April 30, 2010

Why does it not surprise me...

...to learn that Haliburton was involved with the oil rig and also to learn that it's not a union job?

A Must-Read

There is an article today in the local newspaper that I often malign with a certain suffix. This is a news article though that is so good and so competent, that it has caused me to, for now, to drop said suffix. Therefore, you must report directly to The Washington Post to read this article by Edward Schumacher-Matos. Schumacher-Matos' article just parses the numbers regarding immigration. He concludes what I've been saying for a while, that the fact is that immigration ain't really that big a problem, that it's just been fluffed up by "conservatives" to scare the hell out of grandma. Just the facts, man:
Forget the hyperventilated furor over the new Arizona immigration law and consider this overlooked fact: The number of illegal immigrants getting into the country has slowed to a relative trickle. And more have left than are coming in. The number of unauthorized immigrants in the country has gone from an estimated high of 12.5 million in 2007 to 10.8 million in this year's first quarter and is still dropping, according to experts in the Census Bureau, the Department
Despite repeated claims that the federal government "isn't doing anything," Schumacher-Matos says that enforcement efforts are significantly up from a decade ago.
Remember: The United States historically has had few immigration controls. In 1979, when as a reporter I snuck across the border with a group of Mexicans, there was a laughably small force of fewer than 2,000 Border Patrol agents covering the 2,000-mile frontier with Mexico. Today, the Border Patrol is 20,000 strong, supplemented by high-tech gadgetry and hundreds of miles of barriers. The Pew Hispanic Center reports that the number of Mexicans who managed to get through in the year ending in March 2009 was 175,000, the lowest number since 1970 and down from roughly 650,000 in 2005. The Border Patrol reports that apprehensions, a rough measure of traffic, were down nearly 70 percent last year from 2000.
So, hi. Can we please start talking about like, a real problem in these US of A for a change? Is the Bay Area ready for The Big One? Are our chemical plants well-secured? And would they please stop mowing those god-damned highway medians for chrissake?

April 29, 2010

Constitution Schmonstitution

This even occurred like four years ago at the National Press Club, but it is worth remembering today. A reporter drilled Gen. Michael Hayden, then deputy director of national intelligence, on the Fourth Amendment. Hayden quite confidently denied that the event includes the phrase "probable cause" and that the standard in said amendment is actually "reasonable-ness." This is worth remembering today due to the disgusting Arizona law we've been railing about for the past few days. It is worth remembering that conservatives are not only not familiar with the United States Constitution, but that they don't give a crap.

April 28, 2010

Immigration Fist Fight

I have been trying to "be rational" i.e. see the other side of the immigration issue, but the more I read their propaganda, the crazier they seem. They … the right wing nut machine that has stirred up this Arizona mess… blame immigrants for every evil to befall the USA from drug abuse to traffic accidents, rape, mayhem and disease. There is an unhealthy dose of racism at the heart of immigration debate which makes it more like a fist fight. It is hard to put any rational spin on Arizona's recent assault on the Fourth Amendment. Chris Matthews said it was a good thing because it might cause some action in Washington. I am skeptical. Certainly it is not the first time in our Nation's history that the Constitution has been thrown out the window by zealots and whack jobs. Teddy Roosevelt encouraged the lynching of people who opposed World War I. (And a couple of people died as a result.) Agreed there may be real facts not apparent in Washington and lost in the vortex of nonsense. For example, when people from Arizona say they want to secure the borders, that is exactly what they mean. Some are not concerned about illegal immigrants looking for work. They are concerned about drug gangsters. The new Arizona law is a response to the murder of a rancher in his back yard by a drug gang. That does not make it right. Immigration reform looks a lot like the slavery debates before the Civil War. The last serious reform was the Immigration Reform Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to a million or so Latinos in the country illegally, and put the onus for immigration control on employers by making it illegal to hire an undocumented alien. (The worst aspect of the law was that it practically closed the borders to new immigrants.) The Reform Act, like the Fugitive Slave Act, did not work. The Fugitive Slave Act failed because it had no support in the North, where it was supposed to be enforced. The Reform Act failed because it did not address the real demand for labor in the business community, and no effort was made by the Raygun, Busch, Clinton or Busch administrations to enforce it. The result was a continuing influx of illegal immigrants seeking widely available jobs that few Americans wanted. They did the chicken plucking, cow killing, table busing, gutter cleaning and other crappy jobs. Admittedly they got some of the good jobs too. The construction industry in Omaha began to collapse after the Moron G.W. Busch started actually enforcing the law. Skilled immigrants work for less, and as long as you have non union shops, you will have employers who will hire the cheapest labor. Moreover, because immigrants had no rights, and the government did not enforce restrictions on hiring them, they could be exploited at will. More devastating, was that immigration became a perfect wedge issue for the GOOP. The great thing about wedge issues is you don't have to solve them. You just get to use them to stir up the worst of the electorate into a venomous frenzy. With the help of a mediocre television personality who needed a way to boost his failed career, immigration became center stage. (I can never remember the name of that fat assed CNN guy.) The only decent policy position The Moron Busch ever took on was immigration reform. He had entered into agreements with the Mexican government on border control and introduced serious reform legislation. Then September 11 happened and the last best chance for immigration reform died. (How is it that the illegal immigration status of the killer hijackers is confused with the immigration status of seven million Latinos whose primary interest is in feeding their children?) (Latinos make up about 60 percent of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA. No one is talking about the illegal Irish or Russian or other white people. ) No one is going to accept the easy solution, which is to make drugs legal and allow all immigrants in. Better yet, make Mexico a state. One helpful solution on the border would be bring back the national guard troops belonging to the border states from Afganistan and Iraq and train them in drug interdiction and put them to work. No one is going to do that either. But Congress needs to do something. It is not getting any better.

April 27, 2010

A Shitty Deal

Attention, K-Mart Teabaggers: Here is what a legitimate target of outrage and a true menace to capitalism actually looks like: That's right, you tea-bagging fucktards! NOW is the time to get out your magic markers! NOW! Got me?

No, It's Not Racism, Not At All...

Had to take a picture of the headline or you'd never bleeve me.

April 26, 2010

Papersss! Papersss Please!

Quick! Prove you're a citizen of the United States. Whether you're white or brown or green with webbed toes, let's go, smart guy. Prove that you're a citizen. I'll bet you a dollar that like 80 percent of the people in this country would not be able to do that. And I bet you're one of them. And I suggest you get your papers in order. Because the Stasi wants a word with you. Now. Let's talk about a commentor I've just approved. He/she wrote:
I ask this not for the sake of argument, but because I am curious as to why you think it is okay for people to be in this country illegally. Illegally being the key word. Do you appreciate paying for their healthcare and children, and everything else, while you struggle to make ends meet? Would the same courtesies be extended to you if you went to Mexico or any other country? What is your solution to this problem besides a boycott?
Break it down:
I ask this not for the sake of argument, but because I am curious as to why you think it is okay for people to be in this country illegally.
I don't.
Illegally being the key word.
Heard you the first time, sunshine.
Do you appreciate paying for their healthcare and children, and everything else, while you struggle to make ends meet?
This is your first visit here to Ketchup Is A Vegetable, isn't it?
Would the same courtesies be extended to you if you went to Mexico or any other country?
Perhaps not. But the United States of America is supposed to be better than that.
What is your solution to this problem besides a boycott?
I'm not a boycott guy, that was PB's suggestion. Boycotts aren't all that effective. What needs done, Sanchez, is to shut down employers who hire undocumented workers. Take away the work and you take away the jerks. And I don't even think you'd have to ante up the regs to do that; all Uncle Sam would have to do is to start again enforcing what's on the books. We here at Crack Whores for Good Government have never denied that there's a problem. And, like many other of the societal ills that plague these Untied States of America, that ill can be traced back to a core, rotted central nervous system of a problem, that being the sickening prelevance of unwaivering faith in fetid greed, in a puzzling belief that we can only be saved by purely unfettered captialism on steroids. Ronuld Raygun stopped cracking down on employers for hiring undocumented workers because he somehow believed that the market would just do the trick on its own. Guess wha happen? All this law manages to do, Grimy, is to empower—nay, to require—Arizona law enforcement officers to harrass and terrify the majority of brown people in its midst who are in the country legally. It is also a horrible law because of its incredible potential for abuse and mission creep. You don't just think you pass a law suspending requirements on probable cause and just have it apply to Spanish-speakers, do you? You don't think a cop who really wants that bust but doesn't quite have all of his i's dotted isn't going to use this thing to improperly arrest a couple of honkeys, too? Or that this legislation will put a bunch of actually innocent people behind bars because Arizona courts can now deem concerns of "search and seizure" to be quaint? This is a horrible law, it is nothing more nor less than fascism writ large. And you will see confirmation of the horrendous aspect of this legislation, either when it is struck down like Sonny Liston by the Supreme Court, or when some cop has his baton wedged hard against the back of your neck with your temple and cheek eating concrete. Do not think a law like this is just for "them." It can't be.

April 24, 2010

By The Time I Get To Arizona

PE of 1991 offers a reminder that this isn't the first time Arizona has been a haven for racist policy makers.



April 23, 2010

Boycott Arizona

The Birther Bill, the required travel papers. That scumbag John McCaine. So many reasons to give Arizona back to Mexico. I am carefully scrutinizing everything I buy to be sure it sdid not originate in Arizona. I wish I had a reason to go to Arizona so I cold refuse to go!

April 22, 2010

Randomnuss

A few random items for your consideration. #1. Having just recently watched "The McVeigh Tapes," hosted by Rachel Maddow, whose picture you see when you look up the word "awesome" in the dictionary, it occurred to me that, perhaps, just perhaps, Tim McVeigh was a self-hating homosexual. What do we think? #2. Thousands rally at Illinois Capitol — for a tax increase. Why ain't this story on the front page of the New Yawk Times and shit? #3. No, I guess there is no #3.

If Only...

If only there were a real-life example of what happens when a community decides to start treating its minority population like shit, violating their constitutional rights by pulling them over demanding proof of residency without cause and so-forth, you know, like the state of Arizona is about to do, like, if there were perhaps dire economic consequences of such an action, as in, half your county moves out and takes their economic power with them. If only there were such a real-life example, and if only someone had thought to make a movie of said example.



I Have Two Words For Fans Of This Facebook Page

The Facebook group is called thus:
DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN
And the two words I have for you assholes is thus:
President Biden.
Which would be okay with me, but I see a few of you just shit your pants in the corner there. How stupid are you people?

April 21, 2010

Your Tax Dollars At Work

It is a shame that it took 29 deaths to make this happen. This is the kind of thing our regulatory agencies should be doing all the frakking time.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Nearly 60 problem U.S. coal mines have been hit with surprise inspections aimed at preventing another explosion like the one that killed 29 miners in West Virginia, the nation's chief mine safety regulator said Wednesday. The Mine Safety and Health Administration did not immediately reveal how many problems were found during the weekend crackdown. A spokeswoman said that information is still being compiled. The raids targeted 57 mines, including 23 in West Virginia and 14 in Kentucky and involved 275 federal inspectors, MSHA said. Eight of the mines belong to Massey Energy Co., a $4.17 billion company that ranks among the largest coal producers in the United States. Investigators suspect methane gas and excessive coal dust caused the massive April 5 blast at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine. "The purpose of these inspections is to provide assurance that no imminent dangers, explosions, hazards or other serious health or safety conditions and practices are present at these mines," MSHA director Joe Main said. Rick Abraham, whose mine was on the inspection list, defended his operation and blamed politics for forcing an unnecessary crackdown. "The problem in the industry today is the professionals are being brow beaten by politicians. The know they would be better off in a more workable atmosphere without the press of politicians and headline seekers," Abraham said. "The employees are on edge, everybody's on edge and it's from people who don't know what the hell they're talking about." MSHA said it targeted mines with a history of serious violations and focused on rules covering methane, ventilation and efforts to control coal dust. A National Mining Association spokesman declined to comment. Massey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


William Gheen Is An Ignorant Redneck

There are, frankly, so many kinds of stupid in the news today that it is really, really difficult to know where one should begin. I reckon I could begin with William Gheen, who is an ignorant redneck. Gheen represents an organization called "Americans for Legal Immigration," a political action committee which in part states as its mission the following:
We are dedicated to fighting against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens and seek a peaceful solution to the crisis that involves Americans of every race, Party, and denomination working together.
Here is Gheen, doing something that he calls "outing" U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Go on. Play it. You've got to see it to believe it.

Now. As Thom Hartmann explained to William Gheen today, it's not "outing" unless you have some evidence. Otherwise, it's just a reckless charge. And, as this writer knows from personal experience, just because a fellow is middle-aged and never married, that isn't evidence that said fellow is teh ghey. And I fail miserably to see how making said information public true or not somehow convinces Graham to change his thinking regarding immigration reform. Believe me, I'm no Lindsey Graham fan. This is a guy who held a press event to show people what the menu was like at Gitmo to prove that holding people there without access to a barrister was really just fine actually because mmmmmm...salmon. However, I don't think it's fair to ambush a guy from the closet if he's perfectly comfortable there, and doing so in the pursuit of public policy interests is just a soft form of terrorism. Moreover, I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope that one day we'll live in a country where whether or not a guy likes guys or gals just won't matter anymore. It shouldn't matter. After all, Gorge Dubya Boosh was straight as an arrow, and lookit. Second stupid, filed under "by the time I get to Arizona..." Attention, white people in Arizona: If you choose to relinquish your rights under the Fourth Amendment, that applies to ALL OF YOU, not just to the brown-skinned people. Morons. Don't come crying to me when Deputy Sheriff Baker decides he doesn't like your bumpersticker and decides to have a little fun with you and you've allowed your governor to withdraw any recourse you might have. Duh. Third stupid, and this is just the kind of stupid that you just want to HUG, it's so stupid, and I'm just going to copy and paste directly from Talking Points Memo if you don't mind:
Sue Lowden, the front-running Republican challenger to Sen. Harry Reid, yesterday doubled down on her idea that health care could be paid for using the barter system. Last week, when Lowden suggested "that bartering is really good," it seemed that she may have been talking about haggling prices and just had her vocab mixed up. It happens to everyone. But yesterday, on a local news program, Lowden seemed to double down on the idea. Asked whether the statement made her seem disconnected, she shot back that it's Reid who's disconnected for not knowing "that this is already happening in our state." "Let's change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I'm telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say I'll paint your house," she said. "[That's] what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people." "I'm not backing down from that system," she added.
Wow. Wow. Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow. And this woman is leading in the polls over Hairy Reed. Holy shit. We are in serious, serious trouble people.

April 18, 2010

Conservation Is a Nice Start

The President just launched an initiative to encourage conservation and preservation of the great outdoors. Well enough, conservation has been a good thing since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. But it's not enough. Conservation is one of those ideas that makes people feel good about what other people are doing for the environment. It makes people want to drive to a park and see the great outdoors. Thus wasting the gas it took to get there while further despoiling the natural landscape. Here are some real conservation things we should be doing: Stop mowing highway medians. Allowing nature to take its course on the thousands of acres we own between the four lanes will reduce our carbon footprint by reducing the energy we waste on mowing and boosting the carbon absorbing plant life we are now cutting down. Make rules about cutting trees, require people who cut down trees to replace them. Insitute tree planting programs that encourage home owners to add trees to their landscape. Stop wilderness parks. Instead encourage people to entertain themselves at home or in city centers that they can access by mass transit. Increase the availability of mass transit. Provide tax encentives to encourage people to move into city centers.

April 17, 2010

We Hate To Keep Pointing This Out, But...

...there must be a lot of folks reading us here at KIAV and its imaginary think-tank, the Serious Poo-Poo Institute of Technology... Supreme Club

Here's a Money Saver

Congressman John J. Duncan (GOOP TN) has called for the elimination of air marshalls, which he believes to be a "needless, useless" agency. Mr. Duncan says we can save $860 million if we get rid of air marshalls. Air marshalls have made only 4 arrests a year since the service was beefed up in 2001, so maybe this Gooper has a point that is not just on the top of his head. I have long maintained that if Americans were allowed to carry handguns on aircraft, there would be no real danger of terrorists taking over an American plane. One false move by Masood and two dozen glocks and a Saturday Night Special are suddenly in action. As Bob Marley's cook once said, "Blow you face off."

April 13, 2010

#13

I am trying to establish a KIAV presence in Tumblr, but it is not going well. Hopefully the RSS feed will propagate and we'll see the actual version of the blog show up. Anyway. Here's a cool factoid...my adopted home of Arlington is #13 on a recent list of America's top 20 most liberal-friendly counties. Nice to live in the Peoples' Republic of Arlington.

Presidential Style, Historic Accomplishments, and Gravitas

President Barack Hussein Obama has been in office a year and months now, and having suffered with him through the health care fight, and now watching the man visibly, nearly viscerally, and certainly adroitly, grow into this complicated role, now, that's really something to behold. I'm thinking of course about the nuclear summit and the photo collage on this morning's Washington Post and Shitty Corporate Mouthpiece of the man shaking hands with many world leaders, at an event that has been the largest gathering of world leaders in one place in decades and decades, an event forged by Mr. Obama's sheer will, by his own gravitas, and by his undeniably wealthy background on the issue at hand. As was stated by this amateur pundit in the heat of the 2008 primary, Obama's keen interest and tireless work on the issue of loose nukes was an aspect that made him a well-tuned candidate for the job. And so this week, he's hit a new stride, opening this leviathan conference with the announcement of a stunning success, that of a non-nuclear Ukraine. I know that Limbaugh and Beck and everyone of them in between will do their best to either deny President Obama credit for sealing the deal or to convert non-proliferation efforts into a loser for Obama. But we know better. Even Ron Raygun professed to know better. "No nukes" isn't just a picket sign. It's a good idea, an especially good idea when you have rogue tribes who would gladly snap the stuff up and kill us with it. Today I think that with this conference, President Obama has already cemented his legacy, but then, we thought he'd done that with health care reform. Let's just say that I do not think "legacy" is going to be a problem for this president. And now, he's got some more legacy building to do, what with second U.S. Justice seat to fill. I'd fancifully tossed out the name of Ron Kuby, of course, and I still think the ideer has some merits. But if I were advising this man on this issue today, I would want to make sure to tell him that whatever guy or gal you put in that hot seat, he or she is going to have to be awesome. Get someone with the gravitas of a moon, someone whose presence of personality and character will make the hearing room expand and will make every person in the audience swear they hear bugles playing somewhere. Place someone there who is undeniable, a steady, unstoppable force straight to the big white steps. I wish I knew the name of the candidate I'm describing here, but he or she should definitely have been born under a red sun, or better yet, let's just resurrect Warren Burger. Such a candidate, and such a decisive success as a wallop on this nomination, that would mean political dividends for Obama, but would also perhaps clean up some of the nonsense that surrounds the SCOTUS nomination process post-Bork post-Thomas. Get this nomination perfect, that's my advice. Perfect. Get an overwhelming success here to emphasize all the other lovely successes. That's how ya do it.

A History Lesson for Virginia's Governor

I heard again yesterday on NPR the wholly erroneous claim that slavery was not the only cause… indeed not the primary cause… of the Civil War. Let us set the record straight. If slavery had not been an issue, there would have been no Civil War. If states' rights was the issue, it was the right of southern states to impose their cultural values on the north. Certanly, the issue is a lot more complex than most educated modern Americans understand. Issues get fuzzed over in 150 years. Any great nation may want to gloss over the details in an attempt to achieve some normalcy after a war as murderous as this one. Here are the facts: It is certain that the North did not fight the war to end slavery. Lincoln always said he would accept slavery in the southern states as an alternative to war. In any political climate, there are people on the left fringe and in 1860, the left, represented by radical abolitionists, disagreed strongly with Lincoln. He was the man in the middle, but he likely represented most northern voters. His Emancipation Proclamation only ended slavery in the rebellious states. (Slavery was not ended in Maryland, for example). In fact most southern states had succeeded before Lincoln could take office and do anything, but the issues that gave them an excuse to succeed were all about slavery and about Lincoln's position on slavery. Lincoln, and most 1860 voters, were adamantly opposed to the two things the South felt it needed to make slavery work for them. The wanted the North to acquiesce in the enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, and it wanted slavery extended to all the territories. Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Laws was repugnant to the North because the laws would make Northern states complicit in enforcing slavery. At the ground level, this meant that the average Boston citizen would have to cooperate with bounty hunters from the south who came north to capture slaves. It meant that the sight of slaves shackled would be common on the streets of Lima, Ohio, and local resources, jails and law enforcement authorities, would be forced to assist in the capture of slaves and required to arrest anyone who helped slaves escape. Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law posed for Northern citizens a moral dilemma that can well be understood by Catholics concerned that their hospitals might have to accommodate an abortion. (They are not required to do so.) Moreover, while the South claims the issue was one of states' rights, for the North, the issue was the right of the Southern states to impose their cultural values on the North. The demand to extend slavery into the territories has a deep and contentious history. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery above the Mason-Dixon Line. The Missouri Compromise of 1850 provided that two new territories that were carved out of Texas, New Mexico and Utah, would determine by plebiscite whether to be slave states. The Kansas Nebraska Act (1854) provided that those states would also determine their fate by popular vote. The South wanted slavery extended into the territories because major cotton planters were running out of good cotton land at home, and wanted to expand. They also believed the chances of a state becoming pro slave would increase if they established slavery to start with. They believed Kansas would have become a slave state had slavery been allowed there prior to the approval of the Wyandotte Constitution by a vote of the people in 1859. The economic side of this argument becomes a little like "Drill Baby Drill." You can't drill enough oil to solve the energy crisis, and you could not grow much cotton in most of the new territories. Moreover, slavery was not suited to most other types of agriculture. None the less, the extension of slavery beyond its 1850 borders was abhorrent to an increasingly militant anti-slavery north. By the time Lincoln was elected the time for compromise had long since passed. The South had concluded that it was being sorely abused and began it's rebellion against the duly constituted government of the United States.

April 12, 2010

MSNBC on Sirius-XM

Dear Sirius-XM, Thank you for finally putting MSNBC back in your lineup (XM 120, Sirius 90). You've made my evening commute much better and perhaps even my evenings more productive. Sincerely, Brady B. Bonk

Quote

This is a very, very activist court, the most activist court in my lifetime. They rewrote the law to say that--so they said that women could be paid less than men. They rewrote the law to say that age discrimination laws won't apply if corporate interests don't want them to. They rewrote the law to give ExxonMobil a $2 billion windfall. And they rewrote the law to say that corporations could come in and meddle in elections in this, in this country. Sen. Patrick Leahy on Meet the Press Sunday, April 11, 2010

Creigh Deeds Waxes Philosophical...and Wrong

The Washington Post and Shitty Corporate Mouthpiece today offered a weird little profile about failed gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. The profile says that Deeds has since kept his head low, has kept generally quiet aside from being laughed at by Stephen Colbert, that he's been "down in the dumps" regarding his loss, and that Deeds has opened up his pie-hole and has wholly swallowed the conventional wisdom regarding his loss here in sunny Virginia.
Outside events, such as Scott Brown's stunning Senate upset in Massachusetts, lent credence to the view that Deeds's loss owed something to a powerful change in the nation's political atmosphere. "I don't think Jesus Christ could have won that race in Virginia if he had been a Democrat," said Robert J. Taylor, a lawyer in Delaware who attended college with Deeds. But Taylor said that when he thinks of Deeds, he thinks of a Hank Williams Jr. song: "A Country Boy Can Survive."
This is of course incorrect. Had a Democrat run in Virginia as a Democrat, he would have had a real shot. Deeds ran as a Republigoat-Lite. Look, we can sit here and quote Harry Truman until we're blue in the face. That doesn't mean anyone's going to actually listen:
If a voter has a choice between a Republican and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, he'll vote for the Republican every time.
This is especially true today, when the GOOP has chosen to turn its back on true conservatism to instead suck the knee-high leather boot of corporate globalism. I still say a real Democrat could have soundly capitalized on the Obama-mentum that was Virginia 2008. We also learned that Creigh Deeds is one of those people who does not actually understand what the phrase "sour grapes" actually means.
Nearing the session's midpoint, Deeds gave his first floor speech, denouncing efforts to block the federal health-care law in Virginia. Deeds said he had his reasons for holding his tongue earlier. "It'd be too easy for me to be slamming the governor," Deeds said. "People would just say, 'Oh, well. It's Deeds. It's sour grapes.' "
No, you fucktard. "Sour grapes" would have been saying "Screw it, I didn't want to be governor anyway." I really wish people would take the time to actually understand the English language before they go about attempting to use it. I'm sorry, but Scott Brown and Bob McDonnell didn't win because of some national sea change politically. They lost because in both races the Democrats ran shitty, suck-ass candidates. Run a good Democrat who's serious about winning and you'll have Republigoats stumping with brown stains on their trousers.

Supreme Court Shuffle

Almost a year ago I wrote here in cautious support of the nomination of Sonya Sotomayor to the Supremes. I raised three objections. First, that the court has too many Catholics (six including Sotomayor); second that it has too many Ivy League lawyers (retiring Judge Stevens is the only justice who is not an Ivy League law graduate), and third that Sotomayor is too conservative. Now that the President must replace the only liberal on the court (ironically, a Ford appointee), I want to reiterate that argument. (See Soto Voce, Sotomayor, May 27, 2009). Six Catholics is entirely too many, and even the main stream press is starting to notice. The New York Times has appointed out that with Stevens gone there are no WASPs left on the court. Six Catholics and two Jews. My preference would be that the Presdient appoint an atheist, but I am only asking for no more Catholics. Since when do you have to be a graduate of Harvard or Yale to be a judge? Six is too many, seven is outrageous. The entire court is skewed to the east coast establishment. A fresh vision from an outsider, someone from the Midwest would be a good thing. There are plenty of good schools there. You can't tell me they can't find good, solid, liberal lawyers in the Midwest who would be qualified to serve. I don't want to shift the court to the middle, but I do want to shift it to the middle of the country. I said before that Sotomayor is too conservative and while she has done nothing yet to totally embarrass Obama with the Progressive wing of the party, she has yet to be called on to rule on abortion or any similarly difficult subject. Now we But we do need a dedicated liberal on the bench, someone to replace Stevens who has been the lynchpin of the Court's left wing for the last 20 years. There are, by the way, two non Harvards on what the popular press believes to be the President's short list. Janet Napolitano, Secretary for Homeland Security, University of Virginia, and Diane Pamela Wood, Seventh Circuit Judge, University of Texas. Napolitano is a Methodist. I have not been able to identify a religion for Woods, who is unlikely to get the nomination because of her well established record of favoring a woman's right to choose. Probably not Catholic.

April 11, 2010

Who is Holding the Bag?

According to the Mine Act, the only person who is to be held responsible for the failure of safety provisions that should have protected the 29 men who died in West Virginia when their mine exploded this week are the supervisors. The rank and file foremen who keep the mine "running coal." The guy in charge of safety at the mine might be held liable, but that's as far up the chain of command as it gets. Don Blankenship, the CEO, who a few years back made it clear to his staff in a memo that the business of Massey was "running coal" not building safety systems, is not responsible. He earns millions a year and his company has enough extra money to spend $14 million a year on lobbyists and in one election a couple of years ago spent $3 million to buy a judge in a West Virginia election. Blankenship's minions who also make bongo bucks and have direct authority over implementation of policies and procedures are not responsible under the law. The members of the board of directors who are paid at least $200,000 a year to attend meetings and rubber stamp the policies of Mr. Blankenship (who is also on the Board), are not responsible. These people include: ? James B. Crawford, former chairman and CEO, James River Coal Company ? General Robert H. Fogelsong, retired four-star general, U.S. Air Force ? Richard M. Gabrys, former vice chairman, Deloitte & Touche ? Admiral Bobby Inman, former director, National Security Agency. ? Barbara Lady Judge, chair, United Kingdon Atomic Energy Authority ? Dan R. Moore, chairman, Moore Group, Inc. ? Baxter F. Phillips Jr., president, Massey Energy ? Stanley C. Suboleski, former commissioner, Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration I should also add here that up to a year ago, Ohio State University President Gordon Gee was a board member. Gee, who earns cose to $1 million a year from OSU was forced to resign after the people of Ohio wondered what he was doing taking money from a company that was removing all the mountaintops in West Virginia. It is a testament to the political power of coal that two legislative enactments intended to improve the safety of work in the coal fields specifically hold low level employees liable for actions that are largely prescribed by policies from the top. In no case do the laws point at the company or the board of directors, which is charged with setting policy and should be responsible for the general operation of the business. I don't think this is going to get any better.

April 9, 2010

Quoth

Isn't it amazing how you can make a good living talking like a guy on the commuter train after three drinks? Chris Matthews, re: Glenn Beck

Note to Virginia Governor McGooper

On this date in 1865, Robert E. Lee, a traitor to his country, surrendered is band of terrorists at Appomattox Courthouse, VA. A magnanimous Union spared his life, as it spared the lives of the his many co-conspirators.

April 8, 2010

Maureen's Brother's Crap Stinks

Maureen Dowd recently turned over her column to her seriously Catholic brother to discuss pedophilia in the church and for the most part he was honest and sincere. But you can't let a true conservative loose in mind space without risking the spread of further true billshit. I refer here to Sr. Dowd's reliance on a claim by a writer named Michael Rose that the liberalization of Church rules caused by Vatican II (remember when they switched to prayer in English so people would know what was going on?) let a bunch of homosexuals in the church and that's how we got this pedophile mess. This is bullshit on so many levels it is hard to name them all. First there is the baseless assumption that all homosexuals are pedophiles. An unproven and insidious lie. Few homosexuals are pedophiles AND not all pedophiles are homosexual. Here is some actual research, maybe it will help. And while there is no reasonable connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, the history of homosexuality in the Church dates back centuries and certainly predates 1962.  The fact is the Church has always been a safe haven for gay men who found that it was easier to be a priest than meet community expectations that they marry. The dumbest part of this massive lie is that anyone with a calendar can figure out that there had to be plenty of child molesters already active in the church BEFORE Vatican II even happened. The Irish mess goes back at least 50 years. Many cases in the US go back that far. There were pedophiles in my school in 1958. Vatican II was convened in 1962. The function of this lie is convenient to the Conservative movement generally and conservative Catholics in particular. Political conservatives have been using gay bashing as a political wedge for 10 years or more. Conservative Catholics are tying gays to pedophilia to blame the Church's moral rot on a minority group rather than take the blame on the Church. They also find it a convenient tool to use in their ongoing (and largely successful) effort to bury Vatican II. I don't like always find Maureen Dowd.  I think she is shrill and out of step.  I don't expect her to correct her brothers' bullshit. But I would like to see a rule that a newspaper should be required to footnote, with true facts, every pile of crap that it prints.

Pickett's Charge

Today, in an ongoing effort to help Virginia Gov. Bog McDonnell celebrate Confederacy Appreciation Month, we'd like to take a moment to remember Confederate Gen. Georg Pickett. Pickett, who was a Confederate general, did I say that already? was perhaps one of the biggest losers of the entire whole Civil War and therefore is an excellent representative of the entire Confederacy, which, as we covered here previously, LOST the war. He is also a suitable mascot for McDonnell's Confederacy Appreciation Month because he was born in that losing side's capital city of Richmond. Essentially, Pickett's division showed up at Gettysburg on that battle's second day, July 2, 1863. Gen. Lee had been unable to move the Union army, so his plan was to swamp them with three military divisions. Pickett's division and a few other brigades flanked the right and got their asses kicked. From the Wiki:
Pickett's Charge was a bloodbath. While the Union lost about 1,500 killed and wounded, the Confederate casualties were several times that, so that over 50% of the men sent across the fields were killed or wounded. Pickett's three brigade commanders and all 13 of his regimental commanders were casualties. Kemper was wounded, and Garnett and Armistead did not survive. Trimble and Pettigrew were the most senior casualties, the former losing a leg and the latter wounded in the hand and dying during the retreat to Virginia. Pickett himself has received some historical criticism for surviving the battle personally unscathed, but his position well to the rear of his troops (probably at the Codori farm on the Emmitsburg Road) was command doctrine at the time for division commanders.
Pickett would later go on to command troops at Appomattox. Where he was present to help Lee surrender. He later fled to Canada for a while. Then he returned to Richmond, became an insurance salesman (ISYN) and died. Happy Confederacy Appreciation Month!

April 7, 2010

Elections have consequences. We've certainly seen that statement ring true here in Virginia. Since the Democrats decided that they didn't really care about winning the governor's seat in 2008 and ran a candidate against Bob McDonnell who hadn't been able to successfully defeat him for attorney general, we've seen the McDonnell administration do everything it can to reinstate discriminating against homosexuals in the state, and we've seen them submit perhaps the stupidest budget this side of the Mississippi. Now, though, with this whole Confederacy Appreciation Month proclamation doohickey, I think that Bob McDonnell has really hit on something. And I'd like to help, I hope with the help of my Dear Old Dad, who's read more about the Civil War than I've ever read about everything. I thought I would start with this commemoration of Confederacy Appreciation Month with a lovely quote from Southern historian Shelby Foote:
I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back...If there had been more Southern victories, and a lot more, the North simply would have brought that other hand out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that War.
That's right, I'd like to start my commemoration of Bob McDonnell's Republigoat Confederacy Appreciation Month by noting as blithely as I can that the Confederacy LOST. And it didn't just lose. It got its ASS KICKED. HA HA. HA HA HA. Suck on that, you hillbilly crackers. Yep. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee SURRENDERED to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Lee was all like, "sorry, dude. I suck." And Grant was all like "Yeah, dude. You do suck. And I'm so cool, BOOYAH!" And then Grant was all like, dude, you gotta wear a funny hat now and sit in the corner! And you gotta lick my taint! C'mon, Bobby! BOOYAH! That is exactly what happened. And I am so glad that our wonderful governor here in Virginia has offered us the opportunity to commemorate historic events.

April 6, 2010

More Lies than You Can Shake a Stick At

The single most annoying thing about the Dick Doctor who has been getting a lot of air time on Fixxed News because he refuses to treat anyone who voted for Obama is the lies he has been telling about the health care bill. He claims the bill will curtail Hospice Care, which it will not. When called on this claim by a CNN Reporter (Hey, maybe CNN will find its market among people who like reporters who actually care about content and call guests out on their bullshit?). Dr. DICKman looked like a deer in the headlights. "You mean I am full of shit?" He thought to himself secretly. And then he said "I get my information where everyone else gets it, on the internet." So maybe this guy is just a fool and his lies are just stupidity… like he thought he could get real information from Glenn Beckman's blog. The U.S. Clammer of Commerce has no such excuse for the amazing lie they are telling in their advertisement about consumer protection reform. In a TV advertisement, the Clammer makes the claim that establishing an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency is anti small business. The Chamber says that the CFPA would make it harder for small businesses to get credit. This is not just any lie, but a remarkably clumsy lie given the obvious fact that it is consumer credit which is protected by the proposed legislation, not business credit. Business credit, not to state the obvious, is not protected by consumer protection laws. Businesses are presumed to take their own risks in the market place and not to need any special rules. These are facts that should be well known to the Clammer, which owns a fistful of lawyers on K Street. If I gave the Clammer some benefit of doubt, I could assume what they are really saying is that many small businesses finance themselves on their personal credit without the bank knowing that the credit is being used for business purposes, and thus are damaged. At that, I would still have to conclude that the Clammer is lying deliberately. The CFPA would not prohibit making credit available or slow it up in any way. All it does is place enforcement for consumer laws in the hands of one agency that has an obligation to enforce the laws. It does not make any significant changes in the laws themselves. Thus, the Clammer is claiming that small business is being harmed because laws intended to protect consumers are finally going to be enforced. Like, maybe we should have laws that we specifically do not enforce?

Regulators! Mount up!

When something happens like the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion, I as someone who has both done some reporting in the area and as someone who keeps an eye on government in an amateur capacity can't help but start trying to weed out where the regulation and enforcement went right or wrong. I come at this as someone who thinks the government should have an awesome regulatory and enforcement power over corporations. And, when it comes to this, the worst mine disaster in this country since 1984, I think that position is rather justified by it. Regarding Upper Big Branch:
The mine in Raleigh County, near Beckley, W.Va., was cited for 458 safety violations last year, with 50 of them listed as unwarrantable failures to comply—citations reserved under federal mining regulations for instances of willful or gross negligence. Nationwide, an average of 2 percent of safety violations are unwarrantable failures. Slightly more than 10 percent of Upper Big Branch mine's violations last year were unwarrantable failures. ... At the time of Monday's explosion, Upper Big Branch mine was facing more than $150,000 in fines for pending safety violations, after routine scheduled inspections resulted in more than 100 citations three times in a 12-month period.
"Unwarrantable failure" violations are serious. A mine can be fined a maximum of $220,000 for a single violation. This mine has been cited for coal dust—a doubly fatal issue in that it causes black lung and in that it can cause explosions—and for poor inspection regimen, and for ventilation issues and a poor escape plan. Methane gas buildup has been a chronic issue for the mine:
Internal MSHA records made available to the Post-Gazette Monday night also indicated that in 2006, Upper Big Branch released more than 1 million cubic feet of of flammable methane gas in a 24-hour period. Under federal safety regulations, that amount of methane discharge would have required a federal safety inspection for methane levels once every five days.
This mine had 57 violations last month, and Performance Coal Company—a subsidiary of Massey Energy—was fighting many of the steepest fines or refusing to pay them. There has been an outcry in industry regarding OSHA's "new sheriff in town" stance of late. But there is a truth to be eked out from this disaster and, indeed, in any time there are fatalities in industry. Federal regulations and enforcement powers don't exist just to make some guy with a clipboard feel like he's got a big wiener. Companies that flout federal regulations end up killing and maiming people. Pure profit motive provides no incentive to install a safety rail, or to properly ventilate, or to require guards and safety belts and lock-outs, so government has to create such an incentive. Something like Upper Big Branch, something like Sago, something like any of these should be an icy splash of water to every American's face: Federal regulations and enforcement powers exist for a reason. I say this gives agencies such as OSHA and MSHA license to step it up even another notch or four. Regulators! Mount up! (Sure,
we'll steal from Warren G. We'll steal from anyone...)

April 5, 2010

No. HE'S the Assman.

"He's using his opinions to try to deny care to other people. Think about it. He says that he's concerned that the Obama plan is going to end up denying care to his patients, so he's gonna deny care to his patients." Rep. Alan Grayson, regarding the palsied logic of Dr. Jackass Cassell of Florida, who last month installed a sign on the door of his practice that read "If you voted for Obama...seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now. Not in four years.

The Man of Steele

One thing's for sure regarding the recent trials of one Michael Steele: It sure is funny. It couldn't get more perfect. Some asshole in the "fiscally conservative," "family-values" party expenses two grand he spent at a nightclub where women simulate bondage and lesbian sex, and some other asshole approves the expenditure? So Republigoats don't want them homos gettin' married, but they sure don't mind watching a couplea good lookin' chicks getting it on? This, my friends, is as funny as when Pee Wee yells through the peephole. But. I will say this about that: I hope that somewhere right this minute, some accountant is poring over every receipt and every expense claimed over at the DNC and working proactively to squash anything that looks funny there, too. I'm just sayin'.

April 3, 2010

Ron Kuby For Supreme Court Justice

Since Justice Stevens has announced that he'll likely retire by 2012, I say, why not Justice Ron Kuby? I kinda like the ideer.

BAT-Man

I am sitting down to a fine plate of Tex-Mex food and am now watching Dook just widen the gap to ten vs. West Virginia with 5:42 in the first half, and I realize that I have yet to do my duly duty by sitting down to Blog Against Theocracy. God-damnit! What to write for the blog-swarm...if only there were some dramatic example I could discuss about how this country already has drifted into what Chief Hungry Freak Daddy Frank Zappa once described as a "fascist theocracy." Like if, say, a Mormon ran for President of These Untied States, hell, even if he ran as a Republigoat, maybe, and then he had to give a big speech, you know, justifying that he was a Mormon running for President, even though the country in question's most revered founding document specifically says that there is no religious test for running for said office... No, that's a crazy example because, even though they believe that God is a man who lives in outer space, Mormons still worship the Christ and all. So that'd be silly. Though, what if the candidate happened to be a black guy? Would both he and his opponent, say, a crotchety old white guy who can't lift his hands over his head, would they be required as a matter of course to stick their noses up the ass of a prominent evangelist minister just to get in the door? And, let's say in the most unlikely event that the black guy did get elected, maybe then one of the worst insults people would think they could hurl at him would be to accuse him of being a "Muslim." Now, THAT might be a theocracy. Maybe. But only, of course, if you factored in that most people don't understand that Black Islam is actually a movement that is rather independent in its thought and evolution from the Islam that originated in Mecca, so that, even if the black guy was a Muslim, he might not be considered to be one of THOSE Muslims, or even if you factored in that blonde-haired, blue-eyed Christian assholes are just as capable of blowing shit up and killing people as are assholes of the brown-skinned praying faced east variety. I know what might make you think that we lived in a theocracy. What if a Muslim actually DID get elected to our federal legislature? And then a whole bunch of people started shitting themselves about which BOOK the guy put his hand on when he took his oath? Even though the Constitution specifically says the following on that very matter:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
? Or...oh, wait, here's one that'll kill ya. This would NEVER happen. Like if a bunch of congressmen rented a house? And they were all big-time Christians and shit? And if the house got a tax exemption as if it were a church? And if they'd been found to be redirecting U.S. foreign policy toward bigoted, hateful policies? And if...oh, hell, I could go on and on, but Rachel does it a lot better than I do. I dunno, Frank. I think you mighta been onto something there.

April 2, 2010

Addendum-um

I have just come from picking up some delightful food at a Tex-Mex place in my neighborhood. Good food, well priced. Very nice. But it added a thought to my rant regarding energy. In this little tiny restaurant, there was a television on the wall. And it was on, playing some ridiculous Spanish soap opera. It was me and two guys talking Spanish as they sipped orange sodas and ate chips with salsa. Nobody was actually watching the television. At least in my neck of the woods, this is the norm now. It never used to be like that. But now, you can't walk into a restaurant or a barber shop or a car mechanic's without there being a TV set turned on. I just wonder, is it really oil we're addicted to? Or is it TV, which uses a hell of a lot of power? (Not that I can talk. I watch so much television that I practically AM a television.) Also, I wanted to note this news item: In March, the U.S. economy showed the biggest monthly increase in jobs in three years. Now it's not all it should be cracked up to be and the unemployment rate remains un-budged. But I still insist on claiming some credit for predicting we'd see movement on jobs in the spring.

Drill Baby Drill

I cannot tell you how many times I visit this blog and am stunned to read the words of my dear Papa and to discover that we are on 'zactly the same page regarding an issue, often despite the fact that he and I have not even discussed it. PB and I do not agree on 100 percent of the things, as that would be just crazy, but he and I generally see the world similarly. It is somewhat astonishing. I have been meaning to address the topic of offshore drilling, but it seems I've been beaten to it. I would like to fortify PB's comments, though. As was pointed out in comments, offshore drilling is not THE solution. The fact is that when you're talking about energy, there is no silver bullet. U.S. energy policy must be comprehensive. It must include conservation, it must include alternative fuels such as solar and wind, it must include innovative approaches such as electric cars that also work as a power grid, and it must also consider the impact of more standard approaches such as offshore drilling and nuclear power. And it must consider all of this with a measured aim toward reducing our dependence on fossil fuels peddled by nations that may not always have the best interests of these Untied States of America in mind. I think there were immediately politically expedient reasons for President Obama's announcement. I think he's trying to yank the issue of offshore drilling away from Republigoats in preparation for what is sure to be a protracted political debate about energy policy. I think he is trying to buckle the speculators prior to summer, when a spike in gas prices could surely threaten the ongoing economic recovery. And, who knows, he may be reacting to recent doom and gloom reports regarding peak oil. Regardless, it is clear that offshore drilling alone isn't a stand-alone solution, which one would not know of course from watching the 2008 Republigoat Convention and Circus in Minneapolis. That's all the Republigoats had regarding this issue. It must be so damned easy to be a Republigoat. You just pick up a hammer and start beating the shit out of something you want to fix. What I think you'll see from President Obama is a comprehensive, measured approach as described. He has followed his announcement on drilling with new fuel efficiency and emissions standards. I hope what we'll see follow is a full-on belly flop into crafting a new green economy. We should be making solar panels here, and there should be subsidies to get them covering every rooftop in America. So, sure, what the hell. Drill baby drill. But it can't and won't just stop there.

April 1, 2010

Drilling is Just All Right With Me

I like to think of myself as an environmentalist. I think driving a Hummer and mega trucks is sinful and people who own such vehicles share a great personal responsibility for all our attempts to conquer the oil patch by way of wars in Iraq. I think we should stop mowing highway medians, plant trees in every yard, put solar cells on every roof below the Mason-Dixon Line and grant wind power companies an absolute right of eminent domain. No zoning ordinance should be allowed to prohibit the installation of any wind machine or solar panel. But I have no problem with drilling. Here is the deal. It is 8:30 p.m. and I am at my computer and my printer is on and there is a radio playing here and a television going downstairs. My son is practicing his guitar WHILE he is watching TV. There is a light on in the TV room, one light in my office and one on in the hallway and one on in the kitchen and the stairwell to the basement, where my wife is working on her computer, and her printer is on, and she has on her overhead light. The HVAC (geothermal) is not working tonight because the weather is perfect, but the sump pump is working and later tonight there will be humidifiers working in the bedrooms. There is a refrigerator working and a freezer working and the phones are plugged in. There are two lights on in the barn. This is pretty much minimalist lighting for a house this big. I make a couple of tours of the house every evening to turn off unused lights. I do my part, but I do not wish to live in the dark. So I have no problem with drilling. As long as we need oil, we will need to get it someplace, and if it is available off our shores we should get it. (OK, I draw the line at ANWAR and other protected places. That does not seem exactly rational to me, but I never promised to be entirely rational. ) Same with nukes. They are a necessary evil, but if you want to have electricity and you don't want to burn coal, you need nukes. The Dog knows how they will manage the nuclear waste mess 100 years from now. If there was any trust in the world and common sense you could wrap the waste in big leak proof canisters and lay them out in the desert for an eternity. But we have to worry about protecting fools and keeping that stuff out of the hands of evil doers, so storage and disposal of that stuff is dangerous and expensive and nearly impossible because of all the NIMBYs. It is true there is no such thing as clean coal. It is also true that the template for evil, petty, greedy shitheads of the world was made in the coal industry. There is no more crapulous set of corporate greed heads on earth. They would starve their mothers and work their children to death in the mines if it were proven to them to be cost effective. But we are responsible for that. We have grown fat and prosperous off the energy made from coal, which was dug out over the last three centuries at great environmental cost, and greater human cost. But we got the convenience of coke fired blast furnaces and warmer homes and kerosene lamps and synthetic plastics and all that. Try living without it. When you cry for convenience you have to pay the piper. I'm just saying nice job Barack Obama. We need a rational approach to energy demands and now we have one.

Creative Sentencing

The murder of one of the few U.S. doctors who performed late-term abortions was "a gutless act of terror" and was as destructive as "an earthquake" for women seeking such medical services, the doctor's friend and attorney said Thursday. Attorney Lee Thompson asked District Judge Warren Wilbert to give the harshest possible sentence to anti-abortion zealot Scott Roeder, who admitted he gunned down Tiller in the back of Tiller's Wichita church last May because he felt doing so would protect unborn children. Roeder was facing a mandatory life prison term, although Wilbert had to decide whether to make him eligible for parole after 25 or 50 years. The 52-year-old Kansas City, Mo., resident was expected to be the last person to speak at the hearing and was expected to discuss his beliefs.
Let me tell ya what I think oughtta be done to Scott Roeder. First, he should be forced to undergo a sex change operation. Second, he should have an eight-pound bag of silicone sewn into his body, and after nine months, he would have to pass it through his surgically-created vagina. I guess we might give him six months to recover before we had him go through it again. And so on. That would be about right.