What Are They Thinking?

The absolute cluelessness of the GOP continues to either reach new heights or plumb deeper depths, I can't decide which.  Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina used the GOP radio address to tar and feather government run health care by claiming that it would cause delays in treatment that would threaten our health.  Using her own breast cancer as an example she complains that it took "took six doctors, three mammograms and one ultrasound before they finally they found my cancer. This process took only a few weeks."  Most citizens only have one doctor and the uninsured have none.  Crystal Lee Sutton, also from North Carolina and known to the rest of the world as Norma Rae, had health insurance and died of brain cancer.  Her insurance company withheld authorization for chemotherapy medication for two months and the normally slow growing cancer spread at a rapid pace.  I'm sure she would have rather had Rep. Myrick's government run access to treatment, but I'm not so sure Ms. Sutton would complain about it saving her life on national radio.

With the right determined to occupy the outer fringe, the center has become the new right.  Obama was already right of center and that he is acquiescing to pressure and moving further right is not much of a surprise.  It's tough to balance when everything is on one end, eventually things tip over.  At what point will the issues of the people who elected him be addressed?

According to a gentleman on the Texas Board of Education, that august body responsible for influencing what's in the textbooks of tomorrow, as a minority female I should be grateful to white men for the rights I currently have.  Wow, it's nice to know that being human isn't enough to qualify for basic civil rights.  No wonder we can't have a rational discussion on health care.

But here we run into a terrible problem.  The health care debate cannot be understood in historic context because many Americans have never heard of Thomas Jefferson.  Extrapolating from state surveys, only 14% of American high school students can name who wrote the Declaration of Independence.   Nearly 75% do not know that George Washington was our first president.  More than 90% could not pass the exam given to immigrants who wish to become citizens.   No wonder that Jay Leno has so much material for his Jay Walking segment.  We can say that our educational system has failed when the vast majority of American students do not know enough to pass an exam to qualify as American citizens

On my last few trips to California I had the misfortune to eat at both a Denny's and a Marie Callender's.  They both had a laminated sheet with the nutritional information of the menu and they are going to have to change their menus if people start reading them on a regular basis.  While Marie's had a more appetizing breakfast menu, you know you're in trouble when the healthiest item on the menu are in the pancake section.  I settled on the breakfast quiche special because it had less sodium and that was still one third of my daily requirement.  Healthy options?  It would take more time to find the one or two relatively healthy items than the server is likely to give you.

The GOP can't really be this clueless, can they? 

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And They Call The Left The Nutroots

Yes, Glenn Beck is mad.  As in crazy.  Beck's overly histrionic behavior is deeply indicative of a man with a tenuous hold on reality and in Chinese Medicine he would be diagnosed as shen disturbed.  We use the tongue as a diagnostic tool along with appearance, smell and actions and his tongue has a longitudinal crack down the center and is considered a telltale sign.  It isn't as deep as Marshall Applewhite's but it reveals quite a bit about Beck's personality.  They say the eyes are the window to the soul and Beck's are pretty glassy even without the tears on demand, another sign of mental derangement.  Thinking that he makes sense and has America's best interests at heart is the equivalent of thinking that a spaceship is hiding behind a comet and has come to take you away to a better place.

Speaking of a better place, that would not be Oklahoma.  For a state that is so fond of the only Second Amendment 75 percent of their high school students not only don't know who the first President of the United States was, but only three percent of those surveyed could pass the citizenship test that all those immigrants they love to hate must take to prove they are worthy to become Americans by choice instead of by birth.  Eight years of the No Child Left Behind initiative and these kids would probably be lucky if they could find their state on a map.  Exactly how would the rest of us suffer if the south was to secede?  Other than lowering our national ignorance score to tolerable levels and reducing the public monies that flow into those states and not out of them, how would we know the difference?

If Scalia thinks that current law should favor religion can sharia law be far behind?  Or is that the wrong religion?

Limbaugh wants to return to segregated busing and feels that racism is normal.  All righty then.  The White House can pretend that racism doesn't exist but it doesn't get much more blatant than that.  Actually, segregated busing sounds like a good idea.  Put all the crazies on the bus and drive them to the nearest institution, lock them up and throw away the key.  We wouldn't have to provide healthcare or any other societal benefits they object to and they wouldn't have to pay taxes that they hate.  It's a win win for everyone.

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No Child Left Behind

Some people in this country have lost their feeble minds.  One speech is not an indoctrination and if someone besides the parent or siblings can influence a child as much as these people fear, then the parents haven't done a very good job at raising them. The contrived brouhaha over the president giving a speech to school kids is so insane, not to mention disrespectful, that I can't believe it's happening in America.  Some backwards country on the other side of the globe, but not in America.

I am 53 and out of the eleven presidents in my lifetime, six have been Republicans who served for a total of 33 of those years and I remember all of them except Eisenhower.  My interest in politics started Halloween night 1964 when I overheard two parents vehemently discussing the difference between Goldwater and Johnson.  In 1968 we students held a school wide mock election at Vandenberg Junior High.  We had the same choices the adults had and even though I voted for Pat Paulsen (his campaign slogan was "I've upped my standards. Now, up yours."), Nixon won.  It was the first of many political disappointments for me. I survived.

The school is still located across the road from the front gate of Vandenberg AFB.  Back in the sixties and seventies it was a high security base, now you can walk on anytime you like.  I attended base schools until we moved to California and then I attended schools that were technically public but three fourths of the students were military brats.  As you can imagine, all of the schools were pretty conservative.  Never would one of them ever have considered blocking a president's speech to the students.  That was then.

Forty years have passed and the nation that eagerly looked forward to the future has become one believing in a history that doesn't exist.  Four years ago if you criticized the president you were branded a traitor by the right wing and now it is the patriotic thing to do at every opportunity, no matter how ridiculous.  For the previous eight years students were taught that they should listen respectfully to their president, now a few lunatics have determined that no children should listen to the president.  Why is that?

I am not a fan of President Obama, he's lived down to my expectations, but he is still the President.  As we were taught in the military, if you can't respect the man you can still respect the office.  School districts deciding that students don't need to hear what the President wishes to express to them because a few people object is not in the best interests of the students.  They go to school to learn and the only way they can do that is to be exposed to different points of view (who would have thought?).  After the speech they should be able to ask, and have their questions answered, by their teachers and their parents.  That is how you raise good citizens.  Now if the end goal is to produce mindless drones instead, then we are well on our way to being a nation of uninformed, unquestioning dummies.  And we will all be left behind.

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Saturday Morning Observations

That is kind of the point, isnt't it?  Schwarzenegger is California's version of hurricane Katrina.  Get rid of the poor, elderly and disabled by any means necessary, let them die if he has to and California will be the Golden State once again.  Completely missing the point that the people who actually do the work, the ones that clean the buildings, pick the fruits and vegetables, serve the food in restaurants or other such "lowly" jobs can no longer afford to live there and that eventually there won't be anyone to give the rich their due.

"It does not look like rich people are leaving California in order to avoid income taxes," Kolko said.

Tax critics often claim the state's high cost of living and tax structure drive high-income earners out.

The study found that the rich — those in the top 20 percent of income earners — leave California at only a slightly higher rate than those who arrive. For those with incomes above $200,0000, the departure rate is only 1.09 households for every one household that arrives, the report said.

Meanwhile, 1.73 households with annual incomes of $22,000 or less depart California each year for every one out-of-state arrival.

And yes, one of the factors in my decision to move to Nevada is that they have no state income tax.  I don't mind paying taxes, as long as they are used to benefit the public not just a select few.

The older I get, the less geek cred I have.  Along with not having any interest because I think we're in a technological holding pattern at the moment and I'm waiting for something a little more interesting than Twitter.

The problem with Texas having a known creationist in charge of the state Board of Education is that Texas has great influence on textbook printings.  Publishers are as cash strapped as any other business and can only afford to print a select number of books.  If Texas wants to teach creationism as part of its curriculum then a lot of other states (and children) will be exposed to the same nonsense.

The New York Times is considering charging for access.  Again.  Good luck with that.  All it did the last time was take themselves out of my reading rotation.  I don't pay for Wikipedia and the Times version of information sharing isn't much more accurate.

The Quit bull (love that term!) is still babbling.  So she chose not to play "their game".  What game would that be?  The one where you have to cross the finish line in order to collect your reward?

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Justice? I Don't Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

This absolutely takes the cake for judicial stupidity.  My blood pressure is so high I think I'm going to have a stroke.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, what the hell is wrong with the state of Oklahoma?  Are the people in this state out of what little minds they have?  It's okay to shoot a perpetrator in the head, get another gun a few moments later and pump five more bullets into a motionless body but repeatedly raping a four year old girl and forcing her five year old brother to watch it is only worth one year in jail and he gets credit for nine months already served?  Are you effing kidding me?

She was raped, she was sodomized and she most certainly didn't ask for it, dress provocatively or use suggestive language to lure this pervert on.  As if that would ever be an excuse for rape under any circumstances.  The child advocate and her supervisor should lose their jobs due to gross incompetence since they obviously have not a clue as to what advocating for the defenseless means.  The prosecutor should be fired for stupidity and an inability to punish real criminals which just so happens to be his job and for not investigating the past history, and this guy definitely had a criminal history, of this cretin because perverts don't start at 64, they've been at it most of their lives.  And the judge, well he should be recalled.  If there ever was a time for an "activist" judge, this was it.  He could have used common sense and said no, this creep belongs in jail for twenty years no matter what kind of plea bargain was arranged and let the inmates take care of him, ala Jeffrey Dahmer.  Or maybe the trial should have taken place in Ohio, their prosecutors seem to have a handle on ensuring that creeps get appropriate sentences for raping a child.

So what if the perp gets labeled a sexual predator and has to pay a $1000 fine, is that going to make the rest of this girl's life any easier?  How about when she is an adult and realizes that what he did to her was determined to be worth a tiny slap on the wrist?  Now is the time for the Michelle Malkins, Laura Ingrahams, Nancy Graces and Ann Coulters of this world to get up and scream their tiny little heads off about the injustice that was committed here instead of the made up stuff that babbles brainlessly from their talking heads.

Oh yeah, and the state of Oklahoma should be boycotted, not a dime of tourist money should they get until this situation is rectified. Heck, the Interstate shouldn't even travel through it.

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Revisiting The Myth

Social Security is not an "entitlement" program.  Over the course of their working lives people have had millions of dollars taken out of their paychecks and put into a program as insurance for when they got older or became infirm.  Using the word entitlement implies that nobody contributed anything and that they are sponging off the government, which isn't true.  Why is it that the people who have money are so determined to see the teachers, mechanics and bank tellers who served them over the years spend the end of their lives in poverty?  If I hadn't been willing to give up my own life, my mom would be on the street, lonely and forgotten through no fault of her own.  Which is where I will be if this stupidity continues.

I'm 52 and don't have time to make up hundreds of thousands of dollars so I can retire.  By the time mom is gone we will be so deep into this depression that I, along with a good majority of other innocent people, will not be able to survive in the economic conditions of the future.  So much for that Masters and owning my own business.

Social Security is NOT the problem. It isn't even out of money, no matter what the people who don't need to worry about their retirement babble.

We are staring at unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security in the tens of trillions of dollars. Where's that money going to come from? We have to either raise taxes or cut benefits. There are no other options.

Yes, there are. For too long the elite have used the bounty of this country for themselves and it is long past time to share the wealth. We are rapidly becoming a third world country, run by people who have no concept of what it is to struggle to survive. As the economic downturn continues and small businesses start to fall by the wayside along with corporations who gave obscene amounts of money to the people at the top while taking everything from the people on the bottom, the pain will be felt by everyone who isn't at the top.

Food, gas and medicine are out of the price range of a growing section of society. They can't cut back any more as there is nothing left to cut. The poor can't walk to the grocery store because grocery stores aren't located in the poor sections of town. The poor can't take public transportation because it is being slashed in a futile effort to balance budgets that will continue to run a deficit as more people become unemployed and can't contribute to the tax base. The poor can't afford the highly overpriced medicines or the preventative doctor visits to keep them healthy. The poor, as a group, can't do anything to change their situation because they have nothing to change it with. Their children will continue to swell the ranks of the poor because education in their areas has been virtually eliminated and besides they have to scrounge for food. The poor can't get abortions, birth control is nonexistent and the fundamentalists want to keep it that way. That way they can complain about the poor being irresponsible and having too many babies. And prison is not a replacement for a healthy and happy childhood.

The Republican party and the fools who support them are determined to return this country to the days of indentured servitude. They trot out trite statements such as pull yourself up by your bootstraps when not only do the people not have straps, they don't even have boots. If you are born poor or lower middle class the odds are that you will stay that way. The outer fringes of society will be your world and unless the elite who are really the ones enjoying the benefits of entitlement, get off their high horses and walk among the commoners we will end up having a caste system that is more entrenched than India's.

Or a revolution.

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Is It Over Yet?

The coronation I mean inauguration, feels like it's taking as long as the election did.  Isn't there anything else going on in the world besides what's happening in the US?  Real science instead of infotainment.  Cool.

Must have only asked the rich ones because the majority are in no way, shape or form living the dream or have any possibility of achieving it on an individual level.  Especially in a country where you can be handcuffed, lying face down and still get shot in the back.  Breathing while black is still dangerous and will remain so for many more years.

Shades of the Iran hostage release.  Of course they do.  There is no guarantee that Obama might find the use of phosphorus bombs and blowing up schools and UN buildings to be the proper way to force one's enemies back to the stone age they've never had a chance to leave.

And if you don't want to join the military because it's the only "job" in town, if you wait just a little while there should be an explosion in prison guard jobs.  This country will not go peacefully into its economic ice age.

Meetings are a waste of time.  Gee, anyone (except the bosses) having suffered through more than one  could have told them that.  I wonder what the next news to anybody with a functioning brain blurb will be.

There's a plot on Lost and it makes sense?  Wow.  The Smoke Monster wasn't just a stray plot device?  I quit watching halfway through the second season, the Tailies drove me nuts.  Specifically that Rodriguez woman.  Her character didn't die soon enough to make me continue watching.

I can go along with that.  Unfortunately what's been lost over the years has been giving people the skills to do for the country.  If schools aren't getting through to kids by teaching them to read, write, color, lay music, do simple math and learn to think for themselves, then the likelihood of being able to do good for your country drops proportionally (hopefully not geometrically) and since you can't contribute, you are reduced to taking.  Whether it be soup lines, welfare or the recent latest craze, stealing from your investors, the same lack of civil charity is not on their radar. 

I'm still fighting to stay on the bottom rung of the greased ladder because if I get knocked off the down becomes an abyss.   Trying to work my way back up means that I leave mom alone for too long and all kinds of weird things happen, such as things important to me go missing and are sometimes never found.  This friend of mine with a psych background finds mom's behaviors and answers to be quite humorous but admits it isn't humorous to be living through it. Maybe in a few years.

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War, Witch, Stupidity And No Money

Bush is leaving office and just like every other company he left in tatters, America is no different. He's going on his merry way while the Middle East becomes a conflagration that could reach worldwide proportions. Honestly, did people really think that everyone in the Arab world would turn their back on the Palestinians in Gaza?

Israel is such a tiny country in a stupid location it was only a matter of time before other Arab states started lobbing missiles in either support of their brethren, just because they can or because the Israelis want to make it look like Hamas is everywhere that Israel wants to invade next..  If anybody besides Israel really did have "WMDs" their would be no more Israel.  To go along with the no more sympathy for any excuse the Israelis use for "protecting" themselves.  Genocide, you would think that Jewish people would think it was wrong and a crime against humanity.  But that was sixty years ago and it was happening to them, not them perpetrating it on others.

It would be my pleasure to punch her in the yap.  Or Adam's apple.  Free speech means for everyone, not just Man Coulter and the idiots who agree with her.  When is this witch going to be committed to a place where they can adjust her meds daily?

The Dear John Doe letters to the families of those who have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq shows in bitter detail how little the government cares about those they have caused to die for no other reason than to boost their own egos.  7000K letters.  So much for NCLB when the adults teaching can't even proofread and they supposedly went to school when reading was mandatory.  What's next, text messages where you have to guess what they mean?  Wer srry ur fmly mmbrs r ded? 

Almost as good is if your child plans on using the bathroom or reading books in class please send toilet paper and light bulbs for each of your children in the school because their budgets have been cut so much that they can't afford the basics.  I don't know about you but I find it hard to concentrate on school work when I have to go poop. Especially in a public bathroom.

Up, down, more, less.  It no longer matters because we don't make anything in this country anymore and until we do we will keep sliding down the rabbit hole.  Heck, we can't even sell things anymore.  That would require stores to be open for business.  Dire consequences, what an understatement.

Wannabe cops shoot an unarmed, restrained person in the back and you think there won't be riots?  And cops wonder why they don't get the respect they think they deserve.

No shit.  Wow, these economists are brilliant.

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Clothing Is Not Optional

Safety and discipline.  Wow!  And here all this time I thought kids went to school to learn.  When I first started high school way back when, they had a dress code for girls.  We weren't allowed to wear pants unless it was raining.  Mornings were almost always overcast in Lompoc so we would go to school in pants and say that we thought it was going to rain.  Fortunately for us they lifted the ban on pants.  As soon as it got warm we started wearing hot pants, I think the male teachers really liked those.

Dress codes are supposed to reduce violence and bullying by taking style differences out of the equation, according to the National Association of Elementary School Principals. Since the Clinton administration, the Education Department has encouraged schools to go further by adopting uniforms, saying they promote safety and discipline.

Ah yes, the schools are no longer trying to educate youth and prepare them for the real world, they are doing their best to turn out little automatons that aren't capable of independent thought and obey without question.  No wonder we keep falling behind the rest of the industrialized nations in math and science.  If you don't learn how to reason and trying to express your individuality is banned so that everyone is exactly the same,  it makes it very hard to think for yourself.  Which I guess is the point.

And in Gonzales, Texas, near San Antonio, parents are considering legal action over a new policy that requires students who come to school dressed inappropriately to either go home or put on a school-provided prison-style jumpsuit — one actually made by Texas inmates. Police had to restore order at a recent school board meeting where parents heatedly complained about the new policy.

“You’re punishing the children,” Gracie Mercer, mother of a Gonzales student, told board members. “You guys aren’t concerned about their education.” 

Officials rebuffed the critics and said the policy would stay in place. 

“We’re a conservative community,” Deputy Superintendent Larry Wehde said. “We’re just trying to make our students more reflective of that.” 

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But sometimes, school officials will admit they’ve gone too far. That’s what happened in Fresno, Calif., last month when administrators at Dos Palos High School apologized to Jake Shelly, a sophomore whom they forced to change into a shirt bearing the words “Dress Code Violator.” 

Jake’s proscribed apparel? A T-shirt sporting the American flag. The Dos Palos-Oro Loma Joint Unified School District’s dress code prohibits “shirts or blouses that promote specific races, cultures or ethnicities.” 

 Yup, that's the ticket, indoctrinate them young.

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Sisyphus And I Are Related

My landlord could care less that the state hasn't paid me for taking care of my mother.  He wants me out so he can rent to someone who has a steady paycheck.   That used to be me.  And thanks to the state budget impasse, there is no where to take my mom while I search for another job.  Did I mention that the other day I came home and the house was full of gas because she didn't turn the stove off completely?  Caught her just before she lit a cigarette.  Or that she fell down a few weeks ago and can still barely walk? 

I hope the the California Governor and Republican representatives spend whatever afterlife there is in hell.  Pushing a rock uphill until it rolls back down and flattens them.  Time and time again.  I'm so glad I was in such a hurry to grow up and be responsible.  I'd run for office but as Kevin Costner put it so eloquently, I've lived a colorful life.  I believe that makes me ineligible since I'm not squeaky clean enough for the hypocritical voters.  To say nothing of the press.

Has anybody else noticed that the FDA lies?  Like the proverbial rug.  They don't care how many people die and they certainly don't care if it's induced by pharmaceutical companies or bad food.  Accountability, it's only for the people who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Nothing else matters.

Oh well, gotta run.  I just might be able to get food stamps.  For myself.  Isn't that special?  I've been boxed into a corner and there is no guarantee that I'll even have a place to cook the food if I qualify.  I'm really tired of fighting the same battles over and over again.  Getting my Masters was supposed to prevent that.  Instead all it did was saddle me with debt I'm never going to be able to repay.  Life is so wonderful.   I should have quit when I was sixteen.  At least the fridge was always full and the rent was always paid.

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Baghdad: City Of Walls

By way of the Guardian.  You will never see this on American television.  It isn't entertainment, it's reality.  The reality of living in Baghdad after years of war.  First you can't get around.



The graves of those who were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the wrong religion, the wrong whatever.



And then there are the children.  The true innocents and the ones who are paying the highest price. The orphans being recruited to continue the terror that was visited upon them. By us.



What have we done?

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Entertainment, Education And Life In America

Somebody is going to be so happy.  And they are.  G.W.Bailey should have been nominated for something, like in the best supporting actor in a comedy even though The Closer is a a drama.  Other than that, I have no complaints or interest.  Except for Michael C. Hall for Dexter, loved him.  My friend Linda will be happy about Bryan Cranston's nomination for Breaking Bad.  She just got the first season on DVD and wants to have a Breaking Bad party.  Now I have another reason to go.

Planet smashing and our earth has the scars to prove it.

That would be 25%, wouldn't it?  When I was in school very few people dropped out, now it seems the norm.  Do you think the educational system has something to do with it?  Maybe they should go back to teaching instead of testing.  Music and art classes might help those who aren't cut out to do math and science, but that's just too easy of a solution, isn't it?

Says it all, doesn't it?  Our wonderful culture of life, isn't.

Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.

 skip

Japanese, for example, can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years. In fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.

There are also wider differences, the report shows. The average Asian woman, for example, lives for almost 89 years, while African-American women live until 76. For men of the same groups, the difference is 14 years.

One of the main problems faced by the US, says the report, is that one in six Americans, or about 47 million people, are not covered by health insurance and so have limited access to healthcare.

As a result, the US is ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday.

The housing scam is being revealed in all its glory.  Everybody was out to make a buck and didn't care who got hurt in the process.  Now it's coming back to bite us in the ass.  Remember years ago when we dragged our heels to bail out New York City but we did bailed out Chrysler with no problem?  That was the beginning of the blatant in your face we don't care about people, we care about corporations thinking that runs this country now.  Into the ground, I might add.

I don't care how pretty it is, I'm not jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.  Do you have any idea how many Valiums I would have to take just to get on the plane?  I certainly wouldn't do it just so I could see some scenery from the air while hoping my chute would open.  A thrill queen I am not.

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Sinking Like A Stone

For now is the operative phrase since this is probably the tip of the iceberg.  More banks are going to fail, we're already starting to print more money and the crew without a clue has bailed out everyone except the little people who were encouraged to buy the homes they couldn't afford and those who had their money in the failing banks.  Begging is about to become an honorable profession.

Disgusting.  And for fifty years.  Wow, remind me to never go to Zanesville, Ohio.   The city can appeal all they want, but when a white neighbor has running water with a hot tub and his black neighbors have to buy water from a treatment plant and have it delivered or collect rainwater to do laundry even though they live next to the municipal water pipes, that's discrimination.  By anyone's standards.  Or at least normal people's standards.

You don't say.

"It's a pain in the neck, and significantly interferes with my travel arrangements," said Robinson, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division during the Clinton administration. He believes his name matches that of someone who was put on the list in early 2005, and is routinely delayed while flying — despite having his own government top-secret security clearances renewed last year. "I suppose if I were convinced that America is a safer place because I get hassled at the airport, I might put up with it," Robinson said. "But I doubt it."

He added: "I expect my story is similar to hundreds of thousands of people who are on this list who find themselves inconvenienced."

Bush could be flat-lined and the Demowienies would still roll over and play dead.

The United States is lagging behind in science graduates.  Gee, I wonder why.  Could it be because after many years of rigorous schooling they discover that they will earn less today than they did yesterday?  Bush and the magic veto pen strike again.  Pretty soon even the rich won't want to be doctors, they won't be able to adjust to a lower class of living.  Besides the hassle of trying to learn science while school districts start teaching the not-so-intelligent design theory and refusing to allow independent thought, there are very few models that have both fame and fortune.  Geeks are popular today, but that doesn't mean that everyone wants to be one.

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Not Into It Today

I miss George Carlin. I first saw him on the Flip Wilson show and had enjoyed him ever since.. Everyone posted the Seven Words you can't say on tv, but my favorite skit was the fractured Nursery Rhymes. Especially the Seven Dwarfs. Thank you for all the years of laughs. Rest in peace George, you will be missed. Greatly.

Eight drugs that doctors in the know never take.

That's the way it works in America.

No job, no prospects, no way to feed the family. Of course the food banks are being overwhelmed.

No child left behind is having serious consequences. According to Time, fewer kids are pursuing tech degrees. That's what you get with rote memorization and continuous testing. People that don't know how to think logically or creatively. The corporations don't care, they can always get someone from India or China to do the job.

Papers please. Plus your fingerprints and first born child.

Sweetest Line Of The Morning

Not because of what he did but because now almost every news story can start in much the same way.

"Bush will lay the wreath at Arlington National Cemetary for the last time."

May there be more last times for Bush, he's caused enough of them for everybody else. 4082 families from the useless war in Iraq. So far. And how the heck can Americans remember their war dead if he keeps hiding them from public view? Bush only trots out the proper sentiment on holidays, the rest of the year he is too busy making sure that the survivors have no benefits when they get out, that they can't afford college or a home, and that they have no other choice but to stay in until they die.

Then while they are out doing their duty, Bush cuts food stamps for their families, closes hospitals near their homes, refuses to help with the foreclosures caused by severe decrease in income for the Reserves and the National Guard, and at the same time eviscerates the education system for young people in the hope that they will have no other choice but to be the next sacrificial victims veterans in the "war on terror".

Bush is a president that has ignored the will of the people; let a major U.S. city drown while he vacationed and that was after he let New York and Washington D.C., the supposed seat of our government, be attacked; regards the Constitution as "a piece of paper"; illegally spies on American citizens; flaunts his stupidity on a daily basis as he condones torture and asks people to go shopping instead of rebuilding our country's infrastructure and reclaiming our place in the world by fixing ourselves first before trying to remove a perceived splinter from countries who haven't asked for our "help". He's a colossal failure who continues to make things worse in an effort to leave behind a legacy without realizing he has already done so.

It's Memorial Day and the only person I want to be remembering is Osama bin Laden, swinging from a gallows pole.


He should have some company, like those who could be convicted of war crimes but will likely escape any earthly penance and continually wonder why history (if we have one) is so unkind to them.

So please, let's start as many stories about Bush as we can with for the last time.

BBB

Yippee!

My sixth post was about these four high school kids who beat a team from MIT that was funded by ExxonMobil and other donors in a NASA sponsored underwater robot championship and were then screwed by the system because their parents had brought them over illegally when they were really young. Wired did a follow-up and I'm happy to find that people had contributed $90K towards helping these talented young men continue to contribute to society. And they have made the most of their opportunity, may we have more like them.

I couldn't be prouder if they were my own. Well done and may they continue to make an impact on society.

3Bs

Racism Runs Rampant

No matter how many times people protest, institutionalized racism still exists in this country. Thank goodness my brothers and I were military brats and exposed to people and opportunities that today's young blacks will never have. I have a Master's degree as does one of my brothers, but it hasn't really helped us to get ahead. If you talk to any member of my family on the phone it is impossible to tell that we are black until you meet us and that still doesn't stop people from treating us as if we are mentally impaired. The best part is that those same people think we don't notice. We do. We just don't feel like fighting certain battles day in and day out because we may win the battle but we won't win the war and we get to start all over again the very next day or with the very next person. Such is life.

It's hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you are barefoot, but that doesn't stop racists from blaming people who haven't had a chance to improve their lives since the moment they were born. I expect stupid comments from people who are entrenched in their beliefs that it is always the person's fault no matter what the circumstances, what I didn't expect was to find it running rampant through the SF Bay area.

Yes, the majority of people on welfare are white but that is because there (at the moment) are more of them. Period. But it isn't a large percentage of the melanin impaired population whereas for blacks and Latinos it is. If one is crammed into a ghetto all their life it is hard to imagine or conceive of a different lifestyle. One that includes good schools with competent teachers, decent food, water, clean air, and the chance to have as good a life as a person who was born into a better neighborhood.

California is in the process of destroying its public school system with numerous cutbacks and quotas. People think that teachers are overpaid and then wonder why the quality of education is so bad. Good teachers can make money doing something else, so unless it is a calling they aren't going to go into a bad neighborhood where the schools are decrepit, the textbooks are so old that the last President mentioned is Reagan, science is nonexistent and the kids are already stressed from having no food and little to look forward to. If life tells you that you aren't as good as someone with privilege, unless you have authority issues and the knowledge to know when to use it to your advantage instead of being killed, you won't know not to believe the propaganda that blacks are still only worth three fifths of those outside the ghetto.

In a month I will be 52 and of one thing I am quite sure, racism has been increasing in this country under the guise of personal responsibility since the eighties. While Paris Hilton and Britney Spears can have problems that would put most blacks in jail for life, they have money and privilege that enables them to avoid most of the serious consequences for their actions. People may disapprove but they are still welcome in polite company. Let the average black person try some of those stunts and see what happens.

The late seventies were a time of hope and promise in this country, but those dreams have been squashed under the weight of reality. The reality that no matter how hard you try, people will still discriminate against those of lesser means and opportunity. It's easy to look down on people from the top of the mountain and say that if they would just try harder they can reach the mountain top, but it isn't so easy to climb up it if you don't have the tools.

Serena, Venus, Tiger, Kareem and Michael Jordan had talent and opportunity, a rare combination in anyone, which gave them a chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. If I lived in the ghetto I would want to play sports instead of pay attention in school because it looks like that would be my only way out of poverty. Thanks to an illegal and immoral war, joining the military is not an option since all the positions that would enable you to have job skills after you get out have been given to private contractors. There isn't much use for repairing the guidance control systems on missiles (which is what I did) or driving a tank through a neighborhood looking for IEDs.

Hope is in short supply when you don't know where your next meal is coming from and you can' play outside because you might catch a stray bullet. As the federal and state governments cut back on services to the poor, these problems will only get worse. Schools will become more segregated as more parents with privilege send their kids to private schools and the quality of education will continue to diminish. If everybody else is using a computer to learn but your school district can't afford them, the world will continue to move away from you and despair will be your constant companion. Catching up won't be an option since libraries are closing, health care is being eliminated and food costs continue to spiral upward.

It isn't the fault of the children that they were born into lesser circumstances and punishing them even more will not help the situation. There are two Americas and one of them isn't very pretty. Blaming those who haven't had a chance since they drew their first breath won't help the situation but education will. Perhaps if we invested in their education instead of killing people half a world away it might make a difference.

BBB

Torture, Foreclosures, Taxes And Stupidity

The crew without a clue are so proud of themselves. Bush admitted to authorizing torture and contravening the Constitution and isn't worried about being impeached or brought to justice because the ends justify the means.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorial board writes: "That the top officials in the White House were sitting around debating how many times someone should be waterboarded is disgusting, but not surprising. They have held themselves about all laws and legal standards. They have repeatedly claimed that any action performed during the course of our so-called war on terror -- no matter how illegal or barbaric -- is legally and morally justifiable.

"But even as they claim immunity from the legal and moral standards of the civilized world, the reality is that no one in the Bush administration stands above the law. Sooner or later, they must be held accountable.

Yeah, like that's going to happen. And to think all those people were hung at Nuremberg and in Japan for committing those same crimes. Congress is more concerned with people's personal lives and providing corporate welfare than their job of providing checks and balances. It's good to be the king.

Foreclosures were up again last month with no end in sight and the mentally challenged commenters at ABC News are at it again. The housing crisis is all Clinton's fault because he encouraged housing loans to minorities and low income people. I guess if you aren't rich and melanin impaired you are supposed to live in the ghetto or a tent and be grateful to your betters. Heaven forbid that offshoring, downsizing, manufacturing plants closing and predatory lending should have any part of the blame. There is no compassion available for the people whose home values are dropping like a stone and even though they did everything right, are losing their homes because they can't make up the difference between the bank loan and the current value. No bailouts for borrowers but lenders must be protected at all costs. To the taxpayer. All those right wing Christians are really interested in helping their fellow man. Not.

Nope, one of their solutions is to encourage people to stay married. No matter what. Yes, one must put up with an abusive or cheating spouse in order to reduce the financial drain on U.S. taxpayers by enrolling in a government program to strengthen marriage. Or at least that's the idea. Not improving education or encouraging job growth, but forcing people to stay in a bad marriage for the sake of the taxpayer. It's supposedly a legitimate concern of government, policymakers and legislators. Maybe they'll let all those black men out of jail and give them jobs so they can support their families. Not.

They can harass and prosecute Wesley Snipes (Three years and a 5 million dollar fine for a misdemeanors? Obviously he's a black male.) for tax evasion but they can't prosecute Dick Morris or better yet, the former Treasurer of the United States, Catalina Villalpondo. You might recognize her name from some of the currency that was printed under the first President Bush.

Five thousand teenagers a year die in automobile accidents and driver's ed is being eliminated in school. Another case of being pennywise and pound foolish. No need to learn the rules and be held to high standard when you can just wait and get your license at eighteen with no training. Then they can be like the people who come here from overseas and just point their car in the direction they want to go and let the chips fall where they may. If they don't take physics they will have no concept whatsoever that they aren't driving a mobile living room. Yesterday this girl was all over the road, using both lanes while she texted. She spent more time looking at her phone than she did looking ahead and she never looked to the side or used her rear view mirror. Entering college is important but driving poorly can kill you. Or worse, some innocent person.

BBB

The Election Is Window Dressing

Nope, it's not an abyss, it's a canyon. An abyss implies that you can't see the bottom and with a canyon you can. An abyss is dark, whereas with a canyon you can see the details. And the details of the Iraq war, from the flawed and untruthful beginning to the no way out for the innocent and not so pretty end, have been revealed in frightening clarity for Americans to see. The rest of the world saw the current situation for what it really was. A McGuffin, designed to mislead the public until irrevocable damage had been done.

While the citizens of this country were distracted by the rah rah antics of the crew without a clue (or a conscience); their civil rights have been terminated; they were beguiled into spending money on homes they couldn't afford with the promises that the sun would always be shining and the value wold always go up; they were encouraged to buy goods to support the economy, unfortunately it just didn't happen to be ours; the education system was reduced to a shambles and most of their jobs were shipped to another country so that the corporations could continue to make obscene profits for those who already had more than they need.

The so-called ownership society isn't about you owning your own home, it's about you having to bear all responsibility for every action and reaction around the globe while your ability to do so is reduced incrementally. One paycheck at a time. Until you don't have one.

Health care is overly costly and preventative care is virtually nonexistent and they still want you to pay for insurance that looks for ways to deny you coverage when you need it because it is a corporation in the business of making money and not actually providing the health care that they supposedly sell.

Foreclosures are increasing and that was before the latest round of job layoffs. In another six months they will reach levels never seen, mainly due to the increase in population but nevertheless it will be damaging. Many more people will be hurt by the rise in gas prices and when you're unemployed, paying your Cobra premium out of your rapidly dwindling and poor interest paying savings or putting food on the table while you still have a roof over your head, becomes less important with every nickel rise in gas. So, you wait until medical problems become emergency room visits, which is what the President recommends.

As acres of McMansions become empty and food becomes scarce, due to either a rise in prices or the inability of truck drivers to drive to outlying areas, some hard choices will have to be made. As a nation. And the election isn't going to solve, or even mitigate, the ruinous path we have trod. None of their plans or rhetoric actually deal with, or will have any positive impact on, the majority of Americans.

Those people who have already been forced out of the system already know this. The decreasing graduation rate from high school and the increasing rate of incarceration are not good trends and have quite a bit to do with each other. Meanwhile outside of the US, the world is becoming more technical but we won't be graduating students capable of competing on the world stage. And we will have to compete on the world stage because almost everything we need, we have to get from somewhere else. Because we shipped the jobs there.

Is it any wonder that our troops don't have the equipment they need to do their jobs and be properly protected? We don't manufacture anything so after five years of steady confrontation, we still can't make appropriate body armor for our soldiers. And then when they get hurt and become damaged beyond usefulness, some people expect them to take care of themselves. How nice.

The candidates all talk a good game but each of them have drawbacks, all of which will prevent them from making the changes that are needed and wanted by the American people. Another round of tax cuts won't solve the problem and neither will mandating that people pay for something they can't afford. Our infrastructure is falling apart and taxes need to be directed toward the public good, not the corporate trough. Our roads, bridges, dams, hospitals and schools need the help first, not some shareholder who's gambling with his money and your kid's future.

BBB and IIRTZ.

Sunday Six

How do you go on strike when you have no work? Once summer arrives and the price of gas is consistently over $4 per gallon, eating locally will be necessary, not trendy. Too bad most of our food comes from somewhere else. And that most people don't know how to cook from scratch, but since they'll be unemployed they should have plenty of time to learn.

Some people have no shame, no shame at all.

What, no taser? What possible explanation could there be for trying to drive a minivan...from the roof?

Women and children first? Not anymore, they get left behind. And not in a Christian way.

Hmm, I thought the trick to successful parenting was to love your child, to spend time with them and to be a good example. $6500 in equipment, toys and fripperies when all they want is you, seems to be a little extreme don't you think? But I guess when your a status symbol, the more, the merrier.

Oh goody, now big pharma can poison us without having to worry about penalties. Botox and thalidomide, here we come.

BBB