g l a s s: This from Mr. Gilliard

[The reply to the "Willful Blindness" section is what I'm referring to here.]

My commentary to follow once you've completed your assignment.

I'm not a person, I'm a baby machine

2005-06-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

The next time some right-wing freeper asshole gets all up in my face about us supposed baby-killing lefties who want nothing but an orgy of abortions, I'm going to print this story out and stuff it down his fucking piehole.

Barbarism in Texas

They're just not going to be happy until this country becomes The Handmaid's Tale in living fucking color. Goddamn fucking assholes.

I hate this country sometimes, I really do. Yeah, I said it.

"It measures everything...except that which makes life worthwhile"

2005-06-03T22:33:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time favorite speech excerpts, and something I wish I could carry around on a big sign and plant in random places for everyone to see.

Robert F. Kennedy on what GNP means:

Below is a quote from Bobby Kennedy on what the Gross National Product means and more importantly what it does not mean. He would have a made a fine economist...

'Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

'Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.'

Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968

(Thanks to Nick Beaudrot, guesting over and Politics and War, for the reminder.)

Gettin' out while the gettin's good

2005-06-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

A thought occurred to me recently while I was on my way home from work. There was a news report on the radio -- one of several I've heard recently -- about gas prices going up and how SUV sales are down. I've also been reading Kevin Drum's series about Peak Oil* so this had been on my mind already. Ironically (or not), I was surrounded on all sides but one by SUVs while I when this news report came on, and not the ones that are more like station wagons (Outback, CRV, etc.), either. These were the big behemoths, a Suburban (or as some online wit recently dubbed it, the Subdivision), a Navigator, and two Excursions.

Anyway, with the inevitable rise of gas prices as we reach/have reached Peak Oil, and the consequent consumer turn toward more fuel-efficient vehicles, it occurred to me that at some point, SUVs are going to be impossible to get rid of. Suppose for example that the Suburban driver I noted above decides it just costs too much to run that vehicle and decides to buy a Prius instead. He sells the Suburban, and because they're still pretty popular, it sells pretty fast and he gets what he wants out of it. A few years go by, gas prices have climbed above $4/gal. (and I'm being optimistic), and our second owner has decided it's just too expensive, he's selling it. Except by that point, most everyone has already decided the same thing. He gets hardly anything for it, or is unable to unload it entirely and left holding the bag, so to speak. It's like musical chairs, except in this version, lots and lots of people are still standing when the music stops.

That, I think, will be an unexpected and unpleasant consequence of the SUV craze. It may not happen on the timeline I've laid out -- the Suburban might change hands a couple of times more -- but it will happen, I think. If I had one, I would definitely get rid of my SUV in the next couple of years.

*The rest of the Peak Oil series is here, here, and here. UPDATE: and here.

The answer to that question you keep asking

2005-05-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

When the talk turns political with friends and family, the question "how did the [Republicans] do this?" inevitably comes up. iThe answer, at least in my opinion, is complicated if you're not a regular blog reader, if only because it takes so much continual reading about the situation, the background, the repeated abuses of power, etc. etc. to explain that I don't even know where to start.

Thankfully, the respected Jim Vanderhai has boiled it down succintly and cuts right to the gist of the problem. This is a must read, folks:

GOP Tilting Balance Of Power to the Right

(thanks to Ezra for the tip)

Is your God so weak He needs the support of the government?

2005-05-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

My response to the following question asked by a Canadian regarding the current fad for injecting Christianity into our governmental life (question and response originally posted in the forum where the topic first came up):

"Was not the US founded on the belief of the separation of Church and State? More and more it seems as if certain people want to reverse this."

There's no "seems" about it. Certain people are working actively to reverse it.

These certain people point to the fact that the phrase "separation of church and state" never actually appears in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. For that matter, however, neither does the word "God".

What does appear in the Constitution is the phrase "no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" and the phrase "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is in the First Amendment.

The phrase "separation of church and state" is a term coined by Jefferson in his letter to a Baptist congregation that expressed concern over a rumor that another denomination (Congregationalists) was going to be established as the national church. His letter affirmed the fundamental right expressly given in the First Amendment.

What the fundies fail to grasp when they make their arguments about this being a Christian nation and all that other nonsensical claptrap is that freedom OF religion also means freedom FROM religion. But unfortunately, they seem to be as well acquainted with what the Consitution actually says as they are with what the Bible actually says, which is to say not at all.

Social Security and Generation X

2005-05-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

So the Democrats are winning on the Social Security issue, which is good news. It's a non-starter for Republicans, Bush's dogged persistence in campaigning about it notwithstanding. So perhaps these thoughts aren't very timely, maybe even moot at this point. But they're on my mind so here goes.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a conversation I had a few months ago with a good friend. She's a progressive, but I think she'd agree she's financially conservative. Which is to say that although she supports and understands the need for social programs, she admits there's an inner struggle everytime she notes the withholding on her paycheck.

This is, I think, understandable and could be the Democrats' possible undoing on the issue of Social Security. I admit I also have that moment of despair when I mentally calculate the percentage the withholding takes from my paycheck and think about that brake job the Subaru needs and the huge repair job we need done on the back of the house to address the carpenter ant damage. I lay awake at night wondering how we're going to get this thing taken care of or pay for that much-needed thing, nevermind the debt that we're trying desperately to get out from under before the whole economy comes crashing down 'round our heads.

It's not that either my friend or I begrudge people the help they get through social programs -- we don't. We both know from experience what it was like when our parents couldn't make ends meet. We believe in the importance of these programs. We both manage okay and want for little, but that doesn't mean it was always that way. We might grumble a few choice words about the freeloaders gaming the system who always seem to make the news, we're intelligent and logical and know that these bad apples are hardly representative of the vast majority of people who are helped by social programs.

So why the concern? Because Republicans are targetting young professionals like us when they talk about ~~private~~ ~~personal~~ whatever retirement accounts. The fact is, it is painful. Neither of us can afford the money that's taken out of our paychecks, and I'm not talking about "afford" as in "because I need that 42 in. plasma screen". Perhaps I feel the pinch moreso than she does, if only because my husband and I are renovating an old house, but neither of us are jetting off to Europe anytime soon. From this perspective it's hard to see Social Security as the social insurance it actually is instead of the social welfare the Republicans make it out to be.

Thanks to the wealth of information about Social Security that can be found online*, I'm happy to say that I get why the Republicans are wrong, wrong, wrong on this issue. I get why Social Security is one of the most revolutionary and remarkable programs ever created and why there is no crisis. But I didn't always get it. And my good friend, progressive and intelligent and logical as she is, is as susceptible to the arguments the Republicans are making as I was.

So, while we may be winning this argument in the here and now, I'm not convinced the Republicans haven't succeeded in planting that seed of doubt in my generation's collective mind. I'm hopeful that as they learn more about it, as they see how Social Security benefits their grandparents and parents, and as they see that the big doom and gloom that's forecast by Bush et. al. can only come about if we let Bush et. al. continue to do as they have been, that the only thing wrong with the system are the people currently in charge. But now's the time for the Democrats to counteract that seed of doubt because if they don't, we're going to be having this argument again and we may not win it next time.

* Kevin Drum, over at Political Animal, was the most helpful to me in this regard, thanks to his informative posts about Social Security that took various aspects of the anti-Social Security argument and showed what's wrong with that argument in easily digestible portions. I can't recommend his posts on the subject highly enough; the following are just some he posted during the early stage of this battle:

Social Security Doom Mongering
Social Security Privatization in Pictures
Social Security: A Conversation
Two Percent of GDP
Private Accounts...A Case History

Karl, this is what happens when you deal with the devil

2005-05-03T23:19:00.000-07:00

[Looooong overdue response to a commenter's request in the previous post for my take on the whole DeLay sitch.]

To sum up: I am gleeful. And not in a gracious way, either. Watching the self-immolation of one of the nastiest, most corrupt politicians in modern times is immensely satisfying. It certainly hasn't come soon enough, considering the damage he's done, but at least the time finally has come and his days of destruction to this nation's legislative and judicial process are finally coming to an end.

My main concern at this point is how quickly he goes down. Were it my choice, I'd like to see him circling the bowl for a good long time, well into the 2006 mid-terms, if possible. As it stands now, he's effectively quarantined -- his congressional toadies and lobbying cronies can't distance themselves fast enough and his corporate donors have all but disappeared -- so he's not wielding nearly the power through fear he did when the vast majority of the country didn't know who the hell he was. Plus, Jack Abramoff is clearly pissed that DeLay's betrayed him and is out to shiv the ol' Hammer in the back and that, coupled with the still ongoing criminal investigation by Ronnie Earle, it must be getting a little cramped on both sides over in Tommy's world.

That's not to say he still doesn't wield a considerable amount of power. The vast majority of the Republican Congress lives in fear of finding a horse head in their bed from Mr. DeLay, and though they would like nothing more than to get him off their backs so they can get on with their corrupting and/or meddling business, he's got too many of them by the nads for them to turn on him outright. He knows where too many of the bodies are buried at this point, so it's all a kind of psychotic Mexican standoff, which can be highly entertaining as long as you're not caught in the crossfire.

Which means that the longer he's still around and still in charge, the longer he hangs around their necks like lead anchors and sucks them further down to political oblivion. Some of them will remain taint free, but there are a lot that're mired almost as deep as he is. And that, my friends, is a recipe for a majority switch in the Congress.

Overly optimistic? Probably. For one thing, the Democrats need to get a whole lot better at using DeLay as a paintbrush for the entire Republican Party, to make him the face of the GOP, so that when people thing Republican Congress, they're put in mind of a slimy ex-exterminator from Texas who couldn't take a breath without doing something criminal. In other words, they need to make sure the American electorate understands that DeLay isn't an exception, but that he's representative of everything that's wrong with today's Republican Party.

At this point, I'm doubtful the Democrats are savvy enough to make the most of this opportunity. Reid's certainly been running circles around them politically over in the Senate, but Pelosi's wins haven't been as obvious (though I must say, she's been making some smart decisions of late). And anyway, Pelosi's got her hands full with the Blue Dog Democrats at the moment, so until she starts planting horse heads in a few beds, the job of painting the Republican Party with the color of DeLay is going to have to fall to other people.

I'm also intrigued how this power struggle will shake out between DeLay and Rove. Karl must surely have himself tied into a nasty snarl of a knot over this thing, because he knows DeLay is hurting them and will continue to hurt them. DeLay may be forgetting his history -- specifically, what happened to the Democrats in '94 -- but Rove got where he is by not forgetting his. Trouble is, he can't just get rid of the guy like he would anyone else, because DeLay wields as much power in the Party as Rove. The Administration may owe their political victories and survival to Rove, but the Congressional members owe their careers and fortunes (and their souls) to DeLay. And since DeLay isn't going quietly into that sweet goodnight, this thing could shape up into a right proper power struggle with lots of carnage and loud explosions. Heh. Looks like it's time to break out the popcorn.

Time will tell, of course. Anything that happens with DeLay at this point is a win for the Democrats, but whether he's gone in a month or a year, it's up to them to capitalize on it.

Kicking ass and taking names. Literally.

2005-04-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

Since I've seen the link posted all over the lefty blogosphere, figured I might as well find out what my Unitarian Jihad Name is, too

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Plasma Rifle of Compassionate Mindfulness. What's yours?

Looks like I found my new email sig.

"I believe in God, but I'm in no hurry to meet Him."

2005-04-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, I officially Do. Not. Get it.

So the Pope died today. I'm not a Catholic, and I've got my own issues about religion, but I certainly recognize he was a major figure and his passing represents the passing of an era.

However.

All this drama and people wailing and carrying on about it? I don't get it.

Had this happened when the guy was younger (before his time, whatever the hell that means) and maybe died unexpectedly, or if it had been violent or something, then okay, I could see it being "tragic" or whatever, and deserving (possibly) of the wailing and carrying on. But he was blessed with a full life, did some great things with it, and is finally at peace and no longer suffering. To my mind, what more could a person want, either for themselves or those they love (or even those they don't)? We've got a totally effed up relationship with death, IMO, and spend so much time and effort lamenting and/or trying to prevent what is a natural part of life.

And another thing, since I'm on a rant anyway: the reaction by Christians, especially in this particular case for the religious leader of a large portion of a worldwide religion, particularly baffles me because hello, isn't that, like the underlying tenet of the Christian faith, i.e. that death is not the end, that salvation awaits once we've left this mortal coil? Were these people not just celebrating the Easter holiday, which commemorates the resurrection of their savior who brought to them the hope of a life everlasting? Why this aversion to embracing the eventuality of death? Hell, I don't subscribe to a Christian worldview and even I know the Scripture:

"In the way of righteousness [is] life; and [in] the pathway [thereof there is] no death." -- Proverbs 12:28

"The fear of the LORD [is] a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death." -- Proverbs 14:27

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Psalms 23:4

I just don't get it. Honor the guy, his memory, and his legacy. Acknowledge the passing of a man worthy of respect and admiration. Be glad he found comfort and serenity in his faith and that it may have eased the pain of his last days and that he's now in the better place he believed in.

We should all be so lucky.

2050 is the new 1850

2005-04-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

Via Mathew Gross comes this interesting, informative, and depressing article about the coming energy crisis and its possible implications in the coming decades. Short answer: it ain't gonna be pretty. The Pacific Northwest would probably fare well in comparison to the rest of the country as the author says -- Portland, in particular, has had the foresight to restrict the city's slow gobble of outlying farmland, and we benefit from excellent growing conditions that would allow regular people like us to grow some or all of our own food.

But as a former Wyoming native, I think the speculation about the Mountain West is at least somewhat incorrect*, if only because states like Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are still largely rural and despite recent technological and economic advances, they lag far behind the rest of the country in terms of that kind of "progress". There's something to be said for being left behind (no, not in the fundie apocalypse sense) the march toward change and that advantage comes when the march toward changes comes crashing down around your ears.

During the whole Y2K extravaganza, most of the people in these states barely paused to concern themselves with what would happen if all the computers in the world suddenly went on a bender and started flinging airplanes into the ocean or turning ATMs into toaster ovens, or whatever the hell experts thought might happen. Not because they're a bunch of ignorant hicks or that they wouldn't be affected by it, but their daily life isn't tethered so tightly to technology. That can make life less convenient, sure, when you're talking about internet access or debit cards, but when internet access and debit cards suddenly go the way of the dodo, it's the people who depended on them overmuch that suffer far more than those who're still governed by a pioneer ethic of self-sufficiency.

(* the Western water crisis, on the other hand, is a very real and looming problem)

Who says science geeks aren't funny?

2005-03-30T00:21:00.000-08:00

Scientific American responds to the Intelligent Design movement and the rest of the ig'nant mofos on the Religious Right. And I laugh my ass off. (Warning: drinking beverages while reading may be hazardous to your monitor's health.)

Scientific American April 2005 Letter from the Editor

"Persistent vegetative state" is the new "high school shooting spree"

2005-03-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

Amanda over at Pandagon posts exactly the thoughts I've been having ever since I was watching the news last night (ABC -- no, I don't know why) and they said about 10 minutes in that they had breaking news and announced the school shooting in Minnesota. This wasn't local news breaking in, this was part of the regular newscast. I guess my first clue should've been that it wasn't the lede at the top of the newscast, even though it would've happened in time for them to cover it at the beginning, if only in brief.

Call it innate suspicion, but I immediately flipped through all the 24/7 networks to see what coverage it was getting. Every single one had Terry Schiavo coverage or some talking head bloviating about Terry Schiavo. That brief snippet I'd seen was the only thing I saw all night about it until the 11 o'clock local news.

Now, I'm not saying that school shootings should get the kind of sensational coverage they got back in the day. The glamorizing effect of that kind of coverage, to my mind, only made the problem worse. But. We were living in Laramie when Columbine happened and because we were about 12 miles from the Colorado border (and 120 from Denver), all but one of our "local" stations was broadcast out of Denver. I happened to be at home sick the day of the Columbine shootings and the coverage was wall-to-wall for HOURS. Local news, of course, but as soon as the national networks and cable news channels could get their units on-site, it was all Columbine, all the time. And then the two weeks of coverage, where Columbine was the lede every night and after it'd dropped off the national radar, the local news was still obsessing over it for weeks after that.

This is the first school shooting with a high body count in almost 6 years, the kind of event the media seems to crave. So the fact that it's not really getting much coverage -- let alone the wall-to-wall coverage of Columbine -- speaks volumes...about the racial disparities still so deeply ingrained in our society and the death grip the Rethugs have on the media.

The former, because the shooting happened at a Reservation high school, the shooter was a Native American (or, in wingnut parlance, "brown people"), as were his victims, presumably. Compare that with the shooting in an upper middle class suburban high school where the vast majority of the students were white, the shooters were white, and most of their victims were white. I guess that old news adage of "if it bleeds, it leads" only applies if the blood is blue and the skin is white.

I also suspect the Terry Schiavo case remains at the top because Tom Delay et al want it to remain at the top and the media are nothing if not trained circus monkeys. Delay started this whole brouhaha to get the attention off him and his ethical and legal troubles and he's not about to let some Indian kid bump off the story that's keeping his nuts out of a vice.

You can't spell "Culture of Life" without "Cult"

2005-03-20T21:52:00.000-08:00

Up til now, I've remained silent on the whole Terry Shiavo rig-goddamn-diculousness. And I'm not going to say a whole lot about it here because frankly, I'm not sure either my keyboard or my forehead would survive the attempt. But Hunter over at Daily Kos has done a nice job of encapsulating my sentiments, complete with rampant expletives.

Because honestly, that's all that's really left to describe this freakshow. People who want to fucking worship this corpse that doesn't know it's dead, it's creepy and it's evil and it's fucking psychotic. These people are fucking psychotic.

And they run our country. You think about that.

"C'mon baby...I can change"

2005-03-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

So last night we were watching the news on ABC. One of the first stories was about Bush nominating Bolton as the UN Ambassador (he of the "there is no UN" fame, not of the "bad music and even worse mullet" fame). They showed a clipe of Senator Reid condemning the choice and talked about how even moderate Republicans are concerned about Bush's choice and that many of them are troubled by his continued willingness to piss off the international community. But that they (the moderate Repubs) were sure that once Bolton got into office, he would change his mind about the role and importance of the UN.

Which of course prompted me to shout at the television my observation that moderate Republicans are like teenage girls who date a guy thinking they can change him. If they just love him enough, he'll turn into the man of their dreams. Jeebus, are we ever hosed.

Smackdown in the Rose City

2005-02-18T19:52:00.000-08:00

So last night, the FAN Founders attended the foreign policy debate between Howard Dean and Richard Perle at the Schnitz. We'd gotten our tickets a couple of weeks ago as a kind of a pre-celebratory thing in anticipation of Dean's win of the Chairmanship.

Anyway, as you've no doubt seen/heard, it was quite the barn burner. And not just because of the shoe-throwing thing. (A few minutes into Perle's opening speech, some guy came down the to the stage and threw his shoes at Perle's head. The first one hit the curtain behind panel, the second hit podium and bounced off, then a couple of people/security guards wrestled the guy to the ground before he could try a third attempt.) Honestly, the shoe-throwing thing startled and disappointed me -- very not cool -- though I have to say I sympathized with the guy being so angry that he just wanted to throw things at Perle. I mean, this is one of the chief architects of the entire Iraq debacle, for the love Eru. Until I saw him in person, I'd scream at my television whenever he came on the screen so I can understand the urge. And I wouldn't be surprised if that guy's got a friend or loved one in Iraq, that's the kind of vibe I got from it. He was vocal, too -- shouted "motherfucking liar" so loud that we could still hear him long after they'd moved him out to the foyer and beyond.

Still, it doesn't help our cause when stuff like this happens. I don't think there's a lot of handwringing needed -- what's done is done -- but it certainly plays into "liberal wacko" stereotype the VRWC has built for us. Not that I give two shits about what the freepers think, but when you're playing to win, this kind of thing doesn't help.

Anyway, the debate moved apace. Howard was in fine form and didn't concede an inch to Perle. I have to give Perle his due -- he must've known the kind of hostile territory he was headed into (George the Elder once famously dubbed Portland "Little Beirut" because of the demonstrations that always happened during his visits...you can imagine what happens when anyone even remotely related to Junior shows their face in town). Doesn't make him any less of a nut-flavored whackjob, but still.

One of his various "points" that really got to me: that going into Iraq was like buying fire insurance for your house and that complaining about there being no WMD a year later is like complaining that your house didn't catch fire. I know. I know. This is the kind of insane clown logic we're dealing with here, people.

I've been thinking this over since last night. The thing is, this guy has totally drunk the Kool-Aid. He completely believes this shit, he's totally earnest and sincere about it. And he's a smart guy. Evil, but smart. So the work we've got ahead of us, the changes we have to make and the thinking we have to reverse...it's a really big job, folks. Not telling you anything you don't already know, of course, but there it is.

Which can be really disheartening at times. But the other part of last night is one of Dean's responses to something else Perle said last night. Perle had tried to slip in a little reframing by burning down a strawman argument about the Democrats that he'd constructed. And Dean totally called him out and busted his chops about it. He even said, this is the kind of thing we can't let the Republicans get away with and then he proceeded to kick his ass. I would've kissed that man if I'd had the opportunity.

Anyway, the night was great. Invigorating and enlightening, made us all ready to get back in the trenches and get back to work. There's a lot of work to be done, but we've got the right guy leading us. So be glad -- we'll persevere.

Those godless heathens

2005-02-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

There's an article in The Nation today titled "Our Godless Constitution" making the very salient point that not only did the framers intend for there to be a separation between church and state, they -- and the rest of the country -- they emphatically affirmed this concept later on:

In 1797 our government concluded a 'Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary,' now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

"As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion--as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musselmen--and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

This document was endorsed by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams. It was then sent to the Senate for ratification; the vote was unanimous. It is worth pointing out that although this was the 339th time a recorded vote had been required by the Senate, it was only the third unanimous vote in the Senate's history. There is no record of debate or dissent. The text of the treaty was printed in full in the Philadelphia Gazette and in two New York papers, but there were no screams of outrage, as one might expect today.

The next time your favorite winger starts bloviating about the Christian foundation of this country, tell 'em to put the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli in their pipe and smoke it.

When politics and fandom collide...

2005-02-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

(x-posted on my LJ)

With apologies to George Lucas...

Happy Birthday to me!

2005-02-12T11:03:00.000-08:00

Because the DNC knew it was my birthday and wanted to make sure it was a happy one, they did exactly what I wanted and elected Howard Dean to the Chairmanship of the Party. And thus in these dark times, I see a bright ray of hope.

It's time to throw our support behind him and get down to the business of taking the country back from the nut-flavored whack jobs currently in charge. Throw a little love their way to let them know you heartily approve of CHAIRMAN Howard Dean.

We got yer back, Howard.

A reminder

2005-02-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

I know those of us on the left have experienced our moments of despair, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the evil* times in which we live. We and the things we' dearly care about -- all of them, from education to peace to the environment to women's rights and thousands more -- are under constant assault. And who hasn't checked out, at least for a bit, because it's just too much?

It's happened to all of us.

I hope we can help pick each other up, like soldiers on a forced march by the enemy, so that we find our strength in each other and together, fight back. We have no choice but to resist wtih everything we have.

Several things have prompted me to say this, but in particular Mathew Gross, who posted yesterday that he's quite simply exhausted by the mendacity of Bush and Co. One of his readers posted the following comment, and it seemed a good reminder to us all:

"Take heart. All empires contain the seed of their own undoing. The arrogance of this administration is that seed.

I heart Garrison Keillor

2005-02-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

Ezra's got an intriguing idea or two for who could replace Mark Dayton in Minnesota in 2006. Either one sounds good to me. But I especially like the quote of Keillor's that he uses to make the point that our beloved Garrison has quite a gift for framing, a quality the Dems desperately need in their candidates these days:

"Medicare says that even though you're not working and may need special help with the ordinary business of life, you have value in this society. This is a Democratic idea. Be a howling right-winger if it gives you pleasure, but nonetheless milk comes from cows and Medicare comes from Democrats."

God bless that man.

Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse

2005-02-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

London Yank has compiled a handy list of Bush players we've seen before. Next time one of the fundies goes on and on about the righteousness of Bush et al, I do believe I'll be forwarding this on to them.

Daily Kos :: Bush's Felon Job Placement Program

SUV drivers: consider yourselves warned

2005-01-31T19:38:00.000-08:00

So help me god, if I ever see one of these on the street, I'm going fucking postal on the dipshit who's driving it.

60 Years Later and It's All the Same Shit

2005-01-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

So the Democrats discovered their collective cajones in a long forgotten drawer somewhere, dusted 'em off, and strapped 'em on today. About fucking time, is all I can say about that.

Kerry and Boxer, along with 10 other Democrats and the Independent-But-For-All-Intents-And-Purposes-Democrat Jim Jeffords, voted a big fat en-oh on Condi "It was a series of actionable items" Rice. Which leaves a depressing number of Democrats still voting for her, but it's better than I would've anticipated a month ago and if it weren't for Barack Obama's "aye" vote, I'd be downright gleeful about the whole affair.

And then they passed the collective cajones on to the 8 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all of whom voted an even bigger fucking EN-OH on Alberto "the Geneva Conventions are just so quaint" Gonzales. Which is good news, yes, and a step in the right goddamn direction for sure, but some of the Senators' reasons for voting against him were, seriously, not acceptable.

The man helped implement torture, people. I can't help thinking he would've been just as comfortable whipping up a tidy legal brief to justify the systematic elimination of millions of people. The gulf of difference isn't all that huge, isn't even a matter of degree, really -- they both sit on the same side of the road to Hell:

Daily Kos :: Hunter Goes REALLY REALLY Postal

"...but because she was me, and I am her..."

2005-01-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

Steel yourself for it, then click the link and read.

Daily Kos :: An Image, Deconstructed

Freedom Action Network

2005-01-20T01:03:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not know, my husband and I, like many of you, spent a good deal of time and money we didn’t have on political activities this last year, trying to do our part to get rid of Bush & the Right Wing Hate Machine, and we were devastated by what happened on November 2nd. But we knew we couldn’t spend the next four years like the last four, angry and frustrated and feeling helpless to stop the damage being done to the country we love.

On November 4th, I had lunch with a good friend who felt like we did, that we had to do something. We weren’t sure what it would be, what form it would take, but we were determined to be a force for change no matter how small our contribution. So we called a few friends and gathered in someone’s living room one Thursday night a couple of weeks later and talked about what we could do. Together, we became the founding members of a grassroots progressive organization called Freedom Action Network.

Over the next two months, FAN met weekly to refine ideas and goals and ready the organization for expansion to our friends, families, and anyone else interested. And January 20th, 2005, Black Thursday, is our official coming out party:

www.freedomactionnetwork.org

On our website, you can find out more about our organization and what we hope to accomplish. There’s also a bulletin board where you can help build a network with likeminded people by signing up as a member. On the board, you can share articles and information you think others should know about, comment about the latest FAN posting or Action Item, or learn about an issue or project that you can participate in.

In the coming days, we’ll have Action Items that you can take to make a real difference, easy things intended for people who don’t have a lot of time or money but who want to do something to help. Action Items might be a letter to write, or a message to spread, or sending stamps for a mailing campaign. On the main page, you’ll also find 5 important articles or blog posts to read in the “Around the Blogosphere” section that will change frequently.

We want you to make FAN a daily habit. Bookmark the site, make it your home page, or add it to your RSS reader. Even if you can do nothing more than check the site each day and maybe read an article from “Around the Blogosphere”, you’re doing something important by becoming armed with information you can disseminate among your daily circle. And if there’s more you can do, all the better.

If you’re in the Portland area, join us for our next meeting: Thursday, January 27th at 7 PM at the Urban & Public Affairs Building on the PSU Campus (email me at writerscramp at gmail dot com for driving directions). You’ll meet a group of smart and interesting progressives of all ages and backgrounds united by a common cause. We guarantee you’ll leave feeling energized and ready to get to work. And even if you’re not in the Portland area, there’s still work for you to do and ways for you to be involved. Just stay tuned to the FAN site to keep abreast of the latest developments.

So please…visit the site and join the fight.

Repeat after me: there is no crisis

2005-01-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

Atrios points over to an interesting dialogue over at The Wall Street Journal Online between conservative economist Arnold Kling and progressive economist Max Sawicky about the so-called Social Security "crisis". And despite Kling's protestations to the contrary, there is no crisis.

At the bottom of the article, Max provides links to more information so that you, too, can demolish the conservative Chicken Littles with facts and economics:

The Center for Economic and Policy Research
The Economic Policy Institute's research on Social Security
The Brookings Institution
The Century Foundation
"What Stock Market Returns to Expect for the Future?"

"I might not know much about God, but we sure did build a nice cage for him." -- Homer Simpson

2005-01-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

How succinctly Deepak Chopra boils down one of the biggest sources of many of our problems today:

TIME: SHOULD THE DEATHS OF MORE THAN 150,000 PEOPLE FROM THE TSUNAMI AFFECT OUR IMAGE OF GOD?

CHOPRA: Actually, our image of God is outmoded anyway, whether the tsunami occurs or not. Religion has become divisive, quarrelsome and idiotic. Religion is the reason we have all this conflict in the world. We have squeezed God into the volume of a body and the span of a lifetime; given God a male identity, an ethnic background; made him a tribal chief and gone to war. Yet people are not ready to forsake their image of God.

rank amateur

City of Blinding Lights

President Obama

Hope is on the way

Game over, man. Game over.

Fun with teh internets

Reading assignment

Correcting the record

And the hits just keep on comin'...

More financial crisis reading

AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

You suppose Prozac will help with this Depression?

I thought we could all use an injection of hope right about now

Sarah Palin hates women

Ray of sunshine in a hurricane of bad news

Fun with hypotheticals!

Palin-eotology

Healthcare for nobody!

Putting on the rosier glasses

Freaking out

Pining for a bygone era that never existed

Two things

women: like people, only not

The "Pro-Life" Movement -- now with more oppression for that fresh authoritarian smell!

I am easily amused

History in the making

Every woman is a serial killer, every man commits genocide

FMLA

We're all wearing the blue dress now

Sick Days

Yes, that's it exactly

Guidelines

One America

Baptism in the Religion of Science

Baptism in the Religion of Science

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy. -- Shakespeare, Hamlet

The feeling's mutual, assholes

"The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly."

meta me

Tomorrow begins today

it's the holidays, time to redecorate

Corporate promises and other empty words

Everything you need to know about Iraq*

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...Rahm!

Winning: it tastes like VICTORY!

Ice skate manufacturers' stock is about to skyrocket*

You asked, "What can I do?"*

Something to ponder

"Who the hell is JonBenet Ramsey?"

Kung Fu Monkey puts things in perspective

So about that hurricane...

History repeats itself until it's blue in the face

West or South?

Religious Addiction

Three Simple Things To Remember

BEWARE: Shameless pimpage below

Game over, folks

Occasionally, there's good news -- HOLIDAY EDITION!

Apparently, they actually do have a pair

Glad I partied on Friday

"Scalito"

Guessing Fitzgerald's Game Plan

Happy Fitzmas!

George Clooney: Heartthrob. Activist. Dragonslayer?

Perspective

It's not February, and yet it feels like it's my birthday

What I've been up to

Buy your ice skates now...

What was that seventh plague, again?*

"Their people"

The Working Society

Pest Control

Fuck it -- I'm back

It happens again

Bush is approaching 30%, must be time to heat up the culture war

“Here’s what you said, and here’s what you did. You were wrong. Apologize.”

I'm not a person, I'm a baby machine

"It measures everything...except that which makes life worthwhile"

Gettin' out while the gettin's good

The answer to that question you keep asking