Morning, BT.

Good morning all. Flying by this a.m. going to the lake of the Ozarks today. Have a good weekend everyone.

Progressives Support the Troops; Conservatives Abandon the Field

Teapublicans are wont to wrap themselves in a flag they do not understand or deserve while arrogating unto themselves the sacrifices of troops they refuse to support. Progressives, however skeptical of war, refuse to be skeptical of working class soldiers discharging their duties. Cynical, cheap grandstanding is Republican business and best left to them. Getting down to the brass tacks is the stuff of progressives and best left to us.

…nobody’s political opinions, Halleluiahs, head nodding or bastardized-flag magnets do one lick to support the troops. Those we support are those we help to live well, like our children, our pets, or anyone else we pay for or offer concrete assistance in some way …

Article:
Progressives Support the Troops; Conservatives Abandon the Field

I left you a comment yesterday at Swim after you left, if you have a chance to read it.

Have a safe and wonderful trip!

Hey BT and pupses! on edit

Hey, everyone, good morning. I just left a comment downstairs about the cantaloupe and now ground beef recalls. Great time for Bachmann to call for an end to the food safety rules, isn’t it?

Have a good time, Popyeye99!

Thanks I will. See everyone on Monday.

Hi msmolly and econobuzz, looks we are some of the few people up early this a.m.

msmolly, did you say you were from Michigan?

Yes I did I may have responded. Hope you have a good weekend. Stay safe.

you, too!

democracynow plays second part of interview with Moore.

Have a good trip!

And good morning all!

Boxturtle (nothing to say, took three lines to say it)

Did anyone else get an email request from MoveOn to deliver a petition to your rep?

We have one simple request: “Will you pledge to support the Buffett Rule so that millionaires—like you—pay the same tax rate as the middle class?”

I’m sorry, maybe I am missing an important point, but this Rule and this petition seem like a monumental waste of time.

Not exactly “from” Michigan. I was born and raised in Ohio, then moved to Michigan when my husband graduated from OSU and took a job with GM in 1965. I was in Michigan until 2000 when I took a job at the University of Cincinnati, and then moved to Indiana when I was hired at Notre Dame. I retired a year ago.

I really have to wonder what earthly good all of these petitions do, other than make the signers feel they’ve done something. When our elected leaders (including Obama) can ignore multiple reliable polls showing that the people want jobs, not deficit reduction, and spend their days on deficit reduction, a petition is like a gnat, easily brushed away.

Sad, innit?

I didn’t realize until we visited friends in the Pentwater – Hart – Silver Lake area (on the east side of the lake) what an important and beautiful farming region it is.

The lake is amazing of course, and they have a tiny old family cottage there, but I enjoyed our inland explorations even more than being on the water.

It turns out that my son’s girlfriend’s uncle has an organic turkey farm in Hart, but we didn’t know that when we were there. I was so impressed by the apple, cherry and apricot orchards and the fields and fields of berries and asparagus.

I found an abandoned barn in a little meadow that I still dream about buying and restoring.

Steve Benen has a nice piece on the confluence of congressional attacks on food safety regs and the two current outbreaks.

Congress gets a stark reminder on food safety

Irks me no end that MoveOn is wasting time with things like this.

Working on campus is great, can hardly think of a better place.

West Michigan is beautiful. I lived in the Detroit area most of my years in Michigan, but spent 8 years in Grand Rapids, only about an hour from Lake Michigan and the dunes area. And here in South Bend, it’s not far to the lake shore and the pretty little towns up there. I live only a couple miles from the state line, and ride my bike in Michigan often, though not to the lake.

Thanks Box Turtle you have a good weekend as well. I really enjoy your comments *g*

Mornin’, BT, pups

The heat in AL won’t be able to respond to your 911 home invasion call, they’re busy rounding up brown people.

Michael Moore interview on democracynow is more interesting than I thought it would be. They really are out to get him.

It has been (mostly) fun over the years. I was at Wayne State U. in Detroit, at Univ. of Cincinnati, and at Notre Dame. All are very different from one another, sort of the gamut of experiences. I was in information technology, not teaching. A lot of my job over the years was supporting the academic side. That has its own challenges and rewards.

“Slightly more than two years later, on Dec. 4, 2006, then U.S. Sen. Barack Obama traveled to New York City, to privately confer with Soros about a possible Presidential run in 2008. After a widely publicized closed-door meeting, Soros escorted Obama into an adjacent conference room, where a group of wealthy donors was waiting for Soros’s imprimatur to begin seriously bankrolling Obama’s drive for the highest office in the land. Among the billionaires who participated in that soirée were Union Bank of Switzerland USA chief Robert Wolf and hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, both of whom would emerge as major “bundlers” of cash for the Illinois Senator’s Presidential run.” — Anton Chaitkin & Jeffrey Steinberg, 2008

By “they” I assume you mean the PTB, not democracynow.

On edit: listening now in my little realPlayer widget.

They should have been here last night :)

Just got a neighborhood email that said someone was going around knocking on people’s windows about 1 a.m

Quite the stir! lol!

I have a friend in that lives in Laporte it is a beautiful part of the country. Sorry for the fleeting comment. Now I am going to get ready to go. *g*

I don’t think most of Indiana is as lovely as most of Michigan. Southern Indiana is very pretty, hilly, green, but most of the rest of the state is flat cornfields.

Some are effective, others not so much. The ones I’ve found to be most effective were those asking for greater protection for various species. I sign ‘em, hoping that some good will come of it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Illegal immigration, still great for business.

For the people who bitch about them damn furrners stealin’ our jobs…

Morning BT & Pups of Fire.

Righto. He has phalanx of bodyguards and in yesterday’s interview revealed that his receipts of life-threatening messages is second only to U.S. prez. Wendell Potter tells of what insurance ind did to try to subvert him when he was making Sicko.

Moore’s on book, tour; book is a memoir. Revealing. Nothing surprising, I just never realized the details of the personal stuff he’s had to put up with. My cup of tea. The details (aka evidence) is what I’m interested in as a general matter.

Multiple death threats. The FBI told him that he’s second only to Shrub with the number of threats. The wingnuts hate him.

On edit: could have been second to Obama. I heard it on yesterday’s show and thought he said Bush.

Oh, I sign most of the legitimate ones. I’m just not sure of their effect, since they seem to be roundly ignored.

Wow, that’s scary about Michael Moore’s death threats. Sort of a sad commentary. I wonder how many of the right-wingers get lots of death threats? Or is it mostly the wingnuts who think it’s OK to kill someone if you disagree with them?

You and Joe Friday.

If wingers get death threats they don’t talk about them. So I’ve come to think that it’s one-sided.

I’ll have to read his book. I’m working on Joe McGinniss’s book on my iPad and Nixonland in hardcopy. Takes me a long time to get through a book. I am a very fast reader, but I tend to read mostly in bed (where I promptly doze off) or during down time (like doctor’s office, laundromat, Docent shifts). Plus a lot of bits of time online.

I can’t read in bed. Couple paragraphs and I’m out like a light.

If you like craft beer, West Michigan is the place to be. Bell’s is the best-known brand, but I’m partial to Founders (especially their Breakfast Stout), New Holland, and Arcadia. Believe it or not, Grand Rapids is the state’s beer capita, with at least 8 breweries.

Disclaimer: Mrs. Tiger and I are the authors of Michigan Breweries, published five years ago, which explains my interest in the subject.

I recall that early in his reign…er,term, Obama was easily breaking the Shrub’s record for death threats. Of course, thigs might have settled down as the wingnut extremists learned to cope with a black Democrat sitting in the Oval Office (ha!).

If people die as a result of weak or non-existent regulations, well, in the conservatives warped “minds”, then that’s merely the price of “freedom.”

It’s their way of helping out with the global population crisis. Ain’t they just so sweet?

I’m not much of a beer drinker, but I prefer interesting beers to the mass market stuff. Interesting that staunchly religious Christian Reformed Grand Rapids has so many breweries! I left in 1986, but I still visit friends there. It is a neat place, albeit awfully politically conservative (home of Amway, don’tcha know).

Edit: They have a huge wonderful city-wide art fair called ArtPrize that’s going on now through early October. I’m going up for it. Grand Rapids has done a lot to keep the city thriving instead of decaying. There are parts that aren’t so great, obviously.

The only book I would condescend (heh) to read on Palin was Going Rouge, bc I was curious about why so many people find her so fascinating. Still don’t know but the closest I came to understanding the phenomenon came, I think, from Going Rouge: She’s one of those famous people who are famous for being famous. The circularity seemed to sum it up for me.

Until book salon, I didn’t realize McGuiness was same author as Selling Prez. I’ve owned that book forever (musta bought it used bc it’s acid paper that’s falling apart) but finally read it last year or year before. By today’s standards it’s old hat, but it was incredibly revealing at the time it was written.

Dying is the market signal to others to buy their chemical sets to test out their foods before eating. /s

There are more White Liberals who have been discovered to be racists. Reporters David Sirota and Joan Walsh are on OFA’s Enemy List, along with Paul Krugman and Tavis Smiley. At this rate, we will all be racists very soon.

FDL gets a shout out in the comments.

So the PL are being called out for their bigotry. Could not have happened to a more hypocritical group of people. Those of us who are vets of GOS always knew it, and exhibit A-Z was the banning a couple weeks ago. Now Salon is being hit. FDL needs to drown in black facepaint.

She’s the Paris Hilton of politics.

We have a small brewery here, the Big River, and they make some pretty good craft beers. Sweet Magnolia is my favorite, if you have ever tried it?

They host a beer fest here every summer and lots of niche brewers come with their wares. Yum.

For a really refreshing summer drink, a Shandy is great. Half beer, half Canada Dry gingerale over ice. Double yum.

Or hire a taster.

Do you mean “Going Rouge” (the American Nightmare) or her own book, “Going Rogue”? I read The Lies of Sarah Palin (Geoffrey Dunn) and now Joe McGinniss’s book. And I read the Wendell Potter book you mentioned, Deadly Spin.

Who is Paris Hilton.

Yessirree. I really didn’t used to know who PH was or why I should care, but nice folks in my life edumacated me, and I thought of your exact analogy when I read that sentence about Palin.

Going Rouge. I hope I typed that correctly. I would NEVER read a book by Palin herself.

From what I’ve gleaned this is the entire Obama campaign strategy.

They have pretty much nothing else.

Expect to be hit over the head hard with it. They intend to draw blood.

Now, all they need is a Repub (another oligarchical tool), who will play the game.

Oligarchical tools, like their masters, can be very nasty.

Yes. There’s a market solution to every problem, dontcha know.

That’s the site that automatically bans anyone from the Lake. Fuck him.

Haven’t had Big River beer for a while; the last time was several years ago in Florida. They’re now the parent company of Gordon Biersch, which operates a chain of pub restaurants and specializes in German-style beer.

Some of our friends are fond of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, which you can find in the Great Lakes region.

Me? I’m a big IPA fan.

I call bullshit…

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/29/news/economy/unemployment_benefits/index.htm?hpt=hp_t1

“…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in nearly six months, possibly signaling slight improvement in the job market.

There were 391,000 initial unemployment claims filed in the week ended Sept. 24, the Labor Department said Thursday, down 37,000 from the prior week’s revised 428,000.

…”

When are we going to start realistically tracking unemployment? When are we going to just factor in all those that are either working part-time, but wanting full-time employment and all those who have given up. Why aren’t they just static figures in our unemployment rate. Why does it make sense to let people “fall off” the other side? It is just disingenuous like we are trying to fabricate a lie.

Let’s not even get started on what percentage of those jobs are shit jobs making minimum wage that make it impossible to stay above the poverty line.

These numbers are so cooked and we are to look upon them as if they have some sort of value.

Whatever happened to that group that was going to do a poll on the intertubz and come up with a ticket with one Dem and one Repub?

Even if I were tempted to read her own book, I wouldn’t want to give her a dime, just like I avoid reichwing websites and Politico because I don’t want to add to their click count.

In many ways it is just like looking at inflation, but factoring out those pesky variable costs like fuel and food. What percentage of an American’s income do you think goes to those things? Without fuel you either don’t heat your home or get to work. Without food, you are unable to work. These are fundamental things that have to be tracked and included. These are things that are important.

We’re so screwed.

I want to see the whole OFA enemies list. And how do I get on it?

I like IPA, too, and I love Peroni. Is that very slight bitter aftertaste from the amount of hops? Love it, whatever.

John Williams’
Shadow Government Statistics
Analysis Behind and Beyond Government Economic Reporting

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

I’ve never seen that site. Wow that post (and the comments) are something else!

I’ve always liked Melissa Harris-Perry, and I was a bit surprised at the stir she caused. I haven’t read her column, just the reaction to it. I need to go back and read it, I think.

But now I need some breakfast…laters!

There must be quite a wait to get on it.

Bye, ms! Hope you have some good bike-riding weather.

gotta go, too,

ohmmmm

With my comment as to why I was unsubscribing to their email list I prolly got on it big time. Don’t know how they got my current email address. I unsubscribed from them a long time ago when I had a different provider and different address.

That’s the site that really got on us a month or so ago. He said that comments from firebaggers would be deleted and commenters banned. True to his word my comment, “Do you serve cheese with that whine,” was deleted and I was banned.

I lived in midtown Manhattan for many years but would never wait in a line for anything. However, I would wait in a long line to get on OFA’s Enemy List.

Tavis Smiley. Oh my. Gotta be reaching hard to put him on a list. On TV so late at night, it’s a wonder anyone ever heard of him.

But then, history of prez enemies list is venerable and revealing of how thin and easily bruised their egos are.

I went thru entire 08 campaign without knowing what OFA was bc I spotted O as a bad guy & just wasn’t inneresssed in his manipulations. Got on his email list in last couple of years bc I sent him some nasty email. Makes me laugh.

I think Obama is every bit as dangerous as Nixon.

“

So many potential badges of honor, so little time.

O is a lot more dangerous than Nixon. Nixon went to China. O will destroy SS.

Why do you think that number is suspect?

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,788

US KIA Irak: 4,476

Iraki, Afghan and Pakistani casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2011: 33,604 and counting

Queen of the Minor Key

No war but class war

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things

Namaste

Never. Give. Up.

Crony capitalism at work

Read the story on the Listeria cantaloupes if you want a primer on crony capitalism. The lack of effective food inspection is only the last and most obvious step in a long chain of truly insane business practices — made viable and profitable only because of massive government coddling — that produced these contaminated cantaloupes and sent them nationwide.

Sure, these cantaloupes grown in Colorado killed someone in Maryland because the govt fell down on its job of inspecting canataloupes for bacterial contamination. But why are we growing cantaloupes in CO for consumption in MD? No acreage anywhere closer to MD can grow cantaloupe? Well, God forbid that we let the price of the gasoline used to ship these suckers across the country rise to cover its actual costs of production, much less the costs needed to ameliorate the greenhouse gases generated.

The only factor that could possibly explain how cantaloupe that have to be shipped across the country, despite the subsidy of artificially cheap gas, could compete with cantaloupe grown in MD, is that eastern CO must be some lush tropical paradise, warmer and with rainfall more abundant than MD, right? Ever been to eastern CO? Ever flown over it and seen those big circles of green that dot the otherwise brown landscape? You know, where those huge irrigators have spread about the only water this near-desert sees? But I’m sure the water for these massive agribusiness operations is incredibly abundant, just pops out of the ground and into the cantaloupe plantation irrigation system without any sort of govt support or infrastructure. No way the taxpayer subsidizes any of this.

But wait. Surely these operations survive and thrive because of economies of scale, bigger is better. But they must still produce a quality product, right, or consumers would just pass up stuff picked weeks ago in CO that’s been sitting in various trucks and warehouses, traded around by different retailers, and head straight for the cantaloupes picked yesterday right down the road in MD, right? Well, except that, as the story makes clear, everyone in the often long chain of buyers and sellers of this highly commodified product gets to change and switch labels freely. They all get to do stuff to the product, stuff tha often involves putting chemical stuff on the product to make it look more fresh than it is. Because the business is set up that way, most consumers never get to compare and contrast the junk that’s been mass-produced 2,500 miles away and has been sitting around for weeks in trucks and warehouses, with how a real cantaloupe that was picked yesterday 20 miles away tastes. Of course, the business could not possibly be set up that way because mass producers contribute more to election campaigns than some Mom-and-Pop operation 20 miles up the road.

Look at the whole picture, and it’s like something out of the waning years of the late unlamented Soviet Union. We have laws and law enforcement that make profitable a way of producing cantaloupe that results in enterprises so huge that they can’t keep track of where their product has got to after those economy-of-scale operations have let Listeria get from one cantaloupe to millions of them. And the local politics place these mega-death-farms in an ecologically unsustainable near-desert where they can only be watered at huge public expense, than have to be shipped thousands of miles to their main markets over subsidized highways and with subsidized gas adding to global warming. Think maybe it just might all end as it did for the late unlamented Soviet Union?

Yep,

The fact that he would allow the country to be plunged into an internal war over race in order to get himself re-elected is very revealing about his personality. Total selfishness.

Tavis is a voice of moral authority, and they know it.

Those green circles one sees from 35,000′ are truly astonishing.

U.S. has always done monoculture & never learns from it. The whole plantation system was monoculture. By the time Jefferson was dying, he was broke bc monoculture tobacco had depleted soil of Monticello. Indigo crops depleted soil of SC long before U.S. became a country, iirc.

The fact that he would allow deliberately cause the country to be plunged into an internal war over race in order to get himself re-elected is very revealing about his personality.

Suggested edit.

Oldest trick in PTB book. Divide & conquer.

Thanks.

Tavis is pretty much the only show I watch on PBS.

Tavis is a voice of moral authority, and they know it.

Yep.

And the best way to deal with the attempt to divide over race is to partner with efforts such as the outreach Tavis is doing and move beyond the words of an editorial.

Thank you for your informative post. Far too many citizens are utterly unaware of these practices, esp conservatives hypnotized by the likes of Rush & crap-nonsense about Ayn Randian Go-Galt junk.

Far too many crops in the USA are grown in such fashions that make little sense, and the businesses involved get HUGE incentives, subsidies & enjoy VERY LOW taxes – despite viscious “rumor” to the contrary – and the whole thing is corrupt & polluted from start to finish. And then we get Republican sheep whining about how horrid “regulations” are because they cause these poor poor poor benighted, but ever so wonderful, business people to have to, you know, make a passing stab at watching out for citizens’ health issues, etc.

It truly is a form of insanity, and you’ve encapsulated it very well. The issue that petrol at our pumps is still really quite cheap – yet another industry heavily subsidized by middle/working class citizens’ taxes – and the use of our failing infrastructure much more heavily than the average citizen does – really adds up to a lot of crap going on, at citizens’ expense.

And yes: it is every bit as corrupt (or more) and FAILING as the old Soviet Union, and it would seem that we are heading to a perfect storm of nastiness that will more heavily impact the “average citizen” than our overly wealthy overlords.

Late on here, but shades of WWII in New Zealand with reference to your post. There we used to mix up a shandy (for the ladies) with Aussie or Kiwi beer (very strong) – part beer and part “lemonade”, which was our version of SevenUp. Later on, we’d get parcels of Saturday Evening Post from my mum’s girlfriend who had married a GI – I used to wonder from the ads in there what “Zup” was. We have named many dogs down the years “Shandy” – has nice memories from a fearsome time.

I’d like to hear mores stories about that. Fearsome time it must have been.

Glad Shandy brought back some good thoughts.

I’ve given up breakfast and lunch.

TEsting

I remember a BBC series, Tenko, about Australian and British women imprisoned in a Japanese camp after Singapore fell in 1942. It was riviting.

Here is a link to Wiki for the series