My republican brother (who's also my boss)

...thinks it's hilarious that I should want to go to physical therapy for my rotator cuff pain. (This is the same one who, whenever someone calls in sick, thinks they're slacking.) Now it's that the doctors and therapists are ripping us all off by providing health care.

He usta be pretty smart, but now he thinks global warming is a big plot to hobble the free market.

He went to college for years and years(during the vietnam war) but now he thinks Darwin was a fool, and life on earth started when an ancient spaceship was just cleaning out it's ballast tanks into the primal ocean.

He also thinks we should be paying down the deficit before inflation gets us all.

He buys gun after rifle after shotgun, and packs heat to work, where he spends a lot of time reloading bullets.

He thinks that during the coming breakdown in civilization, he'll be selling bullets in order to buy food.

This in a place where you're more likely to hit a deer on the road than have the car you regularly leave unlocked overnight in the driveway stolen.

.

.

.

Sometimes it seems like the whole world is going crazy.

On the Deficit

I was talking this morning to someone who should know better, but was plugging away at the "we need to balance the budget or the deficit will get us all" meme.

I had to ask him:

If you had a burning desire to become a lawyer, which course of action would leave you richer at the end of your life, all other things being equal?

1. You enter law school and put your expenses on the tab generally called "school loans" and pay them off with your newly augmented income.

or

2. You spent 15 or 20 years saving up the money to go to law school and pay for it as you go with the money you have saved.


We so desperately need a new jobs oriented stimulus, and all I hear from the media is the old worn but comfortable battlecry - "deficit spending!!! evil!!! balance the budget!!!"

Imagine what might happen in our country if we built a solar panel and wind turbine factory in every county in America, with contracts from the govt to buy enough panels and turbines to take the price down into affordable territory for the rest of us. Further, we could mandate that our power companies buy back electricity from individuals at better than the going price (like Germany did to stimulate their alt energy market). We could line every freeway right of way with solar panels, and get off coal, while creating jobs in the tech and construction sectors.

What are we waiting for?

Stupak!

Dear NARAL,

Re: Stupak

You are soooo stupak that you sat on your thumbs and let them Stupak the health care bill.

Not one more stupak red cent will I ever send to you, because you've proven that as an advocacy organization are way too stupak to survive.

Wishing you a stupak new career,

SBGypsy

Pic of The Day

Time to GO

Let's think about what this means for a moment: According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, the cost of keeping a single American soldier in Afghanistan is $1.3 million per year. According to Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post, it costs the Pentagon about $1 billion per year to station 1,000 U.S. troops in that country. It's fair to assume that this estimate doesn't include, among other things, long-term care for wounded soldiers or the cost of replacing destroyed or overused equipment. Nor do these figures include any civilian funds being spent on the war effort via the State Department, nor undoubtedly the funds being spent by the Pentagon to upgrade bases and facilities throughout the country. In other words, just about any decision by the president, including one simply focused on training Afghan soldiers and police, will involve an outlay of further multi-billions of dollars. Whatever choice the president makes, the U.S. will bleed money.

(my ems)From Tomgram

This is worse than a Quagmire, the levies are about to break and dump more and more human assets into the place just when we should be folding our hand and going on home.

Dear President Obama,

I believe that to know what values a person subscribes to, you must never listen to what that person says, but only observe what the person does.

Now, to know how ethical and truthful a person is, you compare what they say to what they do. In the case of the POTUS, it's a comparison of your campaign promises vs your actions since coming into power.

The question in my mind is - are you working for the mega corporations, or the American People?

Here's your scorecard:

1. Justice for Bush Admin Officials:
Corp....1
AP......0

You are going to lengths verging on Obstruction of Justice to shield Bush Administration operatives who have committed crimes verging on treason against the American people.

2. Health Care:

Corp.....1
AP.......0

Dealing behind closed doors, you sell out to Big Insurance interests before the sausage making even starts.

3. Civil Liberties:

Corp....1
AP......0

Those civil liberties that we lost during the last eight years have still not been restored to us, and the erosion rate has hardly been slowed. You still claim for yourself most of the Bush Administration's most egregious power grabs. You are working against the ACLU and using the same arguments that Cheney dreamed up with Addington and Rove.

4. Bipartisanship:

Corp.....1
AP.......0

You use "bipartisanship" to CYA on any legislation that your corporate masters want ruined. Please note: Nobody cares whether ANY republican legislators ever sign on to needed legislation, as long as the bill does good things in the best way possible. Case in point: You allowed the stimulus bill to be watered down, all for the vote of a republican(which you didn't get). So, instead of lifting our economy, it is hardly keeping the economy alive, and the same party that didn't vote for it is declaring it to be a failure(and a waste of money that could have gone to more tax cuts). The same thing is now happening to Health Care reform. By your actions, you are either a CYA weenie, lacking the courage of your convictions, OR you've sold yourself to the rich and greedy powers that are fleecing our country. Neither is a pretty picture.

5. Guantanamo:

Remains to be seen, although, if you were actually championing American Values the place could have been closed down within a week
. ...WEAK...

6. Middle East Wars:

Corp.....5
AP.......0

One month of those wars could finance several years of health care for all. These wars are not only damaging our national security, they are damaging our place in civilized society, they are bleeding our treasury at an alarming rate.

This while the world goes off the dollar, so that our traditional means of reducing our deficit will not be available in future.

ARE YOU INSANE?

Clearly the corporations are international in scope and reach, with no loyalty to our nation over any other. Indeed, no loyalty to the human race or even to life on this planet while there is money to be filched, looted, and gouged. When they are through bilking us they will move on to greener pastures, wreaking havoc as they plow their way through the world.

President Obama, I don't even expect that you will ever see this letter, I would like to be on record as one of the few Americans who still believe in the promise of Liberty and Justice for All.