How We End 2009

Not that this is exactly unusual.

***Click for full size***

Yes, it is December 31, 2009 in Baker City, OR and yes, it is snowing its butt off. As I've noted, if you think you know what the winter will bring around here - you haven't been paying attention. I've seen everything from shirt sleeve temperatures with bare ground to to double digit below 0F and snow feet deep. Today is high 20s and probably about average weather.

I'm over 21 years clean and sober; and I have a cold - so I'm not up for much in the line of celebration. I hope you all have a fun and safe New Year's Eve, with special emphasis on the safe part.

This Is Your GOP TSA

As the GOPers are losing their collective minds over the Undibomber it pays to stop and think about their reasoning. Since Sen DeMint has a hold on the TSA chief, there isn't any new regime going on - this is the BushCo TSA. Unless you want to figure the semantics of replacing the words "war on terror" as some terror enhancing feature, we're on the same track. Well, there is the little matter of treating the rest of the world as if it counts as something more than a map filler.

What you have to assume from their collective freak out is that the GOP TSA is a piece of crap and Obama hasn't fixed it quickly enough. You do understand that many people won't stop to think that the Obama Admin has scarcely made a bunch of replacements in the personel doing day to day operations. It doesn't seem there is a paper from the BushCo floating around stating, "Undibomber determined to strike." The changes made are pretty obvious, Democratic Administration.

Evidently with the lack of any domestic or foreign policy initiatives the GOP is simply back to the politics of scaring the public. They wore that rut pretty deep.

Imagine Saying This With A Functioning Brain

Kevin Madden was the Mittster's pimp during the GOP Presidential Primaries and afterwards. I'm not sure if contact with the ultimate position flipper causes neural congestion or something but here you go.

Now put yourself with a functioning brain in this position. You are going to tell Americans that since Obama didn't have a rubble pile to climb on and he vacationed in Hawaii, a foreign place, as opposed to the manly state of Tex-ass (you know, where men are men and sheep are nervous) that he's ... I don't know ... a pussy.

A fake ranch (I live where there are real ones) and some brush clearing seem to be ... defining ... of something. I don't know, a guy who chokes on pretzels and parades in a flight suit is ever so manly versus a guy who shoots 3 pointers in a pretty physical unpadded game. I give up, people will pay attention to this and buy it - along with the rest of the diaper wetters stupidity.

But seriously - for a moment, in the face of this - think about what it takes for someone of even average intelligence to be stuck with these kinds of lines as something other than a comedy routine. What self-regard could you have? I'm not going for the silly about fire dangers of neurons struggling with such, I do mean honestly - what would you think about while doing such a thing? I know it's asking a lot of my readers since they've shown no signs of doing such, but really. I'm lost on this one and it isn't as though Madden is the only GOP shill playing at it. I won't bring up Darth Cheney because his disconnects are legendary.

(it seems I didn't quit after yesterday...)

Too Much Practice At Giving A Damn

Since I now have no more connection to politics than the (D) on my voter registration card I should be be much more relaxed. I'm not. I suppose that's a consequence of too much practice at giving a damn. I shouldn't, really. I live in a nation whose political orientation I don't understand and can't do a damn thing about. If you think I exaggerate consider this.

RM Nixon may be political ancient history but he was by the standards of the time a pretty conservative Republican. You'd be hard put to place the current Democratic accomplishments to the left of RMN. Watergate was not the be-all, end-all of RMN. He was a prick and he was if not paranoid, damn close to it. He also was alright with a health care reform considerably more progressive/liberal than the current version. As for wars...well he had one - that did sort of keep spreading around. One. He kept enemies lists, yes, but he didn't indefinitely detain people and as for his spying on Americans - well shit. It pays to remember that his DOJ did send people to prison for a stupid burglary - not serious stuff like torturing people. There were people well to the right of Dick, and they were generally dismissed as mostly crazy. The left hated him with a burning fire. When Dick is thought of; it's Watergate or maybe China and just barely Vietnam.

The Sainted Ronnie is a figure of myth today, the reality bears no resemblance to the memory. The guy was an actor who was good at repeating his lines, virtually nothing he put his hand to worked out - other than the myth. He raised taxes, including FICA - the most regressive of all. He killed entry level blue collar wages with the amnesty of illegal aliens and opened the doors to today's crisis level problem. He elevated the voodoo economics of trickle down supply side economics to policy level and promoted the idea of government as the problem. All it seems it took was a pretty delivery. It would take too many pages to put reality next to myth and he's a hero.

In today's world things that would have resulted in Republican revolution under RMN or RR are serious Republican politics in the name of National Security. What four years ago done by a fringe lefty would have resulted in cries of traitorous are staples of elected federal Republican officials. A Senate bill that six years ago could as well have been written by the Republican majority is unanimously defied by their minority and called socialism as the left hates it. As we wind down a war in support of the most corrupt functioning government in the world we escalate one in support of one of the most corrupt non-functioning governments in the world and we don't have money to do squat for our nation. Two years after the bankers crashed the world's economy the same pricks are making fortunes doing the same things and regulation is a matter of speculation and the President is very careful not to hurt their feelings.

The stupid ass, DeMint, that is crying about how the Administration doesn't take 'terror' seriously and misquotes the DHS head about the TSA has a hold on the appointment of the head of the TSA...and the media ignores it. Me and my ilk are more likely to get killed at work than if we flew on commercial airliners every day and the whining mewling pissants can't stop - maybe if their lives presented a larger threat than a paper cut... The media that tanked for GWB and McCain now cannot get enough of the Republican opposition and is loath to correct any statement they care to make. John McCain gets almost as much media face time now as loser as he did as a candidate. People who got things mostly right about BushCo are ignored and their pimps get major media slots despite getting almost everything wrong. In the corporate media world mild liberals like Olberman and Maddow are the equivalent of Limbaugh, Beck, and etc. as though there is a comparison. Tabloid mogul Murdoch runs an entire network as an extension of the right Republican fringe and is aped by one media business after the other and taken seriously by a sizable portion of the public.

The very outer reaches of the Republican Party are now its mainstream and the Democrats fall all over themselves trying to become the old Republican establishment - and a meaningless handful notice and complain. People like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson are the arbiters of Democratic legislation and most of that Party are willing to go along. The Democratic Party, yes the Democrats, are busy passing a purchase mandate of 4-9% of income on the bottom of the effective economic scale and quarreling over a pittance of a tax on everyone above in order to accomplish the biggest corporate give away in goddam history. The thing they're busy mandating on the economic loser worker bees will bankrupt them if they use it. It effectively protects the providers not the insurance purchasers from harm. This is the legislative victory as determined by the Lieberman/Nelson fringe.

This is how far we've progressed from Richard goddam Nixon...

I don't know why I continue to opine for a literal handful of readers and read the one blog that amuses me more than it pisses me off. I have no idea why I give a good goddam and can't seem to break the habit. Compare the stupidity and intransigence of American politics to the competitions I engage in, from drag racing to shooting where the competitors are nearly universally gracious, considerate and helpful and I keep playing at this?

Throwing rocks at the moon makes about as much difference as me paying attention - masochism I suppose...

Is this my swan song? I don't know - it sure should be.

Terror Pimps Peeing Their Pants

Along with very nearly everyone in our nation; I'd prefer not to be in an airplane that explodes or gets driven into something or be where one is crashed. I suppose that seems like stating the obvious, but there are other pieces of the obvious that are entirely left out of this NW Airlines bombing attempt. Let's start out with the most distressing, if enough people try, sooner or later somebody is going to manage it, even if everyone has to fly in the nude. That is just a matter of people being ingenious. Somebody will manage to break out of jail this year, out of a group of somebodies who all the authorities rightly suspect of being motivated to do it. That doesn't mean you throw your hands in the air and give up, but it does mean being smart and also not bothering to try to scare the public spitless like, say, Rep Peter King.

"I would say, right now, we do need the full-body scan, especially when you have countries like Nigeria, which have inadequate security to begin with; then you have passengers transiting in Amsterdam and coming here," King said. "I think we have to face up to this reality, that we live in a dangerous world where Islamic terrorists want to kill us. And, yes, there is some brief violation of privacy with a full body scan. But on the other hand, if we can save thousands of lives, to me, we have to make that decision and we have to come down on the side of saving thousands of lives."

Why not take a look at Nate Silver and see just how likely you are to get scattered across some landscape. Not very damn likely.

Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

I'm actually subject to this analogy since I work outdoors and frequently in higher places using tools that are grounded; in effect making any of us lightning rods. If we hear thunder we start reducing the chances, but the reality is that lightning can happen before you hear any thunder or even see a reason to worry. And so?

The terror pimps got their real start with 9/11, the political and media impacts weren't missed by these opportunists. In the face of pretty obvious stupidity and incompetence BushCo managed to get re-elected in 2004, mostly on the back of fear mongering. A segment of the electorate in the 2008 election was worked over on the concept that the now President was a Muslim and "palled around with terrorists." Now the collective media and Republicans are pissing their pants because a guy set his pants on fire.

How far is this going to go in the search for the unattainable? What other or more "brief violation of privacy" will satisfy Rep King when whatever more steps are taken and avoided by a terrorist? What exactly is it that the President of the United States is supposed to say on TV that would make them feel better? Let's get to the nut of this, nothing that can be said or done is going to make for absolute security - and that's the game they're playing and you're their suckers.

A White Christmas From NE OR

Just for you missing such a thing (certainly not the Midwest) I give you what has to pass for a White Christmas here.

It is 27F at 3PM PST and it has been a pretty wild December here ending with some cold temps and actual snow on the ground. The temperature has been all over the place. I got a Harley ride in on Solstice at nearly 50F which followed a week of highs in the teens preceded by over a foot of snow. December in Baker City is never predictable, shirtsleeve weather one year and sub-zero the next, drought to rain to snow up to a giraffe's butt. We take what we get, and complain about whatever it is.

That is one of the constants of NE OR, you certainly can complain about winter. The saving grace is that we get little of the ice problems others have.

Best of Holidays to all.

Merry Christmas Or Happy Holidays

Whatever this year has brought to you, we are still here and we have things to be grateful for. Hang onto that and those you care for, life is transient and best enjoyed while upright and breathing.

Have warm and sweet holidays, your host is thinking of you.

View From My Couch

John Cole over at Balloon Juice created a post title that I've stolen and used for the same reason.

Not my couch, my Lazyboy recliner and Gus would like to have one of the Ritz crackers I'm eating. The camera is set on wide lense, I'm as far back as I get it, that is my knee, and - yes - the damn dog is bigger than me.

A Must Pass Bill

I've been told that the Senate Health Care Reform bill is very important. The insurance mandates are not an evil and advance the health of Americans. I've watched and listened with a certain amount of fury mixed with amusement.

If there are any actual teeth in the regulations proposed about health insurance practices, the owners of policies may see some improvements. May see some improvements, so far I don't really see where it isn't about you hiring a lawyer.

I was under the impression that the mandates were about the health of Americans. If nothing gets Americans into doctors' offices rather than hospitals that would seem to be a chimera. Health is about staying the hell out of hospitals, that is a place for real serious problems and most real serious problems can be short circuited by primary care.

The Senate seems to think that uninsured Americans can cough up with a month wages to buy an insurance policy that will ... well what will it do? Real basic health insurance has high deductibles and low limits and lots of co-pays. Once you've stripped out a month wage from people on the very edge; what do they have left for co-pays and etc? What do they have to pay the deductibles with? You've just gotten into the hospital and have a $5000 bill that insurance won't cover and you can do what with that?

I suppose the rationale left for mandates is that the medium big hospital bills won't get passed on to everyone else. You've left me as to where that benefits Americans health. I do see some pretty good things happening for private insurance companies.

Democratic Political Disaster

Health Care Reform would be extremely hard under the best circumstances and none of those have been laid into place before this thing hit the fan. It should have been known in the Democratic Caucus what could fly. It should have been clear what the President was willing to sign. Consequences for Caucus obstruction should have been laid out clearly and absolutely. The vote should have been known.

The blame for this is all over the board, from President Obama to Freshman Senator.

Here's what that responsibility is going to entail. Voter turnout is always down in midterms and the most fickle voting groups are: 1) The Poor, 2) The Young, 3) Minorities. Those most impacted by what the current health care reform looks like are those folks and whether they will turn out depends on their enthusiasm, real enthusiasm. I think the most optimistic measure would be, "I don't care," and I think that is fairy tale land. Those Obama/Democratic demographics you were so proud of, bye-bye.

That in itself is horrid, but what about the activist wing? You know them, more left than mainstream out in the electorate trenches Democrats. Since the end of the Vietnam War the left has been almost endlessly faithful and forgiving of Democrats. There is noise and nose holding, but they do the part campaigns can't pay people to do. I do not know how that is going to go. I do know that in the face of the current mess it is going to be difficult to make arguments to them to bring in money and effort for Democratic majorities. We aren't as bad as the GOP isn't a real recipe for enthusiasm, true as it may be. You can try to make the case that the outrage around the apparent current Senate version of health care reform is limited to noisy bloggers and loon pundits. Um, polls are showing something different going on. If something is passed and signed, you still have to sell it as some kind of product. Much of this political year has been devoted to this mess and that means Democrats are stuck with having to sell it. Good luck with that one.

Older white voters do vote and that 25%+/- total loss Republican loon portion will also vote. That part of the demographic pretty much loathes Obama and anything they think he stands for. This puts you starting somewhat behind in the turn out game. You really need the activists out getting voters and you need them to carry a message that will get people out to the polls. The latest I've heard for a message is, George W Bush.

A Bad Bill Is Not Victory, Liebercrats

Let's get some things out of the way right up front. I did not vote for Joe Lieberman as President. I did not vote for Joe Lieberman for Senate Chair positions or anything. I also did not vote for President Obama as a "transformative" progressive. I knew whom I was voting for. Rather, I thought I was voting for a Democrat.

I don't care about the regulations Health Care Reform is supposed to have, they are at worst a paint job on a whorehouse and at best some force for reform of practices. There is no real harm done and even a possibility of progress, slim but there. My prognosis is that the insurance companies will do as they please with these reforms and the consumer be damned. That much is crystal ball stuff.

What I can tell you with no doubt whatever is that mandates with no options will force American consumers to take whatever crap is offered by the sharks that have set this course. Not only will it force Americans screwed by their system to buy the junk, it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for it. The States with the worst insurance systems will suck hell out of the public teat. Understand, the worst outcomes will be rewarded with the most money from taxpayers. All you have to do is look at the highest rates of uninsured in states and their version of health insurance to understand where the money will go and who will get it. That much is assured.

Right behind that inevitability is this, the sharks who already benefit from a monopolistic system will have the reward of federal dollars and enforced consumer expenditures to swell their influence and income. If you think the Senate outcomes in this debate were owned by these people wait and see how that plays once they aren't just taking advantage of their existing power, but have it multiplied.

I've been told how important mandates are to insure those excluded by decision or economics and (for some reason) start forcing the system in a positive direction. There is no doubt that the uninsured drive insurance costs up when their failures are spread back out into the system. I've been talking about this for years. What nobody has shown or is even willing to try to show is that HealthInc is the least responsive to market desires or in any way attempts to serve consumers. What has been demonstrated is that they use whatever means they can to avoid paying or to pay as little as they can. That is not immaterial.

Does somebody want to argue about whether the health insurance system in this country is a disaster? If exploding costs, denials, etc in the face of federal tax rewards is not a disaster, well - OK. Now the Senate is poised to reward that failure with federal money and the involuntary servitude of the public. I may be forced to buy auto insurance if I choose to own vehicles, but I do have a "choice" about owning one and I do have a hell of a lot of insurance companies to pick my mandated coverage from and those companies have varying reputations but certainly better than HealthInc. I will point out that people are actually not in a position of choice about owning a body and virtually no choice regarding health insurance providers.

I will not support mandates without choice and I will not support people who make this happen. I will repeat the words Halliburton and Blackwater, anybody notice these failures being removed from the system or their continuation as necessary - in the face of their behavior? I will not support a Party that goes there and I will not support a President who lies to my face about it. I don't in the least care what Ron Wyden or Jeff Merkley say about health care reform, if those mandates stay in without choice they are Liebercrats. It should be obvious to anybody that if one or two Democratic Senators stood up and said no choice/no mandates or no cloture that the mandates would go away. That isn't going to happen and they will pat themselves on their backs for not pulling a Lieberman and enabling Lieberman. They can try that in public and I (at least) will be standing right there calling Bullshit - in public. It is unfortunate that the House is going to suffer right along with Senators since they provided some version of choice, but they're going to get hammered. The goddam Senators seem to have forgotten that the House is part of Congress and the President gets to sign or not whatever crap comes out of Congress and the suffering for their bullshit gets spread around.

The Senate has proved how it will handle as important an issue as health care reform, still to come are issues around climate warming, jobs, banking regulation, and the rest of 30 years of fallout of Republican junk. I suppose you have optimism... Howard Dean versus Joe Lieberman? Ahahahaha...

Senator Tom Harker just got done lying on MSNBC by implying that Dean's support was predicated on single payer - odd since he's played booster right up until choice was removed... Damn, that crap sounds familiar.

The Latest Democratic Stupidity

This morning out of some masocistic impulse I got to watch Joe Scarborough smirk about how Joe Lieberman dragged the Democrats back from disaster and how Howard Dean was a leftist idiot deserving the White House ire while they're fine with Joe Ho. The people praising you should be some indication of where you've gotten yourself. Joe goddam Scarborough.

So now you know, Joe Ho is what a Democrat should be and Howard Dean is a rat bastard and that's where this White House is. Well, I thought I was a Democrat and I thought I was a realist and I thought I was pretty much in line with the majority of House and Senate Democrats. Turns out I was...um...wrong. The President of the United States, the head of the Party, has made it clear that I was wrong. I'll accept that measure of wrongness in definition. How about you?

The biggest corporate giveaway program by the Federal Government is supposed to be some sort of Democratic Victory. You can tell these people from the Republicans exactly how? Wasn't there a song...

Say hello to the new master
Same as the old master
lalalalalalala or something.

The Democratic Senatorial Corporate Shills

It is a whole lot of fun to bash hell out of the (L) Party member Lieberman and some of his co-conspirators like Nelson and Baucus and in some ways it is accurate enough. There is a bit more to it than that, well a lot more to it.

The Democratic Senate Caucus has enough votes to essentially end the career of any member of the Caucus. It is a real bad practice to do this to the opposition Party's membership, it encourages payback when majorities shift. It is a bad practice regarding floor votes because politicians need to be allowed their convictions and their constituency's interests. It is a whole 'nother kettle of fish where a procedural vote like cloture is involved. This is the Caucus' business and if it is important enough to the Caucus to bring the matter to the floor for a vote then they need to make sure it happens.

It is not that important to the Democratic Caucus. It is not a matter of sufficient import to that Caucus that minus any options other than the rapists of HealthInc a mandate to buy insurance remains. This is even more Halliburtonizaton of the public good. This is the Federal government adding more to the coffers of the same bunch that has driven this national fiasco, by fiat. This is BushCo's corporate welfare taken to extremes, it makes them pikers in that game.

You will buy their insurance and the taxpayers will make up the difference for some. You will get a handful of regulations that the industry will find ways to shit on. If you don't like what they do to you with your policy you will do what? Hire a lawyer? There is nobody and nothing to take your back, just you and your lawyer up against the richest corporations in the nation. There is nothing that will contain or control costs and no reason for the corporate rapists to act as though their rate payers mean spit next to their business models. They will "compete" with a couple of their fellows with exactly the same ends in mind and they aren't yours.

The Democratic Senators give exactly the damn you've seen them give, nothing. If you find a difference between what those Senators tell you and what is happening and what Joe Lieberman looks like - maybe you should listen to Lieberman. It is just this simple, Joe Lieberman is the Democratic Senate Caucus in operation. If that Senator of yours protests that this is too harsh; you're allowed to laugh in his face and ask just exactly what the results were and who allowed this. I will tell you flatly that there is not a majority in the Democratic Senate Caucus who give a damn about the difference or this would not be the result.

The Caucus knows what it can do to Lieberman and the other couple jerks, those jerks know what the Caucus could do; and they also know that they won't do it. They can act just exactly as they please on a procedural vote and there will be no repercussions. Not one damn thing.

The mandate should be a deal breaker for any Democrat as this mess stands. The rest of it is political window dressing and matters not the least other than as propaganda. If you think it means something and want to support it, then do so - minus that mandate. The mandate means that this is worse than the status quo, that BushCo still runs this country for the sole benefit of the plutocrats and your lot just got worse. Once HealthInc is sucking at the public tit in this manner they will never be removed from it and their influence in government will be multiplied by an exponential factor.

Yep, and you just got the President of the USA on your TV telling you that, "...not everybody will get what everybody wants..." and the only people who got what they wanted is Joe the Ho and his HealthInc buddies. You get talk. Yes, you good guy Senators, I am talking to YOU and about YOU. Go ahead and ask me and a bunch of people just like me for something again... Our name isn't Aetna - or Halliburton or Inc anything. I really figure the effort to fill in a space on a ballot is asking too goddam much. Show me I'm wrong - I ain't holding my breath, though.

Health Care, Or What (6/23/09 repost)

If you've followed this blog at all you know that I'm a supporter of the concept of single payer health care. I have no doubt that big health care insurance companies would take a hit but it would scarcely be fatal. Single payer would not be a 'gold plated' offering, it would no doubt have some limits on what would be covered and for how long.

This piece of limits would cause some serious hand wringing from the Right, as though no such things exist today. We have really stupid costs built into the system now, we spend incredible amounts on end of life measures, not creating comfort at that point but fighting futilely against death. A tiny minority of doctors are responsible for the vast majority of malpractice claims. The uninsured and under insured drive medical costs for everyone up drastically. Emergency rooms get used as doctor's offices and simple procedures get avoided until they are major. Insurance companies deny treatments until they fall onto the public dime.

Democrats and Republicans have completely different views of health care and who should survive - ie people or insurance companies' profits. Well, a bit more accurately most Democrats and some Democrats and Republicans have different views. You can certainly understand that campaign contributions from insurance companies (surrogates) go to those sympathetic to insurance companies and that doesn't quite reach bribery, but expecting something different is silly. The question that occurs is exactly why some Democrats are so damned sympathetic to insurance companies. It is important to realize that your premiums don't go to pay claims, they go to ... wait for it ... investment in investment banks. Remember the villains in the crash? Add them to this crapfest.

Real frankly what you'll get for your trouble in electing these folks is squat. There are some Democrats working real hard to look out for the public and they deserve kudos and support but if all Democrats were there - the deal would be done already. The Republicans have already shown where they stand - you're on your own - and considering them in the debate is simply childish approval seeking.

I don't have a lot of hope that Pres Obama would veto a junk bill since it is what he could get on his biggest issue. I wonder how I'll find myself dealing with how health care shakes out, I may lose my sense of humor. I'm closing in on the end of my leash, and my friends I break leashes.

*** Update 12/15/09 ***

So now what have you got? What you really have is a Senate who will make you buy insurance from the rapists who drove the system into this national fiasco and kind of limit, maybe, some of their really bad practices. You just had the President get on national TV and say, "...everybody won't get what everybody wants..." as though that had some kind of meaning. Single payer never made the gate so those folks got nothing, a public option wasn't good, but those folks got nothing, a Medicare buy in wasn't real good, but it's gone. Essentially the HealthInc got richer by Senate fiat as long as some toothless new regulations are kind of observed. You bet somebody got what they wanted and it sure the hell had nothing to do with any sizable percentage of the population, but the President just put up the strawman of "everybody." Joe Hoe Lieberman got what he wanted and HealthInc execs got what they wanted - the rest of you go suck eggs. No the teabaggers didn't, because some piece of crap with a (D) after it will actually pass and that's way too much for them, but essentially that exercise in stupidity gets what they wanted.

Me? I got a begging note from Organize For America. I get them from DSCC as well, and DNC and... I don't think so, I think they can stick it where the sun doesn't shine. As long as Joe Lieberman is a member of the Democratic Caucus and Max Baucus holds a Chair talking to me about helping is going to be real damn difficult. If you think either of those are going to change anytime soon, I suggest not holding your breath.

Water, A Town, The Fed, Stupidity Ensues

About 140 years ago a road was carved into the mountains outside Baker City. The purpose of this road was to cut a ditch to provide water to mines. A pipeline was laid in the ditch and this pipeline provides almost all of the water Baker City, population 10,000, uses. High quality water derived from a watershed now within the Wallowa Whitman National Forest. The water has some chlorine added to it to protect it from the city's own pipelines, otherwise the wet stuff is capable of winning water competitions nationally.

While it doesn't affect the quality of the water, there is a problem, the pipeline leaks. Baker City still gets its water but this is a waste of a resource. The city would like to repair the pipeline which lies under a road everyone agrees belongs to Baker City even though much of its 17 miles runs through the national forest. What is proposed, fairly straight forwardly, is to dig up the pipe, fix it, and cover it back up - all things Baker City is free to do with its road through the Wallowa Whitmans. The issue is getting the pipe carrying trucks to the dig, there are curves.

In fact, everyone involved agrees about the road and its ownership and control of it, unfortunately also that no one knows how wide it is. So Baker City is suing the Federal Government.

This stupid result is because were Baker City to exceed its unknown right of way a $100,000 Environmental Study taking a year would be required. This isn't a matter of the city wishing to create a highway of some sort into the forest, it is a matter of digging up a pipeline underneath the existing road and getting pipe to it. The crux of the matter is just how wide the right of way is and no one knows, not the city and not the federal government and so this will land on a Federal Judge's docket to sort out a matter of some feet. Lawyers and court time costs everybody money and cities of 10K don't need to throw money away in court. (if anybody does)

Something To Say About Joe Lieberman

Joe is ... well darn, I ran right out of polite adjectives and adverbs. How do you like that?

Knock yourselves out, something I won't have to censor.

Gus 'n Brayden

Gus at 150 pounds, Brayden at 19 pounds. Having the grandson and daughter in law living here is different ... nice.

Randi told me she used to laugh at her brothers and friends for playing video games, right this moment she's playing Fallout 3 and jumping at surprises and yelling at the characters. Hmmm.

If you've never played the damn thing, don't be too quick to jump to conclusions.

The New GOP

I'm sorry, I can't help myself - here's the New GOP.

Not safe for work or children or well, the humor impared (R).

H/T Balloon Juice.

US Slavery

Yes, it does exist and yes right here in the good ole US of A. Kansas City dot Com can depress the hell out of you.

More Misery In Africa, Thank GWB And The Christianists

Africa has had plenty of problems from the time Europeans began to meddle in it. That would be centuries of miseries mostly attributable to whites. This is scarcely to minimize African abilities in misery making, something not missing. Sometimes what could loosely be termed as good intentions go seriously awry.

McClatchy reports on a baby boom swamping Africans and pushing families into poverty. The culprit? BushCo and his Christianist allies insistence that birth control be uncoupled from US aid.

Under President George W. Bush, the United States withdrew from its decades-long role as a global leader in supporting family planning, driven by a conservative ideology that favored abstinence and shied away from providing contraceptive devices in developing countries, even to married women.

Bush's mammoth global anti-AIDS initiative, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, poured billions of dollars into Africa but prohibited groups from spending any of it on family planning services or counseling programs, whose budgets flat-lined.

If you ever wonder why theocracy makes me grit my teeth, read the entire article and think about the legacy of BushCo.

Lieberman Still Crapping In The Democratic Bed

I understand that most levers the Senate Democratic Caucus has to use on other "Democrats" lose effect if they are public. That would mean that there is a lot I don't know. I sure do know a couple things.

The Senate health care reform bill proposals have consistently neutered the neutered House version. This process is still ongoing. This process is ongoing because some so-called Democrats are threatening to block cloture if the bill is at all meaningful. If the Caucus was taking itself in hand this would not be the case. There are more than enough votes to pass real reform once cloture happens. Democrats don't need to play GOP purity games on the vote, but cloture is another issue all together.

I'm beginning to lose all respect for this body and considering their 6 year terms that loss of respect can easily mean I'll just quit playing. Democrats have asked a lot over the years and now they've finally been delivered a theoretical filibuster proof majority and the Presidency and are demonstrating an entire inability to get cloture on signature legislation. You folks want my support for what? Are you going to ask me to help get an 80 seat majority? I know you're asking for help to maintain seats, as things stand - I think not.

Somebody will probably accuse me of playing purity games. Nah. I'm well left of any candidate that has run for national or state office in my memory and I've been useful anyhow. I'm not expecting the kind of health care reform I'd really like without an entire melt-down of the system. I'm a realist, but now I'm offended. I'd like to point out to Democratic elected officials that I'm a lot more patient and pragmatic than a hell of a lot of people you count on. I know you do realistically discount our vote numbers, but our numbers do include a lot of money and ground troop effort you count on.

Sitting on your hands and blaming Lieberman, or Nelson, or etc is entire horseshit. You have the numbers to cripple any of these Senators for the rest of their terms and effectively shut down their re-election. If you cannot get your own damn Caucus past cloture because you are unwilling to do so I am to understand that you are better alternative to the GOP exactly why? This effectively means that electing you guys does not mean any progress but rather being frozen in the morass of BushCo. That being the case I'd rather let real Republicans trash the place sufficiently to get the idea across. Yes, opposed to watching your pointless flailing I'd back the Confederate Party of Republicanism so we can have some real failure since BushCo wasn't obvious enough.

Do you think I wouldn't send them money and shoot you in the foot every time you offer one up in search of that end? Yes, I'd back the Confederate Party of Republicanism in their plutocratic racist theocracy ends and all their warmongering just so Americans can see what they actually are. I'd say we've now been allowed to see what you guys are and that is an exercise in paralysis.

*** Updare ***
Profile has been modified because I am no longer comfortable with speaking from any place reflecting a political Party's official views. For the time being I'm done.

Republican Foreign Policy Spite Serves Whom?

Six months ago the Honduran military arrested the President, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, and sent him out of the country in a sort of coup. Since that time the new government, unrecognized and ostracized by the Obama Administration, has courted Republicans. GOP Congressmen have traveled to Honduras to show solidarity with the coup and stick their fingers in the Obama eye.

It might have paid them to pay attention to exactly what kind of people they were climbing into bed with. Per McCalatchy, this kind of people:

As Zelaya approaches his sixth month of banishment, human-rights organizations here and abroad say Honduras has experienced a serious deterioration of civil rights in a country where death squads and extrajudicial killings already were commonplace.

Resistance members say they have been subjected to a campaign by police, the military and paramilitaries to execute their leaders and members. Human-rights activists have documented the deaths of 26 members who have been stabbed or shot across the country.

Activists say more than 3,000 people have been illegally detained, 450 beaten, and 114 now are political prisoners since the June coup.

Sen Jim DeMint is the kind of guy it isn't too surprising to see in this sort of company. The words ethics and politics don't get too close to each other in this guy's world. If you wonder what kind of USA he's thinking of, looking at who he supports might be instructive.

Assholes.

Lieberman Is A Democratic Chair?

Here's a question for the Democratic Senate Caucus, exactly what is it you're keeping Ole Joe Ho around for? What Democratic bill is it you think he's going to vote for if is isn't warfare or Corporate Welfare? Or is that stuff on your agenda?

I'm real curious as to the agenda that keeps a plutocratic warmongering Republican wannabe as a member of the Caucus. If you want to convince Democrats that you're not idiots, how about an explanation? Hell, do it on TV but do it...

Finance Regulation Happening?

It kind of looks as though the House has passed something resembling reform of regulation of financial institutions, investment institutions. I'm quite sure there is plently lacking from the left perspective, I am insulted by the exclusion of cram down that would allow morttgage term restructuring on primary residences while allowing it on luxuries like second homes and yachts - who is that designed to benefit?

It seems to have a lot going for it, regardless. Now we get to see what the Corporate Investment Whoredom known as the US Senate will make of it. Be ready to puke, despite the last couple years.

Robust Legal Systems Have Reasons For Existing

A McClatchy report once again points up the reason the US built a legal system with such robust protections for the accused.

A day after the emir of Kuwait sent his royal jet to fetch a citizen from Guantanamo, the Pentagon has dropped war crimes charges against the Kuwaiti Airways executive who has long claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity.

Susan Crawford, a Pentagon appointee, who has overseen military commissions since the Bush administration, on Thursday dismissed the terror charges against Fouad Rabia, 50, "without prejudice."

"Without prejudice" means charges could be refiled. I have no idea if the man did or did not do what he was held for. What I do know is that he has been held for years without coming to trial for what is a criminal matter.

What the authoritarians forget is that the reason the US system requires the government to jump through so many hoops is this - the accused faces the full might and capabilities of the most powerful entity in the world. The deck is scarcely tilted in a defendant's favor. The idea that Americans' concept of justice can be served by removing protections is ludicrous. The same whiny diaper wetters that scream about 'terrism' also make pronouncements about limited government - is there a disconnect? Isn't there always one?

Health Care (ahem) Reform

It begins to look as though the Senate version of health care reform will be composed of letting some older Americans "buy" into some sort of "Medicare" and piling some more customers into the HealthInc rapists' paths (on the public dime). There are some pretty good guys in the Senate Democratic Caucus, the operative word being some. Maybe it isn't fair to call the US Senate a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporate World and HealthInc, but it is sufficiently so to make the lack of that absolute immaterial.

I'll wait awhile to absolutely lose my mind. While it is true that the longer legislation spends in Congress the generally less representative of the public good it is, it is also true that it generally changes. It might actually make some difference to Senatorial Hacks that nearly 60% of the voters want HealthInc to be forced to compete with an entity that actually holds the public's welfare in some esteem. It might not.

Er, probably not...

Bad For The Nation, Bad For Parties

You've no doubt noticed over the past few months that the Right of the GOP has been become more influential and reaching for considerably more power. Sen Jim DeMint is probably as whacked on the right as any politician in somewhat recent history, he has pursued foreign adventures that under BushCo Congress would have resulted in accusations of treason. He had a chat with the Christian Broadcasting Network and laid out his desires and opinion of the Republican "leadership."

"The problem in the Republican Party is that the leadership has gone to the left," he said. "I need some new Republicans."

I'm pretty hard pressed to find that leftward tilt he seems to be referencing. Would that be the lockstep opposition to Democratic legislation?

"[We need] people who believe in constitutional government, a balanced budget and liberty and so I'm out across the country recruiting new republicans who I think if they get here will not only challenge the institutions of government but be willing to even challenge the Republican Party and our leadership if they feel like we're going in the wrong direction," DeMint said. "I think just a handful of new Republicans in the Senate could help change the direction."

Now go ahead and neglect the fact that none of the issues he's have had shit to do with Republican legislation, who is it that he's talking about here? It certainly has nothing to do with DeMint personally in political legislation. Not even remotely to do with his politics on religion, civil liberties, taxes and spending, or - well - essentially anything.

Jim DeMint may actually be operating under the delusion that some broad swath of Americans support his lunacy. This view would ignore the Democratic voters and a large portion of the non-affiliated and it would ignore some remaining segment of the Republicans. This sort of thinking leads to a Party in the low 20% and nationally irrelevant. Responsible opposition Parties are important to the process, not all ideas of any Party are so good that they cannot be improved with some input from a different perspective. In function today that is largely missing and going farther in that direction leads to even less input.

This crap drives Republicans out of their party and encourages the growth of Republican thinking in the Democratic Party. As a Democrat I find that offensive and destructive to my Party. You could see today's Senate for an example of where that gets you. The Democratic Party cannot hold all points of view other than the lunatic, it simply ceases to be a political party and becomes every thing other than lunacy and that is not a political point of view. I don't know what Republicans have to actually stand for, their rhetoric does not match their actions.

I could actually understand a drive toward smaller less intrusive government but they actually drive toward no such thing, their intrusions are not lesser, they are simply different. I really could care less what they land on, just that it be reflective of sufficient of the populace to have some kind of political impact. The problem is that Sen DeMint's nonsense doesn't address the dearth of political vision, it simply moves that lack in a more stupid direction.

Ah well, hold your breath and all that...

Go Ahead And Think On This

While you're considering the shitheels in the US Senate, some of the Democratic label and an entire Republican Caucus there is sometimes something like this. Ah well.

How Stupid Is Sen Ben Nelson ?

Sen Benb Nelson has introduced legislation to help fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with War Bonds. This was in apparent reaction to the idea of some legislators to pay for the wars with a surtax. Either Nelson is as ignorant and stupid about finance as he is about health insurance or he's a political tool dedictated to nothing in the public interest. Does anybody not know that that whatever the label, bonds are debt? Calling the financing War Bonds makes it not an iota different from the Treasury Bonds China is already buying.

A tax is income, a bond is borrowing. I'm sure Sen Joe Lieberman also approves - he of the debt scare filibuster threats. These guys may have a lower opinion of the average intelligence of the American voter than I do - I wonder who is right. Yessiree, it's just fine to stack up crippling debt to kill people and break things but heaven forbid it sace people's lives.

I must be a masochist to keep giving a damn about this.