New Hampshire citizen-activist Doris Haddock ("Granny D") has died, aged 100 - first revealed by New Hampshire state representative Jim Splaine - who was scheduled to speak with her later this month in the city of Portsmouth.
Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem --- The entire world was shocked yesterday when this reporter revealed that retired electrician, Ehud David Netanyolmert, shook the peace process to its roots by building an illegal second bathroom in his East Jerusalem home.
If you're a singer you lose your voice.
A baseball player loses his arm.
A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good,
the older he gets, the better he writes.
So, Laurie returned from Seattle this morning where she was meeting up with her sisters, as they do on a yearly basis, and she went directly from SFO to her workplace. This evening, returning from work, some guy grabbed her cell-phone out of her bag on the MUNI bus.
The Schmoopster got robbed!
What she says is this. She was on the crowded 71 limited line when it stopped at Haight and Masonic. She was carrying a purse, a backpack, and her laptop. As she was getting off the bus she found her purse caught behind and sought to yank it free. Turning her head she noticed some guy with his hand in her bag. She yanked it from him and got off the bus. To her astonishment, he also got off the bus and ran directly into a woman's clothing store across the street.
She then checked her bag and found her cell-phone gone.
Once people understand Single Payer, they support it.
So how do we get the word out?
Our idea is to release a new 30 second TV spot every day for one year.
We have enlisted popular Hollywood stars, influential politicians, health care reform organizers and activists and we now want to enlist you.
The 6th one, released today, is this one by Alberto Saavedra a HCR activist;
The Latino vote in California is pivotal.
So please visit our web site, inform yourselves and help by volunteering, blogging or just donating so we can broadcast some of these spots on TV or support our effort by voting for our campaign at Change.org
One doesn't have far to look to see strange things each day ....
DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - conservative pundit Byron York and Mrs. Doubtfire.
Zounds! But for now: stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
I've just received news of the unexpected death of a blogging friend of mine.
He was known as "Jon Swift," a faux "conservative" blogger. His real name was Al Weisel.
His mother posted this on his blog:
I don't know how else to tell you all who love this blog. I am Jon Swift's Mom and I guess I'm going to OUT him. He was Al Weisel, my beloved son. Al was on his way to his father's funeral in VA when he suffered 2 aortic aneurysms, a leaky aortic valve and an aortic artery dissection from his heart to his pelvis. He had 3 major surgeries within 24 hours and sometime during those surgeries also suffered a severe stroke. We, his 2 sisters, his brother, his partner and his best friend since he was 9 years old were with him as he took his last breath. We have all lost a shining start who warmed our hearts, tormented us and made us laugh as he giggled at our pulling something over on us. He passed away on February 27, 2010. My beloved child will live on in so many hearts. I miss him more than I can say. If you are on Facebook, go to organizations and join "Friends of Al Weisel, Unite!" It will give you just a taste of how special he was. Farewell, Jon (Al)
When one door closes, another opens;
but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door
that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
Simplicity is the final achievement.
After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes,
it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
[M]any of the people at the Republican National Convention,
for all their flag-waving, hate America.
They want a controlled, monolithic society;
they fear and loathe our nation's freedom,
diversity and complexity.
When employers tell me they prefer married men,
and encourage their men to have homes of their own,
because it makes them so much steadier,
I wonder if they have any idea of all that that implies.
Let's hear it for Annabel Park of Silver Spring, MD, who, when really upset by the Tea Party Movement and it's Fox News promoters, started a response movement in her living room: The Coffee Party Movement. And, wonder of wonders, it has caught on... enough so that I've added Coffee Party to my blog rolls.
I have asserted frequently enough that the drama in Washington over the 'reform' measures being debated to change the face of Health Insurance is basically a staged show, designed to instruct the populace in the ways of Power. Below, I have sketched of the general outlines of the situation in terms of the application of psy-ops in internal agitprop.
It is just common sense: When you're one percent of the population and you own or control more wealth than the lowest 95% of folks, it is worth your while to keep that 95% occupied with matters of life and death, so they don't have time or energy to think about the disparity between their wealth and yours. Or to get ideas about how to rectify such obscene imbalances. Or the relatively few, relatively crude means by which they might do so, if they were so inspired. Far better that they should fear for their own survival.
Anyone who knows the least little bit about I-P in the left-liberal political blogs knows that it is, in fact, completely miserable, hideously toxic, and just plain fucking stupid. We all know this, yes? I certainly think so. But what I have often wondered is, why? Why must it be this acrimonious?
At this point, some of you may stop and say, "It's because of people like you, you antagonistic, dumb motherfucker!"
Light posting, as I'm nursing a cold ... but there are still some things that bring a smaile to my face, as ....
WEDNESDAY's CHILD sits in the arms of Paul Krugman - the focus of a major profile in The New Yorker.
Keep this crazy train rolling and stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
An experienced economist and a novice economist are walking down the road. They come across some dog sh*t lying on the pavement.
The experienced economist says, "If you eat that dog sh*t, I'll give you $20,000!"
The novice economist runs his optimization program and figures out he's better off eating it, so he does and collects the money.
Continuing along the same road they almost step into another pile of dog sh*t.
The novice economist says, "Now, if you eat this sh*t I'll give you $20,000."
After evaluating the proposal, the experienced economist eats the sh*t and collects the money.
They go on. The novice economist wonders, "Listen, we both have the same amount of money we had before, but we both ate sh*t. I don't see us being better off."
The experienced economist retorts, "Not so! We've created $40,000 of trade!"
I believe that Gandhi was correct.
Non-violent civil disobedience is the only way
to bring about change that allows people to enjoy
the change and not get killed in the process.
We really, really need to stop referring to people who disagree with us as sub-human. We cannot consider ourselves anything like liberal, or progressive, or left, if we fail to do so. Dehumanizing others is the very thing that the progressive movement was created to end. Dehumanizing others is at the center of Nazism, and fascism, and hard-line right-wing hatred. Dehumanizing others is what Hitler did. Dehumanizing others is what the Ku Klux Klan did. Dehumanizing others is what Neo-Nazi Skinheads do.
As most of you are well aware, last week was a snow week in Washington, DC, and the odds are pretty good that there's something like that going on for you as well.
Our good friends in the conservative community have seized upon the moment as proof that this whole "global warming" thing is just a big scam perpetrated by the likes of Al Gore and his Legion Of Weather Nazis; their mission being only to deprive the American people of their Constitutional right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Ford Super Duty F-450 King Ranch Edition with the Heavy Service Suspension Package, Snow Plow Prep Package, Transmission Power Take-Off Provision, dual alternators, and supplemental cab heater.
To drive the point home, last week Senator James Inhofe's family went to the time and trouble to build a little igloo on the National Mall for our amusement.
But here's a question: just what has the weather been like in other places-for example, in my part of the world...or in the Senator's home State of Oklahoma?
It's a good question-and the Senator won't like the answer.
"As a result of the vision and foresight of the California State Legislature Medical Marijuana Research Act
(SB847), the CMCR has successfully conducted the first clinical trials of smoked cannabis in the United
States in more than 20 years," the group said in the study's conclusion summary. "As a result of this program of systematic research, we now have reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment in selected pain syndromes caused by injury or diseases of the nervous system, and possibly for painful muscle spasticity due to multiple sclerosis."
I'm still shivering. It's been ridiculously cold here since the beginning of January. The weather dudes delight in trumpeting the record low temperatures. Night after night after night.
We've all heard from the Obama WH about the fact the the Great War on Terror, sometimes called The Long War, ended shortly after Obama took office in 2010, as was evidenced by the renaming of it to "Overseas Contingency Operations" last year.
Now after seven bloody years and by some counts over a million Iraqi deaths the Obama Administration has announced that Operation Iraqi Freedom is, according to the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, finally over as well.
At 1:43:55 PM EST halo0 posted the following message on Booman Tribune regarding a website where Joe Stack quite plainly offered his final thoughts before crashing a plane into the IRS building in Austin Texas. :
"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins
As of less than one hour later that website has been taken down.
I offer the full posting below in the spirit of truth, as well as my own thoughts on the matter.
Read on if you are interested.
And if you are not interested...well, check your mental and spiritual antennae for serious damage. This is what is really happening here now, and it's going to get worse before it gets better.
It seems when I look at the front page these days, all I see is a parade of Open Threads, so I guess it's time for me to come up with something resembling a Question of the Day to break the monotony.
Ummmm......
So, hoo dat?
No. Pretty stale.
Ok, follow me below the fold (just checking to see if MSOC is reading), and see if I come up with an actual question.
For those of you in the Carolinas, this may offer some comic relief this spring ...
ART NOTES - a political cartoon exhibit entitled Conflicts in Caricature .....
...is at Duke University's Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina through May 16th.
Karl, indeed. But for now - why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
It happened once, twice; I trust the third time could not charm me more. I have witnessed the power of a gesture, one made without words. I have seen the light that glows when people connect in quiet ways. Now experienced on more than one occasion, I have come to appreciate the peaceful power of consistent communication. I had not fully acknowledged what could be accomplished until I arrived on the scene, alone. Then I saw it. I felt it. I could hardly believe that a single steadfast individual, could convey a message without words, and still receive such a resounding response. Yet, while there, it occurred. I was struck by what had not been apparent for near a decade. The stance of a quiet soul, stated calmly, clearly, and with care, can move more persons than I ever imagined.
I was supposed to begin the long-delayed series of PTSD stories I've been planning, but before we begin, I need to tell y'all about something that just happened in my house.
For us it wasn't a matter of life or death, but it is the kind of story that explains, perfectly, why we need to reform the health care system we have today-and for that matter, it's also a great explanation of why a single-payer system would be a giant step forward for everyone in this country, whether you're insured today or not.
It's also hilarious and sad and frustrating, all at the same time-which makes today's story a pretty good allegory for the current American way of doing health care.
So follow along, have a good laugh...and at the same time, take a minute to consider what could be, and how much less irritating things should be.
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