well, fed

So, in history books in the future, will the death of the census guy go down as the first casualty of a civil war (or at least an uprising)? Let's call it the Fox Rebellion.

go see

Lego Blog! Or this one, it's Fun!

I used to love playing with my Legos. I actually still have all my old ones, plus a few more that I've picked up along the way. Call me a purist, but I prefer the old bricks, rather than all the funky parts they have now. Or maybe that's just because I wasnt all that good at it, despite the fun I had. I dont know. Look at the variety of things Lego can do in those two blogs, though.

I never built anything like the house shown here, though, that's for damn sure.

Carnival of the Liberals

Yay! I havent had much that was good enough to get into the Carnival of The Liberals lately, but finally I came up with something, even if it isnt actually written. Check out the latest (now monthly) Carnival hosted this time by Broadsnark.

I want to live in one of these

How cool is this house? Hand made of mud and local materials, using equipment available to anyone (and usable by anyone), except for maybe the cows used to stir the mud mixture.

It wouldnt take much to bring this up to my standards (windows, screens, etc). Wooden houses are stupid, except in places where you have lots of wood. I'm especially offended by Dallas houses often built with no eaves and a stone exterior, all in a place with six months of 90+ degree weather and sun almost every day.

via Boing Boing

further proof that television is too stupid to survive

Okay, so I'm watcing the last available episode of Eureka* on Hulu, (and if you dont know what Eureka is I'm not going to try and describe it) and this high school girl's trying to decide what to study in college. She wants to study medicine, but a supposedly super-accurate career/aptitude test indicates that she should study robotics. Then, O! a bit of drama ensues (not much, it's just a sub-plot), of course, because she wants... well, you get the idea.

Now, I'm no genius, but immediately I had the solution to the problem presented in the show. They didnt resolve it my way at the end, and it's too early to tell if they will do it my way in the next show, but still, it was pretty easy.

My simple solution? Duh! Prosthetics!

Seriously, if I can come up with the answer, why cant someone in a town full of super-geniuses?




* Eureka, by the way, is nerd-candy, so dont judge me. It has cool devices, beautiful women, and every week the clever guy shows up the folks who are soooo much smarter than him. And yes, I said smarter, because the thing about nerds is that there is always somebody smarter than they are, and figuring out something before they do is the appeal of many nerd shows.
And no, it's not an odd plot-line, just substitute brawn for brains and you've got every Chuck Norris movie ever made.

doh!

Two things...

1. A fuckup by Republicans in their bid to remove Acorn from the voting equation, and

2. a possible reason as to why they're such poor planners.

we're still losing to St. Ronnie

As Robert Reich points out (without saying), trickle down economics is still in full swing, only now the government is playing middle-man.


Peasants of the Nation! Ri...


oh wait, American Idol's on!

hmmmm

Had a thought: Maybe the failure of Democrats to follow an actual progressive platform, but instead to apparently pursue old Bush Administration positions of various programs is born of an attempt to woo more disaffected centrists from the GOP to the Democratic Party. It will come at the expense of the base, I'm afraid, but I'm not sure that it will matter to those in charge of the party, especially if the Republican Party continues to implode and drift ever farther right. Whereas progressives thought they were finally getting to have a say in things, all that seems to be happening is that the center-right faction that have been running things for decades (and fucking them up) has a new label.
Tough shit, liberals, sucks to be you, huh?

falling short

Maybe we should admit that the reason we cannot deal with climate change is not because it is not real, but because we are simply not capable of doing so. After all, this is not the Greatest Generation, engaging in rationing and turning all our industrial might towards a single goal of saving the world from tyranny. No, this is the Me Generation, grabbing and consuming with both hands and sending all our industrial might overseas towards the single of goal of increased profits. For sixty years, all of America's efforts have been turned to one purpose - to gather the most stuff before we die.

Hey folks, the warning bell's being sounded, and it looks like it's time for the final dash, so, I guess I'll see you in Hell.Oh, and a tip for all the folks who deny global warming by pointing to the cold winters in the Northeast: As I understand things, apparently one of the possible effects of global warming is the slowing of the Gulf Stream, which would make winter colder up north by not bringing up as much warm water from the south.
Also, by the way, that's not a snow covered snow plow, it's a snow plow that fell through the (thin) ice.

where is everybody?

I'm getting less than a half dozen hits a day. Okay, maybe that's not terribly surprising. But if you go down the mutual blogger list over there on the right, you'll find that people who used to post daily are only posting every few days, and people who used to post every few days are lucky to post weekly, and people who posted weekly are barely posting at (if) all. Some havent posted anything in months, One may be posting, but I cant get in.
Obviously, it's time to update my sidebar, 'cause it's getting lonely in my corner of the blogosphere.

messin' with the enemy

Okay, so I was a discussion on the heartache of forwarded wingnuttery, and I had this idea: Instead of deleting them, go through the text, amp up the nuttiness (talk about Obama killing kittens, maybe) and then replace any video links with ones where wingnuts still appear, but are pwned by people who actually use their rational thinking facilities. Then send it on to every conservative you know, or just hit "reply all".

Or, you could do what Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon suggests, which is probably far more reasonable and effective...

but where's the fun in that?

there are no new ideas

Hey, check it out, this guy Fred Kaplan suggests that we should bribe our way out of Afghanistan. Gee, what an idea! A concept very similar to the one I made about Iraq (in a retrospective manner, granted) almost two years ago.
Man, why I dont have a plush pundit contract is beyond me.

it's talk like a pirate day

First, a list:

Top 10 pirate pick-up lines:

10. Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?
9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?
8. Come on up and see me urchins.
7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.
6. I’d love to drop anchor in your lagoon.
5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?
4. How’d you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?
3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.
2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pirate pickup line is…

1. Avast! Prepare to be boarded!

And now a little PVP.

take a long listen

Okay, this is a really long discussion, but if you're sitting at your computer anyway, really ought to listen to it. Peter Day at BBC discusses the finance industry with MIT's professor Simon Johnson. It was playing on a co-worker's radio and about halfway through I found myself sitting on a chair listening intently rather than actually doing any work.

Among Prof. Johnson's recommendations: Make the banks smaller and make them hold more capital in reserve. Among his observations: Financiers are acting as an oligarchy in much of the world, that their compensation levels (similar now to 1920's levels) are a good indicator of the level of danger to the economy, and that if they are not reigned in soon we can expect another repeat of last year, probably before Obama finishes his second term.

modern life

If the story were written by today's spinmasters, George Washington would say something along the lines of “I deeply regret any pain that the loss of your cherry tree may have caused. However, I would point out that there was no sign specifically saying not to chop down that particular tree. Plus, I couldnt have chopped anything down were it not for your overly permissive tool policy, Father, so I think maybe you should be blamed as much as I, if not more."

gimme

I want this shirt. Seriously, gimme. Gimme gimme gimme.

wednesday night movie

Stolen from Kel, pass it on.

quote for the day

BLOCK: I want to talk to you about a moment at the end of Bill Clinton's speech in 1993. He talked about the freedom of Americans to live without the fear that the health care system won't be there for them when they need it. Let's listen to what he said.

Pres. CLINTON: It's hard to believe that there was once a time in this century when that kind of fear gripped old age. When retirement was nearly synonymous with poverty and older Americans died in the street.

BLOCK: So drawing a parallel there with social security and how that transformed America.

Mr. BEGALA: Right. You know, President Clinton very much a student of Dick Neustadt's books about presidential power and how presidents lead. And one of the most powerful ways they lead is by reasoning from analogy. And the social security example was spot on. It was something people knew, they were comfortable with. And so being able to analogize to that, I think, had some real power

So, I heard this discussion on the radio the other day, and I think to myself: Is this the reason for so many Republican verbal attacks so many of our government institutions? To not only try and destroy (or privatize) them, but so that Democrats, who generally prefer to persuade with optimism rather than than using the GOP's Fear This method, can no longer present them as examples of things that work. Do Republicans poison the well not so much because they dont believe in the things they argue against, but because they would rather leave scorched earth for their rivals to work with, even if that scorched earth is the American people?

of wolves, sheep and clothing

"In North Carolina, and in eight other states and in Washington, D.C., having been a victim of domestic violence is considered a "pre-existing condition" and can be used by insurance companies to deny coverage. Via Pandagon. I thought I was past the point of being shocked by things like this, but my god."

Seriously, this arrangement is what Republicans champion? Isnt it funny that an organization which is supposedly made up largely of Christians appears to have absolutely no sympathy for anyone even remotely poor or downtrodden. As the movie said, “If Jesus Christ came back, and saw what was being done in His name, He'd never stop throwing up.”


First quote stolen from Gerry Canavan, the second one has been a favorite for years.

more answers

There's stuff in the queue coming up in the next few days (dont remember what, exactly, I'm sure it'll be great), but if you're hankerin' for some Daveness, you could always review my replies to some anonymous dude who took me to task for, you know, being a liberal hypocrit and such. Basically, while I'm not much for action, I'm better at reaction. I realize that's probably not a good thing, but it's what I've got. Here, here and here. Will there be more? Stay tuned!

an answer

If you're like me, you've perhaps been wondering about that 77% number that's always being bandied about comes from, since nobody ever seems to give a source for it.
Well, here it is, the source for the number. By golly, that's a high number of folks in favor of an optional public plan, too. So why cant we seem to get any traction on it in Washington?

sunday funny

This is the first panel, of last Sunday's "Candorville". Click on the image for the whole thing.

There's more in yesterday's strip.

not this year

From Jon Stewart's opening monologue on the first show back after 9-11:

"The reason I don’t despair is because this attack happened. It’s not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream. Whatever barriers we've put up are gone even if it's momentary. We're judging people by not the color of their skin but the content of their character. You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They’ve gotten together and their extraordinary guile…and their wit and their skill." It's a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets rebuilding. That's extraordinary. That's why we've already won. It's light. It's democracy. We've already won. They can't shut that down. They live in chaos and chaos… it can't sustain itself. It never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying."

Yeah, it's the day after. But this year, I just cannot get myself to mourn/remember/whatever 9/11. Not because it wasnt a horrible tragedy, but because Republicans have so successfully co-opted it and rebuilt the frame work around it so that it is no longer about a vicious criminal gang's attack on innocent civilians, but rather a political morality play with Republicans valiantly wearing the white hat.
Today there was a march on Washington to demand the absence of a public option for health-care. Glenn Beck created the 9-12 organization for the purpose of whoring out one of America's most awful days in the service of it's least generous citizens, and today it's being used to attempt to deny health care to the nation's most unfortunate residents.
Then I read Stewart's words and remember that the after effect of that disaster was that all over America ordinary people came together as equals in order to set things right, only to be submarined by a group of cynical politicians for the financial and political gain of a wealthy few. These few took the deaths of thousands and the cooperative efforts of millions and shit on it, lit it on fire, pissed on it to put out, then threw it away like a used diaper.
Yesterday should have been a day when I proudly proclaimed myself an American, instead I can only remember it as a day when a handful of foreign fanatics knocked America to its knees, and handful of domestic criminals used the opportunity to steal our wallets and make us afraid to leave the house without a gun.
That sickens me, and makes me ashamed, and I dont know what I can do about it; most of all, though, it makes me wonder what happened to the America I grew up believing in, the one that Stewart spoke of? Are we really all so weak that we cant take a punch without it rattling our brains so much that can no longer think for ourselves?

question

Hey, the Rev seems to have become invitation only. Anyone know anything about that?

a proposal

To replace the income lost by insurance companies following a health care reform, I would like to present the following idea:

Auto Repair Insurance!

Hell, the structure that they currently use for health care doesnt even have to change! There can still be a primary auto care mechanic (chosen from a list of approved mechanics) who would then send your car to the proper specialist, such as a body or transmission shop, if needed.
It would eliminate the need for all those pesky warrantees, which would be good for the auto business' bottom line. Used cars, of course, would have to go in for a prelinary check-up to determine any pre-existing conditions, but that'll just make the market place stronger as people shop for the best cars.

Extras could include things like engine wellness exams (with oil changes!) free or at a deep discount, or yearly wax jobs, or free defensive driving seminars.

All for just a few dollars a month*!

The best part? Cars dont die during drawn-out litigation, they just sit in the driveway!



* Subject to yearly increases for no perceptable reason. Purchase of insurance policy does not guarantee that repair will be paid for, contingent upon profits of insurance company and executive bonus scales. Some parts not covered (see approved parts list) and generic or used parts may be used where ever we feel like we can squeeze out an extra buck. All mecanical procedures subject to co-pay, probably one for every little problem you may have spread out over as many visits as your mechanic feels he can get away with. Legal council may be required to obtain some services.

friday night at the movies

Creedocide
by greenfaace

check it out

Awesome color photography from the time of tsarist Russia can be seen here. Yes, that photo to the right here is nearly 100 years old.


Click on the link, spend some time looking through the site, then remind yourself that the Library of Congress is, like all libraries, a socialist institution. Republicans would be much happier if it was the Bookstore of Congress.

a lie for a lie

Why dont Liberals start countering ridiculous Republican lies about health care with equally ridiculous counter-lies? For instance...

According to the Rude Pundit, the ObamaPlan for healthcare will result in all covered Americans shitting gold! That's right, GOLD!!! Why dont the Republicans want poor and ordinary Americans to have gold?

Hey, how about this one? Have you heard of the Republican bill to create Wealth Panels? Apparently, there will be these panels created where bureaucrats will decide who gets to have buckets-full of money and who doesnt, based on their usefullness to Wall Street. Working folks who actually create things for a living are out, of course, but those people who oversee those workers, well, they're in pretty good shape (since everyone knows that without multiple layers of bosses telling them what to do, nothing would get done and the gears of capitalism would simply grind to a halt).

thoughts

It's appropriate that our government is declaring the recession over long before ordinary people can feel the effects of the "recovery". After all, we were feeling the effects of the bust long before a recession was declared, so there's a certain kind of balance there, dont you think?

* * *

America, once upon a time, was like Bugs Bunny: clever, witty, ingenius, always waiting to strike until after the first blow, in short, a gentleman with a sense of humor.


Now we're more like Daffy Duck.

* * *

Okay, because I'm a complete killjoy, I have to take issue with a recent page of the comic Looking For Group. Sure, it's a cool idea to encase someone in ice in order to save them from the coming flow of lava, but sorry folks, it would just result in a pocket of superheated steam under a lot of pressure, because, you see, lava is really, really hot!

Obama Is Just Another Grup

I have stolen this pretty much whole from Dr. Zaius just so that I will never lose it:Obama's coolness factor has just dropped on Miri's homeworld! Miri and the rest of the "Onlies" have decided that Obama's speech was just another adult "foolie", and it proves that Obama is just like the rest of the "grups".

this is a better analogy for the Rebel Right than the Lord of the Flies is.

telephony

I've always been a bit behind on the tech adaptation curve, but I finally got hooked up with Skype the other day.
I like it, though I didnt really think I would. The whole video phone thing seemed a little bit like overkill to me, but it turns out to be kind of nice. It is a bit weird watching myself on the screen as I talk.
Now, if I can just get my tech-nervous mom to get hooked up also*...





*this is the really wierd part, as Mom has had a computer since the days of C/PM, but these days wont surf the internet for fear of whatever it is that her sources have told her to fear. She misses out on a lot of stuff.

for labor day

be careful what you wish for

from this article, a quote:

"Well, I'd like to see Gen. Petraeus warm up,” [former senator Bob] Dole said. “I don't know anything about his politics, whether he has an interest. It's kind of a time for another Eisenhower, in my view."

This isn't the first time the popular general's name has been floated as a possible GOP savior — and it won't be the last. Petraeus has political impulses but hasn't revealed if they are conservative ones, and he might not even be a Republican."

Ha ha! I love the invocation of "another Eisnehower". Do they really want to elect a candidate who will lament the power of the Military/Industrial Complex? What kind of massive public works program will this "Eisenhower" work for? High speed rail, or maybe just fixing the current interstate system? Eisenhower himself sure as hell wouldnt have been promoting an interstate (privately run) toll system, which is what Republicans tend to shill for these days.


props to Pryme

preview

You know, it's a damn shame that few people read this blog, because I just happen to have come into possession (through fewer than 6 degrees) of the full text of Barack Obama's planned adress to the schoolchildren of America.

And I've got to tell you, I'm worried. Very worried.

Here it is:

A girl got a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her pet goat in her house. She played with her pet goat in her yard.

But the goat did some things that made the girl's dad mad. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate canes. He ate pans and he ate panes. He even ate capes and caps.

One day her dad said, "That goat must go. He eats too many things."

The girl said, "Dad, if you let the goat stay with us, I will see that he stops eating all those things."

He dads said, "We will try it."

So the goat stayed and the girl made him stop eating cans and canes and caps and capes.

But one day a car robber came to the girl's house. He saw a big red car near the house and said, "I will steal that car."

He ran to the car and started to open the door.

The girl and the goat were playing in the backyard. They did not see the car robber.

A girl had a pet goat. Her dad had a red car.

A car robber was going to steal her dad's car. The girl and her goat were playing in the back yard.

Just then the goat stopped playing. He saw the robber. He bent his head down and started to run for the robber. The robber was bending over the seat of the car. The goat hit him with his sharp horns. The car robber went flying.

The girl's dad ran out of the house. He grabbed the robber. "You were trying to steal my car," he yelled.

The girl said, "But my goat stopped him."

"Yes," her dad said. "That goat saved my car."

The car robber said, "Something hit me when I was trying to steal that car."

The girl said, "My goat hit you."

The girl hugged the goat. Her dad said, "That goat can stay with us. And he can eat all the cans and canes and caps and capes he wants."

The girl smiled. Her goat smiled. Her dad smiled. But the car robber did not smile. He said, "I am sore."

This man must be stopped.

there's no telling

... him anything.



Man, that Glenn Beck dude is crazy! He should really have his own cable access show, I'd totally watch it.
And all that propaganda celebrating the Worker? On a building built in the 30s? Shocking! Who'd've thought such a thing at the height of the Great Depression?

via Dusty


Addendum:

Olbermann takes the right tone with Beck: mockery.
You cant logic the man away; those who believe him will never be convinced through any kind of evidence that he's wrong. And as long as he's pulling in the numbers (and not losing Faux News as a whole any advertising dollars), he'll always have a spot on TV (indeed, he actually looks like he ought to be on the television - on cable access, that is).
No, mockery is the only road to take. Merciless, accurate, flaming mockery. Shame, via scorn-riddled humiliation, the folks who watch such tripe into turning off Beck's show and never again speaking of it openly. That's the only viable option (other than open civil war, that is, and we can see, a century and a half later, how well that worked).

sigh

Oh, man, it's official.
Princess Sparklepony is done.

That's another blogger down, another voice that seems to have quit not with a triumphant "job well done, you dont need me anymore", but a rather weary sense of futility.

I'm still soldiering on, though.
Like it matters.

quote for the day

"Historically, revanchism really meant a kind of nationalistic politic of the European idea from the 19th century about recovering lands that had been taken from you in battle. I used that term metaphorically because it seems to me to capture this idea that conservatives have, that the culture's been taken away from them, that America has been robbed of its values by liberals or they would say socialists like Barack Obama.

It's a politics of resentment, anger and revenge. Revanchism is just a derivative of the French word revenge, for revenge. We're seeing a politics of vengeance now from the right. When Rush Limbaugh said he wanted Barack Obama to fail, he was not just spitting out a provocative line, he was actually handing out a kind of marching orders to the right, which they now seem to be following."

From an interview on NPR with Sam Tanenhaus, author of "The Death of Conservatism" describing how the Republican party and the conservative movement are no longer actually acting in a conservative manner.

Or just listen to the interview here.

If you're really feeling ambitious, read a bigger article/interview with Tanenhaus at Newsweek.

book report

Well, it seems that Ted Kennedy wrote a book before he died, and it's coming out soon.
If God is a Republican, then it will contain the confession that Mary Jo Kopechne was giving Teddy a blowjob at the time of the accident, allowing conservatives to crush any health care reform.
It'll also give Bill Clinton a much-needed break.

Fortunately, God is not a Republican.

Or a Democrat.

quote for the day

"people who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"...

eric hoffer.

via Jim Yeager at Skippy The Bush Kangaroo

explains it all

in easy cartoon form, courtesy of Kel.

tuesday financial section

Via Boing Boing: "a site of avowed atheists who will, for a nominal fee, look after your pet when you have taken in the rapture."

We are a group of dedicated animal lovers, and atheists. Each Eternal Earth-Bound Pet representative is a confirmed atheist, and as such will still be here on Earth after you've received your reward. Our network of animal activists are committed to step in when you step up to Jesus.
We are currently active in 20 states and growing. Our representatives have been screened to ensure that they are atheists, animal lovers, are moral / ethical with no criminal background, have the ability and desire to rescue your pet and the means to retrieve them and ensure their care for your pet's natural life.

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA

Brilliant, just fucking brilliant!

And for a less legal way* to make some money, well... Kids! Dont try this at home.


* But no less brilliant, in its own very wrong way.