And I feel fine

AARP, for many, especially, well, retired folks, is a benevolent organization helping senior citizens make their way through the autumn of their lives. The reality is far from that:

Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus founded AARP in 1958. AARP evolved from the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA), which Andrus had established in 1947 to promote her philosophy of productive aging, and in response to the need of retired teachers for health insurance. After ten years, Andrus opened the organization to all Americans over 50, creating AARP. Today, NRTA is a division within AARP. According to Andy Rooney, AARP was established by insurance salesman Leonard Davis in 1958, after he met Ethel Percy Andrus. Ms. Andrus was at the time helping teachers get health insurance through the National Retired Teachers Association. According to Rooney, Davis saw the opportunity to sell medical insurance to the elderly rather than just retired teachers and for that purpose put in $50,000 establishing AARP. According to Rooney, Davis established the Colonial Penn Insurance Co. in order to control AARP, selling millions of dollars in insurance to its members through advertisings in AARP's magazine Modern Maturity and for several years Colonial Penn Insurance Co. became one of the most profitable in the U. S. In 1978, after a 60 Minutes report exposé, AARP got rid of Colonial Penn Insurance Co. and signed up with Prudential Insurance Co.^[3]

According to critics, until the 1980s AARP was controlled by businessman Leonard Davis, who promoted its image as a non-profit advocate of retirees in order to sell insurance to members.^[4] In the 1990s, the United States Senate investigated AARP's non-profit status, with Republican Senator Alan Simpson, then chairman of the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, questioning the organization's tax exempt status in congressional hearings. These investigations did not reveal sufficient evidence to change the organization's status.^[5]

As an insurance sales organization, AARP shouild be considered immediately suspect. But that doesn't mean they can occasionally get it right.

Here's a commercial they're running, criticising the lying by Health Care Reform opponents:



I can't fault their statement, but I still don't trust them. Still, AARP is beloved by many older folks. My grandmother, who died 10 years ago, had become knee-jerk paranoid conservative in her later years, and railed against Reaganesque welfare cheats and other symbols of "I got mine, screw you" selfish conservatism. But she had AARP insurance, and believed in them faithfully.

I'd like to think that if she were alive today, she'd listen to AARP and not Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Chuck Grassley, Newt Gingrich, and the rest of the lying bastards on the right.

So for that, AARP, you have my thanks.

Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune

Quick note to Congresspersons, Senators, and pundits who breathlessly announce that they, too, are unsure of Barack Obama's birth bona fides:

The dude has a passport. To get a passport you have to do this:

When applying for a U.S. passport in person, evidence of U.S. citizenship must be submitted with Form DS-11. All documentation submitted as citizenship evidence will be returned to you. These documents will be delivered with your newly issued U.S. passport or in a separate mailing.

Primary Evidence of U.S. Citizenship (One of the following):

Previously issued, undamaged U.S. Passport Certified birth certificate issued by the city, county or state* Consular Report of Birth Abroad or Certification of Birth Naturalization Certificate Certificate of Citizenship

*A certified birth certificate has a registrar's raised, embossed, impressed or multicolored seal, registrar's signature, and the date the certificate was filed with the registrar's office, which must be within 1 year of your birth. Please note, some short (abstract) versions of birth certificates may not be acceptable for passport purposes.

He moved to Indonesia in 1967. He visited Europe and Africa in 1988. He did this with his, you know, passport.

But here's the thing: It doesn't matter where he was born. Not one bit. Why?

Because the US Constitution says:

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

And who is a "natural born citizen"?

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in those gaps. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

• Anyone born inside the United States *
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

• 
  

So according to the law, since mom was a citizen, he could have been born on the moon and still be a citizen.

Seriously, you may be playing to your deluded base, but they're pretty sad examples of critical thinking. Compared to the 'Birthers', Archie Bunker looks enlightened. You're helping wash the Republican brand down the drain.

On 2nd thought, keep it up. Thanks.

And if you think this would be happening if Obama was white? Well, you haven't been paying attention.

He hit me and it felt like a kiss

OMG! Oh noes!

A poor, sweet, helpless McCain volunteer was beaten and scarred by a black, big, black, scary, black, Obama supporter. Drudge shouted it to the heavens:

PITTSBURGH -- A 20-year-old woman who was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield was also maimed by her attacker, police said.

Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard tells Channel 4 Action News that the victim was robbed at knifepoint on Wednesday night outside of a Citizens Bank near Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m.

Richard said the robber took $60 from the woman, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.

Richard said the woman refused medical treatment after the assault, which happened outside the view of the bank's surveillance cameras.

The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and brown eyes. The man was wearing dark colored jeans, a black undershirt and black shoes.

Except, not so much. From KDKA News:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

At a news conference this afternoon, offiicals said they believe that Ashley Todd's injuries were self-inflicted.

Todd, 20, of Texas, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

Todd initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and "the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction."

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

Todd told investigators that she didn't remember what happened.

Police say they do not believe any other people were involved; and her friends believed the story about the attack.

According to police, investigators working on the interview process detected several inconsistencies in Todd's story that differed from statements made in the original police report.

Pittsburgh Police Public Information Officer Diane Richard released a statement earlier today, saying: "Because of the inconsistencies in her statements, Ms. Todd was asked to submit to a polygraph examination which she agreed to do."

Indeed. How does this matter in big-picture reality, besides underscoring the idiocy of College Republicans? This is how, from Fox News Executive VP John Moody:

Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it.

. . .
Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting. (emphasis added)

When you lose Fox, you've lost the base.

Update: Headline at Drudge now:

SHE MADE IT UP!

Fuck you, Matt Drudge. You are officially a has-been right-wing hack.

Bastard.

Been dazed and confused for so long its not true

Are you stupid, or are you just dumb? Dazed & confused? A comment found at a popular Progressive blog:

Go ahead and elect the self admitted Muslim and see what happens with this country. You think we are in trouble now, wait until the most liberal senator starts implementing his social programs. I can"t wait to see how he does this. Hrmm, lower taxes for 95% of Americans and then spend like no other President before on new and existing social programs. I think Mr. Obama might want to take Economics 101 at the local community college before he makes promises that he obviously can"t keep. Also Mr. Hussein, I mean Mr. Obama is under the dissolution that we are not in a war with terrorists. Take our eye of that for just a couple of seconds and see where they strike next. You can say whatever you want about our current President but he has kept us safe on American soil and he doesn"t get the credit he deserves.

Wow. Just OMFG wow. Hopefully this person can't reproduce.

It's the season of the lie

When even Karl Rove says you've lied, you're a liar:

WALLACE: What does McCain do that goes a step too far?

ROVE: McCain has gone, in some of his ads, similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test.
[Fox News Sunday, 9/14/08]

John McCain: Dishonor before country.

Bastard

Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight, Praise the lord I saw the light.

Joe Klein, who should be henceforth known as Swamp Thing, has always been one of those "fair and balanced" news people we keep hearing about. You know, truth, justice, and the American way. Of course, he has spun this for so long that he actually believed it.

Yesterday he wrote this on his Time blog (called Swampland, get it? Sorry.):

I heard about Jerome Corsi's book a few weeks ago from my mother, who said that her great fear--that Barack Obama has covert Islamic associations--had been confirmed by a new book. I told her not to worry, that many reputable people had looked into the matter and Obama was more likely to be spotted in Whole Foods than praying in a mosque. (Since my mother has never been to Whole Foods, so she didn't quite get my wry allusion.) "I hope so," she said, dubiously.

So we know the market for trash is there, and not so far from home. And we know, that Mary Matalin, who appears regularly on mainstream media programs like Meet the Press called the Corsi book in the New York Times today:

“a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that.”

But hey, Mary stands to make big bucks off this scholarship, which I'm sure was submitted for peer review and otherwise held to the highest editorial standards--and I'm sure her reputation and mediagenicity won't be damaged by this poisonous crap, and we're all friends here, aren't we? And, yknow, they say politics ain't beanbag...and it's all in the game to tell innocent, well-intentioned people that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim or that John Kerry wasn't really a hero in Vietnam. Or, as George W. Bush, once told a rightly outraged John McCain--whose wife and daughter Bush's minions had smeared--"It's just politics."

Back in the day, John McCain was the sort of politician who would stand first in line to call out this sort of swill. (As, I'm sure Barack Obama or John Kerry would do, if some hate-crazed, money-grubbing left-winger published a book claiming that McCain had been successfully brainwashed in Vietnam--as Kerry did indeed do when a group of spurious Bush-backing Vietnam vets tried to claim exactly that about McCain during the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina.)

When 'back in the day' was that, Joe? When McCain rolled over and played dead when the So. Carolina attack took place?

The man, the myth, the legend: McCain, the Maverick. But it's based on nothing, yet Klein still buys into it, else he wouldn't have stated it this way. Simply means to me that he may have come to an epiphany, but it hasn't given him the ability to look backwards and see what went wrong.

What do I mean by that? This, from the same piece:

I know that people like me are supposed to try to be fair...and balanced. (The Fox mockery of our sappy professional standards seems more brutally appropriate with each passing year.) In the past, I would achieve a semblance--or an illusion--of balance by criticizing Democrats for not responding effectively when right-wing sludge merchants poisoned our national elections with their filth and lies. And it is true, as John Kerry knows, that a more effective response--and a bolder campaign--might have neutralized the Swiftboat assault four years ago. It is also true that Corsi's book this time is far less effective than his Swiftboat venture, since it doesn't come equipped with veterans willing to defile their service by telling lies to camera.

Really? I don't remember you telling us in '04 that the Swiftboaters were "telling lies to camera".

No, I remember you as, as you point out, "fair...and balanced". Here's the thing, Joe. Name me one time, Joe, that you called out the "right-wing sludge merchants" for their "filth and lies". Yeah, that's what I thought. Believing in your own mythology much, Joe?

Well, Joe, thanks for coming around finally. I just wish it could have happened when it would have made a difference, like in 2000 when Al Gore "invented the internet". When GWBush was going to have a "humble foreign policy".

Or in 2004 when the Swiftboaters and Malkin said that Kerry had shot himself for a purple heart.

Because now it won't make any difference. You've gotten in and out of the clown car one too many times. Just because you've seen the light and gotten a new Prius doesn't matter. Because the courage of your convictions comes about because you now have cover. The American public is less moved by the lies and filth from the Right, and the Obama movement is gathering strength.

Had you been a maverick back in 2000 or 2004, when it might have helped, well, you might be taken more seriously now.

Come crawling faster, Obey your master, Your life burns faster, Obey your master

The Republican clowns in Congress held a little circus today, so they could dance for their puppet masters:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi's refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m., and they are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

. . . Right at the stroke of five Georgia Rep. Tom Price announced that House Republicans were ending their impromptu protest on the floor of the chamber, ending a five-plus hour rebellion with a round of "God Bless America."

The assembled tourists, aides and members in the chamber gave Price and his compatriots a standing ovation. They left the chamber to shouts of "USA! USA! USA!"

Never any actual intent to do anything productive. Never mind that the oil companies aren't drilling on the majority of the land they currently lease. Never mind that any new drilling sites wouldn't impact the American energy needs for 10 years.

Say, what about those oil companies . . . do you suppose they were pleased by the Repub stunt today? Why do you think I called them puppet masters? It's because the Republicans on the floor have taken more than $3 million in Big Oil money.

Member Big Oil $
Blunt $362,248
Boehner $185,000
Brady, Kevin $369,797
Cole $277,050
Conaway $487,418
Culberson $301,961
Feeney $19,600
Foxx $47,100
Herger $99,425
Hoekstra $13,025
King, Steve $22,450
Lungren $38,200
Manzullo $45,965
Nunes $78,750
Pence $150,950
Poe $128,650
Price, Tom $22,450
Putnam $70,300
Shadegg $119,495
Shimkus $184,161

(source: Open Secrets)

Surprised? Shouldn't be. Here's how some of those Republicans voted on actual energy bills:


Political theater? Yes. Helping Big Oil? Yes. Meaningful energy policy? Not so much.

Here's the real tell, also from OpenSecrets:

2008: Energy Co. Contributions:
Democrats: $4,796,968 (26%).
Republicans: $13,571,049 (74%)

Bastards.

I`ll lie again and again, and I`ll keep lying, I promise

In answer to the unspoken question "Does the McCain campaign really believe people are either stupid or ignorant enough to believe the lies we keep telling", clearly the answer is yes. From the Obama campaign "Fight The Smears":

The truth about Barack visiting military hospitals

Lie:

John McCain, his spokesmen, and his TV ads have all been politicizing our wounded heroes by making the false claim that Barack Obama snubbed wounded troops by not visiting them on his trip overseas because TV cameras would not be allowed to cover the visit.

Truth:

The Obama campaign originally planned a private trip (no media) to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to visit wounded troops, but canceled it to prevent the perception of politicizing our troops.
Senator Obama was honored to meet with our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan during his foreign trip and has visited a combat support hospital in Baghdad as well as wounded soldiers at Walter Reed without fanfare. Barack Obama also called wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center while overseas.

Even Andrea Mitchell, hardly an ardent Obama supporter, takes down this crap:



Yet this McCain smear will play well in Red states, where people believe Rush, Hannity, and Fox. Nice to see the Straight Talk Express of John McMaverickypants seems to have become really bent.


It will especially play well with people like this:

Over the weekend we’ve been following a story here in Clark County about a local couple who appear to be the target of racist vandalism simply because they dared to put a Barack Obama yard sign in front of their home. The Columbian ran a small item on Friday night:

Someone scratched the words “White Power” on a car belonging to a Vancouver family who recently posted an “Elect Obama” sign in their front yard.

On Sunday, Frank Wastradowski, who lives northeast of Southwest Washington Medical Center, noticed the vandalism on the side of his wife’s 1993 Plymouth. The letters, likely scratched with a key, were about 8 inches tall.

“It’s a hate crime and it’s time we get past racism,” he said.

Wastradowski said he won’t take the sign down, adding, “That’s my freedom of speech.”

Nice. Stupid. Ignorant folks like the car vandal just keep the fires of ignorance and stupidity burning.

Bastards.

C'mon people now, smile on your brother

The kerning and typeface warriors are at it again, and nothing short of reality will stop them. In fact, reality won't stop them.

Jesus' General tries to help:

Pamela
Atlas Shrugs

Dear Mrs. Shrugs,

Your Sunday post was an excellent example of what patrio-blogging is all about. With nothing more than a few graphics and a lot of very technical-sounding jargon, you and techdude persuaded a lot of people that Barak Obama forged his own birth certificate. That's impressive.

But why stop there? Shouldn't we take the next step and use the same technique to create a reason why Obama would fake such a document?

I certainly think so. That's why I'm submitting the following highly technical evidence suggesting that Barak Obama is actually an Amish man named Erik Gruber.

Before we begin, let's take a look at actual photographs of both Obama and Erik Gruber's twin brother, Henry.

Notice how amazingly similar they appear. Other than a few minor differences in skin coloring, hair texture, eye color, and body fat, they are spitting images of each other.

Now let's examine the photos using a number of fairly basic forensic techniques. We'll start by applying the McMahon-McMillan Inverted Refractory Process.

Notice the cyantic response of the temporal, nasal, and lip areas. The refractive similarity is striking.

We get a similar result when we apply the Whitfield Thermal Reciprocity Sampling Technique.

Really, this is too funny. Shooting fish in a barrel wouldn't even begin to describe how easy it is to lampoon the Right-wing attacks based on this.

Thanks, General.

Another one bites the dust

From Democrats.com:

Karl Rove just added another Democratic scalp to his collection: Eliot Spitzer's.
Spitzer has not been charged with any crime. He was railroaded by the Corporate Media, led by Rupert Murdoch's NYPost and FOX News, with Karl Rove's "loyal Bushies" leaking furiously from Bush's InJustice Department.

So what's the standard here? If hiring prostitutes is a disqualification for office, then David Vitter must resign today too. In fact, a good chunk of the men in politics must also resign (and possibly a few women as well). And a bunch of reporters and editors must quit as well. And pundits too - yes I'm talking 'bout you, Dick Toesucker Morris.

If adultery is the standard, then Larry Craig must resign today, along with half the men in politics and the media.

Spitzer pissed me off with this, after being such a gung-ho Yew York Attorney General. The question also begs to be asked, who leaked this to the media, and why not Clients #1-8? Why just Spitzer? Clearly he did bad, but is he the only one?

There's an agenda here, waiting to be discovered. And it will have an R after the names.

As far as I'm concerned, regarding Republican closet cases and hypocrites, it's Game On. No one is immune, no one is safe. That means you, David Drier. And you, Lindsay Graham. And yes, you again, Larry Craig.

Scott Horton at Harpers offers some perspective:

Note that this prosecution was managed with staffers from the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice. This section is now at the center of a major scandal concerning politically directed prosecutions. During the Bush Administration, his Justice Department has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every one involving a Republican. Beyond this, a number of the cases seem to have been tied closely to election cycles. Indeed, a study of the cases out of Alabama shows clearly that even cases opened against Republicans are in fact only part of a broader pattern of going after Democrats. So here are the rather amazing facts that surface in the Spitzer case:

(1) The prosecutors handling the case came from the Public Integrity Section.

(2) The prosecution is opened under the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910. You read that correctly. The statute itself is highly disreputable, and most of the high-profile cases brought under it were politically motivated and grossly abusive. Here are a few:

Yep. The Structuring charge which went nowhere but led to money laundering which went nowhere led to Mann Act violations last used decades ago.

Spitzer screwed up big time, but this was a witch hunt, not a legitimate prosecution. like I said before, anyone with a sordid history and an R after their name, you're toast now.

Now you say you're sorry, for being so untrue

As an alleged musician, Mike Huckabee pulled a particularly tone-deaf move Wed. night, crossing a union picket line to appear on "The Tonight Show", and play bass with Kevin Eubanks' band.

Earlier in the day, he claimed not to know he was crossing a picket line, and that he supported the striking WGA members:

"The governor would only agree to join Jay ... for the taping after he was assured that no replacement writers were being used," said a statement issued by Huckabee's campaign.

"Gov. Huckabee believes that the writers deserve to be fairly compensated for the sale of their work.

Smoooove, Mike. While my union, the AFM (American Federation of Musicians) issued no formal statement, the delusional Machinist's Union, who had endorsed Huckabee, said this:

Governor Huckabee should not cross the picket line. We have made that abundantly clear to his campaign. With such missteps, he risks losing the support his jobs and economic policies have won for him among trade unionists who will attend the GOP caucuses in Iowa or will vote in the later primaries.

Sorry, kidz. Huckabee may be hated by the Club for Growth for raising taxes in Arkansas, but he's no friend of working America.

Much can be said about the diminished power of the unions, and that leads in to the actual point of this post: the WGA strike.

First, here's the WGA on Huckabee's appearance on Leno:

The Writers Guild is disappointed that Mike Huckabee crossed the WGA picket line today at NBC. We welcome the statements of support he has made for striking writers, but we ask him to respect our picket lines in the future and urge the media conglomerates to return to the bargaining table to make a fair deal that will put writers and the entertainment industry back to work.

Was Huckabee legitimately confused? Nah, not so much. From the WGA blog:

However, when the reporters told Huckabee he was incorrect and the WGA had only made a separate deal with David Letterman's company - and not the Tonight Show - Huckabee pled ignorance: "But my understanding is there's a sort of dispensation given to the late-night shows, is that right?"

Uh...no.

And when the reporters tried yet again to tell Huckabee he was flat out wrong? His response: "Hmmm. Oh."

Indeed. What the strike is about has been discussed many times. I think (and hope) all progressives, as well as people who work in the arts, support the writers in their bid to participate in potentially vast future profits from streaming internet broadcast, and other new forms of content distribution. But who exactly are the players on the other side, the AMPTP?

First, they are not producers at all. Instead, they are media conglomerates and studios who own content. This AMPTP site lists all signatory companies; among them are ALL film studios and networks, and in their own words:

member companies include the production entities of the studios, broadcast networks, certain cable networks and independent producers.

Here's an explanation of how the networks became "producers":

It started in 1995 when the Federal Communications Commission abolished its long-standing "finsyn" rules (that's financial interest and syndication, for those unfamiliar with the term), allowing networks for the first time to own the programs they broadcast. Before that, under classic antitrust definitions, the networks had been confined to the role of broadcaster, paying a license fee to production companies for the right to broadcast programs just two times. The production companies owned all subsequent rights. In the mid-1990s there were 40 independent production companies making television shows. If a particular network didn't like a show -- as famously happened with "The Cosby Show" many years ago -- the production company could take it to another network.

But not after 1995. The abolition of the old rules set in motion an ineluctable process, one that has negatively affected every creative person I know in television. Today there are zero independent production companies making scripted television. They were all forced out of business by the networks' insistence -- following the FCC's fin-syn ruling -- on owning part or all of every program they broadcast.

This is a must-read article, especially for anyone who is still confused by why the "producers" and the writers can't just get along.

Finally, as a retort to poor confused Mike Huckabee, here are three more versions of the title song. Which do you think is the best?

Julie London, the original, featuring Barney Kessel on guitar and Ray Leatherwood on bass at the top, or Ella, with guitarist Joe Pass:



Lulu, with guitarist Jeff Beck(!):



and Diana Krall:

It's getting hotter in here

(image from http://www.ethicurean.com)

There you go again. The OCRegister has a thoughtful, oh-so-serious piece titled "Global warming 'consensus' a fiction":

Global warming hype peaked in 2007 with calls for vast increases in government control to stifle industrial growth, eliminate fossil fuels and impose new carbon taxes.

We were told desperate measures are needed because there's a scientific "consensus" that man-made greenhouse gases are increasing dangerously. Former Vice President Al Gore claimed there's no legitimate objection to the catastrophes he and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict.


. . . A U.S. Senate report accumulated more than 400 of their views to refute Mr. Gore's claim of "consensus."

Well. First, a grammatical quibble: how can one say "Global warming hype peaked in 2007"? Having just left that year behind, there are no relative statistics or studies to prove that silly assertion. If, by this time next year, the "hype" has dwindled, then it might make sense to say it "peaked" in '07. I thought newspaper editors had to have actually studied English. And Journalism. But that's not important right now.

What is is the silliness of the piece: the blind, agenda-driven acceptance of scholarly dubious "science" that comports with a "Free-Market Rulez!" philosophy.

Google "Dr. Wibjorn Karlen", quoted in the article, and you find several interesting organizations:

SEPP: Science & Environmental Policy Project, which says this in its FAQs:

Should we ruin our economies and cause tremendous hardship for people to counter a phantom threat?

That's a leading question, of course; climate warming does indeed seem far away and a minor problem at that. There is a sure threat to human existence, however, and that is the near-certainty of a coming ice age. Geologists tell us that the present interglacial warm period will soon come to an end. Perhaps greenhouse warming can save us from an icy fate.

So warming will be good for us, and, did you catch the pro-business spin: "ruin our economies"? That says more about this organization than any scientific reports.

NSRP: Natural Resources Stewardship Council, which offers this:

NRSP is a federally incorporated, non-profit, non-partisan organization that will promote responsible environmental stewardship through:

• broad-based media, government and public relations;
• consumer education and advocacy;
• private initiative and the promotion of private property rights;
• market-based approaches; and
• sensible and efficient legislative and regulatory frameworks, particularly at the federal level.

Cool. Several code words at work there. First, "Stewardship" is one of the favorite words of the evangelical right when quoting scripture to solemnly announce the intention to do good. Yet too often, the 'stewardship' ends up being in favor of Exxon and other "free-market" players.

Next, "private property rights", and "market-based approaches". I'm not going to bother to study these, they're too obvious.

Here's the scoop on Dr. Howard Hayden:

Hayden and CFACT
Hayden sits on the "Board of Academic and Scientific Advisors" of a US think tank called Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). Also on the board are many other well-known climate change "skeptics," including Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels. ExxonMobil has contributed $472,000 to CFACT over the last 7 years. Founded in 1985, CFACT has been critical of government regulation on many issues, including the o-zone layer, mercury emissions, global warming, taxic waste and the use of pesticides.

Research on climate change
Hayden is a retired professor of physics and has been published in peer-reviewed journals. However, according to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Hayden has not published any research in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of human-induced climate change.

Hayden and the Energy Advocate
Hayden is the editor and publisher of a monthly newsletter called the "Energy Advocate ." The Energy Advocate describes itself as "a cross between an educational blurb and a bottle of salsa. We make no apologies for being pro-science, pro-technology, pro-energy --- and especially, pro-nuclear."

Hayden and the NRSP
Listed as an “Allied Expert ” for the Natural Resource Stewardship Project (NRSP), and lobby organization that refuses to disclose it's funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball . In an Oct. 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article about who funds the NRSP, Tom Harris, stated that "a confidentiality agreement doesn't allow him to say whether energy companies are funding his group." Although Harris has since denied that such an agreement exists, he has failed to respond to follow-up questions about the source of NRSP funding.

Interesting, we have the NSRP again. Pro-business, anti-consumer, science-denying bastards.

The Register and other conservatarian organizations can object all they want. And they can roll out their pet shills to explain why glaciers are melting because the world is getting cooler. Or more gay. Or whatever nonsense they make-up each week.

But I guarantee that when the agenda is driven by money, the need to make money will override all other issues. Including reality.

Its a night trip, into bed you hop

Jonah Goldberg is riding, as usual, on the Good Ship Lollipop, where it's all good news for Republicans, all the time:

Instead, for the third time since the Democrats took over Congress with a much-trumpeted "mandate" to end the war, they've ended up voting to fund it. The Bush and Maliki administrations have announced a long-term partnership that will permit military bases in Iraq for years, if not generations, to come. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's antiwar point man, Rep. Jack Murtha, accidentally admitted last week that the surge was working. And we've now discovered that Pelosi and other leading Democrats have known about CIA waterboarding since 2002 and were apparently fine with it then.

Well, maybe. But when Republican obstructionists threaten to block virtually every bill, even ones they agree with, by the power of the filibuster, it's pretty hard to get stuff done. And as usual with Jonah, that's not what Murtha said:

"I think the surge is working but that's only one element. It's working because of the increase in troops," he said, "but the thing that has to happen is that the Iraqis have to do this themselves..."

(The caveat was all but ignored by some conservative critics, one of whom described Murtha's claim as the equivalent of "hell freezing over.")

Jonah continues:

The reemergence of the traditional rifts on the left were inevitable. Years of powerlessness obscured the divides between, for example, liberal internationalists, left-leaning realists and ideological opponents of American "empire."

Still, Democrats are doubling down on their 2006 promises even after a year of coming up short. If Democrats win the White House and more congressional seats in 2008, they vow, then suddenly the world will change.

But that's a delusion too. They may pass more legislation, but increased Democratic power will further highlight the party's fault lines. And the emotional oomph that self-described progressives draw from their rallies, protests and blogs cannot be sustained as a governing program because our government is blessedly designed to siphon off such excitement.

"The party's fault lines" are the natural result of an organic coalition of progressive movements and alliances. Unlike the Rupublican Party, which has become the party of tax breaks for millionaires, torture of whomever they accuse of being un-American, and corporations having rights the Constitution decrees are for citizens.

Bastard.

Hit me with your best shot

Duncan Hunter is an idiot. Oh, and so is O'Reilly:



Here's a comment from the YouTube comment thread:

battlecreekonline (2 hours ago) Show Hide Marked as spam

0

(Reply) (Spam)

I was in Iraq. Waterboarding is not as it appears in the Fox News video. Waterboarding is tying a person to a narrow board very tightly and placing them updside down into a 55 gallon drum of water until only the feet stick out of the water. When bubbles come out they are withdrawn and allowed to catch a few breaths. This is repeated till they die or confess to something.

Can't vouch for this, but it's interesting.

Macho Man

We live in a world of metaphoric innuendo...Phrases stitched together, haphazardly or craftily, arranged in order to invoke pictures in the mind far richer in detail than what the mere words by themselves might convey.

And we also live in a world of objective standards, benchmarks that are shared universally whether they are admired, ignored or reviled.

One of these areas of objectivity is what makes a man.

Whether one subscribes wholeheartedly to a Hemingwayesque or Jack Londonish vision of resolute hypermasculinity, or rejects that somewhat hirsute characterisation in favor of a less two-fisted expression, we all have a personal or vicarious share in the knowledge base that enables a comparison when an individual asserts a claim to authority in such matters.

For myself, I hearken to such examples as my maternal grandfather, a self-made individual who escaped the coal fields and built up his own small business after the Depression, a man who hunted (in the days before high viz vests with two-way radios and motorhomes with beer fridges and portable DVD players) not for the sole indulgence of sport, but to ensure food for his family on long, cold winter nights, and having pride in discharging that responsibility to the utmost.

He and his comrades would sojourn, alone together, on prairie or mountain glade in fair clime or foul searching for what the bounty of Nature might provide...and take pains to insure that everyone in their party would return safely to their homes at the end of that time.

For me, albeit familiarized with firearms, I was never a hunter.
I grew up in a world of commercialized plenty, with red-tinted steaks in fluorescent-lit freezers and 83 different kinds of breakfast cereal stocked on interminable shelves that were open 24 hours a day.

Nevertheless, although I never heard the call of the hunt, I grew to respect those who took only what they needed from the land and who safeguarded a healthy remainder for those who might come after, as a result of men like my grandfather.

My grandfather also taught me the value of truth, and the responsibility of the individual to be truthful to his peers in one's dealings with the world.

This was not a place where relative morality and 'little white lies' could flourish, but a zone where a man's word was all he could truly be judged by.

To tell the truth, however bad or good the truth might make one appear, marked one as an individual worthy of respect.

And thus, I don't need someone who participates regularly in executive canned hunts for the 'sport' of killing, and who lies to a camera without missing a beat telling me about who swings the biggest stick.

I know who did.

Thanks, Dampy.

Ain't that what you said? Liar

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that Larry Elder is a liar. He claims that in a Project for Excellence in Journalism study, from the Pew Research Center, says:

The study found that Democrats got more news coverage than Republicans – 49 percent of the stories versus 31 percent. It also found the "tone" of the coverage for Democrats was more positive, 35 percent compared with 26 percent for Republicans. "In other words," the study says, "not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking."

Well, maybe Larry's reading glasses aren't strong enough. Because here's the study, and a simple search of it doesn't find the number 49 anywhere. In fact, here's a quote from the study:

If the press tries to treat the leaders in a race with greater skepticism—or feels a responsibility to scrub those contenders harder—there is some evidence to support that here. The two front runners in national polls both received somewhat more negative coverage than positive. For Hillary Clinton, 27% of the stories were clearly positive, 38% were negative and 35% were balanced or neutral. For Rudy Giuliani, 28% were positive, 37% negative, and 35% neutral.

Wow. Truly a great coup for the Democrats, what with 27% of the Hillary stories being positive, vs. 28% of Rudy's.

I'm tired, I got no sleep last night, so I'm not going to take this to its logical conclusion. I suppose that if one takes data from column A, and column B, one can arrive at result C, and somehow contend that the stats in Larry's story are correct.

But I doubt it. Dishonest is as dishonest does.

Bastard.


Update: The article indeed says that Democrats got more coverage, but not by the stats Larry creates out of thin air quotes:

Taking all the presidential hopefuls together, the press overall has been more positive about Democratic candidates and more negative about Republicans. In the stories mainly about one of the Democratic candidates, the largest percentage was neutral (39%), but more than a third of stories (35%) were positive, while slightly more than a quarter (26%) carried a clearly negative tone.

For Republicans, the numbers were basically reversed. Again the same number as for Democrats (39%) were neutral, but more than a third (35%) were negative vs. 26% positive.

In other words, not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking.

Why is this? Does it suggest some not-so-subtle enthusiasm by a liberal press for Democratic candidates? Those critics who see a continuing liberal preference in the media may cite this as evidence of that presumption.

There are, however, other explanations.

The most notable is the fact that, if the coverage of Obama and McCain are eliminated, the distinction in tone of coverage between the two parties’ candidates disappears.

Another factor influencing the tone of coverage for Republican candidates could be the perceived weaknesses in the chances for nomination or election by each of the leading Republican candidates. While Giuliani, for example, has shown strength in opinion polls, many observers inside and outside the Republican Party consider his chances complicated by opposition from religious conservatives. Likewise, McCain was known to have displeased many in his own party for his bi-partisan sponsorship of campaign finance reform and immigration reform. And Mitt Romney’s relative inexperience on the national stage and switch on the abortion issue made observers skeptical of his credibility.

Third, the tone of the coverage may also mirror the fact that Republican voters in polls express greater dissatisfaction with their candidate pool than do Democrats.[1]

That's about right. The bottom line is the Republicans are hated by nearly everyone in the country, except for the lunatic 24% that would vote Repub even after seeing Larry Craig publicly fellate GWBush. And the intellectual and moral dwarves the Repubs are currently running don't help. Giuliani's act is wearing thin, Romney's flip-flopping and torture-loving are perceived as crass, and Huckabee is starting to wake people up to the idea that he's a Christionist zealot who won't always cut taxes.

And the Iraq war hangs on each of them like some bling clock around Flavor Flav's neck: a bad idea, awful style, yet once the commitment is made, has to be carried out.

And unlike watching a train wreck like Scott Peterson collapse, the voting public is increasingly sickened by everything the Repubs have to offer. Thus the preference for news and ideas from the left. While they're not doing as well as I would like, at least it's not anti-immigrant, pro-torture, tax cuts for Donald Trump all the time.

And stay the course in Iraq. That is the Republican Party's albatross.

Evil minds that plot destruction, Sorcerers of death's construction

(image by the immortal darkblack)

Dennis Kucinich is on the TV right now reading from his Resolution on Articles of Impeachment of Darth Cheney:

“H. Res. 333 has been before the House of Representatives for half a year and has 21 cosponsors. At the same time, the Vice President has escalated his belligerence towards Iran. Thus, I believe it is now urgent to move the impeachment resolution,” Kucinich concluded.

The 21 cosponsors of H. Res. 333 are: Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Robert Brady (D-PA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Henry Johnson (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. James Moran (D-VA), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA), Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD).

Read the full Articles of Impeachment here.

Sadly, no one believes for a minute this will go anywhere. Still, it's a no-lose situation. With support for the administration tanking, anything that takes them to task will be popular with most of the, you know, population. And as I wrote yesterday, the Republicans are hanging on hard to the very issues that are drowning them, the Iraq war being chief among them. Yet cling they do, to torture, hawkishness, partisan hackery, no support for universal healthcare, the list goes on and on and on.

Good luck Dennis. And thanks.

the seed inside ya, baby, do you feel it growin'?

(photo by Marianne Mather/STNG)

I love to read mystery novels, for pure escapism and fun. And my special subset of interest is female protagonists, in books written by women. The absence of visible testosterone makes these books more interesting and intellectual, IMO.

One of my favs is Sara Paretsky, who authors the V. I. Warshawski series of books. But it seems she also writes some riveting non-fiction as well, about the totalitarian and authoritarian goals of the religious Right towards womens' reproductive health in her beloved Chicago:

My grandmother watched her father die when an anti-Jewish mob broke into their small home and shot him as he lay in bed with his wife. The mob was jubilant and exuberant at his death; their neighborhood priest in Vilnius, Lithuania, led the crowd through the streets chanting a Te Deum to show their thanks to the Lord at the death of someone they considered a nonbeliever.

Most members of that crowd called themselves Christians. I think of them when I look at the mob in Aurora that is trying to keep the Planned Parenthood health center there from opening.

I have been working around these protesters and their associates for 20 years, trying to help women get through their ranks into clinics for medical appointments. On a recent stint at an obstetrics-gynecology health center under siege on the North Side of Chicago, I was trying to escort a woman with ovarian cancer through the horde so she could see her doctor.

Part of the crowd surrounded us, chanting "Christ killers!" and "Baby killers!" Briefly, I felt the fear my grandmother must have known.

The hypocrisy of these folks seems without limits, yet their agenda is clear, while misrepresented. They claim to be against abortion under any circumstances, yet the clear goal is no birth control or any other reproductive rights for women. They're not only after Roe v. Wade, they're after Griswold v. Connecticut.

Don't remember that one? You should. Here's what a synopsis of major Supreme Court decisions on reproductive rights from FindLaw says about Griswold:

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). In this case, the Supreme Court held that the right to privacy, which flows from the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution), includes the right of married persons to use contraceptives.

Interesting the the far Right, who claim to value personal freedom and responsibility, and lack of government intrusion, feel a need to tell people that they can't even use birth control. No abortions, and no way to keep from getting pregnant. This makes the old Rhythm Method seem like scientific advancement. Oddly, the great rush to canonize marriage as a sacred act between one man & one woman by the Right doesn't seem to include a married couple's right to privacy in re: their right to birth control.

And think about the specifics of the case, that prior to 1965, a state told its citizens they couldn't make their own birth control decisions. And it wasn't until 1972 (Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438(1972), that:

. . . the Supreme Court held that a statute that allowed giving contraceptives to married adults but prohibited the same conduct with respect to unmarried adults violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If the right of privacy means anything, explained the Court, it encompasses the right of all individuals, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether or not to conceive a child.

Not that long ago. We seem to have barely escaped from the dark ages. And now zealots on the far Right want to take us back there. Here's an article from Prevention Magazine that makes some important points about the Right-wing lies about birth control:

In the past decade or so, the "hormonal birth control equals abortion" view has quietly grown roots in the antiabortion underground. It's spread from doctor to doctor, through local newsletters, in books with titles such as Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? (written by Randy Alcorn, an Oregon-based antiabortion pastor and author), and through lobbying groups that have encouraged lawmakers in Arkansas, South Dakota, and most recently Mississippi to enact "conscience clauses." These legislative provisions protect health care professionals--in this case, pharmacists--who refuse to provide services they oppose on moral, ethical, or legal grounds. At press time, similar legislation had been introduced in 11 more states.

An Internet search turns up thousands of Web sites containing articles with titles such as "The Pill Kills Babies," "Are Contraception and Abortion Siamese Twins?" and "The Dirty Little Secrets about the Birth Control Pill." Hundreds of physicians and pharmacists have pledged not to provide hormonal birth control. Among them: 450 doctors affiliated with the Dayton, OH-based natural family planning group One More Soul; some members of the 2,500 doctors in the Holland, MI-based American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and a growing number of the 1,500-member Web-based Pharmacists for Life International, says Brauer. Not even anti-Pill groups know how many doctors and druggists are involved. And while the total is still a small percentage of the 117,500 family physicians and OB/GYNs and 173,000 pharmacists in the US, they are making their presence felt in women's lives and among law and policy makers on both the state and national levels. Their influence is far-reaching and disproportionate to their size--a quiet version of the public shock waves produced by the nation's relatively small number of antiabortion activists.

"Refusing women access to the Pill is a very disturbing trend," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The war on choice is not just about abortion anymore. It's about our right to birth control."

More from the article:

Part of the crowd surrounded us, chanting "Christ killers!" and "Baby killers!" Briefly, I felt the fear my grandmother must have known.

The police were watching the demonstrators block the clinic but doing nothing to remove them from the entrance. After five minutes, they came to help the cancer patient escape her harassers and return to her car -- weeping and trembling. There was no way she was going to get essential medical care that day.

After the police left, one of the protesters said to me, "I suppose since you think it's OK to kill a fetus you agree that it's OK if I kill you."

This is ugly language, but no more hate-filled than the rest of the words and deeds of those angry people who want to keep women from getting reproductive health care.

Here's more about the Aurora clinic from the Chicago Sun-Times:

A handful of patients visited the new Planned Parenthood clinic as it opened Tuesday in Aurora, but they were far outnumbered by dozens of anti-abortion demonstrators who vowed to continue their efforts to shut the center.

Opponents in fact filed a new challenge with Aurora's zoning board of appeals, contending the clinic -- which offers abortion services -- shouldn't be open because it lacks a required special-use permit.

. . . More than 20 patients also made appointments Tuesday for visits to the clinic, which offers a range of health care that includes testing for sexually transmitted infections and providing contraceptives.

Read Paretsky's piece, and be afraid for your civil rights.