| It's so bad, I think she wrote it herself Sarah Palin's byline was affixed to an op-ed in today's Washington Post railing for 800+ mostly coherent words about the evils of "cap-and-trade" (that's what she called it when she and McCain were running on it, but since they lost to Obama and Obama is implementing it, she now calls it "cap-and-tax." I know. Don't try to make sense of anything Sarah Palin says or does. It always requires a Herculean effort and it's always all for naught. Just go with it and enjoy the pretty colors. Squirrel! And let Media Matters do what Media Matters does: debunk bullshit.) My friend Steve pointed out that it was quite a feat to write all those words about energy policy, and none of them were 'carbon' or 'emissions' or 'climate change' or 'global warming. She doesn't mention the observable, physical realities - but she does get a plug in for her religious faith...We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. You see, in Simple Sarah's world we have no need to kick our carbon addiction, because there is plenty of gas and oil all over the place, we just need to...what was her advice again? We used to hear it all the time...it's on the tip of my tongue...darnit...why can't I come up with it? Oh yes! I remember now! Drill, baby, drill!
Bearing Witness 2.0 Civil unrest has changed forever thanks to cell phones and social media. First Iran learned this lesson, and then China. Arianna gets it exactly right with her title: Bearing Witness 2.0: You Can't Spin 10,000 Tweets and Camera Phone Uploads. Amen, sister!
Afghan villagers fear crooked cops more than they fear the Taliban All over the country, villagers complain bitterly about their local police, which tend to be a motley crew of thieves and pot smokers that make the Taliban look professional and disciplined by comparison.
Texas Tech brushes aside concerns about putting Alberto Gonzales on the payroll The Chancellor is, apparently, just another good-ole-boy who ain't to keen on summa that there book learnin' but sure has a soft spot for the wingnut welfare - he's on record as saying repeatedly that "research on 'the best part of Shakespeare's play' isn't on the same level as the research his university is conducting for the Defense Department." He is just as crass in his dismissal of people complaining about the hire. He is ignoring the criticisms because "they didn't come from loyal university donors."
The rest of the world, the part that doesn't donate to Texas Tech, however does care that they have a man teaching an American Government course about the executive branch next semester who, when he was White House counsel, told the Department of Justice (a department he would eventually head up!) that the White House really didn't care what the DoJ had to say about their domestic spying operations, they were gonna do whatever the hell they wanted to anyway. Unitary executive/imperial presidency/King for Eight Years - whatever you want to call it, Gonzalez defended it and more. And now someone has decided he is fit to teach a course on government. The mind boggles.
So strip his commission and kick him out without any bennies. An Army Major is refusing to deploy because he is a 'Birther' and thinks that orders from President Obama are illegal and needn't be followed. Fine. We don't need this freeper nut job in the Army anyway - it will be a better service once he is gone. He didn't always feel so conflicted about deploying, but last time he may have been going somewhere like Gitmo or Thailand where he got to get his torture on...Might be different when he's faced with bullets instead of being a bully. Like I said - it'll be a better Army without him.
Another day of hearings, another anti-choice nut job makes a scene and gets arrested Par for the course. There will be at least one every damned day.
Sotomayor explains Nunchucks to a numb-nuts.
Introducing ERIC, the best republican acronym since CREEP! Every Republican Is Crucial, you know, or at least that is the message Rep. Eric Cantor is promoting through his PAC - which, coincidentally he happens to have set up in such a way as to allow him to raise the funds to explore a potential presidential run in 2012. ---sSo c'mon, you know you're thinking it...what scandal is going to break involving Cantor? I dunno - but my money is on something involving a lawn chair, a riding crop, spray cans of whipped cream and a James Brown rubber duckie.
Here is a title I wish I had written Saradise Lost: How Alaska Bloggers Dethroned Sarah Palin - and Eric Boehlert's post that traces how they did it is as good as his title.
Everyone who works in health care has some horror stories witnessed first hand Remember when the teenagers from Minnesota became national news for mistreating patients in a nursing home. A friend of mine was from there and was devastated by what happened in his home town. I think he thought I was not properly outraged, but it was not out of callous disregard. It was out of "I've seen so much worse first hand." Patient mistreatment happens and everyone who works in health care at the professional (versus vocational) level for any length of time has been deposed or otherwise required to speak on the record when someone's luck finally runs out and instead of fired they get prosecuted. Here's a disquieting fact for you: Do you know what I can ask when I check references? According to HR and Legal, I can only ask "how long did this applicant work for you?" and "would you rehire?" That's it. Likewise - when I fire someone, and I am contacted as a previous supervisor, those are the only two questions I am authorized to answer. I can fire someone for abusing patients - and when I am contacted to give a job reference, all I can say is "X worked for me for Y." Before I 'retired' to raise my granddaughter to school age (Six weeks! I - we - did it! I include you because your support of the blog made that possible) I was forever getting 'counseled' for answering the second question "Not in a million years!" It would go a long ways toward getting people out of the helping professions who ought not to be there if they would simply let us give real references again.
The story linked above represents journalism at it's finest That story in yesterday's LA Times prompted Governor Schwartzenegger to fire about half of the embattled California Board of Registered Nursing, and a day later (Tuesday) the executive officer of the board resigned after 16 years of steadily eroding leadership that eventually brought the board to the place it found itself this week - facing a furious public after it was revealed that nurses who criminally abused patients avoided punishment for years...after the board became aware of their criminally abusive behavior.
Remember how your cynical uncle, the one who worded you up to how things really work, told you how no good deed goes unpunished? This is the sort of thing he was talking about. Organ donors face prohibitively expensive premiums or even outright denial of coverage when they lose group coverage and try to buy health insurance on the private market.
Remember those former Bush administration officials who refused to testify? I do. One of them was John Ashcroft and another one was Andy Card, and the reason they refused to testify was to thwart a federal investigation into the domestic spying programs. Now that the cat is out of the bag might they be summoned forth once more?
True jobless rate masked by part-time workers If the number of people who would like to be working full time but can only find part time work are figured into the broadest - and most accurate - calculation of the job market, the numbers in between five and ten states with economies that rely heavily on manufacturing and housing, the jobless rate is closer to 20% than the fake-happy-talk 9.5% that is the 'official' rate.
It's not a spacious villa or palatial penthouse Convicted fraudster Bernie Madoff arrived at the medium-security Butler federal prison complex about an hour outside Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. He will be in the general population with murderers, rapists, robbers, drug dealers and all manner of unsavory characters that, this time last year, Bernie Madoff would never have imagined himself eating, sleeping and showering with.
At least 30 dead in two days of brutal violence in Mexico Within minutes of the arrest of Arnoldo Rueda Medina last weekend, the familia cartel retaliated with a massive show of force that killed five federales and two solders in the initial violence, and they were just getting started. Thirty are now dead, including 12 .federales and the mayor of one small city.
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Sorry to be a pest about it, but it is that time of year again - time to pass the hat to get my fanny to Netroots Nation. We know that Markos' kids aren't college age, or he wouldn't schedule this damned thing so close to the time tuition checks must be written! Because of the generosity of two very special and appreciated women, a lot of the pressure is off. I am still asking for donations, but smaller ones of between $10 and $25, and asking folks who might be inclined to toss a little more into the kitty to instead share it with another blogger or progressive organization whose work you appreciate. I don't want to hoard it all for myself - I just want to get to Pittsburgh, eat while I'm there and have a few bucks to buy a t-shirt. |
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Best New SoapBlox - 2008
