Evening Suz, CT, ES, Newt, Nahant, CE, Mary and All. How are you doing tonight.

Aloha, ES…!

ES!

bb.. es..

Confession. I want the health care bill to pass. I really, really want it to pass. With a public option in the side car. (But truthfully, I don’t understand the difference between a public option and the exchange.)

selise, still around?

Thanks, ES, for the chance to rant a bit.

Evening all.

Rant on Loo Hoo.

Hey hey Eureka, hey pups

No rant here, just a quick drive-by with my fave Dead song du jour: Jack-A-Roe

ES Could I piss and moan?

Hi Pups.

ES, I’m sorry, a picker on an electric git capo’s up a bizzillion frets to sang?

Fail.

I really liked your diary, CTuttle. It was wonderful to see a scene like that it Iraq. Looked like Middletown USA. Or better.

John Gorka is sweet enough. Now on to Dan Auerbach.

I do too, sigh. Imperfection, who, what, is not.

heh.

Remember what Dawg Almighty said about art?

Ain’t this some kewl news…?

Iraq poll hailed as key to US pull-out

…Almost half of the US soldiers presently in Iraq will leave in the next six months, with Washington planning to reduce its deployment from 96,000 to 50,000 by September 1. A full withdrawal is meant be completed by the end of next year under agreements already reached with the Iraqi government.

“Everything is on track for that to happen,” said Gen Odierno after Sunday’s election, the second since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. “Unless there’s a catastrophic event, we don’t see that changing.

“The plan is we will continue to turn control over to the Iraqi security forces, and by August we believe we’ll be able to end our combat mission.”

The election had been “another milestone, but there’s more to come”.

Aloha, LL…! Always a pleasure…! *g*

Nice choice with John Gorka, ES — he’s featured quite often on XM’s Loft and Folk Village channels. Good stuff!

Loo Hoo there’s SO much to talk about with respect to a PO and what IT might mean.

The actual definition of a PO is not etched in any stones.

The actual definition of any HCR is not spelled out, finally, yet.

Selise, bless her soul and heart, don’t have what it takes to spell it out regarding what we have, or are facing, or what will end up, in terms of an outcome regarding HCR.

It’s still up for grabs, and your pressure on yer reps, congress, and the WH will certainly help pressure them all in regards to any positive progressive outcomes that might still exist.

Hope I’ve helped you want to fight some more. It ain’t over.

Hey Larue. You care to speak english tonight there amigo? lol

G)

Heh, I know the art I like, start to finish, the rest is the fault of critics!!!!!!

*G*

Aloha CT! Hope you and yours are doing well out there in the Isles :-)

How about we just moan here tonight? We had to let the janitorial service go last month.

Mahalo, Loo Hoo… That clip I used was filmed in Sweden for the early expat voting being held there…! ;-)

CT, tell me why you actually BELIEVE any of this shit?

Really . . . tell me, why you believe any of that will actually happen?

?

LL! Perfection… muchas gracias.

Heh, sorry hoss, I don’t respect a picker who capo’s up the mountain.

Not for any reason .. *G*

Por nada, mi amigo :-)

I wanted Inglorious Basterds to win last night…
It takes all kinds.

Heh, Jack A Roe is one of my fav camp jam tunes!!!

*G*

I just love the snarkiness of Watertiger tonight. I think if people treat the politicos like laughing stocks change might occur. How can they be taken seriously.
“K” street uber alles.

Whoo Hoo!

Watching Jerry Garcia fingering is fascinating.

We rented that one, it was BRUTAL, start to finish!

For me, and mine.

Brutal.

I got no other thoughts about Oscars . . . . . Inglorious Basters was brutal to watch.

Wow, sounds good. I’ll believe it six months after it happened…)

ES, loved your line last night in the Oscar threads — something about your smoking jacket and your overalls *g*

Because I’m the eternal optimist…! However, I’m also impaired with jaundiced lenses to view with…! ;-)

Second that

Me too.

QT never fails to make am impression.
But I am a dialog nutjob. The first scene kicked my butt.

Hey bb, he was amazing, no? I only wish I didn’t come too late to the Dead party…

No wonder it looked like that! So embarrassed…

Damn, did I miss THE Oscar thread?

I had to skim, but I’m glad I didn’t miss that particular line ;-)

LOL… It was overalls or my old pair of Lederhosen…)

evening, ES – firegods

Evening PPDCUS

how’s everyone tonight?

Anyone else excited about the new Jimi Hendrix album? I’ll be rushing out to buy it later today…

Hiya PPD

Oh, fer the love of god. Now they’re changing the bible (and I heard Beck did a show on leaving socialist churches.).

# Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias. For example, the Living Bible translation has liberal evolutionary bias.[4]
# Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)
# Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity[5]; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[6]

Three of the ten “guidelines”.

For me, the PO or No (PORNO) is the difference between a mandate to buy private insurance (fascism a-la Mussolini) or a mandate or even ability/choice to be able to buy into a public run plan.

How the PO is run is almost as important as the ability or mandate to participate in one.

I absolutely refuse to support gov’t propping up the most expensive pharma and private insurance the world has ever known…. for thirty fifth in the world results… and a promise for nothing but continued skyrocketing prices.

Somehow I got a vision of smoking jacket, overalls and a hookah.
Maybe it’s just me…

What??? Gimme a linky, I heart Fat Man . . .*G*

Doing well, thanks, ppd. How about you?

Wow! I sure hope the recording quality is good. Please let me know.

lol Margot, I can envision that too *g*

I’ve never tried a hookah… I don’t know why.

Been fun as usual. Going for some deep REM sleep to be ready to enjoy another Brand New Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILObfEzX92k S)

Ok, here’s hopin, in Iraq.

That’s gonna fail, with NONE of our democracy, and none of our peace building.

*G*

I sure will — can’t wait to fire it up, and LOUD…(pardon the caps)

Yer a better believer than I am!!!

*G*

Like a cross between Christopher Walken on SNL’s The Continental and Larry the Cable Guy.

I HEART QT!

Don’t get me wrong.

But IG was brutal, like seein Serpico for the first time, and many more like that.

*G*

Awesome! ;-)

have a great day, bb, good night.

Yes! LOL…

I sleep and eat and live in that same foxhole as you do, hoss.

I do.

Valleys of Neptune.

Or like Billy Crystal as R-R-Ricardo Monnnnntalban and Appalachian Emergency Room denizens on SNL

“Standin on top of the mouintain.
Chop it down with the edge of my hand.”

*G*

I heard “Crying Blue Rain” on my XM Sunday eve — definitely recommended.

Dang it low down dirty.

Hee hee.

Seemed noteworthy to me as well. Robert Mitchum went to a party as a hotdog ketchup only takes stones and a lot of booze.

I know I am supposed to be in bed. I’ll go brush my teeth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoCzZGF9rDU

I’m disturbed (not surprised, just upset) by how shrill the marching orders in support of the Preznit and his Plan have become on MSNBC.

Tonight Lawrence O’Donnell called Eric Massa’s revelation that Rahm pushed him out in an act of political hardball because Massa wasn’t going to vote yes “he indulged in a sudden diatribe against his fellow Democrats” and a “nearly 13 minute rant.” O’Donnell then went on to completely avoid the substance and plausibility of the charge to spend almost the entire segment (along with The Nation’s Chris Hayes) laughing and ridiculing Massa as a confused and inept sex offender.

Then Rachel Maddow (who seems ever more like someone gave Lisa Simpson a talk show with which to ridicule the adults who when she was the nerd and they were the cool kids wouldn’t let her eat at their lunch table) went on to declare “health reform” (as if the label of “reform” meant it must obviously be better) as clearly inevitable. (I suppose that’s the health care version of “we’ll be greeted as liberators.”) She then ridiculed (because that’s all she seems to do) those who would deny its inevitability as policy Luddites, and declared all who opposed the President’s Plan as expressing “open, blind, omnidirectional hostility.” She smugly condescended that the wrong-thinking few opposed both the march of history and every American’s right to health care. Her entire show was spent characterizing all those who oppose The Plan as like the worst of those who might oppose it, all mendacious manipulators driven by mindless fear and greed or clueless rubes too stupid to realize how they’re being conned – even though Dennis Kucinich had just been on the previous hour saying he opposed the Plan and why. The whole thing was the kind of smear-one’s-opponents “see! Everyone who opposes us is a dirty f*cking hippy commie!” that FOX only wishes it could do as well.

Olbermann/O’Donnell and Maddow made Glenn Beck’s column today on Massa’s charges seem positively open-minded and insightful.

It’s not that MSNBC doesn’t have a right to shill and lie through distortion to protect and advance their politico-corporate interests.

I just don’t like it.

Which Crying Blue Rain, ll?

whatever

WE gone, nitey Pups . . .

It’s amazing how quickly those GE MSNBC paychecks changed her.

Gotta go, it’s late — leaving you all with some mellowness for the night: Rock ‘N Roll Doctor

‘Night all, and thanks ES!

Fat Men Live.

*G*

Love me some Ian.

Gotta go, sandman beckonds … ;-)

Simple. Then don’t watch it. Just like I don’t watch Glenn Beck, though I make the exception tomorrow.

Nite bb, Larue, Loudin.

No, Rachel has not been compromised. She may well have compromised Stupak though. He’s singing a different song since she started. I’ve got a feeling she had a whole lot more, too.

Nite LL.

Interesting. I have quit watching Olbermann and Maddow as I’m getting into despair over this, and there is only so much I can take each day. The Ed Show and Tweety (hardball) is it for me.

I lived through the Bush Regime, and now I have a Obama tee-shirt from MoveOn.
Whoopee.

I think I will wait for the YouTube’s…)

And because I have FOX blocked on my dvr.

Night Larue.

Well, I don’t watch much television news at all anymore, but my limited impression has been she is pushing for passage… even by the manner she is expressing “inevitability”.

It ran me off weeks ago really.

Tweety drives me insane. In two minutes or less… every time. I swear he’s on drugs.

You’ll only be 20 minutes behind, no doubt. I hate to give Beck the airtime, but I’d watch the youtube and that sighting would be recorded too. But I’ve got to see this! Massa, not Beck.

Simple. Then don’t watch it.

I almost never watch it, for exactly the reasons I described.

My point wasn’t that I was upset and was somehow too clueless to know how to change the channel.

My point was that hundreds of thousands of people will watch that stuff and believe they’re getting rational, reasonable, fair and informed news and commentary. And they’re not – not at all.

Just like I spoke out when FOX did it during the Bush years, I’ll speak out when MSNBC does it on behalf of Obama.

I would have thought that more readers on a site with such interest in stopping the existing health insurance bill and providing real health care for all would have an interest in the forces and tactics being used against them.

Too each his own, but I’ve found that playing ostrich doesn’t usually solve many problems.

Attention = smack adrenaline

*heh* “…All I got was this T Shirt” seems to be a familiar refrain…! ;-)

He’s a font of Villager wisdom. I want to know what they’re thinking.

I find her fascinating. She’s doing what she needs to do to keep her job, true. But she’s also not compromising on her morals.

30 million people.

I think that many readers on this site would like to kill the bill, as would the wonderful Jane Hampsher. I just disagree.

Jane was on Ratigan today. Good exchange.

Sorry if that sounded bad. I want him to be a good president. I’m just crushed by how fast he’s not doing stuff that needs to be done.

Agreed. It’s frustrating.

I lived through the Bush Regime

You say that as if it’s over.

There’s simply been a shift change of workers at the mill.

LOL Villager wisdom is like saying military intelligence.

But I get your drift…)

Of course focusing on villager wisdom is how they all ignore the fact polls said forever that 60 plus percent of the peoples wisdom wanted a choice of a PO.

SO we remain ungovernable, but the real questions are never asked or shrugged off if they accidently enter the fray. I could understand that kind of endless banter from a bunch of crackheads.. but it’s worse when it’s by design on all of MSM, imo.

Wisdom? I would just like some common sense for the common citizen.

sigh

*gah* Texas Justice at it’s finest…

Texas jury jails man 35 years for marijuana possession

There are some issues so big that good governance and forthright leadership make the choice for the President – settle only when it does the job, or take a pass.

He apparently does not know, or care, what ‘the job’ is. Settling for too little on the one stimulus he would get, settling for not even half a loaf on financial regulation, settling for Bushian policy in DOJ, and forcing a mandated and rigged health care system on the Nation to get his victory – egregious disappointments.

“Villager wisdom,” eh?

Trying to put some of mine to use at The Seminal.

recommended

It’s amazing how quickly those GE MSNBC paychecks changed her.

A few paychecks don’t change anyone that way, that quickly.

It’s that self-confidence (from ratings and fans) has made her less afraid to reveal herself.

Bravo, ET…! ;-)

I know all of that. I’m not setting off firecrackers. I’m just thinking about what it would have been like had McCain/Palin been elected, and I’m thinking about a republican congress and god-forbid pres in 2012.

And as far as healthcare, would you rather the dems do nothing? Surrender to the insurance companies? I agree that it’s a short term gain for the insurance companies. Real short.

Thanks!

I miss this place. Way busy.

And like the fool I am, I changed my mind today, and decided to stand for my seat later this month on one of the local boards that are so important, and keep me from concentrating on my music more.

Texas… same as it ever was.

And as far as healthcare, would you rather the dems do nothing?

Yes.
IMHO, if it is killed (unlikely now), it can return to the table. In fact, they will have to do it, and do it better.
But if it passes, it will be shelved as ‘a success’ and we won’t get back to it any time soon.

Hiya, CT. Blowing 35, plus 27 F.

Oh my… way to go, ET. Sounds like a big job.

Is it a volunteer position?

Surrender to the insurance companies?

How is giving them millions of new subsidized customers under force of law/mandates with no limitations a surrender?

It’s a looting spree.

I’m merely the secretary of the board of this small operation. Our goals center upon informing the people of places like Wasilla (we actually cover an area larger than the size of New England, excluding Maine) that things like building codes, highway planning, zoning and green infrastructure are not a Commie plot. Tough job in Sarah’s former front yard.

Volunteer.

It’s a looting spree.

No, it’s purely and simply fascism. The public forced by the government under penalty of law to buy products from private corporations.

But even Obama’s folksy campaign twang couldn’t sell it if it were called that.

“America has been on this path to health reform fascism for a very long time. We’re so close now. Are you with me?”

…things like building codes, highway planning, zoning and green infrastructure are not a Commie plot.

They’re not…? ;-)

Hey Newtonusr! Did you go to Palo Alto on Saturday? No press covered the event so I don’t know how it went. They said that the pizza place people had pro gun t-shirts on. :-(
Who knows if it is true or not. If you are a 11 dollar an hour person at the counter you might not have a lot of say if your boss says “We need the gun people’s money”.

I don’t think so. I think Obama had not the slightest clue what he was confronting, and he is young and inexperienced, and had he had some years on him, he might never have run.

A bunch of us, back when Obama was just a possible entrant to the race, argued that he should finish his term in the Senate, go be Governor of Illinois for a term or two, then consider a run. I still think that today, but that and two dollars will get you a lousy cup of coffee.

Yes, it’s all of the above…)

Well I’ve hit the wall.

Good night firedogs.

We live to fight another day.

The appointment I had down there ran until 5 minutes of one. I missed the whole thing.

But if the pizza guy in downtown Palo Alto said that, he is not long for that corner.

Iceland is rebelling. I’m rooting for ‘em. Ms. ET is half Icelandic, but I’d be rooting for ‘em anyway.

Evening and g’nite es. Sorry I missed ya, just woke up :-)

Good for you, ET. Appreciate your diary too.

Interesting. I think it’s just the opposite. If they do it now they can fix glitches later, and if they do nothing now it’s just too huge to try again for many years.

Well, why would they buy from the insurance companies? They’d go to the exchange.

I don’t think so. I think Obama had not the slightest clue what he was confronting

I disagree, strongly, with the premise.

Obama’s entire candidacy was intended to diffuse the public’s energy for real change by substituting superficial, meaningless change, and thus protect the existing power structure.

In that he’s been spectacularly successful.

Given the two options of assuming Obama et al support my interests but are simply young and clueless, or he and they are incredibly smart and skillful but serve other masters, I would agree the choice of the young and inexperienced in politics who have not the slightest clue what they’re confronting would be the former.

Underestimating the players in a game is not usually a winning strategy.

The public forced by the government under penalty of law to buy products from private corporations.

They could buy from the exchange.

I was a Hillary supporter until the bitter end, if you’ll remember.

The ‘fix it later’ part of the legislation is where I have problems.
In another time, when Social Security needed to be reconfigured, as bitchy and wild-eyed as Congress was, they had shame enough to find a way.

This Congress, and the next and the next – no way.

The only way to make this work and work well, was to block the President from taking advise that told him that he can pass a bad bill and call it a win. There was a way to get that done, but when the House Progressives weaked-out, it became exponentially harder.

So the companies who now benefit from a monopoly and a tidy anti-trust exemption, who have spent millions to shape this to their advantage, will now have tens of millions more customers, billions more dollars, and little to no oversight.

OTOH, the grievous political cost of a failure to pass, combined with mounting public pressure to do something in a system all the more depleted and gamed, is the only avenue of pressure left to actually do reform that IS reform.

I do, I do indeed.
A most principled position.
I believe we had some discussions about that at the time.

No, it’s purely and simply fascism.

Statements like that, and the paranoia and panic they witness, makes the speaker seem like, well, a strain of ‘sling-anything’ Teabagger. You are aware of how that sounds, right?

You are aware of how that sounds, right?

I don’t usually worry about how things sound. I simply describe them as accurately as possible, and I don’t care too much about the projections of the readers/listeners. Being the screen for people’s projections is the nature of public life.

The existing Senate bill is fascism (the union of government and business), in a form that’s both pure (undiluted) and simple (direct).

Thus, “purely and simply fascism.”

I too was shocked at how thoroughly those on MSNBC whom I thought knew better had apparently drunk the Obama Kool-Aid.

Ditto.

Tweety is inexcusable.

There’s just NO media you can turn to any more, present company excepted, of course.

CT, if there’s any chance you’re still around: did you feel the earthquake on the Big Island tonight?

Got nothin’ here, except the usual “emergency” crawl & recorded announcments on the tee vee.

all that may be nice, but what does that have to do with whether it was worth the sacrifice of our blood and treasure?
i am happy for the iraqis, and hope they make it.
but the invasion was a mistake. it was not worth it.
there are many dozens of countries whom we could invade in order to “supposedly” bring about democracy.
we ain’t about to do that. we ain’t that stupid.
face it. the war was a mistake, and that is independent of whatever happens in iraq