••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Saturday, October 30, 2010

We’re pretty sure that on Sunday, Democratic and Republican candidates will still be running attack ads. But it’s possible the Rally to Restore Sanity could have some effect on the national conversation.

Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity will run for about three hours on the National Mall this weekend. In that length of time, will the gathering actually be able to restore sanity to America’s political dialogue?

Well, that’s a high bar. We’re pretty sure that on Sunday, Democratic and Republican candidates will still be labeling one another “extreme” and running attack ads with scary music and unflattering shots of their opponents. Even after Tuesday’s elections, party leaders of all persuasions will continue to describe the other side as the main obstacle to getting the sputtering US economy back on track.

For Mr. Stewart, this persistence of partisanship is a good thing, by the way. If American politics were as placid as the Rio Grande at sunset, he’d have a much harder time finding things to skewer on his show.
[more]

WASHINGTON -- Is it a way to improve the nation's political discourse? A way to tip some votes just before the election? Or just a big outdoor comedy show?

Organizers insist that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on the National Mall on Saturday isn't about politics. But that hasn't dampened the expectations of thousands of fans and advocacy groups seeking to rekindle some of the voter enthusiasm seen in 2008, particularly among young adults.
[more]
from wikipedia

A queen bee is the leader of a female group, a clique's leader, usually a popular young lady. Characteristics often associated to her are a pleasant appearance, charisma, skill in manipulation, and monetary power. She is sometimes portrayed as the Head Cheerleader, Prom Queen, Homecoming Queen, Principal's Daughter, etc. The queen bee has substantial influence and power over the clique, and is usually envied and/or looked upon as a role model by clique members and at times by outsiders to the clique. Her actions are closely followed and imitated, even though they may not be of a positive nature. They may appear to also be sex symbols to males.

The social role of the outcast is defined as anyone that the queen bee usually dislikes. Clique members may victimize the outcast in order to continue their membership in the clique, or to receive praise from the queen bee.

In most cliques there is, at least to some degree, a power struggle for the position of the queen bee. Hence, the clique's leader might change from time to time, for example due to a member (or non-member) exceeding the queen bee's abilities, or members getting fed up with the queen bee's antics and thus attracting followers of the old clique leader. Outside influences may also act upon the social structure of the clique, such as changing interests or increasing maturity among clique members.

In a business environment, a "queen bee" may also refer to a woman in upper management who advanced in the ranks without the help of any type of affirmative action programs. Many of those executive women tend to be politically conservative and they choose not to publicly identify with feminism. They often see other, usually younger, women as competitors and will refuse to help them advance within a company, preferring to mentor a male over a female employee. Some 'queen bees' may actively take steps to hinder another woman's advancement as they are seen as direct competitors. Such tactics are sometimes referred to as homophily or the "Queen Bee Syndrome."
[more]
global climate
biggr than
whatevr tells u
2 sit
ths one
out
LIKE
QUISLING
UNCLE TOM
JUDAS


stay awake
so u cn c
whose fear
or greed
or thrst 4 powr
might drive thm
2 help
dfeat u
last nxt gen
joind hive
wore borg phones
hrd wrd
swarmd round foxy queen b
who jumpd ovr lazy dogs
morphd in2 bear
drove flock in2 c
n took honey
while drone stayd home
alas

Friday, October 29, 2010

what's so surprisng?

'The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,' says the Senate Republican leader.

The White House on Tuesday forcefully responded to comments from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell....
seriously, folks, didn't you already know that's what they're doing? i mean, anybody who's been even halfway paying attention knew it the moment after the first partyline vote in 2009, and certainly when jim demint made his waterloo remark or, even before the inauguration, when rush limbaugh hoped for obama's failure.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

con game

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
—Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
you think?

i don't know if that's 100% accurate. or complete. he left out "you can fool a lot of people a lot of the time, if you know how."

the party that claims to be the same one lincoln belonged to seems to have anticipated my interpretation and taken it as advice for winning elections.

how sad...for all of us.

yes we can but...
Obama: ...we have done things that some folks don't even know about —

Stewart: What have you done that we don't know about? [laughter] Are you planning a surprise party for us? "Filled with jobs and healthcare!"

Obama: When you look at what we've done in terms of making sure that — before we even passed healthcare, 4 million kids got health insurance that didn't have it before, through the children's health insurance program [cheers], expanded national service more than at any time since the beginning of the Peace Corps, made sure that credit card companies couldn't jack up your rates without notice — over and over again, we have moved forward an agenda that is making a difference in people's lives each and every day. Now, is it enough? No. And so I expect, and I think most Democrats out there expect, that people want to see more progress.

Stewart: Right.
ok, but maybe you should've mentioned this, too:

global cooling

once again i heard somebody mention predictions of global cooling made 40 years ago. usually the claim is that scientists predicted a new ice age, or something like that. this time it was attributed to the UN, which i don't think i've heard before. the implication given in such claims is always that they were wrong then so they must be wrong now about global warming and climate change. it's about time i looked it up.

here's how wikipedia's article starts out:

Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation. This hypothesis had mixed support in the scientific community, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles, and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s. In contrast to the global cooling conjecture, the current scientific opinion on climate change is that the Earth has not durably cooled, but undergone global warming throughout the twentieth century.
as you can see from the rest of the article, the deniers are wrong on this one, too.

I was up near Haridwar, at the foot of the Himalaya’s in northern India only weeks ago, speaking to friends and colleagues who have grown up in the mountains their entire lives. Every single person spoke with sadness at how quickly the glaciers have receded in their lifetime. Some mentioned to me how many of them have had to move homes in search of better soil, because the melting glaciers have meant changes in water access and there for loss of agricultural productivity. For those of you who are farmers, I’m sure you can understand how painful that process can be.

Furthermore, in a recent interview, the Prime Minister of Nepal, Madhav Kumar, spoke about the Himalaya’s melting around Nepal: “The snows are melting. Glaciers, many of the glaciers, Himalaya glaciers, has evaporated, has disappeared. Many glacial lakes are emerging… We have seen many landslides there and no regular land or rainfall there. Droughts and all these problems relating to the health of the people has been seen… And the impact on the mountainous region is much more in the downstream, where 1.3 billion of the population live in India, in Bangladesh. So the problem of Nepal is not only the problem of Nepal’s people, rather the problem of at least 1.3 billion of population.”
[more]
in the land of the notsee a bespectacled woman is queen
...especially if she's got big tea—uh—teeth


Rogue Facts: Media Matters’ ongoing list of falsehoods in Palin’s memoir

http://conservativecancer.com/

Karl Rove Not Keen on Palin Reality Show: Where's the 'Gravitas'?

Palin cites Lincoln to defend Beck

palin google search

http://www.ontheissues.org/sarah_palin.htm

Sarah Palin gives clearest indication she will run for president in 2012

palin yahoo search

palin wikipedia page

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

sanity fear rally march
&
here

also watch & check site & watch & check site.

Monday, October 25, 2010


he has two opponents. one of them has raised $34,334. the other has raised $0.

demint has raised $6,947,999.

as of the end of september he'd spent $4,494,549 of it.

and what's he spending it on? not his own campaign, apparently....
if the tea party is grass roots, how come it has so many special interests behind it?

see here, here, and here.
& oops! how could i forget here?

"This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile," he said in an unscripted remark. Using the word "crusade" to describe American retaliation to September 11 was counter-productive in the extreme. It recalled one of the darkest chapters in Christian history, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims by marauding Christian "holy warriors" in repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem.

Bush never used the word again but "crusades" has been a gift that keeps giving for Osama bin Laden and his followers who say they are waging war against "Jews and crusaders," a conflict they still hope to turn into a permanent clash of civilizations.

"Al Qaeda and its affiliated ideologues ... want to create a homogenous, undifferentiated Islam on whose behalf they speak and a coherent master narrative which justifies their action," Marc Lynch, who heads the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, wrote in a recent essay.

Conflating terrorism and Islam and thus creating a mental connection between the two, in other words, serves al Qaeda's cause.
[more]

Saturday, October 23, 2010









Wikileaks Whistleblowers
yahoo
google

you don't? well, have you ever considered getting one?

but wait! i don't want to be unfair:

“I think they were looking for a reason to get rid of me. That they were uncomfortable with the idea that I was talking to the likes of Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity,” he told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "Good Morning America." [more]

i don't want to be unfair to NPR either, so here's Williams' January 26, 2009, comment to Bill O’Reilly and Mary Katharine Ham, on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor:

Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going. If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine is suggesting, her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim. If that stuff starts coming out, people will go bananas and she'll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross.
Tiger Extinction
france strike 2010
yahoo
google

Friday, October 22, 2010

The reports in the archive disclosed by WikiLeaks offer an incomplete, yet startlingly graphic portrait of one of the most contentious issues in the Iraq war — how many Iraqi civilians have been killed and by whom.
[more]

The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
[more]

Thursday, October 21, 2010

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”
[more]

“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have to do something about it.”

A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party.

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.”

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy.

“This so-called climate science is just ridiculous,” said Kelly Khuri, founder of the Clark County Tea Party Patriots. “I think it’s all cyclical.”

“Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.”
[more]

If there is a single message unifying Republican candidates this year, it is a call to grab hold of the federal checkbook, slam it closed and begin to slash spending. To bolster their case that action is needed, Republicans are citing major legislation over the four years that Democrats have controlled Congress, notably the financial system bailout, the economic stimulus and the new health care law.

But while polls show that the Republicans’ message is succeeding politically, Republican candidates and party leaders are offering few specifics about how they would tackle the nation’s $13.7 trillion debt, and budget analysts said the party was glossing over the difficulty of carrying out its ideas, especially when sharp spending cuts could impede an already weak economic recovery.
[more]
WASHINGTON — Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say.
[more]
Since Sarah Palin reclaimed feminism for conservative women and coined the term 'mama grizzly,' a diverse field of women has stepped forward. Women in the midterm election challenge traditional notions of what female candidates should look like, how they should campaign and whose votes they can earn.
[listen]

a female bear is called a sow. does that mean mama grizzlies are pigs? probably not, but they're mighty dangerous.

Six months ago, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. The initial explosion grabbed the nation's attention, but few imagined what was to come. As the oil spread, writer Terry Tempest Williams felt compelled to bear witness to the devastation and share the stories of those most affected.
[listen]

Wednesday, October 20, 2010


And Blaine dismisses speculation about Kennedy's relationship with Marilyn Monroe. He says that he was on duty the night of May 19, 1962, the famous birthday fundraiser at which Monroe sang for the president. Blaine says that Monroe was present later in Kennedy's suite at the Carlyle Hotel, but that she "left before the other guests."

And he says that the only other time Monroe was in the president's company was in Santa Monica in 1961, at the home of Peter and Pat Lawford, where Kennedy took a brief swim before departing.
[more]

Tuesday, October 19, 2010


"Everybody in the world knows you don't believe anything on Wikipedia," Rush Limbaugh told his listeners last year. So, uh, it must be embarrassing for him that he just used Wikipedia as a source—and got his facts wrong.
[more]

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?

It is not a rhetorical question. At Pig Pickin’ and Politickin’, a barbecue-fed rally organized here last week by a Republican women’s club, a half-dozen guests were asked by a reporter what had happened to their taxes since President Obama took office.

“Federal and state have both gone up,” said Bob Paratore, 59, from nearby Charlotte, echoing the comments of others.

After further prodding — including a reminder that a provision of the stimulus bill had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families by changing withholding rates — Mr. Paratore’s memory was jogged.

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you: it was so subtle that personally, I didn’t notice it.”

Few people apparently did.

In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.

In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”
[more]

Maureen Dowd has referred to several female political candidates as the "Republican Mean Girls" in a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. Andrew Zarowny of RightPundits.com has called her derogatory comments "cheap."
[more]
i jus wanna brag a lil

Resolved Question

How has politics changed since the invention of 24 hour a day news channels?

3 days ago

by d nova
Member since: July 10, 2010
Total points: 128 (Level 1)
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

it's gone crazy, but there's nothing new about that. the worst causes often have the most effective propaganda. look at rwanda and serbia in the '90s, and nazi germany. look at right wing media now. they play us for suckers, and obviously a lot of folk get sucked into believing them.

3 days ago

Asker's Comment: thanks

Friday, October 15, 2010

a few no-brainers

"don't ask, don't tell" declared unconstitutional
you appeal the ruling? great. lose the gay vote. see where it gets ya.

banks run amok with improper foreclosures
you won't put a national moratorium on them? hoo-boy! ever think of erring on the side of consumers rather than bankers for a CHANGE?

social security benefits won't go up in 2011
you're giving recipients a one-time payment of $250 instead. wow. my rent goes up 5.5% every year, COLA or no COLA. this time it'll be $46 more per month. 250 won't even last 5.5 months, and i know i'm not alone. thanks loads.

come on, guys. you're supposed to be DEMOCRATS! the party of the people, remember? you know, the PEOPLE?!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

fresh air


October 13, 2010

In the Oct. 18 issue of The New Yorker, historian Sean Wilentz examines "how extremist ideas held at bay for decades inside the Republican Party have exploded anew — and why, this time, party leaders have done virtually nothing to challenge those ideas, and a great deal to abet them."

Wilentz, who teaches at Princeton University, argues that the rhetoric expressed by both conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck and the Tea Party is nothing new — and is rooted in an extremist ideology that has been around since the Cold War, a view that the Republican Party is now embracing.

"I think what's happening is the Republican Party is willing to chase after whatever it can to get the party back — to get power back," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "This is what's happening in the Republican Party, so instead of drawing lines, they're jumping over fences to look like they're in the good graces of these Tea Party types."
[full story, interview transcript]
No Where

[link]

Monday, October 11, 2010


Peter Diamond, a 70-year-old economist at MIT, just won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Yes, that's the same Peter Diamond whom President Obama appointed to the Federal Reserve in April and whose confirmation Republicans have blocked.

It's not clear which Republican senators are stopping his nomination at this point, as he's the victim of one of those infamous anonymous holds. But two leading suspects are Jim Bunning and Richard Shelby, both of whom voted against Diamond's nomination in committee and the latter of whom has raised questions about Diamond's qualification.

Shelby has acknowledged that Diamond is a "skilled economist" but has said he wonders whether Diamond has sufficient expertise in monetary policy--even though three sitting Fed governors, including two appointed by Republicans, aren't even economists.

Who is Diamond? He's among the country's most respected economists....
[more]

(Click here to read Peter Diamond's plan to save Social Security, which he wrote for The New Republic in 1998.)

buying risky "securities" with the trust fund still makes no sense to me, especially when there's a simpler, far safer way to save both social security and medicare: eliminate the payroll taxes and pay for it out of general revenue! congress should make itself responsible for keeping the funds solvent every year. benefits shouldn't be tied to income but to cost of living for soc sec and actual cost for medicare. to pay for it, all you have to do is revise the tax code, and i've got a simple way to do that, too: replace the current income tax with a progressive flat tax and cut the loopholes. and when i say "progressive" i mean it! the standard deduction would be about $100,000 at present.

but, as for the gops blocking nobel laureate diamond's confirmation, all i can say is "doggone it, darn right, you betcha!"

None of the US special forces taking part initially reported throwing fragmentation grenades near Ms Norgrove, and it only came to light after video footage from head cameras worn by members of the squad was examined.

General David Petraeus, the US commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, called David Cameron yesterday morning to inform him of the discovery, and ordered an inquiry into the operation amid angry recriminations.

John and Lorna Norgrove, Linda's parents, are still waiting for a full explanation of what happened. Yesterday they were joined by their second daughter, Sofie, at their home on the Isle of Lewis. Mr Norgrove said: "We are not saying anything at the moment. We might issue a statement in another day or two, we're not certain, but now we are not saying anything."

The exact terms of the inquiry is yet to be decided. But, according to Nato officials, among the questions it would address is why US, Nato and British officials were so forcefully claiming that Ms Norgrove's death was due to a suicide detonation before all the evidence had been reviewed – and also why highly destructive fragmentation grenades were used in a mission where avoiding harming the hostage would be the primary concern.
[more]

BRILLLLIANT!!!! throwing a grenade during a hostage rescue!

a fragmentation grenade, no less!

you can't make up this stuff!

wish i'd thought of it....

Sunday, October 10, 2010

read these at serenity yesterday

HANDWRITING ON THE FLAG

once young & foolish
hand on heart
we pledged our troth
to liberty & justice for all

then dream soured,became a sham
& ashamed we watched
a man demand a woman stand so he could sit
guardsmen block schoolhouse door
lunch counter service denied

only tip of ice we learned
as monsters surfaced from the deep
to unleash nightmare fire & blood

it can't happen here we hoped wished prayed
already too late
not just here but round the world
hydra tightens grip

it ties together,don't think it don't
sum of parts,parts of whole
all gift wrapped ready to roll

yellow ribbons stained in red
corrupt a banner thus adorned
mailed fists dripping gore
destroy a dream once adored

awake you sleepers if you can
make ribbons armbands painted black
& mourn the death of dream

11/91


BETWEEN MESOPOTAMIA & A HARD PLACE

where did your heart go,america?

once you cared for folk in need
now you merely feed your greed

once you tried to defend the weak
now you burn to protect a sheik

you were a place of promise & vision
love & joy & hope

now i see only denial,suspicion
hatred,sorrow,fear

know why we feel afraid & alone?
poisons fill air & water
ground gives off deadly gases
roads & bridges crumble
a few with power line their pockets
many with no place to go lose their homes
children starve or get bombed
& you turn your back on it all

you had the spirit of pioneers
dared cross prairie & mighty river
fought the force of storm & drought
forged new life in wilderness

if only we could go back in time
see how future used to look
& do what we must do
to make it come out that way

but a metaphor's not what it seems
& time machines belong to dreams
& no physician alive can cure
the sickness unto death

2/91
10/10/10!

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Thursday, October 07, 2010


"My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don't know how that happened in the United States," she said. "It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States."

Dearborn, Mich., has a thriving Muslim community. It was not immediately clear why Angle singled out Frankford, Texas, a former town that was annexed into Dallas around 1975.
...
Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly called Angle's comments "shameful." He said tea party groups inaccurately spread the word that his Detroit suburb was ruled by Islamic law after members of an anti-Islam group were arrested at an Arab cultural festival in June because a Christian volunteer complained of harassment.

"She took it as face value and maligned the city of Dearborn and I consider that totally irresponsible," he said. "If she wants to come here, I will take her on a tour. I will show her we follow the Constitution just as well as anyone else."

Angle, a Southern Baptist, has called herself a faith-based politician. Among her positions, she opposes abortion in all circumstances, including rape and incest and doesn't believe the Constitution requires the separation of church and state.

Angle is in a dead-heat race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid....
[more]

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

tales of compassionate conservatism


Here's the short version of what happened: In rural Obion County, homeowners must pay $75 annually for fire protection services from the nearby city of South Fulton. If they don't pay the fee and their home catches fire, tough luck -- even if firefighters are positioned just outside the home with hoses at the ready.

Gene Cranick found this out the hard way.

When Cranick's house caught fire last week, and he couldn't contain the blaze with garden hoses, he called 911. During the emergency call, he offered to pay all expenses related to the Fire Department's defense of his home, but the South Fulton firefighters refused to do anything.

They did, however, come out when Cranick's neighbor -- who'd already paid the fee -- called 911 because he worried that the fire might spread to his property. Once they arrived, members of the South Fulton department stood by and watched Cranick's home burn; they sprang into action only when the fire reached the neighbor's property.

"I hadn't paid my $75 and that's what they want, $75, and they don't care how much it burned down," Gene Cranick told WPSD, an NBC affiliate in Kentucky. "I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong."

The incident has sparked a debate in many corners of the Web. Writers for the National Review, arguably the nation's most influential right-leaning voice, have seized on the episode to discuss the relative merits of compassionate conservatism versus a hard-line libertarianism. (See their arguments here, here, here, here and here.)

Daniel Foster, a self-described "conservative with fairly libertarian leanings" who writes for the magazine, took issue with the county's laissez-faire approach to firefighting, calling it "a kind of government for which I would not sign up."

"What moral theory allows these firefighters (admittedly acting under orders) to watch this house burn to the ground when 1) they have already responded to the scene; 2) they have the means to stop it ready at hand; 3) they have a reasonable expectation to be compensated for their trouble?" Foster wrote.

But Foster's colleague Kevin Williamson took the opposite view. Cranick's fellow residents in the rural stretches of Obion County had no fire protection until the county established the $75 fee in 1990. As Williamson explained: "The South Fulton fire department is being treated as though it has done something wrong, rather than having gone out of its way to make services available to people who did not have them before. The world is full of jerks, freeloaders, and ingrates — and the problems they create for themselves are their own. These free-riders have no more right to South Fulton's firefighting services than people in Muleshoe, Texas, have to those of NYPD detectives."

Liberals are pouncing on the Cranick fire as an illustration of what they take to be the callous indifference of a market regime that rewards privileged interests over the concerns of ordinary Americans.

"The case perfectly demonstrated conservative ideology, which is based around the idea of the on-your-own society and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well-off and privileged," Think Progress' Zaid Jilani wrote in a response to the National Review writers. "It has been 28 years since conservative historian Doug Wead first coined the term 'compassionate conservative.' It now appears that if any such philosophy ever existed, it has few adherents in the modern conservative movement."
[more]

[Elsewhere: Prince William helps make daring rescue with Royal Air Force]

the stricken gas rig worker must've paid the RAF's $75 dollar fee in advance, doggone it, darn right, you betcha!

Monday, October 04, 2010

now that i've read the "pledge pocket card" i see the diabolical genius behind the gop pledge: they know they'll never have to follow through on much, if any, of it!

that's because even if they win both houses of congress they won't get a big enough majority to get it past a senate filibuster (unless they win all 37 races!), and they certainly won't have the 67 votes needed to override a presidential veto.

all they'll have to do to explain why they haven't kept their pledge is blame it on the dems, something they always get away with, most likely because they can at will set up a media drumbeat on FOX news, talk radio, and rightwing newspapers like the wall street journal and the NY post, doggone it, darn right, you betcha!
nyt

Nobody who was paying attention has ever doubted that Fox is, in reality, a part of the Republican political machine; but the network — with its Orwellian slogan, “fair and balanced” — has always denied the obvious. Officially, it still does. But by hiring those G.O.P. candidates, while at the same time making million-dollar contributions to the Republican Governors Association and the rabidly anti-Obama United States Chamber of Commerce, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox, is signaling that it no longer feels the need to make any effort to keep up appearances.
[more]