Carl Sagan's Cosmos - Hulu

Thirty years later and still inspirational.

Persistence of Memory is a favorite episode.

Please watch,

Catch you later.....

Associate Justice Clinton?

With the retirement announcement of Justice Souter, all I can say, in furtherance of exploding wingnut heads, is:

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Bill or Hillary Clinton.

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

Catch you later.....

Arlen Specter: From RINO to DINO

(Pic from ProgressivePatriots.com via Creative Commons)

Except to the extent that this defection causes wingnut heads to explode, I'm unimpressed.

Another "Blue Dog" is hardly what we need right now. And Arlen can be relied upon to fight only for Arlen; first, last and exclusively.

Now, if this nets our side, say, a Sen. Olympia Snow, then I'm impressed. Slippery slope and all.

As an indication of the decline of the crazy right's hegemony over the party of Lincoln, well, it's better than nothin'.

Although, it is far better than Sen. Phil Spector (Looney Party, CA.)

(Is it just me, or is there a resemblence?)

Catch you later.....

Fossil Fuel's Grip - Steve Greenberg

From Steve Greenberg.

Cosmos is now 30 years old and ever more relevant.

Catch you later.....

Energy Secretary puzzled by simpleton's question

The jaw-dropping stupidity and ignorance on display here serves as further proof that Texas secession would be a positive boon to the other 49 states.

Think of it: Test scores would go up, crime rates would go down, intolerance would be contained south of the relocated border fence and much, much more.

Hey Texass, don't let Nawlins hit ya in the ass on ur way out, y'all.

Good grief, catch you later.....

Teabagger Logic - Kevin Siers

(Click to Embiggen)

From Kevin Siers/Charlotte Observer

From NOM (nom), to 2M4M, to "Teabagging", I have been absolutely LMAO for weeks now.

These morans are so clueless, so lacking in self-awareness that it boggles the mind. Check out the claims of total victory over the 'Usurper' and his enablers at any teabag site. Just, wow.

Not at all funny are the calls for revolution, insurrection or armed rebellion coming from asshats like Beck, Hannity, Goldberg, Malkin or Colter. Fox has blood on it's corporate hands already. Is it not enough?

I recall someone saying once that elections have consequences. So when the right doesn't just lose but is repudiated their response is a call to arms?!?!? Liars and hypocrites? Absolutely! Patriots? Ahem, sadly, no.

Any claim they make to a higher form of patriotism is pure bull. The real danger to our nation is on the right, not the left.

Catch you later.....

P.S. According to David Letterman, Limbaugh's dog is praying for Bo Obama to fail as first dog.

I Tried Going Galt...

but the Internet survived!

Well, so much for that theory!

I just finished watching Mr. Obama on Leno out here in Pacific Daylight Time land. I had been forewarned by Rachel and Keith and several wing-nut websites that our president had made a faux pas vis-a-vis the Special Olympics. Something about his abysmal bowling skills.

As a former Special Olympics volunteer, dedicated to the memory of my late sister Kathy (severely mentally retarded, challenged, whatever) I'm especially attuned to BS in this area.

Some say I'm overly sensitive.

My take on this, after viewing for myself, is; "So What!"

I'm not offended and I'm sure I speak for my family, none of whom bowl worth a shit I might add, and I find this a tempest in a teapot.

At a typical Special Olympics bowling prelim, our president would finish in the middle of the pack with a 129. So what!?!

You just know that Michelle or Drudge or Rush or Billo or Calamity will make something of this.

Well, I lived and breathed it and I say "fuck 'em".

Catch you later.....

Post Cards From the Recession - L.A. Times - Pt.1

(Screen-cap from USAToday)

From the L.A. Times (Part One of a Series):

California's Inland Empire

Hard times hit, and we slowly disappear.

By Susan Straight March 8, 2009

First in a series

"At night, I can hear the soft thumps as the rats land on my roof. They launch themselves from the branches of the apricot tree because they want to get inside my attic, into a house with heat.

The house next door, and the one next to that, have been empty since October. Their yards have gone feral, with hundreds of dandelion heads glistening gray in the night.

The rats are cold and hungry. The skunks have a den somewhere next door, where the metal shed was dismantled. Opossums, raccoons and lizards have colonized the abandoned yards on my block in Riverside. And it's spooky, at night, to see so much darkness, to hear skittering, to keep an eye out for homeless people trying to break in and sleep, to listen for the sounds of desperate humans and animals...."

I pass through Riverside county semi-frequently, usually on I-15, and the changes of just the last two or three years are astonishing. Go read the whole, haunting piece and get a first-hand account of the birth of a ghost town.

Look at the screen-cap above, go to the link, and look at the numbers. It will break your heart.

And these are soccer moms and dads, mostly professionals, with good educations, valuable skills, an abiding belief in the American Dream, who played by the rules and were played in return.

Losers? I don't think so. Victims of the greed of others is more like it.

Catch you later.....

Update: From Congress Matters, revised foreclosure numbers, by district

Ever get a song stuck in your head?

Jeez, I wish I could sing...

Catch you later.....

Rush's Greatest Hits - Countdown

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Just 11% of Republicans Say Limbaugh Is Their Party’s Leader (Rasmussen)

Well, if not this drug addict sex tourist, who then?

I've sure been enjoying this. Doesn't make up for the last eight years, though.

Catch you later.....

Single Payer Off the Table?

This is very disturbing:

..."Himmelstein's take - Obama is caving to the insurance industry.

"The President once acknowledged that single payer reform was the best option, but now he's caving in to corporate health care interests and completely shutting out advocates of single payer reform," Himmelstein said. "The majority of Americans favor single payer, and it's the most popular reform option among doctors and health economists, but no single payer supporter has been invited to participate in the administration's health care summit.

Meanwhile, he's appointed as his health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, a woman who has made her living advising health care investors and sits on the board of many for-profit firms that have made billions from Medicare. Her appointment - and the invitation list to the health care summit - is a clear signal that the administration plans to propose a corporate-friendly health reform that has no chance of actually solving our health care crisis."

Obama to single payer advocates: drop dead."

(From Common Dreams)

This is very bad news.

I have worked as a health-care professional for over 35 years.

It has become my opinion over time that Single-Payer is the only thing that will save our health care system.

People who do not share this opinion tend to be the very folks who profit from the current rats nest of payers, options, coverage levels, charge-backs, write-offs, bureaucratic mazes, service denials and so many other non-medical devices meant to carve a slice out of the pie and privatize it into some one's wallet (or Swiss account).

From where I sit it seems so simple:

Expand the Medicare system to include all American citizens and fund it from payroll taxes.

The Veteran's Administration Health Care system was a terrific model of the efficiencies until Bush and his Iraq blunder and funding cuts broke it. (Seven years ago I could call and get a non-emergency appointment in less than a couple of weeks, now it can take six months to a year or more. Heckuva job, Georgie!)

Take the insurance monkey off the backs of employers. Free employers from the cost of this benefit: productivity and competitiveness are improved.

If this isn't good enough for you and yours and you can afford it, by all means, seek fee-for-service private health care. It will remain your right. Just no "opting-out". We're all in this together, it's for the good of the country and a shared burden will lessen the cost per enrollee.

And in a private practice like the ours, we will be able to practice medicine full-time again rather than spend as much as 50% of non-physician hours fighting with insurance issues. The resulting decrease in overhead would have a marvelous effect on our bottom line. (Raise, plz?)

In our present system we've seen premiums rise drastically, co-pays increase, reimbursement go down, access be denied and third party payers building private fortunes. This is no way to run an equitable health system.

I'm very disappointed in President Obama's stance. If he were to make a choice other than Single-Payer after giving it due consideration that would be one thing. But to choose to give it no consideration whatsoever is inexcusable.

Think again, Mr. Obama, for the health of the nation.

Catch you later.....

Update: From Crain's New York, (NY Regulators Frown on Doctor's Flat-fee System) a doctor charges a flat fee of $79 per patient, per month for affordable health care and state insurance regulators (!) try to shut him down. Sounds fishy to me. Imagine what single-payer could do with $79 per patient!

Steve Greenberg on the Curious Case of the Disappearing Newspapers

From Steve Greenberg

Writ much larger this is a great metaphor for the circular logic destroying the economy.

Greed and self-interest cannibalizing public assets.

Go here to read how this happened to Steve (and many of his colleagues).

Go here to see a terrific thread from writers on the very same subject.

Catch you later.....

Skippy tells us who's really throwing the "Tea Party"

From Skippy:

"chicagoteaparty.com was just one part of a larger network of republican sleeper-cell-blogs set up over the course of the past few months, all of them tied to a shady rightwing advocacy group coincidentally named the “sam adams alliance,” whose backers have until now been kept hidden from public."

Now that they're taking lessons from the Taliban, the sleeper-cell isn't surprising. Wolverines!

Catch you later.....

Heckuva job, Bobby!

from Kevin Siers / Charlotte Observer

Smooth Gilligan, smooth.

Catch you later.....

Limbaugh Brain Scan

This explains so much.

Limbaugh's scan on the left, Senator Al Franken's on the right.

"...Scans by computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that the man's cerebral cavities, called ventricles, had massively expanded.

"The brain itself, meaning the grey matter and white matter, was completely crushed against the sides of the skull," Feuillet told AFP.

"The images were most unusual... the brain was virtually absent," he said.

The patient's medical history showed that at the age of six months, he suffered hydrocephalus, also called water on the brain, and needed an operation to drain this dangerous buildup of spinal fluid.

Neuropsychological testing revealed the man had an IQ of 75, with a verbal IQ of 84 and performance IQ of 70. The bulk of people in society have a minimum IQ of 85, although the benchmark and the way it is measured are sometimes contested."

Catch you later.....

(Image and real story from here.)

What kind of America-hating, baby-killing Liberal are you, anyway?

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at http://www.fightconservatives.com/Inside-the-Book/What-Breed-of-Liberal-Are-You.html

From WriteChic.

I guess this means I'm an elitist snob.

All righty then!

Catch you later.....

Happy Valentine's Day - xkcd style

From the most dug strip on Digg.

Go here for reference.

And yet more.

Catch you later, Valentines

More Good News for Senate Republicans

More of this, please:

Voinovich to retire.

Kit Bond to retire.

Me likey. Catch you later.....

Getting a Brian Moran

(Here's the original, for reference)

I am aware that some out here on the liberal/progressive toobz have a bone to pick with the Great Orange Satan, but this is just too funny not to pass on. Sweet, ironic, serendipity.

Catch you later.....

Dad and I have an Excellent Adventure

I spent the day with my father (a WWII Naval Aviator) aboard the USS Midway CVN-41, now a museum on the Navy Pier here in San Diego.

It was quite a day for me. And Dad, too, I think.

The picture above was taken in the "Goat Locker", the Chief's Mess.

It is a special table. It is the POW/MIA table.

The sign reads as follows:

This table is a place of honor.

Its solitary setting is a reminder that some of those who defend our country are no longer among us.

The table is small to symbolize the frailty of one prisoner against his oppressors.

The tablecloth is white to symbolize the purity of intention to heed their country's call to arms.

The single rose in the vase reminds us of the families and loved ones who keep the faith awaiting our comrades-in-arms' return.

The red ribbon attests to the unyielding determination of thousands who demand a proper accounting of our missing.

The lemon slice upon the bread plate reminds us of their bitter fate.

The salt upon the bread plate is symbolic of their families' tears as they wait.

The glass is inverted as they cannot toast with us tonight.

The seat is empty for those who are not here.

REMEMBER.

Two old sailors, father and son, back upon a naval vessel, for the first time in 64 and 34 years respectively. It was a 'heavy' day.

And the sight of that table is what touched me most after Dad and I parted.

I paused in reflection of a few guys I knew and the thousands I did not.

The sacrifices of so many patriotic men and women over our history.

I am humbled, proud to be an American, proud to have served and proud to be my father's son.

Catch you later.....