Health Care Explained

H/T: Donklephant

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Tweet Of The Day

"this guy Matt Latimer could be the poster boy for 'greasy guy in politics' quite literally, how much gel does homeboy put in his hair?" @McCainBlogette, raising the bar for political discussion.

Ugh. I usually think that Ms. McCain brings a fresh voice to the table. Have I been mistaken? If you don't like a "homeboy's" politics, fine. But, to go after the guy's hair? That's akin to someone criticizing a female pundit for her weight -- oh, right -- that happened to Meghan McCain, didn't it?

Should I start an 'irony' label?

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John Corzine Catching Up To Chris Christie

... as much as B-Diddy will hate to hear it, a Republican governor in New Jersey may be quite a challenge:

Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine has cut Republican challenger Christopher Christie's lead in half and now trails the former federal prosecutor 43 - 39 percent among New Jersey likely voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Independent candidate Christopher Daggett has 12 points, with 6 percent undecided.

Christie was up by a full 10 points one month ago. Also, those trend lines do not bode well for Mr. Christie.

Now, in the case of Pennsylvania... it appears that we will definitely have a Republican governor in 2010.

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Quote Of The Day II

"I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

"What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, 'Should Obama be killed?' The choices were: 'No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.' The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

"Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly." -Thomas Friedman, in yesterday's New York Times. Read the whole thing.

It seems to me that the more vitriol that is unleashed, the more dangerous the climate becomes. Sooner or later, some crazed person is going to say, 'I can't take the [insert any 'ism' here] anymore!', grab an assault rifle and go someplace and start shooting. There is such a toxicity in the political atmosphere that this seems to be an inevitability.

I hope that I'm wrong...

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Sarah Palin's 'Audience'

Reason's Michael Moynihan gets in on the Palin book bashing:

According to [Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund], Palin was irritated that campaign staffers were forcing her off the Fox plantation and—get this—forcing her to do interviews with hostile journalists:

Ms. Palin was booked on grueling interviews with hostile reporters while talk-show hosts such as Glenn Beck couldn't even get through to her aides. Mr. Beck tells me he was stunned when he picked up the phone one day just before the election to discover Sarah Palin was on the other end of the line. "She explained that she had been blocked from reaching her audience, so she was now 'going rogue' and booking her own interviews," Mr. Beck told me. "I was thrilled she had burst out of the cage they'd built for her and we were finally talking."

So let’s get this straight: Palin believed that she needed to reach Glenn Beck’s audience, her audience, lest they up and vote for President Obama, while independent voters—the ones who aren’t regular Limbaugh listeners, those who want to see potential vice presidents subjected to "grueling interviews"—would be ignored.

HarperCollins is printing 1.5 million copies of Going Rogue for the pitiable members of her “audience.”

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Ron Paul On The Daily Show

"You seem to have put a lot of thought and effort into this book... and you call yourself a Congressman!"

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'Coldest Winter In Decades' In Northeast

Ugh.

The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.

“Weak El Ninos are notorious for cold and snowy weather on the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good odds.”

[snip]

“It could be one of the coldest winters, or the coldest, winter of the decade,” Rogers said.

------
Photo: an evening last January on my street

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Bill O'Reilly Vs. Bernie Goldberg

Bill O'Reilly and Bernie Goldberg have a 'fair and balanced' discussion -- about Fox News. Well worth your time.

I must admit that over the last few months I have really started warming to Bill O'Reilly. I'm not saying that I agree with every one of his opinions, I'm just saying that he seems to be getting more and more levelheaded.

Head nod: Mediaite

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Do You Want Fries With That?

A relatively inexpensive way to convert a diesel 1984 Mercedes Benz from a gas-guzzler into a fry-oil-guzzler:

Without any sort of approval from my girlfriend, I bought a 1984 diesel Mercedes-Benz through eBay. Two years later, the vehicle has provided me with nearly 10,000 miles of service on waste vegetable oil (WVO). The fuel may technically be free, but it has not come without a price. Here's how I converted my car, affectionately known as "Chance," to a veggie-oil roadster, and some of the hard-learned lessons I picked up along the way.

I started with a WVO kit from Frybrid. This company sells a rather high-end (~$2,000) setup for my model of Mercedes. The primary components are:

* Heated fuel hoses (hose-in-hose)
* 20-gallon fuel tank (with heat-exchange)
* Heat-exchanger under the hood
* Heated fuel filter
* Embedded computer to control dummy lights and switches between stock diesel tank and veggie oil tank based on radiator temperature

[snip]

My conversion took one week with the assistance of a professional diesel mechanic. It was a stressful process ripping apart the car and just hoping that everything would work in the end. Having a mechanic around to offer tips, tricks and tools, and to make minor repairs on the ancient vehicle, helped quite a bit. I don't recommend taking on your own conversion if you're not already well versed with the automotive world. The downside of having a mechanic around is the cost (~$1,500).

There are other pitfalls as well. Read the rest of the article here.

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Bobby Jindal: 'Let's Work With The President'

In an interview with Politico, Louisiana Governor Jindal breaks with many in his party, and their stance on Barack Obama:

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal urged his party in an interview Tuesday to shift to offering health care solutions instead of just rejecting what President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress are proposing.

“I think now is the perfect time to pivot and to say, not only here’s what we’re against, and not only here’s how we’re going to contrast ourselves, but here’s what we’re for,” Jindal said in an interview Tuesday with POLITICO.

Jindal acknowledged that the Republican Party for years had been too slow to stake out positions on the health care debate “to our peril and the nation’s peril.”

“I think that in some circles, it was viewed as a Democratic issue,” said Jindal, who served in top posts at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Bush administration and ran his state’s health department in the ’90s.

Jindal urged congressional Republicans to go to the White House and find common ground with Obama.

“Let’s start anew,” he said they should tell the president. “We’re willing to work with you in a bipartisan way.”

Ah, moderation. How we love thee.

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Starbucks Parodies Townhall Meetings

Kind of. Granted, it's only a teaser promo, but I felt like they could have made it much more realistic (read: raucous). Either way, the fact that a large corporation has used the townhall format as a device for advertising shows that we political nerds are not the only ones paying attention.

Head nod: Allahpundit

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Joint Force Quarterly: "Repeal DADT"

Here is an Essay from the October 2009 issue of Joint Force Quarterly.

The 1993 “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” law was a political compromise reached after much emotional debate based on religion, morality, ethics, psychological rationale, and military necessity. What resulted was a law that has been costly both in personnel and treasure. In an attempt to allow homosexual Servicemembers to serve quietly, a law was created that forces a compromise in integrity, conflicts with the American creed of “equality for all,” places commanders in difficult moral dilemmas, and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve. Furthermore, after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly. In fact, the necessarily speculative psychological predictions are that it will not impact combat effectiveness. Additionally, there is sufficient empirical evidence from foreign militaries to anticipate that incorporating homosexuals will introduce leadership challenges, but the challenges will not be insurmountable or affect unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.
...
Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather, it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.

Emphasis mine.
H/T Joe.My.God

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Fleeing From MySpace

An interesting piece at The Root that examines the growing exodus from MySpace. Money:

MySpace is no longer cool. As a matter of fact, its number of users is now one-half the size of rival Facebook. Is this because MySpace is too black for the rest of America? Teenage Internet users may hold the answer. High-schoolers report their use of the social-networking giants along racial lines—MySpace is seen as “black,” while Facebook is “white.” And even within the networks, black kids befriend other black kids, Latinos mix with Latinos, and the self-segregation often practiced in real life is rampant online. Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, compares this dash from MySpace to Facebook to “white flight” from inner cities.

Wow. Well, I'm white and I'm still on MySpace. Although truthfully I don't check the page very often -- and nobody has 'commented' on my MySpace page since 14 March, 2008 (hi Kristina!). Ouch. However, similar things could be said about my Facebook page. I guess until I get a BUNCH of fans, I don't feel a strong attraction to the idea of hitting up Facebook often.

SO, to recap: MySpace is fast becoming irrelevant and Facebook is king. So... become a fan of ThePajamaPundit.com. Nooch.

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Joe The Plumber Is Still Out There

Just in case you were wondering, Samuel Werzelbacher is still fighting the good fight -- and Dave Weigel caught up with JtP to do some follow-up:

When I got a few minutes with Wurzelbacher, I wanted to know: What ever happened to IRSVote.com, the Website where users were asked to pay $0.99 for a phone call to “vote the IRS out of business” and replace the income tax with a FairTax? While the site is still up and running, Wurzelbacher admitted that endorsing the site was probably a mistake.

“I’m learning,” he said. He started to say something about the people who hound him to endorse their products, but he thought better of it. “The basics were there for a great idea but they definitely want to do it just for money. And it was sold to me as more of a chance of doing something else. The publicity that they promised never came.”

Wurzelbacher shrugged. The idea had made sense to him, he said — people will vote for American Idol, so why not something important? But he said he’d walked away from the project, and his PajamasTV reporting job was only a three-month gig, so the high-profile projects of earlier this year were no more. He had, however, endorsed a conservative comic strip called “Microman USA,” which was on sale at the conference.

So, how ironic is it that the capitalist, free-market ideology of which 'Joe' speaks so fondly has turned its back on him?

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Quote Of The Day

"[Sarah Palin] has jumped onto the scene and has been hammered by the mainstream media. This is an opportunity for her to show a more thoughtful side. She has a gift for prose. Hopefully that comes across." -Rick Santorum, former Republican senator from Pennsylvania, commenting on Sarah Palin's forthcoming book, Going Rogue, An American Life. My emphasis.

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Fox News Allows Some Dissent

Bruce Bartlett, a staunch conservative, offering his dissenting voice on Fox News (well, Fox Business -- but close enough). Sullivan:

Fox's agenda has always been to suppress actual conservative dissent, and to reiterate the GOP talking points of the day against Potemkin "liberals" who, when they don't seem positively scrofulous, tend to look like beauty queens. So it's encouraging to see Bruce Bartlett actually able to make his case on Fox. Cavuto, of course. You don't want your viewers to actually be challenged in prime time - just pandered to. But it's something.

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Hanged Census Worker's Son Speaks Out

Bill Sparkman's son wants some resolution to the questions surrounding his father's death:

Josh Sparkman told The Associated Press in a phone interview that he is frustrated investigators have not ruled out suicide or accidental death.

"I look at it as disrespectful to be still throwing suicide and accident around," he said. "He didn't do this to himself. That's dishonorable. My dad was a good man. No person on this planet is going to fight cancer like he did, then turn around and kill himself a year or so later."

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Dick And Liz Cheney: Fearmongerers

The Cheney's are taking some heat for their recent comments:

About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it.

“It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday.

“Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn’t be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country. Get that damn symbol off the table,” said retired Gen. David Maddox, a former Army commander-in-chief for Europe. “We take a setback every time somebody, whether it’s the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say….We have to get out there again and just keep pounding.”

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Tweet Of The Day

"So apparently TLC has dumped Jon Gosselin. The show will now just be Kate Plus 8. That sound you hear is the world not caring." @jackgraycnn

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How To Take Back America

David Weigel has an eye-opening piece posted at The Washington Independent that chronicles his experience at the 'How To Take Back America Conference'. Money:

“[Kitty Werthmann] has pointed out the parallels between the slow, incremental Hitler takeover of Austria and some of the things that are happening today,” said Schlafly, asked about Werthmann’s “How to Recognize Living Under Nazis and Communists” session. “She’s an expert on that. I see what [Obama] is doing as absolute socialism, as government ownership of the means of production.”

The “How to Take Back America” conference was no place for soft critiques of the Obama administration. It was a weekend of speeches and training sessions that were laden with doom, cries of mounting fascism, and long prayers for salvation. It was the kind of event where Schlafly, a conservative icon who’s often seen as a leader of the movement’s far right flank, could take the role of a pragmatist, sticking to the sort of criticism of the Obama administration that might appear on Fox News and asking activists to elect a Republican Congress in 2010. And Schlafly succeeded in bringing big Republican stars to the conference. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) was the biggest draw, but six members of Congress attended, too–Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), and Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.). Several 2010 Republican candidates hosted workshops, including Ed Martin and Vicky Hartzler, both running for Democratic-held U.S. House seats in Missouri. But some of the rhetoric went beyond partisan politics. At worst, the speakers argued, fascism was on the horizon. At best, this was a pivotal time in a war on Christian values. Some of the speakers split the difference.

“If you look at the classic model for moving to Marxism,” said retired Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who would give the conference’s opening speech, “you look at what every Marxist organization has done, they nationalize. They redistribute wealth. They restrict gun ownership. They then go out and suppress the opposition. And then, finally, they censor the media.”

Read the whole thing here. Worth your time.

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Quote Of The Day (Updated)

"Obama's first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers' money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries. Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there's almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity." -Representative Trent Franks (R-Az) speaking at the 'How to Take Back America' conference.

According to Franks' spokesperson, the congressman was merely referring to President Obama's position on abortion. Does that make what he said any less repugnant?

UPDATE: here is the video (head nod: Doug Mataconis)

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Andy Williams Is No Fan Of Barack Obama

Ooookaaaaay:

"I was very close to Teddy Kennedy, too, and his death recently brought it all back. What a tragedy. Had he lived, I think Bobby would have been a great president."

But Williams had a less favourable opinion of the current president.

"Don't like him at all," he said, "I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very Left-wing. One is registered as a Communist.

"Obama is following Marxist theory. He's taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail."

So, as my good friend B-Diddy says, all of these Hollywood types should keep their mouths shut, right?

Maybe Andy Williams should stick to what he does best: Christmas tunes.

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HuffPo Screaming

ALL CAPS! AAARRRRGH!

The Senate Finance Committee has rejected the public health insurance option amendment voting 8-15.

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Do You Have What It Takes

...to be 'America's Next Great Pundit'?

Eyes on the prize.
The ultimate winner will get the opportunity to write a weekly column that may appear in the print and/or online editions of The Washington Post, paid at a rate of $200 per column, for a total of 13 weeks and $2,600. Our Opinions lineup includes a dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, regulars on the national political talk shows and some of the most influential players inside the Beltway. We’ll set our promising pundit on a path to become the next byline in demand, the talking head every show wants to book, the voice that helps the country figure out what’s really going on.

So what are you waiting for?

Here's the entry form! Nooch.

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'Kids Are Stupid'

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Americans Are Paying Closer Attention

... and I say it's a good thing. However, I'm not really all that surprised by these new numbers:

Americans are paying closer attention to political news today than in any year without a presidential election since Gallup began regularly tracking this measure in 2001. The 36% of Americans who today say they follow news about national politics "very closely" is down from the record-high 43% Gallup found in September 2008, but matches the level found in September 2004 -- two polls conducted during presidential election years.

The previous high for a year without a presidential election was 31% in 2006 -- a midterm election year. The previous high for a year without a national election was 30%, in 2007.

With the economy in the toilet bowl and our troops deployed to fight not one but two wars, I think that Americans would be remiss if we weren't paying closer attention to politics. Mix-in an historic election like the one that we had last year and you've got a sure-fire recipe for heightened heedfulness.

Head nod: The Fix

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The Masonic Conspiracy That Isn't

Are there powers behind the powers-that-be in Washington, D.C.? The Politico's Eamon Javers attempts to find out:

“We call each other ‘travelers,’” [Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.)] explained. “To become a 32nd or 33rd Degree Mason, there are a whole slew of degrees before that, and it’s a long road we’ve taken together.”

Rahall said he achieved his 33rd Degree status by two routes: through the Scottish Rite and through the York Rite, where he participated in the Commandery. That’s the portion of the Freemason tradition that makes Rahall a Knight Templar.

And although he hadn’t read the Dan Brown book, Rahall says he understands why the Masons attract so many conspiracy theories.

“It’s because, particularly in the early days, there were code words to get into the lodge, and everything is done by rituals,” Rahall said. “The Masons themselves helped perpetuate the myth, knowing it was just that — a myth.”

The reporter screwed up his courage to ask one final question.

So is there a global conspiracy?

“No.”

But you wouldn’t tell me if there was, would you?

“That’s right,” Rahall said with a smile.

Chuckling, the Knight Templar traveled back though the portal to the ancient floor of the House of Representatives.

My dad is a 32nd degree Mason and he says that it's a cool place. He's not active anymore, but says that -- contrary to movies and books -- there is no conspiracy. The Masons are just an ancient fraternity who, in modern times has become heavily involved with community service and philanthropy.

...or so they want us to believe...

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Wishful Drinking

Carrie Fisher stopped by the Today Show this morning promoting both her 1 woman Broadway show and her book Wishful Drinking.


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On Sarah Palin's Tome: 'Going Rogue'

Andrew Sullivan is skeptical:

Several questions naturally arise. Did she actually write those 400 pages? Please. Her peregrinations in the couple of months since she quit her "day-job" do not exactly reflect a period of personal reflection and diligence. She wrote that book as thoroughly as she wrote her speech in Hong Kong. The book was written by a hardcore Christianist; the speech by a hardcore neocon. She remains the hood ornament for a marketing campaign that now passes for the conservative movement.

The title itself lets us know that if anyone harbored any doubts about her own view of that disastrous campaign, she is immensely proud of it.

My guess is that she did have a ghost-writer (or at the very least lots of help). In my mind, there is nothing wrong with that (I'm writing a book right now and it's not easy). However, I would hope that if someone is indeed assisting the former Alaskan governor in her writing that it is still her voice that is being expressed. It would be downright shameful if someone else was 'putting words in her mouth' -- so to speak.

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The Illusion Of Free Choice

-Abtruse Goose

Head nod: TYWKIWDBI

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'I'm Gay And I Protected Your Freedom'

Shameful:

The gay and lesbian community is calling for an investigation into a billboard that was destroyed. The billboard is just one of 5 put up for National Coming Out Day and features a gay Marine. The billboards were paid for by the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

"We had the idea to celebrate National Coming Out Day which is October 11th. It's a time that around the nation people say I'm proud to be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender," said Heidi Williams, Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

The MGLCC wanted to get Memphis' attention but they didn't expect this. The vandalized billboard was located downtown on Poplar and was ripped to shreds. It featured a Marine wearing his uniform and the words "I'm gay and I protected your freedom". He is a Mid-south man who was kicked out of the military under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Williams said, "I believe that tearing down the billboard was a clear message and it was a hateful message."

Williams believes its more than just vandalism. She and others are asking for a full investigation by Memphis police to find out who's responsible.

[snip]

Next weekend the GLCC plans a rally to protest what's happened. The Marine who so proudly posed for his billboard picture will be one of the speakers.

Of course I'm disappointed -- but not all that surprised. But, the idea that this guy (or any servicemember) served our country honorably and would be treated this way is beyond my comprehension.

Head nod: Fury

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The Right America, Volume 7

What a crazy week in the world. The Beautiful Life gets canceled on the CW...the first cancellation of the 09-10 TV Season. Qaddafi tells the world that Obama is... his son? WHAT? Iran is blasting nukes because their leader is quack. Oy vey. Have no fear. The Right America will rectify this situation shortly... starting with electing two Republican Governors in 2009.

After that, history is favoring Republicans in 2010. Hear me out.

I'll get into the statistics later... for now... let's look at what could bring Obama down in 2010. He admits this week he wants to increase school years to not include full summer vacations. Do you guys hear that? MILLIONS of TEACHERS from the UNION already screaming at the President? The leader of IRAN is going crazy... and I am ready for the Clinton vs Obama clash in the White House over what to do with Mr. A over in Iran. Obama will either a) increase troops in Afghanistan and lose his base or b) decrease or not increase troops in Afghanistan and the Republican will have a field day with a "Obama doesn't listen to Generals" conversation with America. Uh oh... can you hear the clock ticking on the Obama administration and Democratic rule? And oh yeah... nobody wants his health care package and the Democrats are going to RAISE TAXES on the middle class (George Stephanopolous pointed this out exceptionally well!) to get there... uh oh...sounds like ANOTHER broken campaign promise to me!

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Defending Justice, Not Roman Polanski

A great take on the Roman Polanski story from one of the Ordinary Gents:

I think the discussion about Roman Polanski’s recent arrest (and possible extradition) demonstrates how hard it can be to talk civilly about decidedly uncivil things. Personally, I think Polanski is a brilliant filmmaker and a world-class cretin. I’m disgusted by what he did. But I also have great reservations about how we can try him and maintain a full grasp on due process and rights of the accused. The physical evidence is in bad condition;the police who ran his case are mostly dead; the key witnesses are unlikely to cooperate, including the victim; and most importantly, and most concerning, for a democratic society, is that the judge and the prosecuting attorney conspired during the case. That’s a really, really big deal, and contra this piece from Salon, it’s a big deal no matter whether the prosecutors in LA think it’s a big deal or not. That sort of thing absolutely can’t happen in a nation of laws. Can’t.

The problem is that the heinousness of any particular crime should have no bearing on whether we support rights of the accused, but they always do. I imagine that many of the people (most certainly including Bill Wyman from Salon) find the major and uncontested judicial impropriety in this case to be no big deal precisely because of how odious they find Polanski. But it can’t work that way, really, if we respect due process. It’s exactly when we find the defendants most offensive (and damn, Polanski is offensive) that we are most tasked in our defense of rights of the accused.

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Dan Riehl's New Low

It's not a secret that I'm no fan of Dan Riehl, but this is about as low as you can get.

Remember the U.S. Census worker who was found dead last week? You know, the guy who was hanging from a tree with 'fed' carved into his chest? Yeah, that one.

Dan Riehl ponders; "Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator?"

Check please.

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Secret Service Investigating Facebook Poll

Facebook, used as a potential threat to the president?

The Secret Service is investigating the circumstances surrounding an eye-opening Facebook poll that asked whether Obama should be assassinated, a Secret Service spokesman confirms to us.

“We are taking the appropriate investigative steps,” the spokesman, Ed Donovan, told our reporter, Amanda Erickson. “We are aware of it.”

The poll asked: “Should Obama be killed?” It offered four choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.

The poll, of course, is only the latest example of the sort of viral incitment to violence that flares up when the sparks of anti-Obama hatred are fed oxygen by the bellows of the Internets. While anyone can put up such a poll, this kind of stuff is a sign of the moment — as David Kurtz put it, it’s akin to graffiti on the virtual wall of our times.

According to a source, the Secret Service has contacted Facebook and asked them to take the poll down. And, indeed, it’s already down.

Seriously folks -- if you post stuff like this on the Internet you are just asking for a knock at your door by the Secret Service.

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Quote Of The Day

"The base of his party, the left base of his party, is opposed. The American people are weary of this conflict. I do have sympathy for the president making this decision. It's the toughest decision the president has to make, to send people into harm's way. But I remind you that throughout [U.S.] history, whether it be Harry Truman or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln, leaders have had to make tough choices, and history has judged them very kindly." -Senator John McCain

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Bleep Blorp Bloop

NERDS!

This guy took an old R2D2 cooler and crammed modified it with eight different consoles, a sound system, and even mounted a projector inside of the head… just like the real R2D2!!! Instead of a wise cracking R2D2, “Bloop bleep boop,” (how dare you say that about my mother R2!) now you have your very own vintage gaming robot to follow you around.

Looking at the the remote controls, we see R2 contains vintage consoles like the:

NES, SNES, N64, Game Cube, Play Station, XBox, Dream Cast, and Atari.

It's... it's like a dream come true!

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Gates: Let's Use Diplomacy, Not Military Action

Defense Secretary Robert Gates comments on the recent, err, developments with regard to Iran

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Iran’s secret underground nuclear facility revealed this week is illegal and likely intended for military purposes.

“I think that certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that … this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only … because the Iranians kept it a secret,” Gates said in an interview broadcast on CNN’s State of the Union.

“If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a … secret for a protracted period of time,” Gates said.

Gates refused to rule out a military strike by the United States and its allies, but called for diplomatic efforts including sanctions first.

“The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time,” Gates said. “The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.

“And so I think, as I say, while you don't take options off the table, I think there's still room left for diplomacy.”

Gate said “a variety of options” remained available, including sanctions on banking and equipment and technology for Iran’s oil and gas industry.

Obviously you don't rule out military action, but -- like Iraq -- Iran poses no imminent threat to America. Diplomacy is the word right now. Let's use it.

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Speechless

Sometimes I really fear for the future of this country. [NSFW: language]

H/T: Joe.My.God

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Hard Wuerk

-M.Wuerker, Wuerking Drawings

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Ed Schultz Is No Better Than Glenn Beck

... or Sean Hannity. Or Rush Limbaugh.

Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They'd rather make money off your dead corpse! They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for her. That's how the insurance companies make money -- by denying the coverage. Democrats, what's wrong with you? You can't deal with these people!

Classy Ed, really classy.

So, if someone disagrees with you, they want you dead right? Look, this whole 'civil discourse' thing goes both ways gang. You can't rail on one side of the aisle for saying outlandish things and then go and spout equally asinine arguments. You'll just look stupid. Ed Schultz should apologize for saying that the GOP doesn't care and wants Americans to die. Period.

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An HIV Vaccine

Are we closer to a cure for HIV/AIDS? Some promising research says 'maybe':

A vaccine to prevent HIV infection, the virus that leads to AIDS, has shown modest results for the first time, researchers have found, raising hopes that a disease that kills millions every year may someday be beaten.

In what is being called the world's largest HIV vaccine trial ever -- involving more than 16,000 participants in Thailand -- researchers found that people who received a series of inoculations of a prime vaccine and booster vaccine were 31 percent less likely to get HIV, compared with those on a placebo.

I'm hoping this is good -- but I'm not counting my chickens yet.

I can't believe that science has yet to cure major diseases like cancer and AIDS. We can put a man on the moon...

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On Being Gay In The Military

An interesting article that chronicles three military personnel who are gay -- and their thoughts on life in the military under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. Money:

Richard has turned to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network to learn which actions do or don't violate the law.

For example, he explains, it's OK for a soldier to go to a gay bar - but it's not OK to dance with another man. It's OK to watch a movie with a same-sex partner - but not to kiss or hold that partner's hand. It's fine to march in a gay pride parade- but not to hold a placard identifying yourself as a lesbian sailor.

Having to stay attuned to those specific legalities has worn Richard down.

He takes seriously the American ideals of justice and equality. That his own government denies him both, he said, takes its toll.

"Is our military representative of the freedoms of our nation?" he asked rhetorically. "If I can't go to the movies and hold somebody's hand, am I free?"

Having to lie about tiny things gets tiresome, and eventually, Richard said, leads to a bigger problem:

"It's important people can be true to themselves. If you can't be true to yourselves, you can't be true to the people around you."

The current policy encourages lying, he said - and even small lies about where you spent the weekend or what you watched on TV turn into a bigger breach of trust.

"When, by law, you are compelling people to lie about their personal lives, you're driving a wedge between people and their unit," he said.

He is confident the military would accept the change without much trouble.

"Saying our military can't adapt to those challenges is really selling our military short," he said.

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Crossing The Streams

This is what it looks like when two opposing personalities from the same political party come together:


What is striking to me about this video is not that Ron Paul agrees to appear on the same stage as Michele Bachmann (though I do find that odd -- at the very least). Rather, what really strikes me is that Ron Paul spends nearly 40 minutes criticizing the Obama White House and Democratic lawmakers without ever uttering a word that ends in -ism (communism, socialism, fascism, etc). This is what reasoned criticism looks like.

Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and yes you Congresswoman Bachmann -- you should all take a page from Ron Paul's playbook. You disagree without being disagreeable. You can voice dissent without sounding like a partisan hack.

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The Other Face Of Glenn Beck

Overall, this account of his homecoming makes him seem like an average American:

Glenn Beck spoke for about an hour, reminiscing about his time growing up in Mount Vernon, which he described as a "magical place," connected to the values of small-town America.

"I believe in Norman Rockwell's America," Beck said.

He talked about the old wooden flagpole in town, the time he got busted stealing chewing gum, and how he used to act as the remote control in his household by sitting close to the TV. He said he used to be the boy who came to school smelling like cake, because his parents ran a bakery in the town.

For the most part, Beck stayed away from talking about politics.

He said that when he was growing up, he couldn't get out of the small town fast enough.

"Now, I would give my right arm to live in a town like Mount Vernon. And I discovered today that there are a ton of people ready to cut it off," he joked. "It doesn't bother me, because I have the key to their house now."

At one point, when talking about going to the Lincoln Theater with his mother, Beck wept. He said that tonight's event, a fundraiser for the theater, had raised $10,000 — which he would match with another $10,000. He also told the crowd that he'd put down $500 at the Big Scoop ice-cream parlor — which he used to enjoy as a kid — for them all to go and get free ice-creams.

However, there was one thing that caught me eye:

Beck said he didn't remember politics being divisive growing up, and that if people now could just stop "tearing each other apart" there was a bright future for the country.

Really Mr. Beck? You want everyone to stop 'tearing each other apart'? Maybe you should start by looking in the mirror (or watching a clip of your show) because you are a source of a great deal of said divisiveness.

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What If Iran Had A Button?

I found this video on an Israel website. I just find it interesting to see what they use for news and information. Especially now with what's going on over there. Seeing as how Iran had to reveal a second nuclear plant and their recent war games at the same time.

This is like the 21st century version of cold war era videos like this.



It can be found here.

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Riot Police At Pitt

Viewer discretion is advised.


Quite honestly, I don't have to say much. The video speaks for itself, but this is appalling to see in our own country. There were no violent protests, I honestly don't care that most of the worlds most powerful men/women were in the location.

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Saturday Morning Cartoon

Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids! It's cartoon time!



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The Congressional Equivalent Of 'Yo Momma'

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Photography Of Spanish First Children Is Controversial

...in Spain. An interesting side-note from the G-20 today:

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was in for a rude shock if he thought the same privacy conventions that shield the children of public figures in his home country would extend to the United States. Zapatero brought his wife and two daughters along on his trip to New York for the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, and on Wednesday he and his family posed for a photograph with President Obama at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The photo caused a huge stir in Spain because the public had never before seen an image of its leader's children, ages 13 and 16, who appeared in the photograph sporting slightly gothic attire.

The photo, credited in the Spanish press to White House photog Lawrence Jackson, was posted on the State Department Flickr site, according to sources. Conservative news outlets in Spain prominently featured the photograph of the Socialist leader's family—with the faces slightly pixilated to comply with the country's aforementioned privacy laws concerning minors—in their papers and on their websites. The conservative El Mundo newspaper put the photograph on Page A1. The liberal El Pais, meanwhile, ran a detailed explainer about why it was not publishing the offending image.

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Birther Watch, Ctd.

Yes, a friggin' infomercial. This is the first several minutes of the thing -- here is the full program. It's a late-night-commercial-program that has been seen on local networks in Texas.

What a sweet bumpersticker -- and for only $30.00!!!

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Tweet Of The Day

"Ahmadinejad: Sharks discovered with frickin' laser beams on their frickin' heads not for any offensive purpose." @pourmecoffee

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PSA: Not Everyone Is A Politico Like Us

Some folks just are not that interested in this stuff:

Percent who have not heard of Glenn Beck: 42%

Percent who have heard nothing about the Baucus health care bill: 45%

Percent who have heard nothing about the ACORN prostitution scandal: 43%

Percent who have heard nothing about the 9/12 rally in Washington: 40%

While I find these things painfully captivating -- sometimes literally -- it is clear that many Americans are still bored to tears by politics. To each their own...

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Russia Is On Board

A statement from the Kremlin:

Iran's construction of a uranium enrichment plant violates decisions of the United Nations Security Council. The International Atomic Energy Agency must investigate this site immediately, and Iran must cooperate with this investigation. Russia will assist in this investigation by any available means. Russia remains committed to a dialogue with Iran on the nuclear issue, and urges Iran to provide proof of its commitment to a peaceful nuclear program by the October 1 meeting of the P5-plus-1.

This is good news. More as it develops...

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The ACORN Study

Since just before the election in 2008, the community organization called ACORN has been at the center of the bulls eye for those who want to challenge President Obama. It's been portrayed as some evil organization that was allegedly stuffing ballot boxes with votes from Mikey Mouse and Donald Duck among a host of other fictional characters. Some even believe that Obama has secretly tried to funnel money to ACORN through the stimulus bill, and now the health care reform bills, probably as a pay off for helping him steal an election, that some of them don't think he was even qualified to run in because he was supposedly born in the foreign nation of Hawaii, or possibly some hospital in Africa that doesn't know if it was supposed to be in Kenya or Britain. The attacks came fast and furious from conservative media outlets and also from Obama's political opponents, McCain and Palin.

Even after the election in November, the attacks didn't stop, and eventually escalated into the now infamous video tape that has ACORN employees being duped into providing advice to a fake pimp on how he can get his underage prostitutes into the country. Throw out the name ACORN at a rally for conservatives and you'll get an idea of what it's like to watch a pack of dogs who have been starved for a week attack a t-bone steak. However, much like the "Summer of Rage" on the health care debate, what seems to be missing most are the facts.

Occidental College recently published a study written by Peter Dreier of Occidental College and Christopher Martian of the University of Northern Iowa, called Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN was in the news, and what the news got wrong.

The study gives background facts on the formation of ACORN and how it functions. It also describes how the media, over time, shaped the public debate on ACORN, without providing all of the facts.

In general, the news media reported but failed to thoroughly fact‐check claims of “voter fraud.” In total, in more than two‐fifths (44.2%) of the 355 stories reporting allegations of “voter fraud,” the media failed to include at least one of five countervailing arguments listed in Table 2, even though these countervailing arguments were readily available at the time. Moreover, when stories did include fact‐check statements in stories that alleged “voter fraud,” rarely did they include the full context of multiple fact‐check statements:

• that ACORN was reporting registration irregularities to authorities, as required to
do by law;
• that ACORN was acting to stop incidents of registration problems by its (mostly
temporary) employees when it became aware of these problems;
• that actual voter fraud is very rare;
• that Republicans were trying to discredit Obama with an ACORN “scandal”;
• and that allegations of “voter fraud” in 2007 and 2008 related to the earlier case
of the firing of U.S. Attorneys who refused to cooperate with Republican efforts to
politicize voter fraud accusations – firings that ultimately led to the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Just 31% of “voter fraud” frame stories included one of the five fact‐check statements; only 13.5% of the stories carried two of the fact‐check statements; 9% contained three; 2% had four, and a mere 0.3% ‐‐ exactly one story in the 355 that used the voter fraud frame (an Oct. 14, 2008 report from NPR) – provided full context with all five fact‐check statements.71 (See Figure 2.) The incomplete fact checking resulted in the “voter fraud’ frame being sustained for much longer than it merited.

Now, I'm not going to try and defend the recent video tape. The ACORN employees in the video sunk themselves by falling for an obvious trap. The employees involved were appropriately fired from their jobs, and hopefully ACORN has an organization will learn from the incident and work to prevent their employees from acting so horribly. But the study sheds a lot of light on two important areas:

1. There is a huge amout of facts that are completely missing from the main stream media's reporting on ACORN and many of these facts are talked about in detail.

2. And this can be summed up real nicely with one of the ending paragraphs from the report...

What’s most needed now —- finally -— is journalistic verification of the story’s elements by all news media. The outcome of the story doesn’t matter as much as the news getting the story right. But without the essential work of verification, the repeated charges and inflammatory discourse by several news organizations that seek to keep this story on the news agenda amount to just political propaganda.

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Did Mark Steyn Just Call Anderson Cooper Gay?

It sure sounds like it:

The surest sign you’re suffering from “fear of the Other” is the reflexive urge to attribute it to anyone who disagrees with you: indeed, the people who most seem to fear “the Other” are those ever more fevered in their insistence that opposition to Democrat policies is nothing to do with the policies. The tea party protesters are not merely “racists” and “Nazis” but also “teabaggers,” a designation applied to them by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the voice of the people and Gloria Vanderbilt’s son. “Teabagging” is apparently a sexual term for dunking the scrotum hither and yon as if it were a sachet of Lapsang Souchong. Not being as expert in this field of study as CNN anchormen, I am unclear as to whether the teabagger is the chap dangling the scrotal sac or the lucky recipient. But, in considering the ease with which its political application spread through the media, one is struck by the strangely fierce need of Mr. Cooper and his fellow journalists not merely to report on the protesters but to sneer at them.

Graphic.

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