dengre hits another one out of the park

Confederate History Month: Stolen Labor
It's always good to get to the bottom of an issue

H/T Balloon Juice, always worth reading.

War, What Is It Good For?

War is always an abomination. Yet war is sometimes necessary, the last resort of a people. It should never be the first.
People die in war. Usually lots of people. Almost always lots of innocent people.
A good leader works at never going to war, fights very hard to avoid war. A great leader works very hard to avoid having any of his or her citizens killed without absolute necessity.

But there are always people who advocate for war. They lead the shouting for war. And never intend to fight. Or heaven forbid take any actual risk of dying. They advocate that others should do the fighting and dying, just because. They shout for other people to be the victims because they don't have the courage of their convictions.

These people are cowards.

For a better take on this, Digby has the first and last word.
H/T Glen Greenwald via Atrois

Glen is Correct, Absolutly Correct

Glen gets it right again.
Going to war in Iraq is the worst mistake this country has done in my lifetime. It was done for the wrong reasons, it was undertaken with false information and it was illegal. We can not just put it behind us, we must, as a country face this. We continue to be failures when we do not look inward and figure out that this stemmed from the same thought process that involved us in Vietnam. This political thought process has not been discredited, for there are way too many people who don't see or understand this as a mistake. We need to publicly fix responsibility for going to war with Iraq otherwise the idea that we can create war whenever and for any reason will not go away.

Actual Health Care??

Over at Caltics soyinkafan has posted a valuable story on SB810, the single payer state senate bill for California.
Please read and act upon this story. It will not hurt the national health care situation at all and may actually help get national attention that a lot of people want and need proper health care not only in California but in this entire country.

HCR What We Need Now

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly has a great memo for anyone who as anything to do about health care reform. Please read it and pass it on.
And call your rep and senators. Today. And Tomorrow. And the next day...

Just What The Doctor Ordered

Congress, Get You Some Balls


H/T to somebody, but I don't remember who or where.

Do The Right Thing

 Ladies and Gentlemen, Paul Krugman The straight shooter gets it once again.

And the tag line gets right to the point

"Ladies and gentlemen, the nation is waiting. Stop whining, and do what needs to be done."

TSA Training Academy Video

Bad Tux found another good one. The TSA has conspired with Transport Canada to make a new training video.

Today Hope=Nope

What is the plan to deal with healthcare now, considering that the senate is broken? It seems to me the house is broken as well what with 220 votes, only 3 more than necessary. We have clear majorities in both houses of congress, we have a democrat as president, and our elected reps can not get this done. I am ashamed of our country, I am ashamed that I am a citizen of this country, I am ashamed that I served in the armed forces. For the first time in my life I can see that it would absolutely be better for me to emigrate to another country, rather than stay here. I finally have a bit of an idea of what it must be like to decide to walk hundreds or thousands of miles, illegally cross international borders, and live a criminal life just for it to be a little better.

More Haiti

Molly Hightower. I never met her, I had never even heard of her before the Haitian earthquake. But I have read her story and it is both devastatingly heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. At 22 she volunteered to work with orphans in Haiti and was living there. Teaching and helping those that need it most.
She was one of thousands killed in the devastation, when the school she worked and lived in collapsed. And her family has asked that any donations go to the organization she worked for.
That is Friends of the Orphans
This seems like so much more than just a worthwhile thing to do. So please if you can, help support not only the memory of such a fine person but those who need it most and have less than can be imagined.

Haiti

I can not imagine what Haiti is like right now. I doubt that very many people could either. This poor country has been hit by so many natural disasters, political upheavals, and just plain crappy luck. They are getting over major hurricanes 5 and 2 years ago. And now a 7.0 earthquake.

I urge you to give what you can. All the agencies are asking for money instead of stuff so here is a number of places

American Friends Service Committee

Red Cross

Oxfam

Dr. Without Borders

What Ezra Said. Twice at Least

Ezra has been a voice of reason in the HCR process. Many if not most of us want more. But we don't always get what we want. The last few decades it seems like we don't get anything, even that which we need. But this country got an xmas present yesterday, let's just hope that it's the gift that keeps on giving.

HCR

There is no good side to this “bill”. This is a “good” start on the road to an acceptable program. It has been pointed out many places that the 3 big social programs passed in the last 70 years, Social Security, Civil Rights, Medicare all were crappy at their start. ALL of them. But they were a start. They are all better today. ALL of them. Could they be better? Hell yes they could. Hell, Civil Rights should never have even been needed if this were a more, I don’t even know what the words are, maybe better, nation. Could any of them be killed by any congress in the foreseeable future? No. Watered down maybe. See teabaggers saying don’t take away my medicare.
But humans, or at least americans seem to like the big whatever, the big fix it all at once, the all or nothing answer. But nothing works that way. Electricity production – Solar!, No, Wind!, No, Nuclear!, No, Clean Coal!, No, drill,drill, drill!, my car runs on water!. None of it is the answer by itself and some is BS. It takes baby steps and fighting each step of the way. This is the second biggest positive change in 45 years in the way we see this country. The other was when we started to take care of our seniors (medicare) and when we recognized that all animals born with human DNA were actually human (civil rights). Both of these were in the 60’s and took softening up of the legislature over years to get them to pass. I was young in the 60’s but I remember the fights and I didn’t understand why things shouldn’t be the way they ended up. And they didn’t go far enough. Now I understand. Some people are selfish, some are assholes, some are ignorant, some are all of these. Nothing has changed there in 50 or even in the last 5000 years. But this is our time. This is when we get to make change. Will it be enough? Hell no, it never is. Someone the other night accused me of pissing and moaning because I didn’t get the pony. My response was I was not buying a pony. I didn’t expect the pony. And I didn’t get pissed because I didn’t get the fucking pony. I am pissed because that’s what happens when I and millions of my closest friends get unnecessarily and selfishly screwed.

Not Pretty Pictures

Want to see what a recession looks like?
Here's a chart of the unemployment info. Play it through and see what the fuss is about.


Us.

H/T to ari at Edge of the American West

Need To Know Why. This Is Your Answer

Aimai over at Balloon-Juice has a great comment on what's going on in the senate for health care reform.
Finally an explanation.

Fun Today

Over at Balloon-Juice commenter Dreggas posted the following story. It's probably not true but you never know. So for a good laugh and beware it's not monitor-keyboard safe if any thing is being ingested.
Gift Testing

On being poor, and not just a little bit

Poor, the summation

This can only be from someone who is or has been there. If this feels real to you then you've most likely been there. If you can't imagine this reality then you're probably not close to being poor. If this is your nightmare, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you live in a country that thinks this is OK, that if you work harder everything will be alright. I'm not there. Yet. But I am as close as I've ever been. And I'm seeing myself slide down that rat hole no matter what I do. So I'm sorry.

Not Just Nuance- They are Pro-Coathanger

tristero has it right

Words do matter and our use of them is important.

What most of the so called pro life segment wants is to control half of the populations bodies. How their bodies are used, how their bodies health is decided, how their very existence is controlled. Notice the major theme is control. It isn't right. Using some decided upon bullshit name (pro life) for the people who want to control a woman's body is not right either. So for me from here on I'm using, Pro-Coathanger. 

Ah... screwed again

Had an attorney tell me once that a settlement was only good when both sides felt like they got equally screwed.
If both sides thought it was a good deal they didn't need attorneys.
If one side was ecstatic and the other pissed then it should have gone to court.
So now we have laws being made that way. One side is ecstatic and the other is pissed. And screwed. Problem is, it's not the 2 political sides happy or screwed. It's the owners of the country that are getting screwed.
It's us. We're on the losing side of all the political settlements.

Thanks Lynn Woolsey

The email that I sent to my representative:

Thank you for voting for health care reform. I wish the bill could be better. I wish it could happen a lot faster. I wish it would cover everyone. This is an issue that can not wait. As you well know people are dying directly due to the health care industry in this country. Why is that so hard for a great number of your fellow elected officials to understand? I would say that I can not believe that this many people are so selfish and heartless. But I know better. I know that the people who run the health care insurance industry don't care. I know that the people who run wall street and therefore affect the insurance people, don't care. They are greedy, selfish and heartless bastards and don't give a damn about anyone but themselves.

I'm glad that I served in the military. I didn't want to go. I did not believe in the war in Vietnam. But I volunteered anyway. I don't want kudos or thanks. It was what I was supposed to do. The congress people who voted against health care reform don't deserve the thanks of a great full nation. The deserve scorn and ridicule, because they didn't do what they were supposed to do. They voted for the benefit of a few greedy, selfish, heartless people who paid them to. We need better. We demand better.