Do you really want to go there?

      

     I watched this viddy just to see what it was, then watched as Dacher Keltner began to talk about Charles Darwin and the concept of antithesis in nature.  I was hit with an almost immediate parallel.  A simple one, and perhaps not the best one, and it isn’t much of a stretch, but I’m tired, so you’ll forgive me.  There is a political variant to the Darwinian concept of antithesis, and it is playing in front of the entire nation every day. 

    And the stress reaction that Mr. Keltner speaks of, caused by the losses in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles has been playing off in front of the entire nation since that first series of losses of house and senate seats, as it did tonight in the talk of the Republican senators who spoke prior to the cloture vote to allow discussion of the $898,000,000,000 Health care bill.

    Read the CBO report on the bill here.

    The Republicans haven’t a leg to stand on, they have no legitimate arguments, so they use illegitimate arguments and attempt to pass them off as legitimate.  Examples include saying that medicare will be cut to the bone.  Untrue. Wasteful spending is trimmed, not ALL medicare spending.  If you have medicare, you are not in danger of having all your coverage cut and being set adrift by this legislation. But if you listened to the Republicans talk, anyone over 65 is in mortal danger… but that “danger” comes from government cutting wasteful spending in government programs….wait.  Weren’t Republicans for that idea at one point? 

     They talk of the great tax burden the bill creates…despite the fact that the taxes on the wealthiest The President gets away on a technicality here.  He said no family making less than $250,00 a year will see a tax increase of any kind, and in this bill their is a  tax added in the form of a hospital tax that will be paid by any individual making over $200,000 a year, or family over $250,000 a year.  The size of this tax increase?

    0.5%

    Sucks, but that .5% tax raises, from next year to 2019, over $53,000,000,000 in new tax revenue to help pay for the bill.  And if you republicans who are reading this winced when you saw that and said “How can he talk so cavalierly about raising taxes?”  Well, party of Reagan disciples, what party was it that made the AMT tax the onerous burden that it is today? Do you know what party he came from? Do you remember his name?

      It was Republican Ronald Reagan. 

     Ouch. 

     A .5% hospital tax on individuals who make $200,000 won’t turn into the ugly beast that the AMT is, thanks to Reagan being entirely too dead, and the Repubs too far out of power to be overly involved in fleecing the people.

   …

    I was better at capturing the concept of Darwinian Antithesis in republican thought than I thought I’d be.  Nice.  The Health care bill is now open for debate, by the way, the voted passed 60-39.  All dems voting for, all Republicans voting against, except George Voinovich, who missed the vote. 

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     If you remember at the very end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, there was a fairly major engagement between Israel and the Izzadin Kassam, Hamas’ army.  Well, rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza yesterday, none were killed or wounded by the strikes,thought it was enough for the Israelis to decide to carry out several air strikes against Hamas, focusing on two weapons plants and an arms smuggling tunnel, said a spokesman for the IAF.  None are reported killed, and five people were wounded.  

    Luckily for everyone involved, this doesn’t look as bad as the heavy fighting that went on earlier this year and late last year.  Hamas has claimed that they have struck a deal with other forces in Gaza to not fire missiles into Israel. The Israelis, not surprisingly, reacted with little enthusiasm.  But the fact that Hamas sounds like they are trying to avoid a confrontation tells me they aren’t strong enough in their own eyes to handle the Israelis right now, and that means this may end up (fingers crossed) an isolated clash between these two mortal enemies. 

    More on this later, if necessary.

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   That’s it for news.  I gave you a classical music viddy yesterday, and it was so nice I have to do it twice.  John Williams playing Bach BWV 1006, enjoy.

   

    Later!

Today’s nuggets, from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” via Wikiquote:   For who can yet believe, though after loss, that all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend, self-raised, and repossess their native seat?

Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will to love or not; in this we stand or fall.

I fled, and cry’d out, DEATH! Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh’d From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH!

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.

A more perfect union?

     I am at the moment having a relaxed night just enjoying time with my wife.  Had some lasagna tonight, had some coffee, watched some tv and feeling thankful for everything I have.  

       

    I’ve watched Rick Steves a bunch over the years on his travel shows on public  television.  Never thought of him as much more than just a guy with camera crew who went places and  told you what places are like.  He may be only that to me, but he makes a few big points here.  I’ll only touch on one.  The question: “how can you pay so  much in taxes?” The answer, so simple as to defy the imagination, from his Swiss buddy, Ollie:  “What’s it worth to live in a society with no hunger, no homelessness, and where everyone has access to quality health care and education?”

   According to what information i have, that being wikipedia, who in turn use as their sources, the heritage foundation and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)  The actual numbers: the Swiss pay 1.9% more in taxes than we in America do according to the Heritage foundation, and 1.4% difference according to the OECD.

    It might cost us more than a 2 percent tax increase to cover the difference and give everyone in America what Switzerland has, though.  The amount of people uncovered or under-insured as far as health insurance goes (though the health care bill will cover most who aren’t covered and save money to boot) and those who are in need of a better basic education would cost a ton, but we could figure out a way to make it pay.  We’re Americans, we can do that.  If we can shave $129,000,000,000 over 10 years with the health care plan thats in congress now, we can do this.    Fixing homelessness and hunger within our own borders seems like something of an impossible dream, but if paying more in taxes got rid of all the issues these 4 problems create, it would make the world a significantly better place, and American capitalism would survive just fine.

    It makes you wonder …  Yeah paying taxes sucks, but if paying some more got rid of the all the problems that these 4 things create , wouldn’t it be worth it? 

    But it couldn’t happen here.  The political climate here is just too damned poisonous for it to work, and anything that was started on this front would be so watered down that it would  be largely ineffective in combating the ills living in a society as stratified as ours is.

   Maybe society is going to hell in a hand-basket because of that stratification? You be the judge.  Look at the world, and knowing how much you pay to keep it going, ask yourself, if we all gave more, how much better would this world be?  How much more would you pay to live in a more perfect union? 

    You’ll never know until you try.

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    Rep. Virginia Foxx, revisionist.  The dems weren’t much help in passing civil rights legislation? It was the passing of the civil rights legislation that drove most southern whites away from the Democratic party and to the Republicans.  D.Gregory is right to say that the divide wasn’t political, as members of both sides in the senate voted for the bill, it was geographical.  The south voted against, the rest of the nation for.

    The deep south has 22 senators, 21 of which at that time were democrats. One southerner of this number voted for the bill, Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas, the rest against.   45 of 46 non southern democrats voted for it, the only dissenter being Sen. Robert Byrd of W. Virginia.  Only 5 republicans voted against from non-southern states, 27 of the 32 Repubs from around the nation voted for the Civil Rights Amendment.  The numbers in the house of representatives, percentage wise, are similar. 

    While it would be wrong to say that the republicans have done nothing is false, and patently absurd, it is equally wrong to say what Rep. Foxx did, saying that Dems had not helped very much in passing the legislation. 

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   That’s it from here. Later!

Today’s nuggets, from the ETC, University of Virginia:  

The Old Woman and the Physician

    AN OLD WOMAN having lost the use of her eyes, called in a Physician to heal them, and made this bargain with him in the presence of witnesses: that if he should cure her blindness, he should receive from her a sum of money; but if her infirmity remained, she should give him nothing. This agreement being made, the Physician, time after time, applied his salve to her eyes, and on every visit took something away, stealing all her property little by little. And when he had got all she had, he healed her and demanded the promised payment. The Old Woman, when she recovered her sight and saw none of her goods in her house, would give him nothing. The Physician insisted on his claim, and. as she still refused, summoned her before the Judge. The Old Woman, standing up in the Court, argued: “This man here speaks the truth in what he says; for I did promise to give him a sum of money if I should recover my sight: but if I continued blind, I was to give him nothing. Now he declares that I am healed. I on the contrary affirm that I am still blind; for when I lost the use of my eyes, I saw in my house various chattels and valuable goods: but now, though he swears I am cured of my blindness, I am not able to see a single thing in it.”

Anagram: No More Anagrams, Dammit/ Mainstream Roman Dogma

        

    It’s Veterans day. Millions have served in this nations armed forces, and over one million Americans have died in War since this nations inception, to protect the rights that we hold so dear.  Remember them and honor them and their strength this day.

         91 years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, WW1 ended.  Over 116,000 men died in battle during our 1 year in that war to end all wars.  23 years later another World War started that took 3 times that number of American lives.  We set aside this day to pause and reflect on the hard sacrifices of the millions of our fine servicemen and women over our 230+ years of history.  One day doesn’t seem enough.

    God Bless America.

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   Not much to look at, unless you think Thom Hartmann is pretty, but an enlightening conversation between radio host Thom Hartmann and Professor and Author George Lakoff.  Enlightening as far as the President’s mindset and political agenda.  Enlightening as far as the admission that there is simply not enough progressive media infrastructure.  It may not be news to you if you are liberal that the Presidents entire agenda is built around the twin concepts of social responsibility and empowerment, but the more conservative elements of society may be a bit surprised by it.  Why? I dunno…

Captain Oblivious

     Perhaps its the way they want so completely to control the “narrative”.  That’s a big word for all the political spinners, narrative.  I would talk to you about the right wing narrative, but I prefer not to.  When I see pictures of Dachau used to reference this government, as if the devil himself, Adolph Hitler, was running it, mere feet away from the minority leader of the House of Representatives and claims to not have seen it, when I hear about inflated numbers given for a “press conference” by Michelle Bachmann where the public was invited, but the press wasn’t and there were no questions asked of those who spoke at that press conference, when I see video run on a right wing network that purports to be from that “press conference” that is in fact from a tea party that happened in September, I tend to not want to help these people along by giving them much in the way of coverage. 

   And if you don’t call that controlling the narrative you really aren’t paying attention. 

       For all that you hear about there being a left wing liberal media bias, the bias that I see in fact tilts the other way, heavily so. The left wing doesn’t have enough media control to create a nationwide narrative like the right wing has, which is why the debate nowadays is so skewed to the wants and needs of the right. 

       Which is why the Presidents attempts at bipartisanship are doomed to fail.  There is the bipartisanship that Prof. Lakoff speaks of in the above video, which is reaching to people on individual subjects.   The President speaks to the people about the subjects he feels he must inform them about, not about politics.  He doesn’t talk  about “Democrats”, he talks about ideas, like health care and banking regulations, and the wants and needs of the people. But actual bipartisanship will elude him, because the narrative the other side has, they have invested in so heavily, it seems, that they cannot break away from it. 

    They have held that narrative in place since the days of Ronald Reagan.  It is all about fear and making Americans feel small in comparison to government.  Giving their followers a scapegoat called government, while never doing anything about the evils they claim to be against.  Taxes never go away under these Con$ervative Republican$, no matter how many Republican$ are around, or who is in charge,whether they control the White House and the house and senate or some combination of these three, yet you hear how they are against taxes, but those taxes never really get cut.  The amount taken out of my check in taxes, percentage wise, was just as much in 1988 as it was in 1998 as it was in 2008.  88 was Reagan’s last year, there was a republican majority in the house and senate 10 years later under a moderate democratic president, and 2008….well you all know the mess that we had to deal with in 2008.

    Bipartisanship on that level never really works if those on one side of the aisle think of themselves as separate and apart from those on the other, which is a political narrative that the right has tried to foment in one way or another since at least the early days of Reagan and Goldwater’s presidential run in the 60’s, and became the voice of power in America under the tutelage of Newt Gingrich, with his “Contract on America”.

   I believe that American politics is a road.  A long wide road, there are those on the far left who think the only path is there on the left and see the other side as a path to destruction.  There are those on the right who think the only path is there on the right and see the other side as a path to destruction. What those on the far left and far right don’t realize is that this is one road, which we ALL travel on, and it is wide enough for everyone. 

  I may yell and scream about the tactics and propaganda of those who differ from me politically here in America, and I think I am right to, but they and I are Americans, and I always have enough room in my heart to let them in and treat them like family, because they are Americans. And in the end that is what’s important.  Similarities, not differences, we all want whats best for America, we just have different visions of how to get there and what needs to be done to get us to that great place called the future.

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    One final note, If you read the title of this blog,  you see that it says No more anagrams.  I am going to( if i remember) start putting my titles together without them.  They take a long time to do, time i could spend writing and researching.

   _______________________________________________________________

   That’s it from here.  Later!

Today’s nuggets, from our founding fathers, Via Wikiquote:  The art of concluding from experience and observation consists in evaluating probabilities, in estimating if they are high or numerous enough to constitute proof. This type of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than one might think. It demands a great sagacity generally above the power of common people. The success of charlatans, sorcerors, and alchemists — and all those who abuse public credulity — is founded on errors in this type of calculation.  Benjamin Franklin

It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.  George Washington

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.  Thomas Jefferson

Anagram: Excerpts From The Speech/ Expert Chefs Chomp Tree

       Rather than rant and rave, I thought that today I would simply bring you excerpts from tonight’s joint session of congress.  With some very short commentary, and a few viddys, of course.  

             

Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan.

First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the V.A., nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.

Let me — let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.

What this plan will do is make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition.

As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it the most.

They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of- pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.

Because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.

That makes sense. It saves money, and it saves lives.

         Accountability, this is what those who have tried to stop this legislation really want to stop. They want business to have a free hand to grab as much money away from us as possible, while leaving us nothing. We need protection from this, and that is the role of Government. Anyone who believes otherwise believes in taking from the poor and giving to the rich. And if you believe that, you are insane.

            First the President told the Truth, then he debunked the lies.

And a hearty thank you to CNN for the transcript.

Still, given all the misinformation that’s been spread over the past few months, I realize — I realize that many Americans have grown nervous about reform. So tonight, I want to address some of the key controversies that are still out there.

Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens.

Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie plain and simple.

Now…

Now, there are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.

(UNKNOWN): That’s a lie.

     Now, for information purposes I have to tell you that the name of Unknown here is in fact Rep. Joe Wilson from South Carolina. Senator John McCain has already asked him to apologize, and he was roundly booed by the majority of the congress.

     

       It was, aside from the hysterical reaction of Rep. Wilson, nice to see the President call out the lies that have been thrown out by the Republicans, the Right, and the Wing nuts.

       I was going to end this here, but I decided to give an extra viddy and two more paragraphs, on the House.

      

You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.

But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.

       THIS…This is what i speak of when I defend government.   A beautiful speech, the best of his life. 

    That’s it for me.  No quotes from wikiquote as usual from me, because most of this blog IS quotes.

   And my apologies for the typos and errors.  Final fix at 1:05 am 9/10/09

Anagram: One Hundred Thousand Served/ Sudden Thunder Overhead, Son

         I’ll start this one out by thanking everyone who has visited this blog.  Today this blog went over 100,000 page-views.  Nice.  I think it’s a milestone. Enough about that though, onto the news.

     

        If you are the senate, and you have seen the greatest financial crisis in the last 80 years happen on your watch, I think at some point you would have to do more than just legislate us out of trouble.  You eventually have to look into why the damned thing happened in the first place.   Which is exactly what they are doing. The measure to form a commission to look into the financial crisis passed 92-4 as part of legislation to expand U.S. power to prosecute financial and mortgage fraud. The only 4 senators to vote against were Senators Bunning, Grassley, Kyl and McCain.  To me it speaks volumes that this amendment was voted for by both sides of the aisle, but there is the curious footnote that the bill this was attached to, S. 386, was actually co-sponsored by one of the men who voted against the amendment.  Chuck Grassley, a co-sponsor of the “Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009″ voted against this bill.  I am looking all over for a reason why, and frankly I can’t find one. 

     Curiously he did vote for, no lie here,  To modify the definition of the term “obligation.  The “Obligation” amendment was, incidentally put forth by, Yep, one of the other men who didn’t vote for s.386, Sen. John Kyl.

    I am sure that there is something in the second which has to do with the curious vote here.  I am missing the connection, but I will get it, and if I remember to I’ll come back here and tell everyone what the hell it was about.  Perhaps this has something to do with the cost of the additional anti-fraud measures. I did not get to watch the proceedings, so i don’t know.

    But despite the few issues I just mentioned, the Commission is now official, or will be after the president signs it into law.  I am happy about this, because i want to see who will get dragged up to the hill to testify about this debacle.  I want to know who will be held responsible, although i think i know the answer to that question, or at least who will blame who at any rate.  We all know the republicans hate taxes and government, despite being responsible in some fashion for both on a great many levels, so they will blame tax rates that are too high and government that didn’t do the job (not them mind you, just those OTHER government guys).  The Democrats will blame runaway corporations and lax regulations brought on by, you guessed it,  poor republican management.

     Frankly i think they’re both right.  Let’s just hope these people are smart enough to know that we are watching and paying attention, and that we won’t accept simple scapegoating.  Just pointing a finger and saying “TAXES” or “BUSINESS” are responsible won’t cut it.  We need to see a government panel that will be able to look at all sources and rather than find an answer that everyone wants, actually finding the right answer, I.E., exactly what decisions were the most destructive to our present, so that in future we can steer clear of the wrong that happened.

    That’s it for this subject, and this blog, except for the usual second viddy and quotes.

      I am going to go to a different subject, but stay in the legislature here for there second video, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talking to the house foreign affairs committee about the torture memos.

    

    That’s it for me, Later!  I Hope I’m writing here to see 1,000,000 page-views. 

Today’s Nuggets, Via wikiquote:  Unfortunately, throughout the housing crisis we’ve seen innocent homeowners who have been victims of shady mortgage lenders and unscrupulous individuals who have used a down market to line their own pockets at the expense of others. This bill is designed to send a message by revising our laws to ensure criminals are brought to justice and that law enforcement has the tools to uncover these fraudulent schemes and go after the bad actors. Criminals should be put on notice that ripping off homeowners and taxpayers won’t be tolerated.   Sen. Chuck Grassley 2-12-2009

I don’t know every answer to every question, I can’t, I couldn’t possibly, no one could. Anyone who says they do is expanding the truth. However, I know that, combined, our brains can solve any problem.  Leo Laporte