Two Words Change Everything

Prescient. The Republicans have been taking too many clues from their astro-turfed constituents. What plays in Peoria isn't appropriate for under the rotunda. Say that three times fast.

We were out, so we didn't get to see the speech until the very end, but what Wilson did was just beyond the pale. AND, he's the one with the falsehood - fact check after fact check shows that none of the serious bills contain allowanaces for extending health care to illegal aliens. It's just so bad on so many levels. Maybe those two words by themselves will help re-center the debate.

Reposting from the end of the last Kit because it's obvious I was just a bit ahead of time!

I just got this email from “S” and thought it worth sharing.

“Just in - the new “Joe Wilson slimy self immolating slinky” just put it at the top of your stairs and it picks up speed as it crashes and burns when it hits bottom. Your uncivil kids will love it!

Try the new “Joe Wilson” yo-yo. Flip it down the string and it shouts ‘you lie’ then the string breaks and it rolls away never to be found again. Your uncivil kids will love blaming its loss on the President.

Get the new “Joe Wilson apologizing doll”. This is bound to thrill your uncivil kids as it automatically stuffs its foot in its mouth and tries to say ‘I’m sorry’ at the same time. This product has been approved by the President’s Chief of Staff. (This doll is not recommended for anyone with an IQ.)

Of course there is always the free Joe Wilson bobble head doll. It’s absolutely free plus free shipping and handling. Actually the doll is $190 and S&H is $50 – so I lied – so what?”

Joe Wilson cross the line on the House Floor. If this happen during a "House debate" all work would have stopped and a democrat would demand that wilson's words be "taken down"
C-span: "Words Taken Down is the House rule used to discipline a member for using inappropriate words in debate.
After the words are "taken down" by the clerk and read back, the chair rules on their suitability.
If ruled inappropriate, the member may not speak again on the same day without House permission."

Wilson ought to be ban for from speaking on the house floor for the rest of the year. The decorum of the House should be respected at all times. This is not a town hall meeting. This is a joint session of congress. The folks from South Carolina that I know don't act this way.

This behavior by the republicans is appalling. Goofy Gomert waving a sign doing the President's speech was lower than low. This is not another country. THIS IS THE US STATES OF AMERICA, were most people try to teach their children to act civil. The republican minority leader must take full responsibilty for his party's action and ban his members from watching their other leaders like glen beck, rush limbaugh, fox news and the like until after the work is complete on healthcare.

Repost (as always)

Mudge, what a great point. I stand and applaud you ... 5 standing O's ...

In fact, I connect your point about the editorial take away by the post and comments that I just heard watching the online replay of the Rachel Maddow Show and the Barney Frank segment.

We have a connection to the British way of doing business and sometimes, it is exactly Wilson showing his public disdain for the President, and then, the President's ability (the ability of a black man overshadowing a poorly simple and ignorant guy from the deep south) to make his case so eloquently and correctly in the face of shouting sealed the deal in front of 100's of millions of people right there at the lectern of the people's house.

Mudge, it could not have been better. That's where it needed to be. Right there with all the Federal elected and appointed representatives.

Do over? What a laugh. The Republican leadership were "gaming" the process from the very beginning. The only way there would be a supported "do over" would be if they first apologized to the American people for wasting our time for 7 months while they played their politics. Seriously apologized--admitting that they are personally responsible for the pain of those Americans who, during that period were being denied coverage or going into bankruptcy or even, as the President referenced, dieing because of their very very bad behavior.

Back to your point, yes, Mudge, right there in front of the Republicans and those Democrats who need to get the "Git er done" message.

The truth is that the Republicans are still getting more donations from the Insurance companies this year than during the last election cycle. They are trying to fill their coffers. That's it. This is all about elections and not about serving the public.

Posted by: russianthistle | September 10, 2009 8:59 AM

The great thing about spittoons, in addition to the fabulous repulsiveness of the concept and the wonderful sound of the word, is that they're great for clobbering nincomoops on the noggin. I think the House could use a return of the spittoon.

I don't know that a brief shout out really qualifies as "thuggish." I'm not sure even a thrown tomato would a thug make. Seems we have become a bit oversensitive. A discussion about decorum, or breach of, is interesting, but more enlightening would be a discussion on whether Obama was, in fact, lying.

MeinTheMiddle. Was he lying? Hate to do the truthout thing to you. State your point.

Um. That would be "nincompoops."

Bunker fully provisioned?

Joel references Milbank's column, which clearly states that none of the bills that have yet been proposed would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. (I am not entirely happy about that -- for instance, we have had postdocs who technically became "illegal immigrants" because of errors and delays in processing the renewal of their visas. Would we suddenly withdraw health services from them?) Anyway, MeInTheMiddle, do you believe that Obama is hiding such a provision within his proposed legislation, and is honestly foolish enough to believe that nobody would notice it? If you can maintain such an extreme paranoid belief, I find it hard to understand how you can believe yourself to be in the middle of anything, politically.

Did you give the bunker HVAC its annual checkup, yello? 'Mudge and I started stocking it last night, since it was pretty much a given we'd have this sorta Boodle today...

Good morning boodle!

Interrupting the serious discussion to thank dmd for the important message. You are a true and faithful friend.

The folks at
http://www.actblue.com/page/kossacks4miller
are up to 55k for Rob Miller, Wilson's Democratic challenger.

CCLs, auxiliary, and associates-don't forget your "We're 37!" duties today. I plan to retweet the link above, which normally I'd think of as inaction but sweet cheeses-55K overnight. Inconceivable.

Mudge-whatercooler is a good word indeed.

Battling a migraine with too much to do to curl up on a bed in the dark so I better get to work. Home office discipline is slowly returning.

Repubs don't handle losing presidential elections very well. If they can't steal an election like in 2000, they just make wild hate filled claims like now and in 1993.

Okay, the bunker is fully provisioned for whatever happens today. Plenty of adult beverages, snacks, TP.

I am sorry to inform Representative Wilson that an apology, regardless of how abjective, isn't going to fix this one.

For the rest of us, maybe this is a good thing. It shows how hollow the Republican rhetoric truly is, and how far from representing the opinions and needs of real citizens. Let it be the clarion call to move forward!

The definition of "sin" involves separation. One who causes separation or participates in separation is "sinning". Using this definition, the GOP has become the party of Sin. The most strident in the GOP rabble-rouse their constituency, leading finally to outright heckling of the president by elected officials. I am sure I also hear shouts of glee and plenty of "You lie"'s from those congressional districts. Sin is running amock. Sounds like 1861 all over again. No doubt, there has been ample sinning on the left as well as on the right. Thus, as a moderate Republican, I am getting both ears full. But my right ear is buzzing right now, and I do not like what I hear.

Actually, the president did lie... several times. There was an amendment presented that would restrict illegals from taxpayer funded healthcare under this bill ... and it was defeated by the democrats. The lanugage of the bill is absent on illegals. It WILL fund them. President Obama lied.

The bill WILL add way over $200 billion to the debt according to the Congressional Budget Office.. and we all know that is a low ball number, and the president WILL sign it if it is passed. He lied.

The bill forbids private insurance companies from writing new policies after the bill goes into effect.. which will slowly distroy private insurance and force everyone onto the only plan that is allowed to write new polices, the government taxpayer funded plan. President Obama lied.

The bill funds abortion through "premiums"... of course many on the plan will not pay premiums ... and tax payer money will be used to fund abortions. President Obama lied.

The whole speech was filled with lies plan and simple. Finally a representitive actually represented the majority of Americans on something.

Joe Wilson will win re-election in a land slide.

One point... and I think it is sort of an interesting sidebar, the best onstage controversies of what you called hyper...

It would be Al Franken against O'Reilly and Coulter as he took them apart in person on the same stage.

Of course, the two get it all the time from Olbermann. I think that Coulter has become a total waste of time. I think even her publisher is considered stopping the wholesale killing of trees to create copies of her books.

I will say however, that she did create the genre of Republican hyperbole and ridicule that we now see as being rampant.

Here is what Franken said about FOX news when they sued him over comments he made about O'Reilly:

“The irony upon irony of this lawsuit was great. First, Fox having the trademark 'fair and balanced' -- a network which is anything but fair and balanced. Then there's the irony of a news organization trying to suppress free speech.”

yello, did you include the activated-charcoal HEPA filter? *SIGH*

The late senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina made a career of obstruction. Apparently, far fewer people came to his funeral than to Edward Kennedy's, but Helms was arguably more effective at pushing his agenda, simply because his agenda was relatively easy to push.

The Helms agenda, with a bit of updating and better marketing, fit nicely in affluent Texas suburbs.

I'm bothered that senator DeMint of South Carolina is one of the most vocal opponents of universal health care; the program would amount to a big subsidy for many, many South Carolinians, largely paid for by better-off people in places like New Jersey. A big transfer of wealth.

Could it be that DeMint's constituents figure universal health care will pass anyway, so they can have some fun biting the hand that feeds? Uh, no. Looks like SC voters have health insurance and don't want it to spread to the unworthy.

Dear ScienceTim: I only suggested a discussion of it. What I've heard is that there are so many millions uninsured, and when that figure is bandied about, it is a number that counts illegal immigrants. I don't have a belief one way or the other, paranoid or not.

I just put in brand new HEPA MERV 20 filters. Strong enough to withstand the strongest sulfurous fumes.

markandbethnnn,

Joe Wilson did not win in a landslide... it was the worst margin of victory in recent memory. He is considered, of all things, seriously exposed and is targeted. Of course, that didn't help.

I hope you are on the payroll of some group that pays you to spout more lies. There will umpteen amendments that will be voted down in consideration of a better amendment that does what the rejected amendment would also do. The real question is whether or not the final bill will accomplish what is desired by the American people. That bill has not been crafted and agreed to on bicameral basis.

Through the magic of Tivo, the ScienceSpouse and I recently watched Betsy McCaughey (pronounced "McCoy") on the Daily Show. Her claim to notoriety, in case you missed that episode, is that she is the source of the notion of "Death Panels." She managed to eloquently and elaborately mis-read plain English text, repeatedly, with Stewart repeatedly pointing out the accurate reading. This was in what she called THE bill, but of course, it's actually just *A* bill. She could simply demand that the wording be clarified to be made unobjectionable and unambiguous, but that would be legislating and not rabble-rousing.

At one point, McCaughey attempted to justify her outrageous private misreading of the text by saying "well, I guess we just read it differently", clearly implying that Stewart does not know how to read. His splendid answer, which he bit off because it was too rude (though accurate), was "well, I'm reading it in Eng...[lish]".

How does she get a death panel out of it? Doctors would be required to suggest a conversation about living wills and end of life services for seniors. They would be graded by Medicare according to whether they have addressed all of a set of basic issues required by the legislation in holding this/these conversations, and in maintaining adherence to them. That's the point at which craziness sets in. Despite plain context, she reads "adherence" as requiring that doctors enforce adherence to the living will plan, even against the patient's wishes; whereas the obvious reading is that doctors are required to adhere to the living will under those circumstances in which it becomes effective, even if it is against their own wishes -- i.e., when the patient is not competent or capable of making decisions. That would include adherence to "DO resuscitate" orders and transference of decision-making power to a relative, not just decisions to withdraw life support. She manages to interpret this as a mandate to kill patients, even against their own active protests.

Other ActBlue fund raising pages for Miller include:
Blue Texans for Change
Iowans Against Idiocy
Give Rob the Job

and others that existed before Wilson stepped in it.

Miller's web site was overwhelmed last night, but it's up now (or was a few minutes ago)
http://robmillerforcongress.com/sunset.html

I hate to say it, but the stereotype fits ... he sounds like a grumpy, clumsy, racist. Such an unfortunate reaction.

Sci Tim- James Fallows did a good analysis of McCaughey's appearance for the Atlantic.
Fallows-
"...She is just making it up, as anyone who has followed her work over the decades will know. She was not even minimally prepared for her appearance on the show, flipping aimlessly through the giant briefing book (of legislative clauses) she brought on stage. But she didn't let it bother her. The exchange demonstrated that if the guest reveals no self-awareness or does not accept the premise of factual challenge, Stewart can't get in his normal licks. Future guests will study this show."
Read the rest here:
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/mccaughey_on_the_daily_show.php

Very nice, Joel. I am surprised by the misunderstanding of the issue displayed by some posters here. Usually the focus of public discussion is about substance, not form. Here, form is itself the substance.

That is, MeIntheMiddle and others, the issue here is not in fact whether the President's speech contained lies, or whether the PResident himself was lying. That's a different question for another conversation. The issue here, and the act which generated bipartisan outrage, is the lack of respect and civility showed by Rep. Wilson in interrupting the President's speech, from the chamber floor, with a serious accusation. The issue is one of behavior, form if you will, and that form has become a substantive question in itself.

The U.S. has a longstanding tradition of respect and civility towards its elected leaders. The tradition flows both ways: we expect our President to act with respect to the citizens, just as we expect citizens and elected officials to respect the office of the Presidency. We hold elected officials, themselves due respect, to a higher standard in this regard. Whatever you may think of his politics, I am unaware of any credible report of President Obama acting with anything less than civility and respect towards every member of Congress, and every other elected U.S. official, in any circumstance. He has held up his end of the behavior bargain. Wilson, on the other hand, blatantly contravened social mores and expectations.

You may not believe the accusation "You lie" to be serious, or you may believe it is excused by truth. I note that one cannot call a witness in court a liar, in the court, even if the witness is obviously lying on the stand. The accusation in those words is forbidden. As someone else pointed out, this is one of the few things the raucous British parliament cannot say of another member on the floor. The prohibition against public accusation of lying, in a formal proceeding, is of long standing. That is why it is so effective when it is done - why people pay attention.

The issue isn't whether the President's speech included lies. Foursquare, the question here is why Wilson abandoned the principles and practices of civility and respect, contained in both his job and that of the Presidency, in that setting at that time.

The U.S.'s social contract is built in large part on respect for others and civil public behavior. We don't end even very contested elections with gunfire, riots or revolutions. We respect the process. This is Wilson's failure.

Meininthemiddle:

People and Congress and especially on the state level and communities HAVE BEEN talking about it for ever. Come on in.

Again, state what YOU think and that's called talking about it. To come here as if we have been talking about dogs and kitties for 10 years and suggest that we haven't discussed something here or in Congress is pretty funny.

BTW, many illegal aliens have legal children. It is a very complex situation. At the same time, we also currently take care of, at least to stabilize, everyone citizens or aliens. The notion that you think we haven't considered is one where we possibly deny service from a group of people who are here in America.

The humorous side of this is that there is a notion that Illegal Aliens don't pay taxes. The truth is that many do pay, either under false IDs or through the income of their bosses who just pay taxed cash. Of course, they don't get credit for anything.

A better point is that we, as we have discussed at the Achenblog for years, are on the deep decent into health care system failure where, as the President points out, we both individually and through the governments' (both state and local) are paying to provide services for the uninsured now. The efficiencies mentioned by the President are mainly, as services billed for are ONLY FOR THAT SERVICE and not a surcharge for charity work, as well, the costs of all health care services will by RIGHTSIZED.

The very salient discussion which may spawn an Universal Coverage future for America is

DO YOU BUY IN ON THE POINT THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN MANDATE INSURANCE CARRIERS FROM DENYING COVERAGE OR CHARGING INDIVIDUALLY HIGH PREMIUM RATES FOR THOSE WITH PRE-EX?

That and that alone may be enough to get Insurance Carriers to back out of the deal. That and that alone will cripple them given the current climate.

I have seen companies pull of out certain states because of risk. (I used to work with an insurance company that, at the time, was the eighth largest company in America).

That's the nut. I seem to remember when the President proposed that idea, both sides of the aisle stood up and clapped.

Be prepared for the republicans, as the party of the insurance companies to start stabbing that concept bit by bit so as to not be so obvious. Better, they will dance around and work the Blue Dogs.

So . . . let's think about this. What if Representatives and Senators could only run for 2 terms? Wouldn't they think less about keeping their jobs for, oh, say, 40 years, and might they think more about why they were elected in the first place -- to represent what's best for their constituency? They wouldn't have to be constantly filling their coffers with corporate donations, or seeking approval from the extremes of their party -- they could just do their jobs! What a concept. I'll just bet the Founding Fathers NEVER anticipated that our senators and representatives would become career politicians, always running for the next campaign win.

I read a free book on line called "The Authoritarians" written by a psychologist. It explains what is going on now in america with the right wing. It was the most enlightening explanation I ever read. Evidently you can be a left wing or right wing authoritarian--the weatherman, chairman mao were examples of left wing authoritarians. But right now in this country we are experiencing right wing authoritarianism--and it's not going to get better, it grows! Unfortunately, he doesn't have good solutions to solving this or keeping it from growing.

Well worth the read though.

Good morning all. Don't bother trying to access Congressman Wilson's official government website. "This site is down for maintenance. Please check again soon."

Congreesional Quarterly's Politics in America 2006 edition mentions that "Wilson's sharp and careless remarks sometimes land him in hot water." Hmmm.

Hope he's putting an apology to President Obama and to all Americsns on his website.

When I get paid tomorrow I'll be visiting that act blue website, which I've frequented before with my donations. Guess the mid terms fight is going to start early for me. Sigh.

aroc

Please forgive... the numerous typing errors above ... but the key point is one that Obama made concerning the state of Alabama. In Alabama, there is basically one company providing health coverage.

Why? Probably profit risk, at this point. What is to be gained to ramp up an Alabama presence if, within several years, you are only losing money.

In the sales business, you have to constantly be adding new healthy low-risk populations into your business portfolio to offset the aging and expensive blocks of business. At the same time, you have to constantly "jack up rates" on the older higher cost groups. If a company can't do that, they just get out of the state or region. Since insurance is a state regulated business, effectively, the state has been "declined" by all but one major carrier, which, because it has a market monopoly can make some money.

At the same time, if you want to see the future of health care in America, you can just go to Alabama.

The division in America has be carefully engineered by corporate ( and right leaning) interests over the last 25 years. It's designed to stop the discourse and prevent people from seeing who is really exploiting them.

Stop drinking the kool-aid. Rep. Wilson is now a HERO for speaking out and saying what millions of Americans have been saying about this President and his creation of a shadow government. But it was BHO who said himself in the speech: “If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.”

That’s what Congressman Wilson was doing, wasn’t it?

And that’s what Democrats were doing during W’s 2005 State of the Union Speech when they booed and shouted down his remarks about the need for Social Security reform. Put down the kool-aid and start paying attention, please!

I have been checking the fund-raising page for Wilson's 2010 opponent, Rob Miller, last night and this morning. Through the roof.

Though I guess $90,000 (this is total -- he had some already, but apparently about $70-80,000 was from last night) is chump change these days, it's pretty early to be raising so much in a few hours.

I'm also surprised Wilson didn't win by a wider margin last time. Usually crazy behavior like this is possible when a politician has a really safe seat. He got 54 percent of the vote last time, also running against this Rob Miller.

Okay, MeInTheMiddle, accepted. The usually bandied number of uninsured has been 47 million, described usually as "47 million Americans." By definition, that number would include zero undocumented aliens (currently, documented aliens are required to be able to provide for their own health insurance as a visa requirement, I believe). The usual number quoted for undocumented aliens has been at most 12 million. 12/307 = 3.9% of U.S. residents, which immediately debunks occasional claims that have been made that it's the illegal aliens who are wrecking our otherwise superb health system. 47/307 = 15.3% of U.S. citizens are uninsured. Even if we accept, as an unlikely possibility, the notion that the 47 million includes every undocumented alien, that would mean that (47-12)/307 = 11.4% of U.S. citizens are uninsured. This number does not include the number of people who are underinsured (i.e., insured only to the extent they can afford, which is not enough for more than minor situations) and those who are insured until they make a major claim and are then dropped by the insurance company. I could make hypotheses concerning how many people would fit in that category, but I think it is sufficient to state what is demonstrable from currently available figures: more than 1 person of every 10 in the U.S. does not have access to the sort of routine medical care that the well-insured (like me, thank goodness) consider to be ordinary. Any invocation of illegal immigrants in the health-insurance reform debate is a mere distraction from a problem that is at least 3-4 times bigger than that.

As to whether Obama lied about this relatively unimportant and distracting issue: as I noted, that information is available in Milbank's column to which Joel linked. It doesn't happen to have been an element of what Joel was writing about. The short answer, according to someone (Milbank) who was actually reporting on the issue, is: No.

Echoing Ivansmom, my take on this whole debate is that the Repubs are hell-bent on trying to destroy the Obama presidency. They will support no serious legislation proposed or supported by the administration, no matter how much it might benefit the American people, because any modicum of success threatens their potential to re-take control of the government. They take the tack that if you repeat the big lie(s) loud enough and long enough, people will begin to believe it.

Are they going to turn our house and senate into "townhells" now?

How about an apology to the american people, you goober!!! I'm going to act/blue to donate to his opponent too--I don't care WHO is running against him--this guy is toast!!

Actually, sherrycn, we have term limits for state offices where I live and it hasn't worked as you suggest. Our legislators are limited to longer than two years. I think the maximum is twelve in any legislative branch (so, can't do the maximum in the House and start all over in the Senate). It might be less. The term is short enough that legislators are not in fact constantly running for reelection. However, it has not significantly improved the legislative dialogue nor the laws introduced and passed.

A constant turnover of as much as a third in each house per year has guaranteed that no legislator enters politics with any significant experience, and they don't have time to get a real understanding of the issues or the process before they leave. To a large extent legislative policy is now strongly influenced by permanent staff and lobbyists, who do have institutional memory, expertise and an understanding of existing law which the legislators tend to lack. Legislators of both parties have shown no particular inclination to introduce legislation aimed at the public good. There is still a lot of special-interest, partisan and random stuff introduced and passed.

Thanks to term limits, legislators cannot remain in public service in this context for the long term. One unintended but foreseeable consequence of this is that it is difficult for these legislators to think long-term. They tend to neither pass laws nor adopt policy which requires a long-term view or carry-through. After all, they won't be there to complete it.

All these problems - lack of knowledge, reliance on staff and lobbyists, no long-term focus in laws or policy - would be exacerbated with a two-year term limit. Those people might just as well be warming the chairs, for all the good they'd do.

I'mom, there's also something critical, I think, to the concept of institutional memory. And committee leadership positions.

I was going to say something else, but the phone rang, and I forgot....Hmmmm.

"But since when did we become a country where an elected official heckles the president in such a thuggish manner in the U.S. Capitol?"

Since commenters and supposed watchdogs like yourself have been letting them get away with their thuggishness by a) not exposing it and the lies they use; b) draw false equivalences between people like Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly, or between Michael Moore and Ann Coulter.

You want to see the cause of the problem? Start by looking in the mirror. Journalists have enormous priviliege in their access to power and their ability to ask questions and expose lies and falsehoods. With that privilege comes a responsibility to use it to inform the public. Since you don't care about the responsibility part, you don't deserve the privilege, either.

The house and senate of the united states is not a trailer park camp or a "townhell". These authoritarian goobers should be ashamed of themselves.

I'm not a great patriot, I have not always supported our presidents and reps, but I have pride in america and the founding principles upon which it stands. These authoritarian goobers, obviously, do not.

I'm interested by a couple of references to Wilson (et al) as "goobers". Is this coming from elsewhere in the media or blogosphere? If not, is it just because the guy's from South Carolina? Would he still be a goober if he were from Minnesota, say, or Oregon?

sembtex, you are seriously ill-informed.

Ivansmom-In Minnesota he'd be a Gomer.

SCC-I should say he'd be called a Gomer, but because he is from SC. The smug superiority of Minnesotans is nauseating.

Having said that, there's still a lot of SNW going on here. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what President Obama says/does 'cause he's still not white.

Where's your history? While Wilson made a very clear and truthful statement, he's not the first to heckle a president. This occurs many times in the past, just not as clear. Interesting to note elsewhere in the news that 5 of 7 reviewed statements by Obama were shown as lies. Wilson was right.

JPK2000, I call you out. Please provide proof of your assertion that Democrats booed and shouted down President Bush during the 2005 SOTU speech.

It's not true. Some minor grumbling, perhaps, but they did NOT shout him down.

Youtube links, please.

ScienceTim,

I think the President, in a number of occasions during his speech, mentioned that the system is broken for those currently "with" health insurance. We basically need insurance insurance.

We have quoted in the Boodle the bankruptcy numbers of recent years.

In four years, this is all going to mushroom. The industry is on the hill now pushing for larger gaps to be covered by co-pays. All this means is that folks are going to have more of their fanny hanging out the window. Until we stop the increases or flat out lower the costs for procedures and office visits, this is just going to drop America financially.

I think of Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Near" in which he points out that inventors must plan their inventions for the technology that we will have when the product hits the market.

The hardest point will be designing a structure in health care that will match the health care situation of 2013.

This is why, if I extrapolate correctly, the President is meaning to expand the Medicaid structure to be a safety net 'til then. As much as I don't really care to hear what Ken Blackwell says about Obama's initiatives tomorrow, I do want to hear from McCain.

"I don't know that a brief shout out really qualifies as 'thuggish.' I'm not sure even a thrown tomato would a thug make. Seems we have become a bit oversensitive."

The fact that someone even posted this nonsensical, coy response--no doubt laboring under the delusion that there are always two sides to every story--is evidence of how low the tone of our public dialogue has sunk.

Here's a clue--YES. Yes, yelling out during an address by the President of the United States is thuggish. This is not a town hall meeting, where you get to scream and clench your fists and get red-faced and threaten and interrupt. It's not a TV back-and-forth where you get to interrupt the other talking head. It's supposed to be a little more elevated than that. Do you really need this spelled out? Have we sunk that low?

Actually I don't think so, since the condemnation against Wilson's outburst has been nearly unanimous. Both sides of the aisle have been hastening to distance themselves. Maybe *you're* too sensitive.

Hey Frosti -- anything new about the health of Garrison Keillor after his stroke?

I am always astounded that so many people will leap at the chance to vote completely against their self interest. This has become a country of proudly undereducated, selfish people. I've been in third-world countries with a populace much more intelligent (and proudly so) and generous than these people could ever imagine (if, indeed, they could imagine anything).

*snarky expletive*

The Joe Wilsons of this world, smug and mis guided as they are, are working with a mob mentality. I propose that we threaten to take away the very free health insurance, every member of Congress enjoys, unless all Americans can have what they have, now, and then let's see just how long they take to come up with a bill for ALL OF US AS GOOD AS THEIR COVEARAGE!!!!!!

NYC123 ...

One amendment to your post. That should have read "a Democratic hosted Town Hall meeting, where you can ..."

The Republican members are quite clearly holding THINO's or Town Halls in Name Only.

Many of them have been screening their participants and doing invitation only affairs. Remember how Republicans would have arrests made of folks wear -- GOSH -- a T-shirt?

I, however, don't have a problem with Republicans at all. Honesty is the problem. I also don't have a big problem with South Carolina where there are some wonderful Republicans who don't have to hide behind the fringe of the party and passive aggressive bigotry.

I think we will learn a bit more about S. Carolina in the next 3 or 4 months vis a vis Gov. Sanford's situation.

ftb, I heard last night that Keillor was up and walking around, and still says he's still going to do the season premiere of PHC in two weeks. So he must be in pretty good shape.

Uh...jbarish, zackly "how" are "we" gonna take away the insurance from Congresspeople? What mechanism do we use, exactly to do that? Magical thinking, even on behalf of the good guys, is still magical thinking.

What would rise to the level of thuggish behavior? The good mental exercise is to imagine if everybody did it. If everyone randomly yelled "You lie" it would be a chaotic mob. Wilson was just a mob of one. There is no excuse for his behavior. He needs to learn how to act in public before he is allowed to deal with grown-ups again.

BTW, TBG, I meant to remark to you last night that it sounded to me like Wilson's remark came out like it was launched from a #37 trebuchet.

For anyone the missed Glee last night, here is a badly screen captured performance of the "Push It" number. It would make Bob Fosse blush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icsCVAZZXPM

Last night the republicans proved they were pathetic - Mr. Wilsons display if ignorance was just the icing on the cake. They've been exposed and liars and obstructionists. You're right, it's time for the children to decide if they're going to do the job they were elected to do.

Shameful Mr. Wilson, juvenile and irrational and downright shameful - but that's the face of todays gop - anyone interested in joining that mess?

mudge,

I really think, and I think SciTim alluded to it, that we are in a big game of misdirection.

Congress is made up of millionaires (not completely, but they are not hurting). I do know that we all, as tax paying Americans, pay for the coverage of Federal and State and Local employees. Insurance premiums paid to the insurance carriers in play indirectly pay for the services to medical providers for the rest of us.

This is along with direct payments to medical services which are made by jurisdictions, states and the Federal Govt.

We are so far away from billing a reasonable amount for a service that THAT is the problem.

I DO have a problem with private companies taking a percent of an indirect payment, then, when the time comes to pay up for the individual who might be the "vehicle" for that payment needing services, that the coverage is denied.

If you check the jobs listings on the Post and Craigslist right now, you could find a number of openings for health care billing analysts. Their job is to find ways to bill more for the services already being provided. Figure that a hospital like Suburban could actually believe that the hiring of one person and costing the hospital about $250,000 per year would be a positive cash flow effort just shows that hospitals need to ramp up billing.

I remember when I was working at AHCPR (name changed now) that the Docs there would joke about bills for motorized gurneys. We would look at the bills from a hospital and that's all they used. No standard gurneys were billed. Go to that hospital and you couldn't find a motorized gurney. The game is coding up the bill.

I thought of Parliament last night and although I realize we are not Britain, no great harm was done. I was and am tremendously amused that Wilson's upcoming Democrat opponent is getting donations hand over fist. I hope they continue.

One of the things about illegal aliens is that no one knows their true legal identities. That's how it's done. (Odd that the construction industry, whose leaders, often big Republican supporters, exploited the lower wages for years.) In any case, denying public health care to identity thieves is a perverse and puzzling method of punishment / enforcement. Not to mention a violation of almost any established ethical religious system that exists.

Today I have been trying to find the comparative cost of trauma care and am having a hard time. And thinking about how much trauma care is already covered by various auto insurance policies, not health insurance policies. It may only be relevant to a certain small (6%? still unclear) percentage.

I should remember to Google things. A take on "What if Wilson was in Parliament?"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aEsEQBT6V.jA

OK, now, here's news from another planet. This is copied from a blurb on AOL this morning about Charlie Sheen's own type of paranoia:

"Sheen, who believes that the September 11 terror attacks were carried out by the U.S. government, gave an interview to PrisonPlanet.com in the form of a fictional conversation he'd like to have with President Obama. In it, Sheen -- a self-proclaimed '9/11 Truther,' a conspiracy theory group doubting official reports on 9/11 -- declares that "the official 9/11 story is a fraud."

Sheen goes on in his nonexistent conversation with the president to say that "9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception." He goes on to say that former President George Bush used the attacks as a way to create a war with Iraq."

My first thought is that if W and cronies really did do the deed (which I dismiss out of hand), they would have declared martial law almost immediately after the attacks and turned themselves into a fascist dictatorship. I'm not condoning a lot of the stuff they did do in the name of national security, but this is just nonsense.

I can't help but wonder if the folks at General Foods object to the use of Kool-Aid as a euphemism for group insanity?

Jumper, yes, and everyone is allowed a response and reasonable retort, etc. I would have enjoyed a bit of "correction" from Obama. I used to very much enjoy Tony Blair's question time because you could see folks in opposition walk into "open doors" and get popped. It was as if the questions were being anticipated.

I know it is not the American way, but for once, I would like to see Obama question the hypocrisy like Blair did on a routine basis. Back to Mudge's point about the venue for the evening being a joint session, I think that one couldn't pick a better place than right in front of the Republican Party big wigs who, to a person, have few talented speakers. At best, McCain can rival or even surpass Obama with a joke.

I don't see the two words changing everything. The speech and the churlish response did nothing to change the fundamentals. There are many stakeholders in the current health care scheme and I don't think anything said by anybody last night changes their positions opposing reform. Nor did anything said galvanize their opponents enough to overwhelm them.

While Achenbach thinks the opponents of health care lost because of Joe Wilson, my feeling is that Obama lost by raising the political stakes with a losing hand.

From the Real Estate Section of the Onion (news for Jumper):

Who Needs Linda?

Put that painful divorce behind you with this 456-sq.-ft. studio apt. The galley kitchen is ideal for microwaving half of a Subway meatball sub, while the living space adequately accommodates the futon on which both Connor and Tyler will be sleeping every other weekend. Plus, the cozy shower stall is a perfect place to break down and question how everything went so wrong!

For instance, russianthistle, McCain designated Sarah Palin to be his VP candidate. Not sure Obama has ever come up with a bigger joke than that.

Not trying to disagree with you here, but the spittoons-and-snuffboxes line brings to mind an incident most people who've read mid-19th-century American political history will have heard of: where South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner nearly to death on the floor of the Senate (during tensions over slavery, but Brooks felt Sumner had insulted a relative of his....) So I'm afraid maybe incivility's not as aberrational as we like to think.

But the beating was with a cane, a gentleman's walking stick. Hard to attempt murder with much more civility than that.

To some extent, Weed, I'm inclined to agree there is a fair amount of misdirection going on, although some of it for a good reason, which is that the absolute truth is so unpalatable that no one dare say it outright. In my view a lot of the problem is the insurance industry. Obama made a point of saying he had no desire to dismantle it -- but as a thought experiment, let's ponder what would happen if he *did* declare war on that industry. There'd be hell to pay, is what would happen. So no one can actually say what they want to do to the insurance industry; it has to be couched in opolite rhetoric of "reforming" it and "making it accountable."

"Making it [they, him, us, whoever] accountable" has become an almost meaningless cliche. When you hold someone accountable in a job, sometimes it means you fire the idiot who did [whatever he/she] did. Sometimes it means you fine a corporation [or person] or send them to jail. The U.S. government "held accountable" the conspiracy that assassinated Lincoln-- by which we mean, they hanged the b@st@rds. So "holding accountable" is a euphemism covering a range of meanings.

It is currently just about impossible to state -- much less implement -- the idea of aboloshing the insurance companies, or of even severely cutting them down to size. Thus we have a series of reforms politiely couched. No more pre-existing conditions, no more rejections, etc. But what is being said is, "We're going to try to emasculate the insurance companies, and hope they don't notice."

They will, of course, fight back, but without actually declaring war on the president or Congress. It's called "lobbying."

One could debate the fundamental question of why health care is a "business" at all, any more than education is a "business" (it isn't, for the most part), or whether law enforcement is a business (again, 98% "no"). You can debate it--but you can't implement a dissolution of the insurance industry. Just not happening, so why bother. So the only alternative is to try to tame it, which is possibly do-able.

If Obama told the GOP that jumping of a cliff will kill you, they'd jump to prove him wrong.

Hey Joe Wilson: jumping of a cliff won't kill you.

Splat.

ScienceTim,
I was just trying to give some credit for being a good joke teller in all seriousness. (did I say that?)
There is a huge gap as you personally know, between entertaining people live and then trying to convince them of something.

The final few minutes of last night's speech was riveting (for me). It was a pin drop moment. He was wrapping up the "story" of how we got there and what we need to do.

From now on, I won't be able to see Palin without picturing THAT Turkey getting in behind her. Totally unaware.

Hey, lostinthemiddle. Is this your first visit to the Achenblog? If so, welcome aboard. I've seen your handle a couple of times in other blogs, and liked your stuff.

unfortunately, the time someone should have yelled "you lie" is when Bush was selling the lies that got us into the Iraq war...have they found those WMD's yet?

mudge, ok, I agree with your point and that is what I meant by saying that the most salient part of the speech was the "no cancellation, no pre-ex" part of the speech.

Again, both considerations got standing O's from the Republicans. I think the strategy is to get the insurance carriers to back away, and not try to fight them. The Republicans will start moving away from this stance tonight, I would think. They have to.

If they got blind-sided, that was it.

Hey, lostinthemiddle. Is this your first visit to the Achenblog? If so, welcome aboard. I've seen your handle a couple of times in other blogs, and liked your stuff.

Posted by: curmudgeon6 | September 10, 2009 11:35 AM |
_______________________________

Thank you sir. Happy to be here.

If you force insurance companies to insure all comers, regardless of health history, what would keep a person from going bare, then purchasing insurance once their health costs looked like they might rise, after their first serious health care crisis?

The only way to cover this recipe for increased costs is to mandate insurance for all. That means that you must force a regressive "tax" on the poorest, healthiest cohort in the nation, the young to pay for the infirmities of age of an already propertied older class. This hardly seems fair either.

I hardly think the Sumner-Brooks kerfluffle, which took place only 153 years ago, constitutes much of a "trend" linked to Wilson's boorishness last night.

Also, as Ivansmom very ably pointed out, shouting "You lie!" is substantially different from all other kinds of heckling. You can call someone a jerk an idiot, blind (directed toward, say,....umpires), "Beast!", "Cad!", or whatever, but accusations of lying are different. They are not permitted in court, as Ivansmom says, and they are not permitted in Parliament, as someone else said. So one needs to consider the specific content of Wilson's remark. Wilson could have boo'ed Obama or given him the raspberry, and it would have been a different (and lower) order of magnitude insult. "You suck!" would have been OK, "You lie," no.

edbyronadams,

I enjoyed your post.

It reminded me of my first graduate level seminars in economics. It came at me as a mishmash of what I didn't know and what I didn't understand.

So . . . let's think about this. What if Representatives and Senators could only run for 2 terms? Wouldn't they think less about keeping their jobs for, oh, say, 40 years, and might they think more about why they were elected in the first place -- to represent what's best for their constituency? They wouldn't have to be constantly filling their coffers with corporate donations, or seeking approval from the extremes of their party -- they could just do their jobs! What a concept. I'll just bet the Founding Fathers NEVER anticipated that our senators and representatives would become career politicians, always running for the next campaign win.

Posted by: sherrycn | September 10, 2009 9:46 AM | Report abuse

Yeah, let's think about it.

Let's forget everything we understand about learning curves and experience. If you're a doctor, let's make you leave medicine after eight years because after that you're just in it for the money. If you're a baseball player, we trade you after two years because you don't care about the fans anymore. Does it matter that experience makes you better at the job, and that your professional relationships give you opportunities that rookies don't have?

Nah.

We just hate government so much that we fire people who are good at it.

On the other hand, if jerrymandering were prevented, and the elections actually did reflect voter preferences, then elected officials might remember that they actually work for their constitutents. That's the solution you're looking for. Reelecting someone on merit is a good idea. Having no real choice isn't.

"That means that you must force a regressive "tax" on the poorest, healthiest cohort in the nation, the young to pay for the infirmities of age of an already propertied older class."

No, ed, it doesn't necessarily mean that. It is simply the only way *you* can think of, but that doesn't mean it is really the "only way." (See Straw Man argument.)

"And that’s what Democrats were doing during W’s 2005 State of the Union Speech when they booed and shouted down his remarks about the need for Social Security reform."

Hmmm. Sounds like hydrant-marking to me. Unless, of course, the poster has some - you know - proof.

curmudgeon6 - I wasn't suggesting a really slow-moving trend; just questioning whether the past was quite as rosy as some think it was. My basic point was that human nature is human nature. Which certainly doesn't excuse Wilson's behavior. If you can't rise above human nature when the occasion calls for it, perhaps you shouldn't be in adult professions like elective office.

Yes, MCzar, you *were* in fact trying to link two events 153 years apart.

Also, no one thinks the past was rosy.

mudge, I can't decide whether to pay Jon for Snap or Yoki for Snort.

Oh, fabulous. An unnecessary argument about what I meant. In some people's book, THAT'S incivility. I'm outta here.

It is the way proposed by the president, with his flawed auto insurance analogy. Driving is optional, breathing is not.

In fact, forcing health insurance purchase is the most common thread in most health care proposals in Congress. Alas, young people do not have enough experience to organize themselves to oppose such measures.

Here's some debunking info from FactCheck.org. You'll need to scroll down a bit to catch the part about health care for illegal immigrants: http://factcheck.org/2009/07/misleading-gop-health-care-claims/

So, "JPK2000," (or others) let's see your evidence that "illegals" will be covered under the plans under consideration.

I have not thoroughly backboodled, but skipped ahead to say two things-

ftb-Keillor is supposed to make a full recovery, going home this week (tomorrow?)

Congress does not get free health care!! They have the same insurance choices all other federal employees get. When he is defeated I don't even think Wilson qualifies for COBRA.

While Congress is having all that fun we're still waiting for the confirmation of the US Ambassador to the US' largest commercial partner. Obama's friend Jacobson was nominated on June 7th. Apparently Senator Dodd isn't happy about sumtin' and he is holding out.

It's not easy being taken for granted. *pouting*
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Wait+continues+ambassador+Canada/1978355/story.html

I said a MP can't say another MP lied or is a lier but they can insult each other with gusto. P.E. Trudeau famously called another MP, when he was Pearson's Justice minister I think, a "fuddle duddle" as reported by the Parliament minutes, the Hansard. Fuddle duddle actually rhymes with "Tucking Mustard".

I agree.

The Republicans brought this mess on with their idea that it's more important to win at any cost. Their hatred of the Federal Government of the United States will filter back down to hatred of America. It wouldn't surprise me if we get another Timothy McVeigh somewhere.

On a lighter note, I'd like to mention ACORN. Not that I believe any of that ACORN stuff, but I want to help my neo-con friends in accelerating their rage. Those heart attacks and bouts of high blood pressure will bring them to the socialized medicine table sooner or later!

MCzar, good point-- elective office requires a certain standard of civility.

It's the whole job, really, to work on problems in a civil manner. I think we, the american voters, are forgetting this, and it is certainly excerabated by mudslinging.

I happen to KNOW we need reform. A lot of people out there know it is absolutely key to our future. I personally have never had a single good experience with a health insurance company. I've had beter experiences with police, government, fire, and even my auto insurance company.

I think the entire premise that private market is always working right is ridiculous. Just look at our current recession, the Great Depression. SOmetimes it HAS to be regulated to get the crooks out of the game, and allow decent businesses to compete fairly by actually providing services, not losing out because their competitors are promising services they don't then deliver.

All this "lies" and so forth is not solving the problem civilly. People are dying. People are going bankrupt. People are deferring opening businesses because they can't afford to keep themselves healthy if they do so.

That's the problem. If somebody wants to make it about "hey, I hate this guy and he shouldn't be in charge"-- tough. He is.

Part of being in Congress is working with people you can't stand ideologically-- emphasis on working with.

And yes, that extends to the basic courtesy of sitting through an presidental address like a good little grown-up or at least, making an excuse to leave.

I realize that some people feel that courtesy conflicts with being "authentic" and "honest."

Tough. It can't all be about you all the time. And this issue is not about the little you that hates this and that.

It's about YOU-- the YOU that means WE. As in "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union..."

Think about that word-- union.

The spectacle last night was worthy of a Manchester United football game and nothing more. The office of the President and the Congressional chambers are sacred. The world watched and we were disgraced. This gives ammunition to our detractors worldwide and the Republican party should be aware of all that means.

If I held the office of President, this gentleman would have been in my office with Speaker Pelosi at 8:05 am giving an explanation of his behavior. When you disrespect one President in Congressional chambers you give permission for future presidents, including one from your party, to be disrespected in future.

The Founding Fathers are weeping.

"The parties used to be more eclectic and less ideologically regimented. In the past two decades or so, they've become more philosophically homogeneous -- there are no liberal Republicans to speak of, for example."

And the example on the Democrat side would be - what? The Blue Dogs? They're regimented with the progressives and the moderates, are they? The Democratic Party is diverse and represents America. The Republican Party is regimented and represents Rush Limbaugh and Big Business.

Jeez. With all that happened last night, the WaPo lede story is now this: "GOP Unsatisfied with Malpractice Efforts"

The deck: "Ideas president embraced stopped short of the federal limits on malpractice awards that the GOP and the nation's physicians have sought for years"

*tearing out what little hair I have on my cranium*

South Carolina has a long and distinguished history, extending back to earliest days of our nations pre-history.

Many brave, honorable and distinguished men, including many republicans, have come from and represented this great state.

The one unifying bond that all of these men have had in common, is that no matter how strong their disagreements or even how depraved their conduct, they have behaved honorably and like gentlemen in their public lives. And have thereby often set an example and created a standard of decency and decorum for others to follow.

Until now, that is.

The cause is unknown, but it is apparent from both the conduct of Rep. Wilson and of the governor, that the men of South Carolina, or at least there elected republican leaders, have either lost all sense of decency, or have, at the very least, discarded there historic ability to behave like gentlemen.

The conduct of the governor. But most especially that of Rep. Wilson in his disrespect for the President of the United States, in a joint secession of congress, televised live to the entire world, goes far beyond all limits of decency and decorum.

While it is clear that Rep. Wilson is obviously not a gentleman, it would become him to at the very least demonstrate that in some small measure, he is a man. And do so by apologizing to the president and resigning his seat. And do so publicly and immediately on the house floor.

However, assuming that Rep. Wilson is lacking in the qualities of a man, as much as he is obviously lacking in the qualities of a gentleman, it is incumbent on the house republicans, especially those from South Carolina, to sponsor and vote to have Rep. Wilson permanently expelled from the house.

Such action will demonstrate to the world, that at the very least, some republicans retain there sense of honor and are, at least in some small measure, still gentlemen.

Edbyronadams.. I'm a young person. how about health insurance loans?

A lot of students risk getting dropped by their health insurance companies because they can't always pay on time. I had a friend who went through considerable stress fighting to keep covered in graduate school because of cash flow issues. She didn't have a credit card then, and who wants to pay the high interest rates?

We have student loans for school. Maybe it's time we started taking this health insurance for the young issue seriously. They're the most likely to be in uninsured jobs or have gaps in insurance and also have high rates of accidents that wind them in emergency rooms-- they are healthier and not chronic consumers of health care, but when they do need it, BAM.

I went without health insurance because the student health insurance I paid for, applied coverage "immediately" instead of when I was to start school-- and sent me no card, no billing information, nada. That wiped out my health insurance budget and I spent weeks trying to get that money back or at least the coverage changed to when I really should have been covered.

After that false start, I absolutely did NOT want to pay them another red cent. I took the risk to my health because I was so angry at being ripped off. I had already exhausted my short-term insurance under Minnesota law which apparently restricts how long an unemployed person can apply for health insurance.

I happen to believe that insurance companies are filling the pockets of state legislators to help them monopolize markets. I think a nation-wide marketplace is a very good idea. I'd like to buy insurance and keep it when I move. I couldn't do that.

Now, I took the risk because knew I could start a new insurance in only a few months' time. But it wasn't fun.

And it's not the first time, either. I want truth in advertising, I don't want endless restriction and excuses not to cover my conditions.

I get angry that I can't just buy a second health insurance policy from work for roommates, or be covered in return when I'm in trouble.

I get angry about a lot of things, including that health insurance in fact is not at all priced or handled like any other consumer good or insurance policy I've ever had experience with.

I voted for Obama because I care about health care reform and not getting ripped off.

What about you? You like getting ripped off? Yes? What's your beef then? You can find somebody new to screw you anytime.

Ah, speaking truth to power. Feels good, but it's dangerous.

I read Tom Shales' column last night and thought it was fine. I suppose it's a device to start from a premise you are going to prove wrong. Here's the last paragraph:
"He was positioning himself as the bright, ambitious young president up against the stodgy old defenders of a corrupt status quo. He was like a presidential version of Jefferson Smith attempting to survive the slings and arrows of crass politicians acting on orders from big business. Such was the image that emerged from the speech, and it's hard to think of another living politician who could have put it over with more oomph or elegance."

I feel for Joe Wilson, in a way. Given how the GOP Congressional leadership has been boasting for months about their tight party discipline, I have no doubt this outburst was planned. For whatever reason, Joe Wilson was picked to deliver it, getting the chance to become the new conservative hero (which still may happen).

Unfortunately, when the response was overwhelmingly negative he had to fall on his sword and take the heat on his own. Of course, him being from South Carolina, this probably will improve his chances of re-election.

Here's a list of lies and the lying liars who tell them:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/08/18/the_most_outrageous_us_lies_about_global_healthcare

No no, MCzarPhila, don't leave yet!! Mudge was just being precise as to how he understood your post. Knowing Mudge, I'm sure no offense was intended. As an aside - if you hang out here a while you'll notice none of us much views the past - recent or distant - with rose-colored glasses.

Your handle is too good for us to lose you. I find it charming partly because I mentally insert an extra "l", like Godzilla. "MCzzzzarphilla!!!!" That's a good thing.

sorry to disagree with you, mr. joel, but in this case it seems necessary. the 'two words' have changed nothing, really. they may have made things a bit more clear, but the level of hatred that has been exposed has been there all along. and we all know why. from what state does the 'you lie' shouter hail? 'nuf said. this has been going on since lincoln was president. it will not stop now and it is a fight worth having. as they say in my neighborhood, 'was that your best shot? let's dance.'

bpai_99,

I wouldn't assume anything about South Carolina. I am just pulling data out of my $#&* but, as I remember, the state is at least 30% comprised of ethnic minorities.

Then, there are many progressive whites in the state. The state offers a nice blend of rural and farm communities and wonderful cities. There is a strong military influence and, as we have seen in the past two to three years, the military has brought not only comfortable integration, but also a recent willingness to accept a broader and open Democratic party as we saw in the Virginia Tidewater region.

It is, to me, funny that an avowed "Birther" like Wilson would feel a need to apologize to the Manchurian Candidate when we all know that, even if Obama were not born in Hawaii as all the evidence points, he would still qualify to be President by the Constitution and our laws...

... for the same reason that McCain would.

It is a mute point.

Where have I seen the dismissive, disrespectful and distrustful attitude of the GOP representatives towards our black President before? Oh yes, in the town hall meettings orchestrated by the GOP and in the comments of the "birther" fringe. We do not live and will never live in a post racial America until the disgraceful attitudes fostered by the southern fraction of the GOP ends. Let us proceed with the monumental task of governing this great nation an let the ignorant, hateful and bigoted fringe behind.

An update on Rep. Wilson...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091002051.html

this column and so many like it are what happen when the government and the mainstream media are on the same page. it's not pretty. it's kinda pravdish.

this column and so many like it are what happen when the government and the mainstream media are on the same page. it's not pretty. it's kinda pravdish.

Well, except that Pravda doesn't have sudoku.

Jrguzman,
Can you remember back to the PA primaries when the Clinton campaign allowed a bit of the racial undertones to sneak out and the whole thing turned into a mess? I think that was--as a matter of coincidence--when the Kennedys stepped forward for Obama. That was certainly when I totally left any support for Hillary behind.

I found those memories to be very negative. That was it. My point is that Republicans have no corner of overt or covert racism. Nor does the south. Before this moment (but after Bill started some of the kurfuffle), Obama beat Hillary by 46% to 22%. Then Obama lost the general election in SC by 9% points.

The numerical margin between McCain and Obama turned out to be about 160,000 votes.

Basically, my point is that you are right that there remains a problem in America, but I think it really misinformed to lay it at the feet of the Republicans or the south in general.

Sometimes the same page happens to be the correct one.

*pravdish*? Um, wha?

Mudge, are you sure, I would think that they would have much harder Sudokus ... and also easiers ones for those folks that want to do a puzzle, but just drank a bottle and a half of vodka.

While questionable as to time, place and appropriateness, Wilson's words were the most honest words spoken during the entire speech.

Nah, Steveb.

Nyet, Tovarish Weed. Pravda has crossword puzzle, has Celebritology column (its "Lost" commentary generally concerns who is coming and going from Gulag), has much sports page, has Omskbudsman column, has no want ads since the classifieds are of course classified (you expected something else?) and also because in Workers' Paradise no one wants anything, has wonderful "Dining Out" section listing Moscow's Top 50 borscht bars, and has humorous column by Evgeny Borisovitch Weingartski who calls up bureaucrats in Minsk, Pinsk and Chelybinsk and asks them funny questions, such as "How long is glorious Trans-Siberian Railroad?" and "Have you got Prince Borodin in a can?"

No sudoku.

In Achenpravda, you not find boodle; boodle find you.

Wait!!! This is not the way to my hotel!

Hey, who are you?!!?!?

Sorry, steveb777, your drive-by argument failed the truth test. Here's the Truth-o-Meter write up:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/09/joe-wilson/joe-wilson-south-carolina-said-obama-lied-he-didnt/

£352000/$580000 for a dog? And this one probably drools and doesn’t even write haikus.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6828862.ece

It also shows where the balance of wealth has shifted. China had a modest amount of growth this year. Compare that to what happened here.

Fresh data still hot from the press on income, poverty and health insurance coverage in the US:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/news_conferences/014226.html

“In 2008, 39.8 million people were in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007 -- the second consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty”

Holy carp, 30% is a still big number!
“The percentage of uninsured Hispanics decreased to 30.7 percent in 2008, from 32.1 percent in 2007”

jp1954,

Just keep handing out $50.00 citations for continuing the falsehood from behind the billboard at your lie-(speed)-trap.

Unless there's a good chance of a brawl breaking out on the floor of the chamber, I'd rather watch a hockey game.

Politics, smallitics, I just want quality entertainment!

I went to the fights and a congressional address broke out.

Sad commentary on the GOP. When the repsect goes, so goes their party. The world did not end when Obama spoke to the school children on Monday; North Korea did not become a world player when Clinton stepped in to have 2 journalists freed; and America's health care system can be set straight.

But if you continue to follow the negative connotations of the GOP leadership, you are following the blind, who are being led into a mid field.

Obama lied? That is not the question, the question needs to be "Where are the Republicans with ideas that will work?" Thanks to folks like Cheney and Rove, that party was sequestered and is now lost.

This country needs a sound, two-party (or more) system where ideas are presented, debated and plans are enacted to make America stronger. Not talking to foreign leaders who think differently, using torture at will, spreading vile hatred at sound ideas...these are signs of a party in disarray. Can someone on the Republican side stand up and present sound arguments, show true statesmanship, and stop crying that the "sky is falling?"

Hey WW, good to see you! :-)

Wilbrod_Gnome,

I don't feel ripped off. I have been a paying member of Kaiser Permanente, the grandfather of HMOs, for years. I am a net contributor since I use their service so infrequently. I am one of the age group that would be primary beneficiaries of a new system, too young for Medicare, old enough to be a property owner but I remember what it was like being young and trying to establish myself. I went bare by choice until fatherhood loomed. An additional mandated expense would have been very unwelcome back then.

Still trying to get caught up, but just wanted to say Mudge you 1:33 made me snort coffee out my nose!

Sorry, dmd. *faxing Bounty quicker-picker-upper roll*

Just a moment to drop in and I hope that no one has already posted this, but what would Reagan do?

http://www.superpoop.com/091009/what-would-reagan-do.jpg

Hey Whacky-Weasel! You mentioned hockey and the season's gonna start up soon.

*putting Detroit Red Wings jersey on for luck, knowing a fat lotta good that did me last year*

Yoki -- i trust you are home and well rested (or "well, rested. . .") to note that WW mentioned hockey. That makes three of us who sit up straighter at that word (well, mainly because we understand the versatility of hockey sticks). . . .

As an addendum to Ivansmom's post earlier about not using the word "lie" (or any of its permutations) in open court -- the same is true in pleadings presented to the court in a lawsuit. Thus, one becomes pretty facile in presenting the concept without actually stating the word itself. It's kinda fun, really.

No lie.

WaPo headline: "Gaucho's Days Are Numbered"

So sad. I loved him in "Duck Soup."

My, such a day!

The Geekdottir is 23, is working as a contractor, and has purchased health insurance. It's basic, with a high deductible, but she's covered in the event of major illness or accident. So yes, it can be done.

Insurance companies should be not-for-profit. Think of all the subtle and not so subtle changes if they aren't allowed to make gobs of money!

We have got to get away from wanting our personal health care to be effective, but everyone else's to be efficient. We need to engineer the system so that there is a decent balance between effectiveness and efficiency.

Pearlstein answered the "I'm young and healthy" argument very well in his chat yesterday-

"First, you may get hit by a truck one day and have to get fixed up at great expense at a hospital. If you don't have enough money to pay the bill, which is likely, it will be charged to "free care," which means that all the rest of us who do have insurance will have to pick up the cost. By requiring everyone to have insurance, the premiums for those of us who now have it will be reduced a bit, which seems only fair. (The hospital must treat you whether you have money or insurance or not, because that is what we do in a civilized country).

Second, insurance schemes are always about cross subsidies, from those who don't have an accident or a medical problem in a given year to those who do. We want such schemes because we never know what year we are going to have those bad events, and because we don't want to take the risk that next year will be my year and I won't have enough money, or have saved enough money, to get buy without it.

Now in your case, you probably won't get your money back while you're young -- that's what the probabilities are. But by throwing in your premium, you will allow the insurance company to lower premiums for everyone else. And at some point in the future, you will get old and grey and need more health care, and at that point, because there are other young people in the pool, your premiums will be lower than if those young people could continue to opt out.

So on a life-cycle basis, it winds up being a wash -- you subsize when you are young and/or health, and you get subsidized when you are older and sicker."

For once, I contribute to the discussion!

As part of that group of young folks, I understand I may take a hit when health care reform rolls around, just like I understand Social Security may not be in great shape by the time I get there. It's worth it. We're approaching epidemic levels of terribleness in health care and if a literal epidemic hits? Oh boy.

It causes me grumpiness and nausea when I hear certain people (no one present has done this, just to be clear) invoking the terrible burden and debt on "our children and grandchildren" and how said children will surely shake their heads sadly and wish "if only they'd left everything alone, by gum," as we shuffle around in our sackcloth.

I don't give one flying flip what the deficit or my supposed future taxes will be. We'll handle it when it comes. I just want there to be a country still here to live in when I'm 50, preferably a first-world one.

I'm so turned off by the rude and obstructionist behavior of both parties, I watched baseball instead. I vote, I read about the issues, but I find myself increasingly depressed about our democracy. I didn't vote for Obama, but I would have accorded him the respect due his office if he spoke at a gathering. Why can't these congresspeople grow up? Do they have no sense that their jobs are about solving problems, not creating more?

Strangely, I saw "Gaucho's Days Are Numbered" and thought "Better get those Girl Scout cookies before they're all gone."

Have you seen the little piggies
crawling in the dirt?
And for all the little piggies (average American)
life is getting worse,
always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies (republicans)
in their starched white shirts?
You will find the bigger piggies
stirring up the dirt,
always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their styes with all their backing
they don't care what goes on around.
In their eyes there's something lacking
what they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of (bigger) piggies
living (bigger) piggy lives.
You can see them out for dinner
with their (bigger) piggy wives
clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.

Personally, I saw that headline and wondered if Steely Dan had decided to remove that album from the discography...

woo me, scotty.

Hey, I have done about an hour or two of googling total and can't come up with anything on Verizon and FCC and spying. I did find some stuff that is to much sausage making on DS1 DS3 forbearance rulings that were not appropriate in my view, but also post date by a year anything that would be a quid pro quo.

I did find some techy references to VZ sharing foreign carrier data with some agency that will not be named.

I just know that several baby bells did not initially go along with the Bush Administration when they started tapping into the net. Knowing VZ, they were negotiating. Everything to VZ is just negotiation. It isn't that VZ wouldn't take your grandmother, it is more about how much they would get paid for doing so.

To my knowledge Qwest never folded and were threatened with the death penalty for their actions. As they used to say, somehow, the Feds "would make their lives very difficult."

TBG - reagan would spout some feel good little homily, lower taxes on the rich, cut secret deals with iranian terrorists and latin American thugs..... Ah, there is not enough room to list all the dumb things he would do. But dammit, we'd all feel good while he did it. I hope all you idiot republicans are satisfied now that you've put us in this mess. It's gonna take a couple of dozen Obamas and about a hundred years to fix it all. In the meantime, enjoy your stay in the political wasteland.

Interestingly, one of my friends had serious problems with Kaiser-- she did manage to keep coverage, which she was lucky to have.

You're satisfied because you have a steady job, and presumably are married, perhaps with a second income and insurance option.

You were okay going without. The point is, what would happen if you weren't? You'd have been up the creek in medical bills, possibly become too disabled to work (thanks to lack of thorough care due to having no insurance).

And you wouldn't be able to afford Kaiser now.

Adrienne:

http://www.truthout.org/032009R

Reagan the Socialist--wealth redistribution

an essay by Dr. Ravi Batra

Have a great day!

And I must say that people who are too poor to afford health insurance would be exempted from any penalty, which you'd know if you had listened to that part, but I understand you probably got distracted by anger right after.

As for being a net contributor, you should be grateful for your health and hope that lasts throughout your life. That'd be great.

I'm dealing with my dad having cancer right now, his chemo drugs costs 35K a year. That's over 100 bucks a pill. He rarely went to the doctor before he retired.

That's another source of insane health care costs, I must say. Another part that need sore reform.

Precursor to the next Civil War. Not one between two distinct cultures as was seen in the War Between the States. Instead one between "classes".

We see a Republican dogma of protectionism. Protecting their "Haves" in a world that appears to them to be trying to take way what they have "earned". Ignoring the possibility that the Have-Nots were a large part of providing the lifestyle they are currently accustomed.

Yet the same is true on the Democratic side. Protecting their "NewAge Haves". People in Santa Barbara with way more money than they know what to do with ... willing to pay lip service to what they believe in, yet still helping to create ever more hurdles for the Have Nots to reach their level.

And who is representing the "Have Nots"? No one that I can see. The government still continues to charge extra money for even the smallest service. Taxes aren't enough. Now social security isn't enough. Medicare as bad as it is isn't enough. You need to have the money to hire Insurance companies to deal with that mess for you. The "Have Nots" keep getting slammed down yet like stubborn nails that keep popping up in board they continue to try to rise above it.

So, here we are ...

Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

3rd President of the US Thomas Jefferson.

adrienne_najjar...

You didn't click on the link, did you?

My dad voted for Obama, and he was a lifelong republican.

Something about seeing up close and really realizing how corruption, waste, greed, and unfair marketing practices in the insurance company can kill people-- that does change one.

I am actually grateful for your viewpoint.

I wish you and your family that you have the luxury forever of not having to change that viewpoint by necessity.

Please realize that many other people do not have this luxury, and that our economy may not have the luxury of having people drop out of the system and only go back in when they're already ill and in need of care.

Adrienne makes interesting use of the Beatles "piggies" song, but I thinks it warps the original song's intent. The Beatles were attacking the Man and anyone who worked for or bought into it, the Silent Majority, "straights" before that referred to sexual orientation, the man in the gray flannel suit, those who bought into corporate America with its consumerism and greed, and basically anyone who embraced the middle class. That included Democrats and Republicans (to an extent, if you claimed membership in a political party you were part of the enemy) and wasn't confined to rich people.

I like the song (I still have the White Album almost memorized after hours of daily listening). I can't hear or think of it now, however, without remembering Manson and the Tate/LaBianca murders. Charles Manson was an insane extremist, but he got that song right.

Obama's speech would not have scored as positive an impact were it not for the extreme current he is running against (as exemplified by Joe Wilson) to do what he feels is right. I think Wilson has been paid to stage this fiasco. No sane individual would be able to do so on his own accord and unless there is something in it for him

I think the operative word is "sane," Kingofkings1.

Pax, Weed.

My only point involved going beyond what's known (ILECS and RBOCs won the battle) and spinning an unsupported scenario.

I expect nothing else from the boorishly defiant losers of the last electoral cycle. It is just politics as usual. We are swiftly deteriorating into an ungovernable set of sheep, led by screeching political provocateurs who would do or say anything to regain their ascendancy (read jobs as the "in" party).

Sorry for boodleskimming, but has anyone posted the "We're #37!" song yet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ehuffingtonpost%2Ecom%2Fpaul%2Dhipp%2Fwere%2Dnumber%2D37%5Fb%5F281979%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

Pretty rotten analogy of Pearlstein about young folks getting hit by a truck. The trucking company insurance pays for mowing down pedestrians. Or at least the vat majority of them.

Thanks for the Steely Dan reminder, Snuke. They're doing the Aja show here on Oct 12 - I just bought a cheap seat in the balcony.

If Bill Clinton was so hot, how come he got all mad at people who spoke out against "corporate welfare?"

Scotty, Those times were a mishmash of activity and business changes. I do know that the FCC (Martin) was behaving poorly, I would say that many allowances were made for the major carriers, some will or already have started to bite them in the arse.

my point was only a true question, that's all.

I can tell you that my phones and mail were being monitored as authorities were telling me, quite matter-of-factly, what I knew from telephone conversations only minutes after those conversations when they would call me with requests. I had rather say no more, but this is indeed true.

And, I was not alone. But to be clear, I wasn't the target. Also, I know that there were some of you out there that "knew" more about this than I. I will say that I have probably watched in amazement more FCC activities and our State activities about this subject more than most.

Vat of mowed down pedestrians...new tax or soylent green?

We witnessed an example of Republican Christian Family Values we are to follow. Yes disrespect is just fine as long as you don't do it to a Republican. No one would dare do that to President Bush. Now Rep. Wilson got a bonus check for his performance from the Insurance Company as Wilson already got 240,000 dollars. Yes many Law Makers have been paid by the Insurance Company to vote against US citizens and now we know who these Dems and Republicans are. Look we only have a few Law Makers and now a President and Vice President that are working for the American People the others are working for Big Business and those kick backs. Republicans using God and Christian Family Values is now a complete joke. Even God is no longer listening.

That "We're number 37" is a great song, DNA Girl! Thanks for the link. Crazy cat and rabbit people unite!

TBG - couldn't get to link, but it doesn't matter. Reagan was an ahole (I knew it as far back as 1966) and I don't need to read anything else either in support of that fact, or attempting to refute it. THX

That was a great song, DNA_girl. Thanks for the link. (I e-mailed it to a dozen peeps.)

adrienne... it was a web comic and far from supporting Reagan. You must be new here.

Here it is with a safer URL (although the link is perfectly safe for work)...

http://tinyurl.com/pjxyfr

I think you'll enjoy it!

I'm still giggling over someone thinking I would have anything to say in support of Ronald Reagan.

tee hee

TBG!!!! did you see the giant crab video from the Onion?

He could really act with chimps.

Actually I used to work with a young woman who was hit by a truck. She was driving her Honda Civic from Tulsa to OKC at night and was rear ended on the OK Turnpike by a semi going 70 mph. She had a spinal injury and had to sue to get anything. The trucker was uninsured, the trailer he was hauling was empty, and neither the cattle company he was hauling for nor their insurer wanted to accept any responsibility. She sued and won (lawyer gets 35%), but they appealed. The award goes into escrow during appeals (and the lawyer's contingency goes up as the case continues). It was years of medical bills, painful mylograms, depositions, exams from defendant's doctors, hearings and on and on before she ever got anything. She's a medical illustrator and the injury affected her left (drawing) hand. The experience influenced every aspect of her life for a decade. The financial award was not that great compared to what she was put through.

Joe Wilson is representative of the boorish louts who now represent the Republican Party. He lacks class and culture and doesn't even possess the decency to show the same grace that the President has tried over and over to show the Republicans in Congress. If any Republican in Congress demonstrates a willingness to at least act in a bipartisan manner, he is immediately condemned and labeled a heretic.
Joe Wilson is a disgrace to his himself, his family, the state he represents, and to the citizens of America. He disgraced us all with his low-class actions last night as did those other worthless Republicans holding up their signs. They acted l like panty-waist fraternity boys instead of professional men.
Joe Wilson was obviously raised by parents with no culture themselves and they passed it down to their kids. I wonder if his own kids have been raised as devoid of decency as he was.
Why are the American people still paying the Republicans in Congress just for showing up. They haven't lifted a finger to do any work for us since Obama took office, actually they never did anything while Cheney was running the government either. I resent paying them for doing nothing. If I sat around all day and did nothing but beef about the guy sitting next to me, I know I wouldn't get paid and wouldn't keep my job. fritz

Hi fritz... I just got an email from Act Blue that says that there has now been more than $400,000 raised for Joe Wilson's opponent since last night. So there's hope he won't be keeping his job.

W. caused all sorts of miraculous things to happen, such as people saying good things about Nixon and Reagan.

Gerrymandering of nearly all political districts has caused this lack of civility. All of these politicians (Republicans and Democrats) have no fear for their jobs because their districts have been modified to insure their reelection.

I totally agree with SF2, gerrymandering is a problem that has only gotten worse with the ability to optimally design districts to fit party objectives.

Heading out. Anybody heard from Yoki today? CqP, you out there?

I doth believe football season begins tonight. Be still, my heart.

Everything I say is a lie.

Now, I'm lying.

bc

Try out this link -- it's the trailer for Michael Moore's new movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhydyxRjujU

It's gonna be on *my* list, I tell ya!

Pardon the interruption of a lively discussion. I see many new handles but need to intrude with some official "We're #37!" business.

I'd like to move that we include in the bylaws the following-

I will aspire to be a net contributor in all that I say and do. Should I need the help, and mojo, of my fellows I will accept it gracefully and be extra careful not to close the door behind me just because "I got mine."

We need a second, and then discussion. What say you CCLs, and auxiliary?

Second!

Boy oh boy, them's some unique page views for our Joel. I'm OK with that.

Yoki!

(((((*****snort*****)))))

<*snip*)

Posted by: curmudgeon6 | September 10, 2009 1:57 PM | Report abuse

Bloody brilliant!

*****

In Achenpravda, you not find boodle; boodle find you.

Posted by: yellojkt | September 10, 2009 2:04 PM | Report abuse

You have a call from Yakov Smirnoff, line one...

We have a second by ftb (thank you). Any discussion?

Mailed a grant app this afternoon that has been bedeviling me for weeks. What diabolical mind decided to set a 6 double spaced page limit (12pt Times New Roman, 1" top bottom, 1.25" left right margins) then requires 9 sections each with a minimum of 3 subsections. Obviously no one who ever had to respond to the thing.

great vid, dna_g!

i think all members of the cclc have a responsibility to spread it far and wide!

That song -- DNA girls video link -- is fabulous!

DNA girl -- that was terrific and I've already shipped it around. Thanks!

DNA Girl!! That song is perfect. Hope our local independent community radio station links to it and plays it on air, as was suggested by one of their biggest fans and 30 year contributor.

The two words could have just as easily been descriptive of the GOP's future as a party: "We're finished."

Call the question, frostbitten.
My vote: aye.

Here's my considered best guess about that grant application: the people deciding on the application requirements differed from the person reading the submissions. Guess which one decided on the page and space limitations?

Hola People;
Not only was the shouting a sign of racism against a president "not like me", but it was meant to deny a truth about "them". Racism, indeed. Shame on us for paying his salary.

I vote aye also!

It blows my mind that France is rated #1 in health care. If that's not humbling, I don't know what is. I do recall that there was a physician on the ambulance that responded to the wreck that killed Princess Diana. That wouldn't happen here, except by chance.

Wilbrod, sorry to hear of your Dad's troubles. Sending luck and strength your way. I'm guessing you have already mentioned it some other time and I just missed it (there is a *lot* of the Boodle to read, you know) but better late than never.

RUBENMORTIZ! I remember you. I wish we'd been more welcoming and less insular.

In France "911" calls are answered by a physician that decides if an ambulance team needs to be dispatched. The ambulance team also has a physician that carries out many of the tasks performed at the ER. Maybe we have to revisit "best in the world" standard. Supply side economics and all ... just saying ... government sponsored infrastructure development and maintenance; horror!! socialism!!

Well, The Ladies' Batsh*t Auxillary is meeting tonight with a chorus director to rehearse our version of the "We're 37" song, arranged in the Mozart manner, which will be a highlight of our High Tea next Sunday at the Club. Newcomers will be warmly welcomed! (If you can sing and read music, of course.)

Hello Yoki;

Is the 21st Century. Some will not recognize the wonderful time we live in because they will be too busy missing "the good old days". I can't wait to face what ever comes next. Even if I also have to learn Mandarin or Hindi. For now we have to tolerate shouted falsehoods from those that don't realize the Internet is up and running. Señor Represante Wilson shame on you!

I like rubenmortiz also. I think some of us were scared by his allcaps. Howdy! Also nice to see butlerguy, always great to hear from whackyweasel, and I coulda sworn I'd seen lostinthemiddle before too. This front-page stuff can be great.

Headache, aches, sore throat, slight runny nose, and low fever. Allergy (cedar fever?) or flu? Que es mas macho?

TBG, the only fun I had today was reading that you're a rethuglican! TeeHee.

RUBEN-perhaps you'd like to join the "We're #37!" Movement

The ayes have it. What next? Official weapon the #37 trebuchet?

Ivansmom-you must be correct, I can think of no other explanation. I prefer not to think badly of this particular foundation's world famous, much admired, pearl wearing founder just because I think one of her sons is such a glass bowl.

Slyness, the French do not rush the victims to the nearest high-tech hospital. They stabilize on-place, then move. It works best over all, statistically, but the very severe trauma that are not possible to stabilize in-situ because emergency surgery is needed do fare poorly. Diana was such a case. She might had a chance at being a very famous living (person/vegetable?) in the US but died on the side of the road in France. The French system does make for a lot less brain-dead patient though. Different strokes, that's all it is. Choices, choices.

Not shouting with ALLCAPS. Is easier to read. Facing blindness and loving it! You all are gorgeous in my opinion ...
"Que es mas macho?" To squeal like a "girl" ...
Thank you folks for tolerating my Inte-rants. Sometimes I just cannot believe what passes for responsible journalism these days. Is it too much too ask what has worked for those 36 societies with better health care ratings? May not be easier than to cover the shouting conservatives, but It Is Closer To The Truth.

Thanks Ivansmom. I really feel for the brave fresh posts, the newbies. We should be welcoming. Southwest, butlerguy (not new at all). St. Moritz (I suspect Moritz is Swiss, but what do I know?). And welcome.

It is lovely to welcome nooBs.

And you can walk off an accident site too in France. I've seen it . The doc released the accident victims on site to family members who were called by the medics. No hospitals involved. What are the chances of that happening in Canada or the US?

"We're #37" R'Us Bro!
Is it not a single payer system when Boeing develops missiles commissioned by the DOD? Or did I miss the WMD aisle in WalMart?

My thoughts on Joe Wilson - tar and feathers.

sd-I imagine that decreases the chances of getting one of those preventable infections we are so fond of inducing in hospital in the US.

Oh, and what's with the Canuckistan/UK use of "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital?" Always wondered, never asked.

Oh, I remember that night, watched it on CNN. I was surprised that she didn't die on impact, to be honest. The picture of that car, crushed like a beer can...

I had the impression they didn't move her because the wreckage was so bad they had to try and stablize her before she could be pulled out-- crush injury can kill when the pressure is removed, allowing internal bleeding to occur.

Maybe SD is right, in the US they'd just have choppered her out and hoped she'd hold on while they worked on the trauma immediately. Somehow I think the end result would have been the same, maybe add a few days.

I loved the "37" video DNA Girl. I wished he used the The Ballad of Lucy Jordan though.

I shared that "We're #37" video with friends. It's a keeper! Thanks DNA Girl!

Yes, Wilbrod, the end result would have been the same if the wreck had occurred in the Lincoln Tunnel...One does not survive shock from a significant tear in the aorta, which was, IIRC, the most serious injury the Princess suffered. She bled out in her chest, and fast.

Shriek, the US theory is that prompt response by lesser-trained personnel (paramedics and emergency medical technicians) will result in more lives saved than by later response of more highly trained personnel (physicians). Stablize, then move fast. Generally, that works pretty well. However, Diana's injury was survivable only if it had occurred less than a block from the trauma center.

So, what percentage of health care costs are trauma care costs?

When you figure in trauma care costs, I think assisted living and group homes for trauma victims with irreversible brain injury needs to be figured in. That's a lot over a lifetime.

Slyness, it's a question of choice. Different choices, different outcomes. I'm fine with both.
Until I die on the side of the road or Obama's death (deth?) panel pulls the plug on me that is.

did you all get todays paper. those pictures were bad. and the one identifying the butterfly wasn't even the right pic.

Going back offline again

"man-up" to Joe Wilson was appearing red faced and frazzled, not to apologize for his cousin humper, red neck ignorance and behaviour, but to acknowledge that "the leadership" directed him to "call the White House."

I'm all for the regrouping and schism of a new confederacy. I've been calling for the texans to leave the union for years. I promise you we will do nothing to save you from yourselves next time.

Getting caught up on things and note Ivansmom most excellent 9:42 post. What is it that the hip kids say nowadays to indicate approval? Oh yes - "Word."

I agree, Wilbrod. That comes under the category of trauma care. It sounds like I might have meant "emergency care" but indeed I wanted to include long term care for result of trauma injury in this category I'm interested in.

Thanky, RD. Or, as the Boy says I should say, fo sho.

Let me just stick up for Texas a little. Yes, it has some wingnuts. Yes, a lot of them are in public office. Yes, the governor apparently has no sense.

However, it's a big state. It has a lot of diversity, an active old American-Hispanic population as well as an old German-American population and a lot of immigrants, an innovative economy (if such can be said these days) and a vibrant arts scene. It has four major cities. There is varied and beautiful scenery. There are varied and various political persuasions, social and religious mores and communities. It ain't all bad, folks. I for one would be sorry to lose Texas from the Union, though I know it is treason for an Oklahoman to say it.

Well, since you went to college in Texas, Ivansmom, I suppose we will grant you the good things about the state. For such a vast place, what passes for hills and trees and rivers in Texas seems awfully short and narrow to this North Carolinian.

I just heard Olbermann say "clusterfox." How risque.

Texas do a good wide flat spot. I've seen lots of them out there. Some with cows or mules on them. They're good at highways too.

I've taken a small step for the "We're #37" group. I've posted the video on Facebook.

Now that I know how to do that, I may be dangerous.

Bwahahahahaha!

(Working on the batsh!t crazy part now)

I just CAN'T resist posting this to the boodle, you all will enjoy the background (if you haven't read it aready):

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/wilsons-outburst-merely-peep.html

Speaking of trauma...

Oblate spheroids are flying near the confluence of three rivers...

:-)

Has someone already posted about the ground squirrel in Banff? (no, not yoki!)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/fame-seeking-banff-squirrel-storms-internet/article1250605/

I don't always follow the links that are posted here...afraid I won't find my way back...so many demands on my time now that I'm not working...So, if it's been mentioned, I apologize a thousand times. I think he's awfully cute.

I dun kilt it?? :-(

RD is correct about Ivansmom's earlier post, it was a gem of lucidity. (I had to check that "lucidity" is really a word, and not something I made up.)

Wow Slyness, SC appears to be plodding forward into the 19th century. Remind me never to go there!

SCC: Remind me to never go there. Do both, so I don't forget.

you didn't kill it, Scotty. The *game* is on. The tiara is at stake.

Went to the pharmacy last Saturday to p/u an inhaler for my wife. Insurance, it turns out wouldn't pay before this past Tuesday, but I was offered the option of walking with it for a mere $260. I have yet to return for the medicine, and my wife is wheezy. Something is out of whack when our tab, after insurance, is $45. The medicine is metered for some 120 doses. That makes it just a tick over $2.10 per dose. Balderdash. You lie, indeed. Sen. Wilson would do well to begin looking for another day job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM6QvNyKv6A&feature=related

I'm in Milwaukee eating artisan Wisconsin cheese and martinis for dinner. Life is good. Now if only GT can get a field goal.

Pittsburgh field goal ties it at 10-10 with less than 3 minutes to go.

You still awake, Scotty? I'm fading fast...

Played soccer tonight. The score ratio was finite -- our team scored a single goal. Plus, we kept them down to a single digit. In each half. I headed the ball three times, although technically I faced it twice. Also, you're not supposed to let it land flat on the top of your head, are you? I feel woozy now.

Oh, jeez. Hines Ward fumbles on the 4-yard line and the Titans recover.

So what should I do in Milwaukee tomorrow? The Pabst Mansion or the Harley Museum? The Miller Tour is a given.

I'd go for the Harley Museum, yellojkt. I guess I like motorcycles more than beer. And then on to Chicago for U2? You lucky ducks!

for my Mom

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V8cQTwP4f8&feature=related

Joe Wilson is representative of the boorish louts who now represent the Republican Party. He lacks class and culture and doesn't even possess the decency to show the same grace that the President has tried over and over to show the Republicans in Congress. If any Republican in Congress demonstrates a willingness to at least act in a bipartisan manner, he is immediately condemned and labeled a heretic.
Joe Wilson is a disgrace to his himself, his family, the state he represents, and to the citizens of America. He disgraced us all with his low-class actions last night as did those other worthless Republicans holding up their signs. They acted l like panty-waist fraternity boys instead of professional men.
Joe Wilson was obviously raised by parents with no culture themselves and they passed it down to their kids. I wonder if his own kids have been raised as devoid of decency as he was.
Why are the American people still paying the Republicans in Congress just for showing up. They haven't lifted a finger to do any work for us since Obama took office, actually they never did anything while Cheney was running the government either. I resent paying them for doing nothing. If I sat around all day and did nothing but beef about the guy sitting next to me, I know I wouldn't get paid and wouldn't keep my job. fritz

papafritz57, please do not spam us. You posted the identical text earlier today.

Another fine column from Gene Robinson:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091003406.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

(Yawn). Spotted one small snake and a marsh rabbit while cutting the grass. All the rabbits in town seem to be the short-eared marsh sort.

The caladiums have nearly all gone dormant until next March. Salvia coccinea is filling in with 3' plants covered with small crimson flowers. http://www.floridata.com/ref/S/salv_coc.cfm

Three Nicaraguan bromeliads that dominate a bed under the front-yard oak have decided to flower. The heads are impressive, but this means the existing, spectacular clusters of leaves will die, leaving young offshoots that will take several years to look impressive again.

When the weather cools off and dries out, it'll be time to clean out the bromeliad bed, putting most of the plants back and potting the leftovers for a big November sale at a local botanical garden.

Moving bromeliads is easy because they have minimal root systems. Difficult because most have spiny leaves.

Morning all, and happy Friday. Cassandra, you up yet? Missing you at dawn patrol.

I'm feeling lazy today, so ham biscuits and appropriate beverages on the ready room table.

Friday is a busy day, so I'm launching early. Tonight we go to Mr. T's home community for barbeque. It will be wondrous.

As much as I love warm weather, I'm ready for the changing of the season. Fall is definitely in the air, and there are many acorns this year, a very good thing.

Later, folks!

Good morning, Boodle. Where is Cassandra?

I'm just packing for my return to Haute Maine. I've had a great time in the DC area, thanks to Boodlers.

*checking the Boodle's nap nook* Nope, no Cassandra here. *worried*

No 'Mudge, didn't make it through the game, but I see the Steelers needed OT to put the pesky Titans away.

Very "meh" kinda day. 'Tis still FRIDAAAAYYYYYYYYY, though. :-)

*extra-degree-of-difficulty-due-to-holding-an-umbrella Grover waves* :-)

'morning all. Where's Cass indeed?

Welcome back Yoki.

And Mother Earth apparently has quite the poke reflex...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/science/earth/11quake.html

Surfing the gravitational tubes from planets to planets, staars to stars. That would be cool.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article6829727.ece

'Morning, Boodle.

Scotty, I folded at the end of regulation play, missed the OT. But glad the Steelers won and Ward's error wasn't fatal. (Although actually I don't think it was Ward's error, but rather a great piece of defensive play.)

I have to grudgingly admire this sentence from Kathleen Parker: "The queen of disapproving glances isn't Nancy Pelosi, who glared at Wilson, but Hillary Clinton, who listened to George W. Bush's State of the Union addresses with the sort of expression one usually associates with sailing the Drake Passage."

I just gotta admire anybody who knows about sailing the Drake Passage...and uses it in a political essay. (As Boodlers scramble to Google the Drake Passage, the nasty, miserable gap between Cape Horn and Antarctica, and about as nasty and miserable as the Strait of Magellan, but with more sea room to maneuver.)

Like a thug? Of course. Look what they defend.

They want no health care for illegal aliens.

Who could support that policy?

So they get angry.

How appropriate.

They should be ashamed.

Yup. Gene indirectly identifies SNW Syndrome.

The only Drake I know is a rapper that used to be on Degrassi TNG (he was the kid that was paralyzed when the whacko shot out of revenge for spilling chicken feathers on him at the brain bowl, but that story gets real complicated).

I know Joel is a big fan of Michael Pollan (as I am not), as are some Boodlers, so here is Pollan's take on the health care reform business: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/opinion/10pollan.html?_r=2&sq=pollan&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=2&adxnnlx=1252609512-GHe2eWoHHcYSsxasVvs8zQ&pagewanted=all

Here's some Drake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb0KowdtK6Y

Speaking of decorous conduct, the President himself accused the Republicans of lying in his speech. No doubt many Republicans in that room felt that the President was speaking directly to them, in effect calling them liars to their face. However, since he had the benefit of being behind the podium, no one was allowed to respond.

Personally, Mr. Wilson looked pretty hot under the collar to me. I don't doubt his outburst was spontaneous and certainly looked heartfelt. While his outburst was, indeed, a serious breech of protocol, some blame has to be laid at the President's feet for provoking it. As a father, if I had witnessed such an exchange between my two children, I would have disciplined them both; not equally, of course, because the infractions were different, but they were both wrong.

btw, the lyrics are NSFW. I did mention he was a rapper didn't I? The video does have some sweet honeys in it.

There is also Drake and Josh, but there is no reason to watch that except for Miranda Cosgrove and iCarly is a much better show.

Morning, Boodle. May need a second shot of caffine today after last night's game. My wife being the die-hard Steelers fan, we of course had to watch till the end. Couldn't believe Hines let the ball get whacked out of his arms. And then having been pumped up, it took a while to get to sleep. Then I have to leave at noon today to drive to the 'Burg to check on our house up there. Hoping the deluge will have abated by then. Driving the PA Turnpike in the rain is no fun. Coming back on Sunday in time to see how bad the 'Skins look against the "Jints".

Tim, there is a soccer story there, I think.

ebtnut, as Esterhaus used to say on HSB, "Let's be careful out there." In my experience of driving in 48 states, 4 foreign countries and the District of Columbia, Pittsburgh has some of the best drivers I have ever encountered. Only the Danes are more courteous, and there is a point where courtesy tips over into rule obsessed wimpery. There has to be a golden mean between the earthbound fighter pilots of Mexico City and the horn wielding taxi scrums of NYC and the robotic wait-for-the-walk-light-and-stay-in-the-crosswalk-on-a-deserted-street-at-3 am Scandanavians, and that golden mean is Pittsburgh.

doncha mean black-and-golden mean, kguy? :-)

I just saw a report that the Coast Guard fired on a suspicious boat on the Potomac. It was on MarketWatch. Has anyone heard about this.

You can tell it's September 11 - tension running high.

LOL, Scotty. But K-guy is right, Pittsburgh drivers are among the best I've been around. The folks there are pretty good, too. It's not uncommon, if you stop and ask someone for directions for them to either offer to hop in and show you or lead you there, never mind what they had been doing. That's one of the reasons retirement up there looks like a good option.

Nope, I'm talkin bout their drivin not their fandom. Their fandom is batshirt crazy. I was sorry to see Polamalu get hurt after playing such a great game last night.

SOMETHING happened between the Memorial and 14th St. bridges, but details are scarce at this point, Wheezy...

And the exact timing of this sounds a little hinky...

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32788180/ns/today-parenting_and_family/?gt1=43001

*shrug*

There's a live feed, but no audio, from the WaPo.

AP says the Coast Guard was conducting a training exercise shortly before Obama's motorcade crossed the bridge on way to Pentagon ceremony. Coast Guard contradicts media report, says no shots were fired.

I am shocked to say this, but...

Wow, wotta column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10/AR2009091003408.html

And not just for the blue language in the lede.

Agreed, Scotty. (First K-hammer column I've read all the way to the end in maybe two years.)

Training Exercise Creates Scare on Potomac

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 11, 2009 10:45 AM

D.C. police say a Coast Guard vessel that appeared to fire live shots at a recreational boat on the Potomac River Friday morning was nothing more than a training exercise and posed no public threat.

Video footage of the incident sparked widespread media coverage and speculation as to whether the allegedly "suspicious vessel" could be linked to commemorations of the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11. 2001 attacks, including a wreath-laying by President Obama at the Pentagon memorial that happened around the same time as the incident.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the incident near the Memorial Bridge was a training exercise. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they could not confirm any information about the incident.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

Isn't WiFi great? It makes a long wait at an airport so much more bearable. My flight has been delayed until after 1:00 pm, so I'm just hanging out.

Mudge-- WWII: rationing & victory gardens.

Today: Health gardens.

Odd day/location for that training exercise isn't it?

There are many convincing arguments that 9-11 was not an inside job by the Bush administration.

The argument that it was too horrible for them to have done so; the level of immorality simply too great for them to have done so, is the weaker argument.

Noted without comment:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/10/wisconsin.sex.assault/index.html

Fruits and vegetables are expensive. This study just in suggests that optimum intake is nearly one pound a day-- 14 oz.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090909064910.htm

100g is 3.51 oz. That's how much you often get served on the side in an American restaurant.

This just struck me as sort of, well, curmudgeonly.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/eight_sailors_suspended_in?utm_source=a-section

kguy, didja read the last line of the caption? "On-the-water umpires immediately ejected Butterworth, who was then forced to swim 17 miles to shore."

Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about!

Hopefully they didn't force him to wear the bacon bikini.

On a slightly more serious note, the reports are that there are now at least 12 great white sharks off Cape Cod, the largest a 15-footer. There are bacon-bikini warnings posted all up and down the coast, along with small hors d'oeuvre advisories.

That's, what, at least a 8 or 9 on the BiggerBoat Scale, right?

Thanks for the info, guys.

Currently cleaning for the plumber. Everyone does this, right? No, my house *never* has cobwebs in the corners behind the toilets, or linty buildup on the laundry room floor. It's always immaculate for the repair guys.

Here's a tip for the sanitation obsessed. In one of my former incarnations I worked as a home inspector for home buyers. When I found a house where the area under and behind the fridge was clean, where the range vent filter was clean, and where the space behind the water heater had no dust bunnies, I knew there was no point in going any further in the schmutz quest. That house also had a written record of HVAC filter changes going back 17 years! The seller was a retired airline pilot.

Wow, kguy. I'm assuming that was just that one house, right? There aren't any more like that, are there?

One time, though, I bought a used freezer from a neighbor. She took me down into her (immaculate) basement to fetch the file folder for this particular appliance out of her appliance file cabinet. The folder for the freezer had a typed label and included the receipt, all warranty info, the brochure and the tag from the front listing energy efficiency. My jaw dropped. I had never seen anything like this.

Speaking of home repair, I just paid a nice guy from Sears to come out and tell me that my oven works just fine, even though everything takes longer to cook than I expect and the oven thermometer I bought always shows it at least 50 degrees cooler than it's set. Apparently I need to preheat it longer, and I need to shift my expectations away from my experience with my previous ovens, which all tended to run hot. Oh well. At least now I know.

How many file cabinets did they have Wheezy, being organized is wonderful but keeping everything can begin to take up a lot of space over time.

I have a desk of my grandfathers, after we moved it here I was putting the drawers back in and noticed a scrap of paper stuck to the back of the cabinet. On the paper was a listing by my grandfather of some new furniture that had been purchased, the desk was on the list. The desk was purchased around 1938-40. It is really nice to have but is just one example of all the little bits of paper he retained over his lifetime (97 years).

Took a long time to sort through the collection of papers etc.

I enjoyed Anne Applebaum's PostPartisan piece this morning. It was short enough that I'll give you the whole thing:

- - - -

The Art of the Insult in the House of Commons

Can you call the British prime minister a liar when he is speaking in the House of Commons? As a former holder of a House of Commons press pass, I have been asked by my colleagues to rule on this important issue, brought to our attention by Joe Wilson’s outburst during the President’s health-care speech to Congress. The answer is no: While it is true that you are certainly allowed (indeed encouraged) to heckle the prime minister or any other speaker, it is strictly forbidden to call him a liar. And if you do, the Speaker of the House is entitled to object and ask you withdraw this “unparliamentary language.” Over the years, Speakers have in addition objected to other insults, among them (according to the rule book) blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, rat, swine, stoolpigeon and traitor. And no one is allowed to accuse another member of being drunk, either, even though some of them sometimes are.

It is also perfectly true, however, that British parliamentarians have found elaborate ways of getting around these rules. Winston Churchill once used the phrase “terminological inexactitude” for “lie.” Much debate has been held over whether one is allowed to accuse someone of “being economical with the truth.” If nothing else, the rule forces members of parliament to polish up their linguistic skills. Any idiot can shout out a crude insult, but it takes real skill and intelligence to make your point and skewer your opponent using elegant rhetoric.

By Anne Applebaum | September 11, 2009; 7:55 AM ET

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/the_art_of_the_insult_in_the_h.html

Housecleaning fail. I just found bubble gum on my front door's knob.

I am a failure. Of course, I have children.

Bob, I think most Americans would be rather surprised were they to watch a Question Period here, either in Ottawa or a provincial capital. Although it is only a short time each day, it can, get very raucous when big issues are at the forefront.

I have enjoyed a number of question periods in Toronto - some of the retorts and heckles can be rather amusing. As for drinking our first PM gave many of his best orations while very drunk.

I will say I believe I am in a small majority of those who are amused by question period - I still miss the Trudeau/Clark/Broadbent era for the quality of the question period theatrics.

dmd, in my mother's (messy) basement there sit two tall, rusted file cabinets. In them are ledgers from the early years of my parents' marriage in 1946, listing every purchase they made, down to "$.05 pack of gum." There are several years' worth of these. There's a lot more in there, none of it much more interesting than that.

My brother and I anticipate a very, very large trash skip in the driveway. It will be emptied several times.

Darn those premature antifascists anyway.
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2009/09/08/tomo/index.html

Wheezy, nothing as disgusting and disturbing as that has ever happened at our house, which is of course immaculate at all times.

That was great, Jumper! I don't read the local giveaway paper anymore, so I had forgotten how devastatingly accurate Tom Tomorrow can be.

Mudge, I'm going to improve my house from cesspool to moderately disquietingly dirty if it's the last thing I do today.

Wheezy, I'll be happy to play Hazel, if you'll come take care of DC...she's got a cough, sniffles, sore throat, a very low-grade fever, and is bored. The worst part is the last part.

Poor DC! When they're kinda sorta sick but not too bad it's much more boring. What's really sad is that when she's in high school she'll feel she has to go in anyway when she feels that way, so as not to get behind.

I've cleaned the gunk from the back of the kitchen sink where it tends to build up. The gum is gone. Several strategic windows have been washed, to give the overall appearance of cleanliness. In a nod to Kguy I cleaned the stove hood and vent screen (boy, those things get furry). I think I'm going to vegetate now.

*faxin' DC some saltines, ginger ale and some chicken soup (it couldn't hurt)*

*and HUGSSSSSSS for the caregiver* :-)

I once went into Dottir#3's room and found nine kitchen glasses and two dinner plates. I didn't even know we had nine kitchen glasses, but we did.

Good afternoon, all.

Resurfacing to get some fresh air (there *is* some around here, isn't there?) before going back to silent running.

Ultimately, I believe that Wilson's Outburst will haunt him, though not as much as I originally thought.

[One wag might suggest that should Wilson lose the next election for his seat, I think he could go back to acting -- I remember him as the guy who starred opposite Tom Hanks in "Castaway." Didn't some reviewer say that he was over his head in that role? But I digress, and my memory is far from perfect.]

Speaking of digressions, I did manage to catch the last 5 minutes of regulation and the OT of the Tenn v. Pitt game last night. I think that game bodes well for a good NFL season. Thank goodness it's here. Finally.

bc

It was with not an ungodly wee bit of trepidation that I followed Mudge's advice (and not for the first time, either, although I can't remember any of it, which may have been the point -- ah, but I digress) and read Krauthammer's op-ed. And, I must say, it wasn't bad -- in fact, it were perty dang good. Surprised the kimchee outta me, but there we have it.

That being said, I think I can get away with not reading him for the next coupla decades, having done that deed today.

I the past 10 years or so I found mice nests in:
- a coil of electrical wire
- in the battery drawer (they ate the plastic film covering, the batteries were all metallic and shiny)
- in an Easter basket contining false polyester straw and
- in my favourite and last asbestos blanket. (the little b@strads shredded it into nest material, I hope they died from a nasty cancer)

I go on rodent body searches when it starts to smell funny somewhere. We have a healthy deer mice population and the Liquid Cat doesn't give a hoot about it.

Apparently, being detached from reality doesn't mean being detached from your bank account...

From CNN:
Less than a day after Rep. Joe Wilson formally apologized to President Obama over his "you lie" outburst, a campaign aide confirms that the South Carolina Republican has raised "more than $200,000" in the wake of the now-infamous moment.

*shrug*

I talked before about my large collection of tiny antlers I broke off from the heads of dead deer mice, did I?

Shriek, if you are good add hunting down those "mystery smells" we may need to hire you on occasion.

Shriek, I heard one of them was a 12-decimal-point buck; was that true?

My house is becoming very clean on the outside (downspouts and gutters clean and shiny, windows scraped and washed, and -horrors- an old mouse nest behind a broken cedar shake dislodged), and pretty awful inside. I've been so busy painting that regular cleaning has been neglected. Doing some small bits today as it threatens to rain and I need a rest after six or seven days in a row of painting. And who paints combination windows, may I ask?

I've seen a couple of nice racks Mudge. The Boon&Crockett doesn't seem to cover deer mice though so I haven't made any real measurements.

Oh, Sneaks -- after all of this monumental work, you are soooooooo deserving of a trip to the spa, a trip to Hawaii, a trip to the Caribbean, a trip to Europe -- or, alternatively, a nice restaurant meal with all the trimmings and a weekend getaway to a B&B that *other people* have to keep clean and cozy.

I would get down on my knees and bow to you in admiration, but we both know I'd never be able to get back up again (and certainly not gracefully), so you may receive those huzzahs in spirit.

And, may I ask, where on earth is Cassandra??? I do hope she is well.

Not only was today's Krauthammer column quite good, but the previous "F-word" column to which he linked was pretty amusing, too. I had forgotten about that column.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2004/07/02/AR2005033002752.html

Scotty, last night Mike B. had a good segment on w/ Ron Reagan and a radio talk show host from Joe Wilson's district. It was a very good segment. It appears that Wilson is falling behind on the money raising over the last two days as his opponent who had done nothing, must be near 1/2 a million which, if I remember correctly, is putting just about where Wilson is with all that Health Care and Insurance money that he has.

The radio host said that, up til last night, Wilson enjoyed some support from black pastors, but I guess this sort of brought that to a screeeeching halt. For some odd reason, the blacks in Wilson's district like many other folks see this as just racial polarization.

Ha ftb, you forget I'm out of work and can't afford a vacation (just had one in July anyway). I'd settle for having it done and just sitting outside looking at it for a while. Painting and other home improvements are so gratifying because once they're done, they're done for years!

Badsneakers, unless you do that for a living.

Hi all... first of all, I have to point out to dmarney that there are differences between Wilson's accusation of lying and Obama's. Wilson's was false and Obama's right on the money. The fear-mongering he was talking about ARE outright lies. No one is disputing it, either.

ebtnut... we had that experience in Pittsburgh: asked a random local for some touristing advice and he hopped in his car and led us to all sorts of cool places.

Daughter and I took Yoki to the airport this morning (after a lovely breakfast in her hotel restaurant). The signs at National Airport are commemorating 9/11 by saying "Lest We Not Forget." Isn't that completely backwards?

Not so backwards. Not forgetting trauma, ever= PTSD.

I'm enjoying today for the first time in 8 years, feels like almost.

Weed, in which case it wouldn't be any fun!!

Well, then, Sneaks -- settle down with a nice long (>500 pages) book, snuggle under a nice warm afghan (depending on the temperature) have a nice mug of flavored tea (laced, or not, with, say, some Amoretto or the like), some nice soothing music (classical, soft jazz, old Beatles, whatever) and fall asleep after the first paragraph or page. Repeat as needed.

Backwards to me TBG,

definition,

–conjunction 1. for fear that; so that (one) should not (used negatively to introduce a clause expressive of an action or occurrence requiring caution): He kept his notes by his side lest faulty memory lead him astray

Lest we forget, is correct.

Wilbrod, TBG was pointing out what is in effect a double negative. And lifelong "remembrance" of deceased loved ones does NOT equal PTSD. The remembering(or said the other way as "not forgetting") is mainly about the people, not so much the trauma of the event.

We "Remember the Alamo" (the Maine, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, etc.) without it being PTSD. (Well, for everyone except me; damn near bought the farm that time, lemme tell ya. I should have never listened to Bowie and Travis.)

Remember all those dinners that were going to bring lots of money to the WaPO?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091102275.html?hpid=moreheadlines

I guess the airport got rid of their copy editors, too. And it seems like Yoki's departure was delayed by the Coast Guard "training" incident.

Beautiful day here. Probably the last of the summery temperatures and clear blue skies. Just like it was 8 years ago.

Mr seasea has been trying to go out of town for about a week, waylaid by (hopefully) minor car problems and weather. He's going to go camping on Sunday, this time for sure. I'm looking forward to some quiet time on my own. Next week, my sister is visiting, and then my kiddo, so we'll have a full house for a few days. So I really should be getting after the cobwebs and gum I don't see till we have guests.

Enjoying the cartoon of the week here:

http://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek

(clicking through it).

Lest we not forget = lest we remember, which in context means we would rather forget.

It wasn't so much a CG training incident as a CNN reporting-without-checking-the-facts occurrence. They created the hoopla.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/12/us/12potomac.html?hp

That would work well for an airline slogan :-).

Service is just not what is used to be.

One of the few areas in which I have successfully attained a sense of peace and serenity is with my decision to ignore people, and signs produced by such people, who exhort public displays of private emotion. "Lest We Not Forget" is the latest, and surely most memorable, example of why I have had to edit such things out of my personal existence. Grammar, spelling, and mastery of cliché are invariably horrific. What does it say about a person who thinks that a cliché is actually a phrase of time-honored tradition, and who still can't even remember the words correctly?

The more I think of it, the more I have to disagree that remembering a major event of some sort all one's life "equals" PTSD.

The WaPo's Facebook page has posted a link to an article about DC' gov't voting about accepting other states' gay marriages. The comments are pretty straightforward, which shows what kind of conversation you have when your real names are being used.

There is the usual "marriage is between one man and one woman" blather, but most comments are supportive of the idea.

A couple of my favorites..

"I don't understand why this is a fight? I have no fear that 'gay marriage' will destroy civilization, heck, a zombie attack is more likely ;-)"

"I'm completely against gay marriage. I think it should be a sombre affair, generally."

While being a bit of a smart alec earlier, I had occasion to use the following phrase in an e-mail (I was referring to their silly use of the fax machine for something much more easily accomplished by e-mail):
"As I am loath to indulge your quaint attachment to 19th century technology, ..."

The person to whom it was sent had the temerity to suggest that I'd misspelled "loath". I shudder in fear for this person if they ever have to work for a boss who can spell, and expects the same of subordinates.

I loathe people like that!

I'm at a loath for wordth, Bob.

A double negative has a long fine tradition in rhetoric, Mudge. As you should know, having done Akkadian speeches in your heyday.

It may be that the writer didn't grasp fully what "lest" means-- and meant this as: "Let's not forget."

Lest= for fear that is a good definition. I personally define it mentally as "Beware that" especially when it begins a sentence.

I'd say "Beware that we not forget 9/11" isn't a bad message-- just unexpected.

You have glossed "not forget" as "remember." But there's a reason why "remember" wasn't used.

"Remember the Alamo" was a war cry, NOT a memoriam for the dead. So was "Remember the Maine!"

And what did our forcible, repeated recall of the trauma of 9/11 get us? Two wars.

If you're talking nostalgia for the dead, "forget" is a better word.

"Should auld acqauintance be forgot and ne'er brought to mind?"

Subtext. I like this message, even if you and others may not agree with it.

Especially as on the first anniversary of 9/11 it was all "Lest we forget" over and over again. As though we were about to.

We do have real threats to deal with, but we have many potential dangers, targets, and attempts. 9/11 is unlikely to occur again in the same way.

But for years we were the same hysteria, lest we not forget other problems.

I did my memorial earlier this week. Today is the day for new memories, not reliving old ones.

Watch out for loath women, Bob.

Mudge, many people do in fact have PTSD from 9/11, even if you don't. Don't argue the theory or logic of it. You're not an psychologist.

That'd be unclassy.

I lived quite close to the Pentagon back then, less than 5 miles, in Alexandria. Like thousands others, I went through the Pentagon metro/bus station less than one hour before the plane hit.

It is probably fortunate that geography meant it was impossible to fly straight into that side of the Pentagon from Dulles. I still shake thinking about how much worse it could have been.

I also remember the smell of jet fuel, burning electronics and human flesh whenever I stepped out from my apartment for the next two days. I also remember the smoke in the subway tunnels for days afterwards.

My lease was up soon after that and I moved away from Alexandria. I couldn't bear being reminded.

Your opinion is yours. As for me, I'm glad to see somebody out there putting out the message maybe we shouldn't be obsessed with remembering eight years ago.

Bob, did you politely ask for the *correct* spelling?

What's for dinner? Meat loath?

Scotty, I'm watching out for loath women all the time.

The newsletter I worked on for 16 years includes a prominent NY financial street in its name and has a picture of the skyline of NYC on it's banner. After 9/11, we didn't know what to do with it... the twin towers were prominent.

We toyed with changing out the banner altogether, but the man whose name is also in the newsletter's name didn't want to change things completely. So next to the image of the twin towers, he had me include the words "Lest we forget."

I think the expression needs either a phrase or a picture to accompany it. It doesn't really stand alone. What he was saying was, "here are the two buildings, so we don't forget that they used to stand, what they used to mean and what happened to them and the people inside them."

I still think it was a silly move and looks ridiculous, but he was the boss... his name was on the product and he had the final say in everything that ever appeared in it during his lifetime. His face still appears in the banner, too, lest we forget what he meant to financial journalism for more than 30 years.

Maybe his picture was also up lest we be loath to loathe him.

Hey Mudge -- when we were at the Alamo, did you get a sense that Davey Crockett was a little, well, um, er, "off"? He kept wanting me to fill his canteen with green tea. . . . Or maybe that was Fess Parker.

I remember when I was in the grocery store ("Tom's Market") with my mother (I was approximately 4 or 5 years old) at the meat counter, where I was singing at the very top of my lungs all (and I mean *ALL*) the verses of "Davey, Davey Crockett . . . " -- there may have been 26 verses and I knew them all, dangit! And I sang 'em all! My mother, IIRC, denied that she knew me.

Funny memories.

As for today, and the feelings it evokes, I am reminded (as, perhaps, should we all) that those who died in the attacks were not all Americans -- there were many from other countries who died, as well. Institutional history is important -- those who lived through the Holocaust are dying off, those who fought during WWII are dying off and the loved ones of those who died in those awful times are dying off. Those who died on 9/11 will be remembered by their closest family members and friends until they, too, are at the ends of their days. In all of these tragic circumstances, we remember, we grieve, we get on with our lives, and may we do so with warm hearts for having known them. Or even if we never knew them, they were a part of our global family.

After I read John Hersey's book "Hiroshima" I remember having a hard time getting it off me. It may take another reading of it now, maybe 40 years later. But each year around the beginning of August, I know the anniversary date is around the corner and I wonder what goes through the minds of the Japanese in commemoration of their dead from that fateful set of days (including the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki). And, yes, before I get death threats from the trolls, I am well aware that Japan was the enemy at that time. But, still. . . .

I try not to wear any emotion-evoking feelings "on my sleeve" so to speak. Certainly religion is out of the question (as I have none that I follow, although I have always found Buddhism intriguing). But I days like this for reasons like these, I will remember quietly and will not engage in out-grieving others to show my "patriotism" (or, indeed, "matriotism").

Anyway, those are my two cents, adjusted for inflation. Gotta go write an article.

The formulary "Lest we forget" comes from Rudyard Kipling and his poem "Recessional" (http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Recessional.htm). The British War Dept. hired Kipling during WWI to come up with epuitaphs for tombstones and markers all over Europe, and "Lest we forget" appears on a gazillion or so tombstones.

That being so, I suggest "Lest we forget" is not only the grammatically correct version, it is the ONLY correct version, being a quotation not subject to anyone's editing, anymore than "To be or not to be" can be altered.

I'm sorry, I loath my place. Where were we?

Once I wrote in a report that I wanted to ensure no future quality degradation occurred. Several people took me aside and gently told me I had misspelled "insure." This is the story of my life.

I arrived in good order in Toronto, after sharing the flight with Sissy Spacek who was on her way to the Toronto International Film Festival. She is very nice.

I think it must be time to have a drink. Must locate a brother or two.

Have a great evening, Al. Cassandra, please check in. I'm beginning to worry about you.

Those three words, Lest We Forget, to me mean so much, they are the basis for our Remembrance day.

A really good summary of what and whom we honour on Remembrance Day.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/11/07/f-remembrance-day.html

One word, Yoki...

Frenvy.

:-)

While "Lest We Not Forget" is potentially interpretable as encouraging support for treatment of those with PTSD, I think it is a strained reading, as is the notion of it being an intentional literary double-negative meant as emphasis rather than internal negation. I think, rather, it is a typical example of an illiterate buffoon attempting to evoke melancholy sorrow through poetic imagery, immersed in a culture of illiterate buffoons who were unable to see that the sentiment is expressed in a mode that is pathetically trite as well as actually wrong to the extent of profound self-parody.

On the other hand, I like the notion that the U.S. has at least one ecologically healthy indigenous species of primate, the Illiterate Buffoon (Simia Haminahaminahamina). Great tribes of various sub-species still can be seen roaming the incalculable vastness of the Plains states, the majestic vistas of the mountain states, and the stinking open sewers of the city-states. Exhibiting the shiny and effulgent flesh of their amply-upholstered backsides in ritualistic courtship displays, emitting their ironic hooting midnight cries of "We're #1! We're #1!" as they entice the undesirable dregs of the dating pool from their local watering hole to engage in soulless and empty mating, physicality unencumbered by the sophistry and artifice of skill or actual sexual desire. Mating reduced to its purest, most elemental character: just something to do because, like, you know?

Truly inspiring.

Battle of Okinawa- Japanese lost over 100,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) suffered more than 50,000 casualties, with over 12,000 killed in action. As many as 150,000 civilians were killed, wounded or attempted suicide. Approximately one-fourth of the civilian population died due to the invasion. Okinawa prefecture includes about 900 square miles.

The next step in conventional prosecution of the Pacific war was invasion of the Japanese mainland, an area of over 145,000 square miles and home to about 72,000,000 people.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs-300,000-500,000 Japanese casualties from initial blast and radiation after effects. No Allied casualties and the surrender came the day after Nagasaki.

This is why no 80 year old American I have ever spoken with about the bombs has any doubt about the justification of their use.

ftb, Ol' Davey was a lunatic of the first rank, all right.

After a moment's thought, I regret my aphasia in my last post. "Incalculable vastness" of course is wrong, as the vastness is perfectly calculable. I should have said "imponderable vastness."

Please make a note of it.

Doubtless few will not disremember what I say here today, tomorrow.

I am skimming through Physics Today of August 2009, and came across the following noteworthy paragraph on page 22, in a news item about a poll concerning the public perception of science and scientists:

"Perhaps most strikingly, only 32% of those surveyed agree that humans and other living things have evolved over time through evolution by natural selection, compared with 87% of the surveyed scientists who believe so. A large gap also exists between scientists and the public on the issue of climate change, where just 49% of the public agree that Earth is growing warmer because of human activity, compared with 84% of scientists."

Within that one paragraph, there are four statistical results that I find simply astounding.

Jumper, that sounds like a quote from Arbusto's Gettysburg Address.

Wouldn't that be the Bettysgurg Redreser, 'Mudge?

"Illiterate Buffoon" is available as a Boodle handle.

Very cool Yoki, perhaps you will run into George Clooney who is in town as well.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/tiff-mob-blog-2009/spotted-george-clooney-at-yorkvilles-il-posto-restaurant/article1284412/

"A mind is a terrible thing to loath."

Clooney shmooney. Helen Mirren is here in town and for those of us of a certain age and with fond memories of John Boorman's "Excaliber" there are only two words- hubba hubba!

Howdy. LiT, that's what the Boy has! Having rested all day he is feeling better, fever is down, and I'm trying to convince him that his earlier decision not to attend the party to which he was invited this evening is the correct one.

kguy, those statistics are why my dad, a WWII Pacific Theater vet, was ambivalent at best about the bombs. He recognized their terrible nature, but also recognized the lives saved. As a 1st Lieutanant, his life expectancy after the planned invasion was no greater than 6 months.

I feel well Kippled now.

I was trying to find a picture of Peter Sarsgaard, who IMHO is also worth searching for - movie "An Education".

Oh, dear. DMD, I wish you hadn't told Yoki about George being in town. Now she'll be up all night prowling the town and looking for him.

Well, at least we now know where Yoki's having dinner tonight.

As Churchill said,
Never in the field of human conflict was so little owed by too many to a few.

*or something like that*

Apologies for some things come very late
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8250592.stm

Jumper... the Turing story has always been a sad one to me. I've also always wondered why "outed" gays are considered a security risk.

Isn't the fear of being "outed" the potential problem?

Forget about the absurdity of homosexuality being against the law... I've also always wondered why gays were jailed for their "crime"...

"You can't have sex with men! And to punish you, we're locking you up with a bunch of men! No women allowed!"

Current case here, I do not know enough about the story to comment, or for that matter US military policy on the issue - but the story (if true) is troubling.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/09/08/ottawa-deserter-us-military-bethany-smith.html

I apologize for demolishing your romantic conceit with some taxonomic truths, ScienceTim.

Baboons are primates.
Buffoons are actually a species of boor.

Also, boorish species are all marked by their high avoidance of literary habitats such as libraries, except for the purpose of temporary camoflague from predators.

So, "illiterate buffoon" is redundant and inaccurate. Buffoons actually have a higher level of literacy than most species of boors do.

Buffoons are known for their uninhibited foolishness and caprice, and thus draw admiring crowds when they prance into the sunset--off a cliff.

This is why their taxonomic name is /Buffunus capricis/.

TBG - Can't speak for the military, but since 1995 being openly gay no longer disqualifies someone from getting a civilian security clearance. All the three-letter agencies have affinity groups nowadays.

http://www.hunkdujour.com/blog/gay_blogger/530/peter_sarsgaard_200802_2.jpg

Caster Semenya apparently does have a form of AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome.)

She will keep her medal; doping was not involved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_af/ath_semenya_gender_test

I think it's wise to be aware of possibilities of blackmail in any security matter, so of course I agree, TBG. "Out" is less blackmailable than "in."

Which reminds me of today's Get Fuzzy. ("My talking Websterizes wordage automatically.")

Now I'm off for some snackage.

Here is a video of U2's set at Soldier Field (it looks like the giant ant in Them) in Chicago where the band begins its American tour. Lucky Yello.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2009/09/u2-brings-monster-stage-to-soldier-field.html

I found a house for Southwester!

It's the house next door to the Obamas, and it's for sale!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-obama-neighbor-house-for-sale-sep11,0,7620941.story

rickoshea... not sure why you killed it, but apparently you did.

How's dinner going, everyone?

Sounds like a great place for a Chicago BPH.

TBG: I killed it because I can. My powers are (I state humbly) awesome!

She can even edit BPH photos with her mind! *bowing* :-)

-jack-, See if her doctor will change her prescription to the new GlaxoSmithKline rescue inhaler Ventolin HFA. I complained to my doc about the high cost of what I had been using for years and he prescribed the new Ventolin HFC inhaler. You get two a two pack of, 200 measured puffs inhalers, with counters for $55 at costco. Plus you get a $15 coupon for the first prescription and additional coupons on line. At full price it's only 14 cents a puff.

I have used a Ventolin HFA inhaler, and it's previous incarnations since I was in university, along with Beclovent. Not sure what I pay I think it is around $76.00 for the two inhalers - the beclovent is much more expensive but so important (not a rescue inhaler).

Since I started on the beclovent I have never had an asthma incident again (meaning having to go to the hospital). Used regularly there is no signs of wheezing when I have check ups.

It's heeeeere.....

The official Achenblog "We're Number 37" bumper sticker...

http://www.cafepress.com/EditorsForObama.407274064

I was just reading the obituary for Larry Gelbart, and found these ads at the bottom of the page:

Bereavement
Find great deals and save! Compare products, prices & stores
www.Shopping.com

Bereavement Gifts
Send a caring gift of ham in times of bereavement.
www.applewoodfarms.com

Pet loss bereavement
Your Guide To Pet loss bereavement. Your Guide To Everything Pets.
PlusPets.com

-jack-, For regular maintenance, about which I also complained about the cost he gave four month's supply of another new one called Symbicort from AstraZeneca. Comes in a 60 inhalations measured dose inhaler. Two puffs in the morning and two more in the evening. Have to rinse and spit after inhaling. It's been working good for the last two months. Don't know how much it will cost after the free samples run out.

thanks, bh. We use every inhaler known to man. My wife prefers the symbicort. I use some kind of HFA, my son another. The latter two are reasonable, but don't work half as good as the old formulation. The propellant in the old formulation was an ozone eater. I can imagine the collective guilt of all the asthmatics that have a hand in GCC. Drugs are part of the moneygoround. *sigh*

Speaking of words (nice seque, no?) Carl Hoffman, friend of the Achenblog and professional author person, has his book, "The Lunatic Express" available for pre-order. Anyone who has read his blog, thelunaticexpress.com, know that this book will be great.

Oops. The link might help.

http://www.amazon.com/Lunatic-Express-Discovering-Trains-Planes/dp/0767929802/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252594789&sr=1-4

Re: Scottynuke at 7:20

I am Woman, hear me roar.

Larry Gelbart died??? Oh my, that is very sad news to hear. The man was a great writer. Must watch some M*A*S*H episodes this weekend.

While I'm on the Amazon site I thought I'd get that book a bunch of you were talking about a few Boodles ago. It had a long title which I cannot remember. Help!

pj:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103493.html?hpid=topnews

Sneaks... The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

You'll love it.

http://www.amazon.com/Guernsey-Literary-Potato-Society-Readers/dp/0385341008/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252716572&sr=8-1

Thanks TBG, now if I could just remember my Amazon password...

Can't help you with that, Sneaks! :-)

Thanks for the link, Slyness.

This is from Adam Bernstein's obit. It's a Larry Gelbart line:

He had cancer. Asked to specify what kind, his wife, Patricia Marshall, said, "Just the lethal kind."

giggle....

Sickened by Brownies, but It Wasn’t Food Poisoning

(from the NYT)

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: September 10, 2009

When several preschool teachers in Los Angeles fell sick last April after eating brownies, public health investigators suspected it wasn’t a typical case of food poisoning. The symptoms included giddiness, dizziness, mood changes, dry mouth — and a bad case of the munchies.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
More Vital Signs Columns

One of the teachers had bought the homemade goodies a few days earlier from what she thought was a church bake sale; she shared them with colleagues during a work break.

But within 90 minutes of eating just one brownie each, five teachers became ill; the adult son of the buyer also reported symptoms.

It turned out there had been no church bake sale. And a leftover piece of brownie tested positive for cannabinoids found in marijuana, according to a report of the incident published Sept. 4 in The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Stella Fogleman, the first author of the report, said that none of the teachers had used marijuana before and that they did not like the way it made them feel. “They didn’t know they were eating pot brownies, so it’s not the same symptoms as someone who deliberately ate them at a party and got high,” Ms. Fogleman said. Two teachers sought medical attention for their symptoms, and one patient tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana metabolite.

All have recovered. The sidewalk vendor who sold the treats, for $1.50 each, has not been found.

rickoshea - Why don't I ever run across those deals while they're available? A few years back there was a nearby auto body repair shop that was apparently running a sideline of prostitution, which I found out after they shut it down. I'm not saying that I'd have taken advantage, but heck, I'm single and often have a few extra bucks. It'd be nice to know that the extra service is available, you know? Likewise, there was a local pizza joint whose drivers were making regular weed deliveries. Munchies caused and solved in one trip. Efficient!

I suspect our current drug policy in Afghanistan is "if you grow hash instead of opium we will ignore."

willin'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrCMlSWlDX8

I think it's dead, Jim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kooAgqCHGvU

Lube jobs and blow jobs in one go, Bob S.?

What did they advertise as, Jiffy Blow?

Darn. My pun machinery is now full-tilt in a very bad direction.

Must resist...

Here in Chi-Town. Thanks for the picture. We will be somewhere near the left rear leg of Bono's spider from Mars tomorrow night. We wandered over to the Married With Children fountain tonight to have something to do after hugging Art Smith at Table 52. We have become celebrity chef groupies.

Oh, Yello, I envy you. I hope the weather cooperates.

Can't believe I made it out of Atlanta on a Friday evening with just a short delay. In Newport News, baby grand nephew met at last (though sleeping), official We're #37! bumper sticker ordered. Time set aside with my frostsis #1 and Bro Frostinlaw tomorrow. Best of all, I have the "kids" room to myself so no "no you take it, I had it last time" about the bed by the window.

Toodles boodle and sweet dreams.

Fermat, then set number theory, then algebra and trigonometry. Now Einstein is keeping me awake and giving me a headache. E=mc Escher.

Gödel, meet Bach.

c + arp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv94m_S3QDo

No lyrics to this, just humming a variation

Now Willin was "Weed,Whites and Wine and you show me a sign,I'll be Willin

Another saying from the 60's or 70's for hitchhikers was no grass,no gas,no @ss,no ride!!

Now usually if I am by myself and the hitchhiker doesn't look like a serial killer I will pick them up,but only if they are walking.I think if they are walking somewhere,then they generally really do need a ride. I used to hitchhike a lot when I was a tennager.I even Had a really really big rubber thumb that worked great. Why am I talkin about this.Well it has been a long night and I am bored.

I am ready for my first weekend of since April.And the start of the NFL season!!!

First weekend off since April......see it really was a long night!!!

I used to hitch a lot as well, gwe. Once had an interesting set of rides and an adventure between Orlando and Daytona. Up and at 'em, Dawn Ptrol. 99'ers are plated and a pot of coffee awaits in the ready room. A pinch of salt for you, 'Mudge. Light and sweet for you, Cassandra.

'morning all. Another beautiful September day awaits us. I'm having French roast coffee Jack, black and strong as bull.
The weekend will be under the sign of travel preparation. Witch no.2 goes on a three weeks scool trip in France, strating this Friday. It's been a looooong 2 years of fundraising (and meetings) of all kinds. I'm very happy it's over. W2 and her friends going to the trip are besides themselves with anticipation.

SCC school. *sigh* Over 400 comments already!

dmd, if you are happy with beclovent that's fine (and cheap) but check advair if you can. It made a big difference for me, for $120 a month. But since I'm covered at 80% it doesn't make such a difference.

Sumting to start your morning

Miles Davis et John Coltrane - So What

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4TbrgIdm0E (this jazz has no lyrics)

perfect for the weather today methinks

Morning, all, it's a fine September Saturday in the South. I dunno what we'll be doing today, but it doesn't matter much, just being outside will be pleasant. However, Mr. T will be watching Carolina football at noon, that I know.

Cassandra, you up yet? Missing you!

Mr. T and I greatly enjoyed barbeque and visiting with the fam and old neighbors last night. It was a perfect evening for barbeque and folks were lined up 100 deep to purchase; we were glad we got there early.

The big news in the community (where Mr. T grew up) was the loss of two fire trucks in a two-week period in August. This is the little volunteer department Mr. T grew up in. One loss was a 30 year old tanker that lost its brakes and rolled into a creek; the driver was in a hurry at a house fire and failed to chock the wheels. But that was okay, the insurance payout was several times what they paid for the truck, used.

The other was their brand-new engine with chevron striping on the back, rear-ended by a fool driving too fast on the interstate in rain. The engine was well off travel lanes and visible for about a mile even in rain, but the idiot hydroplaned and hit it on the right side of the back. Airbags saved him, but the Camaro was a total loss. They were thankful that a firefighter who had been retrieving equipment moved out of the way seconds before the collision; he definitely would have died. The fire chief hopes that the truck will go back to the manufacturer for repairs, rather than the dealer trying to do them. The fool had the temerity to suggest that the fire department pay his medical expenses. Um...no.

Good morning, Boodle! Cassandra, I send you special loving greetings and a wish.

I am deep in the embrace of family (which only very occasionally feels like a choke-hold) and looking forward to our big day out touring Niagara-regional vineyards. First, strong black coffee and solitude over the paper.

Clooney is safe from me, for no matter how I may admire thickly-lashed dark eyes on a man (and I may), he leaves me cold. Not enough informing intellect behind those eyes to draw me.

However, I have great hopes of additional celebrity-sightings at the airport tomorrow afternoon; it is high season on those animals.

Have a great day, Al.

Look at those extra pictures. This man must have been living a good life or else there is a special god for fools.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Montreal+driver+walks+away+from+horrific+highway+crash/1985581/story.html

looking for another song and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP5IEOYj9MU

Written by peter green.

Would you love me tomorrow
Like you say you love me now
Would you love me, would you love me tomorrow
Like you say you love me now
When the flames of our flesh have stopped burning
And the fire of our love has cooled down

Too many times Ive given too much
Baby, give me your love to me in return
Too many times Ive given too much
Baby, give me your love in return
Give me your mind and your heart
But please dont leave me with a love that burns

And dont use me as your fool
cause my heart cant stand another lie
Please dont use me, dont use me as your fool
Baby, cause my heart cant stand another lie
And if you cant love me tomorrow
Please leave me now in my room to cry

Yoki, feel free to stop by on your way to or from Niagara. Have a great time visiting the vineyards.

Thanks dmd! I'd love to. I can assure you though, that you don't want the twelve of us tipping up in our tour bus. Especially after the tour :-)

Thanks jack, I'll take some coffee with my creamer & milk... :-)

Well, NukeSpouse is safe at her destination, enjoying all the local eateries, and I'm listening to the NukeFelines asking, "Where's Meowwwwwwwwwmeeee???" I think Nathanne is missing her daily recommended allowance of laps...

I think I'll get some chores taken care of, then perhaps a boys' night out w/bc... *double-checking the moon phase chart* :-)

Cassandra, you didn't discover some stealth Boodling technology, did you??

*bachelor-mode-but-in-a-good-way Grover waves* :-)

Scottynuke, lunarwise, you're safe.

See you later, my friend.

Off to visit some other friends at a racetrack and deliver some race car parts, including a Nitrous Oxide injection system that I've inscribed with the phrase "NOS is my co-pilot."

That blue bottle is always good for a laugh along the way.

Have a good day, all.

bc

slyness, I would hope the gla$$bowl's insurance will contribute to the engine repairs...

*rolling my eyes @ all the people who forget momentum on wet roads does NOT mean enough grip for control or braking*

It seems our Embassy in Washington has had a little rethink over their planned demonstration.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090911/DC_Military_090911/20090911?hub=Canada&s_name=

The Celebritologists found out the hard way that you can't post all of Larry Gelbart's resume to WaPo. Hint: It co-starred Mary Tyler Moore.

Good morning boodle! A lovely, if a tad humid, morning at the frostrents' abode. Ma Frostbitten loved the We're #37! theme song-as I knew she would.

Omni, I'm glad you're back.

What's up with all these downtown military exercises in major cities that scare the hell out of people? If they want people in simulated live-fire exercises then take it to a military base fer cryin' out loud. They had some idiocy like that here a few years ago and some of the citizens nearly fired on Army personnel in the dark because of not knowing about that "exercise." Thought they were terrorists. Pure panic had set in.

Jumper, Those were routine exercises. I have seen them dozens of times. I just don't watch live teevee for this reason. The story becomes the story and statements compete with other statements and then there are always the expert reports, followed by newspeople interviewing newspeople all the way to the weekend at which time that the pundits sit in little groups and talk at the same time for a half an hour at a time.

Murray Gell-Mann:
"Continental drift was actually real. And evidence was accumulating for it. At Caltech the physicists imported Teddy Bullard to talk about his work and Patrick Blackett to talk about his work, these had to do with paleoclimate evidence for continental drift and paleomagnetism evidence for continental drift. And as that evidence accumulated, the American geologists voted more and more strongly for the idea that continental drift didn’t exist. The more the evidence was there, the less they believed it. Finally in 1962 and 1963 they had to accept it and they accepted it along with a successful model presented by plate tectonics…"

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/47280/title/Interview_Murray_Gell-Mann

I understood that there was no live fire. There was someone yelling "bang! bang! bang!" over the radio to simulate firing. I also understood these drills go on regularly and no one ever notices them.

From this morning's article...

"A routine, low-profile" drill is conducted about four times a week in the same part of the Potomac, Currier said, involving as many as four 25-foot "response boats," each armed with a bow-mounted, .762-caliber machine gun. He said the training is so "low tempo" and carried out so often that the Coast Guard does not give notice to other agencies or the community.

As a resident wing nut and no Mudge to possibly ask the same question, isn't it amazing that the Washington Post online paper would lead with the story "GOP Sees Potential in Protest Movement" (the top of the news link to story) which takes you to a story titled:

"GOP Sees Protest As an Opportunity"

with a sub of

'Taxpayer March' in D.C. Attracts Party Leaders, but Some Are Wary

I amazed how the Post can take this garbage and lead with it. Everyone "SHOULD" know that this is mostly astroturf and funded by some of the wealthiest Americans and large corporations including tons of Insurance Company money.

The writers do list all the Republican leadership who is reveling in this anti-American madness. Why do I say this? Because they are contending that the majority of America is not true American.

If you listen to what they are saying it is really a crock. On the hill, if you get many of the Republican Congress folks to stop and talk about this, they will admit that their greatest fear is that America is being overrun by socialists and they are more than willing to stand side-by-side with separatists and secessionists and birthers and all the other segments that seem to now be the new and flashier Republican Party 2.0 ....

This country has always been about a battle for the moral high ground. In my book, the true American is one who can be part of the community without holding views that are IN THE MAJORITY at the time.

In my very biased view of America, we have had some very very very damaging runs of Republican Govt control. Two very heavy deficit run-ups. The largest two wealth transfers that could ever have been imagined. Multiple schemes for allowing wealth shift offshore and then these tax holidays to re-patriate funds. All benefits to the very wealthy of America. We had a war that was totally off the books and co-incidentally, other large fund transfers were hauled out of domestic agencies and spent on the "war."

Finally, we had a crazy run up of the real estate market at the same time that individual credit went through the roof as folks lived beyond their means.

Now, what do we have? No credit or very little. We are an "out of pocket" economy, for the most part. Our middle class landscape is covered with foreclosure sings and bankruptcies. Where is the Post bringing this back into focus?

If you want to write about this, please say who is behind all of this tea party stuff. We need more reality here from the Washington Post. We can't let the lies continue to float to the lead articles of the Washington Post. Is this an editorial decision? Are we witnessing some weak backhanded rah-rah for the right?

What gives?

Mudge me Joel.

It's time we got over the 9-11 over sensitivity and over reaction. Call me crazy, but I like the idea that the Coast Guard is going on about its business like any other day. Television "news" just isn't something I'll watch much of. I'm beginning to think the only reason I can even stomach The News Hour on PBS any more is because they can't (or have decided not to) cover breaking news stories except for the real big stuff.

Here's a more-generic version of the "We're Number 37!" bumper sticker...

http://www.cafepress.com/englishmajobama.407372994

Boodler-specific version...

http://www.cafepress.com/EditorsForObama.407274064

It's usually done in a manner like musical chairs. The ones left with no seat are always the "far left." Murdoch buys Wall Street Journal, personnel there to the left of the new ownership but to the right of center take over jobs, etc., etc. Eventually those formerly considered centrists work for the hippie giveaway papers. So it goes.

Here is a fascinating paper on global warming. Its propositions are important. Attempts to quantify the various locations of heat buildup globally. Whether the math is correct is another matter.
http://www.inderscience.com/storage/f693718115210412.pdf

Just got an email from "James Carville." My favorite line...

"Heck, if crazy were a pre-existing condition, the GOP wouldn't be able to get insurance."

'Morning, Boodle. Going on my Christmas (Channukah) list: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1579126979/ref=pe_606_13078140_pe_ar_t1

Been a productive morning, so far: breakfast at Einstein bBros. (lox and bagel, sooooo good), then shopping at Safeway, lots of stuff on sale this week. Got a BIG roasty for tomorrow.

Then picked a dozen tomatoes out of our garden, along with a big bunch of grape tomatoes. The pepper plants are FINALLY coming in, got three babies growing. Three eggplant doing OK, about baseball size right now. Then cleaned up/weeded, threw out all the lettuce remains that have gone to seed. One tomato plant keeps falling over, re-staked it for the 12th time. Next year we need to get the heavy-duty 8-foot tomato cages. These littler ones just aren't up to it. We've been disappointed with the onions and carrots.

Now, an afternoon of garage-door painting. Looks like no writing getting done today.

Howdy -- it's no longer morning suddenly. BTW, for all you locals STAY OFF of Rockville Pike near the construction. Zoo doesn't even begin to describe it. . . .

I backboodled enough to read about the brownie story -- brought back memories, sure enuf.

Weed, as for your 10:52, you know I *heart* you, don't you? You are so right!

And, now, lunchtime. . . .

I do love a good rant.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/the-college-republicans.html

I choose to believe that it's Joel's not adding another new Kit rather than my posting that has caused this death....

Wow, that *was* a good rant, Maggie. I'm envious.

It was 53 degrees this morning. Fall is in the air at least here at the base of the Rockies. Great sleeping weather.

*soapbox mode on*

Weed, if you supported the protests, you'd be a wingnut. You're on the opposite pole, so you're a moonbat, OK? Let's keep our terminology straight.

WaPo obviously had that piece up as a placeholder for the current article about the protests themselves, and now it's a sidebar. Manufactured or not (and yes, I'm certain there's a lot of money behind much of the "anger,"), the presence of large numbers of people in the capitol exercising their right to (look like jackasses during a) protest against the sitting President is news.

Did you read the article whose headline you hated? It goes into detail about how very fringe-y the hotheads are, with one GOPer quoted calling them "nutballs" and "freaks." The writers let the crazies' worst statements and behavior speak for themselves. The writers get a sitting GOPer to go on the record worrying about a schism in the party -- who would benefit most from such a split, Weed?

*soapbox mode off*

Hi all... the last CSA delivery was on Thursday and I just diced it up and put all of it in a big pot to simmer: tiny eggplants, lots of green beans of varied widths, tomatoes, peppers and some sort of greens. Greek-spiced it, added some sweet onions, ground beef, a can of diced tomatoes and some tiny pasta-like things.

The house will smell nice and homey when Dr G returns today from Santa Barbara. Mmmmm good.

And, of course you know, Snukeums, I *heart* you, too.

TBG, may I *hear* you, as well, for providing me with some virtual aroma from your pot (not to be confused with funny brownies)? I do love those tiny eggplants, but my farmers market are done with them for the season. Got my first apples today, and then forgot to eat one after lunch. Well, then, tonight after supper. . . . if I remember. The fall veggies are coming in -- cruciferous broccoli and Brussels sprouts (got the former, not the latter yet) and there are the winter squashes and sweet potatoes. Gonna hold off on those for awhile, too. Don't want to rush things, although I have in mind to make a pot of red lentils, which turn a golden color when cooked, and throw in a lot of sweet onions, sweet potatoes, thyme and caraway seeds. Perhaps in a couple of weeks.

I'm trying to decide whether to do that last errand this afternoon, which will also take me up Rockville Pike, but not far enough to have the traffic problems I had earlier, or whether to wait until tomorrow morning. *decisions, decisions*

Cyall later

(Maggie & Sneaks, cover your ears)

Oh, and congrats to Jeter on passing Gehrig for the alltime Yankees hit record. He's a heckuva player, no doubt.

...

Someone go throw a bucket of water on mo, I'm sure she's fainted by now. :-)

And one more thing --

GO MICHIGAN! BEAT NOTRE DAME!

I thought the CSA went out of business in about 1865?

Hey Scotty, that's ok, even "S" was saying positive things about Jeter this morning. By the way, it's "S"'s birthday today and so far he bought himself a nice meatball sub for lunch (while I was getting my hair done) and he's now watching college football and contemplating a nap. As you can see, we do birthdays in a big way here ;-)

Not the Confederate States of America, Bob S.

I saw this story on maternal separation and later risk of M.S. in life.

Since Canada has one of the higher rates of M.S. in the world, is there anything different about canuckstani parenting?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041001092442.htm

Of course this study was done with mama mice, not humans, so this article itself is a "maybe" for human infants-- especially as two weeks for mice translates to maybe 6 years in human life: mice mature sexually at around four weeks old.

Happy Boodle Birthday to S!

Here's a Saturday afternoon quiz brought to you by the folks who gave us 'Skin Disease or Harry Potter Character?'

Ice Cream Flavor or Paint Color?: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs//archives/24573

I appreciate the distinctions between the moon-nuts and the wing-bats and all. If I don't post this heavy caveat to my earlier notice of the climate-heat paper, I will deserve such status myself: Nordell's paper is termed "bunk" by one of my climate-change gurus at Stoat, and many others also, so short of doing the math myself I will defer to the establishment.

83% on the ice cream/paint color quiz. Ice cream is my life. Paint, not so much.

10 out of 12 and I don't buy Ben & Jerry's (only went twice in my life) nor have I ever been to Pottery barn.

Spooky.

Very Happy Birthday to S! *faxin' a cake* :-)

Ahem. This is a PSA.

Afternoon naps are nice. Think of how much less cranky the world would be if more people took them.

Thank you for your kind attention.

There's a visit to a Ben & Jerry's factory in the Nukes' near future... *hehehehehe* :-)

Jumper - I just finished reading it. It's a fun exercise. I had to ponder for a moment where they were headed with the "nuclear power is not only not a part of the solution, but is part of the problem" thing.

Well, yeah, I guess everything that isn't (energy-wise) dead is part of the problem. But then, in the long view, there really isn't a problem at all. The earth, the sun, and the entire universe are cooling as we speak. Any exceptions are merely geographic and temporal aberrations which will smooth out over time. If we didn't cram a bunch of fissionable material together in a reactor, it would still release the same amount of energy eventually.

Not that any of this is helpful to the folks who are ill-prepared to deal with the local climate variations.

Oh, thanks for the heads-up, Bob S., I've heard that one before so I'll skip Jumper's suggestion... :-)

Oh, thanks for the heads-up, Bob S., I've heard that one before so I'll skip Jumper's suggestion... :-)

Scotty - It's worth reading, and the nuclear energy section is only a small part. The basic thesis is that we sometimes focus too much on atmospheric effects of the energy equation, when global warming is actually composed of many parts.

hb2s
hb2s
HB2SSSSSSSSSSS
hb2s

I hope I didn't wake him up from his nap, Sneaks.

Well, I ended up going out again and getting that errand done, after having put it off for about 3 weeks or so. Traffic wasn't that bad, nor was the inevitable cost. So tomorrow I can continue to backhoe my office (perhaps to the strains of Eva Cassidy and the Bach Brandenburg Concerti -- yep that'll work).

I meant to post this earlier -- Larry Gelbart was one of the funniest guys on the planet and his clear and joyous appreciation of other people's humor demonstrated a huge generosity. What a guy! He will be sorely missed. I simply cannot *stand* sitcoms nowadays -- they simply aren't funny.

Okay, let's go look at the game!

How'd I do THAT???? *L*

Oh.My.God.

Hede on the homepage:

NFL Sets Its Sites on China

Is there a copyeditor in the house?

ftb... you're not watching the right sitcoms, then... The Office, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother are just three current ones I can think of quickly that I love.

If I can trust my "Today in History" sources, this date bears the burden of being a dual milestone in tellydom:

1966 - "The Monkees" premiers on NBC.
1978 - "Taxi" premiers on ABC

Slyness - The editorial gods heard your prayer. Already corrected!

Happy Birthday to S! Sounds like a great way to spend a birthday. Also wanted to thank you, Sneaks, for going to that Steely Dan concert, and to pj for the ensuing conversation, otherwise I might have passed up the chance to hear them perform Aja. Which I am looking forward to with much anticipation.

Another gorgeous last-of-summer day here. I hope this continues through the next couple of weeks, but that's a lot to ask for.

It's raining in New York for the second day, so CBS is showing some classic matches. At least they got the men's quarter final done (Rafa won easily).

Oh, and Obama's having a rally in Minneapolis today. Hope that gets some coverage.

TBG - I enjoy all of the shows you mentioned, but I do believe that we've lowered our standards.

OK, there is a story about Obama's rally, but it was hard to tell from the headline on the front page - Obama Makes Pitch for Reform:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091201611.html?hpid=topnews

I absolutely LOVE the fact that Google has a chief economist!!

"Google Economist Sees Good Signs in Searches"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103771.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Yep, Google's going to take over the world.

Looks like Joel is at the DC anti-gummint rally:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091200971.html?hpid=topnews

Wish someone would ask these folks why they're so scared. What proof do they have that what Obama has done, or wants to do, is so bad? And then I remember that logic has nothing to do with their fear.

I don't agree, Bob. Those three shows are as good (if not better) than any sitcom from the past. Another one (though defunct): Arrested Development.

There's a subtlety to the humor of 30 Rock and The Office and Arrested Development that never really existed before. I think DVRs have done this... it's possible for us to watch 30 Rock episodes several times during a week from our Tivo and see and hear things we missed the first (or second, or third) time.

I had to laugh at that line in Joel&al article:
"You want socialism?" said Susan Clark, a District resident marching with a bullhorn. "Go to Russa!"

I don't know where Russa is but I'm putting it in next year's vacation plan.

Mrs. D's weekend in this gorgeous weather didn't last 24 hrs. She's heading for the land of the exploding pipelines. Oh, well she'll get some time off later when the land will be covered in snow...

bc, your man starts on the first row tomorrow in Monza. He likes that spot. I smell good things but it's going a tough one. My man Kubica is stuck way back there with a car that can't make it on slow races and can't make it on fast races. A lost year so to speak. There's always next year. (GM calling their 70's abomination a Monza was a crime against humanity, IMHO)

The Strib is still updating coverage of the Obama rally at the Target Center, front page here:
http://www.startribune.com/

My cousin and her husband had a Monza, what a Piece O'Carp.

I see. It's all about the corn-syrup tax. Dagnab it!

Between January 3 and April 12, 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 protests against the Iraq war. Nobody listened then. I hope the teabaggers get used to it.

What kills me is they always rant about the Constitution but they have absolutely no clue about the history of Constitutional law in this country. They are liable to be fired up about something decided in 1808 they just learned about.

The Office isn't that funny to a causal viewer. Too much hyperbole and not enough character arc, and often the humor is a bit on the disgusting side.

The coworker who thought he was a cat was the one funny moment I remember from clicking through.

Never watched 30 Rock, and "How I met Your mother" is... okay.

I'm just off sitcoms altogether, I prefer comedy concerts.

Not enough character arc? What does that have to do with being funny?

You're right, though... The Office is not for the casual viewer... it is actually ALL ABOUT the characters and very little about the actual episode's story. The character arc, if there is one, is spread over several seasons.

I have frenvy, seasea, I'd go see Steely Dan again in a heartbeat.

Regarding those protesters, they are a bunch of sheep repeating everything Rush and the idiots on Faux news tell them, whether any of it makes sense or not. Stupidity should be painful!

I got no horse in the sitcom race. I said that I enjoy the shows mentioned by TBG. For clever multi-layered humor, any random chunk of Looney Tunes or the Carol Burnett Show (neither of which are sitcoms) are probably better.

"... IS probably better."

Responses to several recent posts:

(1) I realize it's just a typo, but I am bemused by the quantum mechanical significance of a "causal observer".

(2) 30 Rock is splendid. Arrested Development is (not past tense, it's on DVD) ^#$^^())_&%$#% brilliant!

(3) Stupidity tends not to be painful, else people should learn from it. Stupidity tends to veer rather sharply between "no consequences" and "zip up the body-bag."

The first three seasons of "Scrubs" was excellent -- kinda faded once the characters became static, permanently locked into a certain level of maturity and knowledge.

Commenting on the reasoned discourse coming from the Mall:

"Health care is not listed anywhere in the Constitution," said Brian Burnell, 45, who owns an insurance company on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

(a) lots of things are not listed in the Constitution. It enumerates principles, not solutions.
(b) the 'health care' of 1787 was generally pretty counter-productive (see Washington, George; leeching; death). The most effective tools in a physician's arsenal were (1) stop the bleeding, and (2) wait and see what happens.
Health care that can actually accomplish a positive outcome in a majority of cases is a fairly recent invention. Certainly, more recent than the Constitution.

"How Is That Hopey Changey Thing Workin' Out For Ya?" his placard read.

Just fine, thanks. How's that dumber-than-a-box-of-rocks thing working out for you?

SciTim-you do rocks a disservice with your 5:36. As if that guy was even close.

SciTim - How very cogent! There's not much evolutionary pressure against a trait which only kills <1% of its expressors before they breed.

No, no -- I clearly imply that the rocks are smarter. Although, admittedly, that sets the bar pretty low.

I envision a counter-protest of nicely-dressed sober people, surrounding these fruitcakes and chanting "How stupid are you people? How stupid are you people?"

But I suppose that would be a failure of civility. What if we used the word "daft" instead?

Health care is not mentioned in the constitution, but welfare is. Like to see wing nuts sputter trying to explain the "general welfare" clause without using the "i word," you know the one that is a sign of activist judges- interpret.

I prefer the Barney Frank rejoinder, instead of "how stupid are you?" the question should be "what planet are you from?"

Welcome back Tim. That causal typo tempted me but given my loaded typo history I deferred.

I really messed up a guy today. We've done business together nearly 10 years ago near the place where Mrs. D is heading (another accident). He calls Mrs. D., gets me first on the phone. I passed him on to Mrs. D. When he called back (I knew it was him by then) I asked him why he was reviving that 10 years old story on an emergency basis, he was seriously confused. Hilarity ensued.

Yep, and the Constitution does mention providing for the "general welfare", which to me includes health care. I suppose these people are afraid their taxes will go up, and that's always a possibility, but it seems to me the benefits to the whole country having health insurance would mitigate that. I didn't want to pay for 2 wars, especially the Iraq war. I suppose there will be unintended consequences of health care reform (which I hope don't bite me!). I also think that waiting 4 years is going to lead to all sorts of "it's not working" whines. Sigh.

30 Rock is excellent - Alec Baldwin is great, so is Tina Fey, but it's Kenneth the Page who(m) I love. I'm afraid The Office hit its peak a few seasons ago, but I still watch it. Caught Russell Brand on Comedy Central last night - he is very funny.

seasea-do not, under any circumstances, start watching Russel Brand on youtube. You have been warned.

Yes. Not stupid, but ignorant, misinformed, or petty.

We need to remember that many people do have a major stake in keeping the status quo going, and there are people who will always reflexively kick at the idea of paying taxes no matter what.

I think Ricky Gervais is the funniest guy out there. This cracks me up (pun intended):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3vIH15ayLc

His version of The Office is quite good (funnier and sadder than the American version), and I loved Extras, too.

Dead. Everybody's at dinner.

The rice is done. The broccoli casserole will take another 10 or 15. I should build the fire.

I really get bothered by laugh tracks on TV shows. Thus I followed Simpsons, and lately Malcolm reruns because of lack of said laugh tracks. Seinfeld was a rare exception for me.

No, Mudge, I *just* finished the dishes. Mr. T had roast beef with gravy, smashed potatoes, green beans from the garden. I don't do that often, but I lucked into a nice roast a couple of weeks ago. I was going to take it to the mountains, but he wanted to grill, so I put it in the freezer. It was one of my better efforts. Lotsa cleanup, tho.

I caught most of Russell Brand last night but fell asleep before the end. And I made the mistake of watching some of his stuff on Youtube today. He's funny and weird, a good combination I think.

I'm doing a big roast tomorrow, slyness. FYI, Safeway has asparagus for $1.99 a pound, and Food Lion has chicken leg quarters for $.49 a pound in 3-pound lots.

Our Joel is one of the three reporters who covered the wingnut rally on the mall today and who wrote the lede story.

Stand back now .......

HAIL TO THE VICTORS VALIANT
HAIL TO THE CONQUERING HEROES
HAIL! HAIL! TO MICHIGAN
THE LEADERS AND BEST

*RAH* *RAH* *RAH*

HAIL TO THE VICTORS VALIANT
HAIL TO THE CONQUERING HEROES
HAIL! HAIL! TO MICHIGAN
THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a game! We won in the last few seconds.

*whew*

Now, you were saying?

No Safeways in this part of the world, Mudge. Food Lion is local, but I never shop there. I have to go to Harris Teeter and The Fresh Market every week. Mr. T and I also are customers of Costco and Trader Joe's. Getting groceries is a complicated process around here...

First Russell Brand appears funny and weird, and just a little cute. Before long he becomes your standard for male attractiveness and you've branched off to watching topical humor from the UK that he's not even on. It's a long road to recovery, but I haven't started with that first step so I wouldn't know just how long.

As I said before, you were warned.

There are certainly some ugly signs showing up at that protest, but I am hesitant to characterize everyone there as being a nutcase.

I have no doubt that many are simply feeling scared and overwhelmed by the way their country is changing. They look back, I suspect, to an idealized country with which they are comfortable, despite the fact that this idealized country never even existed.

Yet with so much anger floating about, I fear that even these individuals will get pulled along by the hate-mongers.

This boodle seems to be dying from old age.

Ah well, Joel is certainly busy today.

Frosti, I’ve been thinking about what you said about Russell Brand and his ‘appeal.’ There is something about British men such as Brand, the young Hugh Laurie and the character Jack Sparrow (was he supposed to be a Brit?) that, although it goes against every trait I find masculine and attractive, somehow reaches me in ways that the he-man types do not. So yes, I’ve been warned and I’m trying to stop watching the darn videos. I did Wiki Brand and see that he’s had quite a life so far, yikes!

Instant movie review:

"Gamer" is "Blade Runner" on PCP...

And it's not a good trip.

But any evening with bc IS a good one. :-)

sneaks-Hugh Laurie will always be Bertie Wooster to me, and lovably dense.

Frosti, I was thinking of him as the Prince in the Blackadder series but yes, he was just perfect as Bertie. He and Stephen Fry were a great combination.

Disheartening to read the story by JA et al re: the demonstration in DC today. Sigh. One guy quoted was only 26, far too young to be so mean and narrow. Not at all like the young people I know.

Toodles boodle and sweet dreams. Had a fine day here in Newport News. It will be hard to leave family, and blooming crape myrtles, behind for fall in full swing. As an oldest child part of me always wanted to be an only, but as has been mentioned here before-sisters are a fine thing.

Scottynuke, I was thinking that "Gamer" tried it's best to overwhelm, but underachieved.

Had a good time with ye, too, sir.

s_d, I'm feeling good about my mancrush Hamilton's chances tomorrow, though, dag, man, how about those Force India cars? Wow. Fisi's proabably looking at himself in the mirror, wondering if driving for Ferrari at Monza was worth losing the chance for finishing on the podium again.

I was on I-270 northbound (away from DC, which was about 30 miles behind us) this evening and saw a rather rough old white Ford Crown Vic roll by me with the words "Tea Party" hand-written along the sides in what looked like Marks-a-Lot permanent marker.

Neither party *ahem* in the vehicle appeared to be wearing seatbelts.

bc

Recently while getting ready to watch the Daily Show I was dismayed to see that it was on hiatus, but in it's place were a serious of 1 hour stand up shows.

I watched in one week, an hour of Ricky Gervais (whom I adore), Russell Brand and a Canadian comics whose name escapes me but I have seen live previously and was very funny.

Worthy substitutes for the Daily Show.

Hugh Laurie - big sigh.

Fun day here, gorgeous sunny september day, street party in the afternoon, supper with friends, hung out with the kids and did some odd jobs around the house. As well we are looking to replace our kitchen island - we are now totally overwhelmed with the possibilities and still getting over the incredible advancements in the "garbage, recycling, green waste cupboards" - if it has not before been readily apparent we amuse easily.

Jeez. Serena Williams just got tossed out of her match for allegedly muttering a threat against a line judge who called a double foot fault on her. Williams can be heard arguing with two other officials that she did *not* say "I'll kill you" to the line judge. (She clearly said *something* to her and shook her racket at her.) Replay does not appear to show a foot fault.

The official in charged just clarified. At deuce, Williams was cautioned for a "racket offense" (throwing the racket, on "advantage in" against her, she was called for the foot fault. The verbal abuse of the judge resulted in awarding her opponent a penalty point...which happened to be match point. So the record shows Cliisters won the second set 6-4 after winning the first set 7-6. So in theory the match was completed.

Replay shows Williams clearly verbally abusing the line umpire, and the announcer says they've bleeped out clearly "profane" language apparently to having to do with where Williams was going to put the tennis ball. So Williams clearly lost her composure and did abuse the umpire. Whether the original call was right or wrong wasn't apparent from the re-play.

To top off my great day, I just stepped outside and noticed a big display of moonflowers tonight.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024425&id=1026200350&l=085ad40d56

The classic toss is done with a red card. Whistle the play dead. Wave the offending player over. Reach into your pocket for the book and the cart. Hold said card horizontally. flip it emphatically, about nose level, and motion the player off the pitch. This should be SOP at all sporting events. If Ms. Williams uttered such improprieties at the officials, she deserved the DQ. Not a Dilly Bar.

Spent the majority of the day rewiring a century old two arm chandelier. Japan finish. Brought the finish back, for the most part with NeverDull. The proper fixture should hang from the ceiling so that one can reach up to toggle the light sockets. This one is so proper for our home that I can't stand it. *snoopy dance*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGnYu9JRolM

Next spring I will plant moonflowers! They are beautiful, dmd.

(This year I couldn't get morning glories to sprout, let alone grow, so we will see what happens. I've grown morning glories many times before, so no idea what happened.)

Dr G is home snoring where he belongs, Daughter has reported in from her sojourn into the bowels of the city and now I'm tired.... g'night Boodle.

After all of this talk of moon flowers over the past couple of years I *finally* saw some during a visit and conversation over the design of a monument. When they were identified for me, thoughts turned immediately to the boodle. The plants were passed to the family from an older woman that was a friend of the family. I understand that they take with some difficulty. How cool is that.

Big Boy Pete...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkgiVqXmpsw&feature=related

I couldn't get my morning glories to sprout either Nellie, in fact only one plant grew from seed for me. The moonflowers were purchased already potted from the nursery (but still quite small). This was the first time I had seen moonflowers available as potted annuals - I will be looking again next year.

This house is just not meant for attempting to grow from seed, miss my old huge west facing window which was perfect for starting seedlings.

Tracks run along all four compass points through our fair city. The midnight freight is passing, as evidenced with the horn. The E/W line is but a quarter mile from our homeplace, and one engineer insists on keeping the horn open for nearly a half mile before reaching our crossing. Each engineer has a signature horn pattern. You'd have to be here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeFZtFNELik&feature=related

Rock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aykoGVMdlSA

I had given up on seeing any tennis tonight. I was watching the Walter Cronkite memorial on C-SPAN, flicked over to CBS when the Williams/Clijsters match was at 6-4, 4-3 (Clisters had won the first set) - a couple of quick games, and then foot fault (which I have never understood what constitutes such a thing), and wham, bam, it was over. Clijsters won the second set 7-5. She should have a pretty easy match tomorrow. Too bad Serena lost it that way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091203366.html?hpid=topnews

my window faces the south.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYarHymJjL8

Oh, and I was so surprised to hear Jimmy Buffet sing Son of a Sailor during the Cronkite tribute. Had no idea he and Walter were sailing buddies.

seasea, both your feet must be behind the line when serving, after your raquet makes contact with the ball, your feet may touch/cross the line.

seasea - A couple of years (or so) ago I picked up a sailing buddy of mine at his marina in Annapolis one afternoon, because he needed a ride back to Baltimore to get his car, where he had left it (two weeks earlier) before sailing to and fro on his way to Annapolis. He assured me that he had eaten breakfast with Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Buffett sometime during his trip. I was ever-so-slightly skeptical, but not really. Sailors do tend to find each other.

'mudge, here's what I know: If Serena Williams ever approaches me in anger, I'll give her whatever she requires. This is a formidable woman. If there's second-guessing to be done, I'll undertake it at a cooler moment.

(Of course, that's why I'd be a better Supreme Court justice than a bench judge. As we both know, umpires don't usually have the luxury of timely reflection.)

I'm mostly kidding. The coolest move would of all would have been to concede that Ms. Williams was correct, overrule the foot-fault call, and THEN toss her for unsportstennisplayer-like conduct.

Too much "would".

Since no one has risen to the occasion, I'll chime back in with a more measured observation: Cooler heads ought to have prevailed in that tennis match. Serena Williams had every right to be skeptical about the foot-fault call, and (given the precarious nature of her standing in the match at that point) it's not surprising that she got aggressive about challenging the call. Umpires & line judges deserve some deference, but if you're certain that they're wrong (and especially if the match is on the line), well, f'em.

Nastase, Conners, McEnroe... the path is well-trodden. Make some noise, because even if they get away with screwing you over this time, they'll be a little more careful next time.

She probably ought to have been given at least one more chance to back off, and she certainly should have taken the chances offered earlier. Cooler heads were not in evidence. Ah, well. Given that outcome, I'll bet it'll be a long while before we see Kim Clijsters lose her temper!

Good morning, you all. A few things:

Cassandra, we miss you!

Haven't read the Dynasty opinion piece yet, but voted for Roosevelts, then peeked and saw that so far over 40% agreed with me. :-)

Read George McGovern's opinion piece on Medicare and am in agreement with him. He makes the case that he is enjoying the benefits of Medicare now, but really could have used it back in the day for his family as well as himself. That is not to say that his family did not have health coverage early on. Mine did too, but it was a financial struggle with one of our sons, whose medical bills were staggering for a one income family like ours. A two income situation would have meant trusting someone else to look after our medically fragile baby; just could not do that in the late 1960s-early 70s.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091102406.html

Coffee is ready and I put a big Ball canning jar of fresh apple butter on the table for toast or scones. Big Meadows had a charming apple butter festival yesterday, complete with country band and singers, apple cider, cooking apple butter in big ole' pots outside.

Leaves just barely beginning to turn on a few trees in our treasure, Shenandoah National Park. http://www.visitshenandoah.com

'morning all. I'm settling in for the Monza GP. You've got to love a track that is almost a 100 years old (opened in 1922) that has a curve named the Prabolica.
Mrs. Williams certainly lost it yesterday. She was talking ugly, the referee had to do something. I bet she learned something out there and we won't see that happening again. She is so frikking competitive, losing that way must have burned her badly.

The ragweed is very bad this year. I had to take the nuclear option last night, the benadryl. I had a couple of drinks and some wine as well and booze does not mix well with that stuff. Hence the mild hangover this morning.
Oh, they are lining up the cars; it's time to switch media.

jack

here is one of my favorites (thanks for your last post "window") ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qynzUJwK18

Old Santa Fe with Peter Rowan and Tony Rice quartet a couple of years ago. On why, ... as these days get a bit crisp in the morning, I start thinking about how wonderful the high mountains are in the Southwest of country as there is a chill in the air.

One of my favorite songs/versions way back was My Window Faces the South by Commander Cody with again local-DC-ite Bill Kirchen. That wax is sitting somewhere in storage.

Nothing like a sunrise driving across the dry and high plains. There is just so much absolute beauty out there.

Jack, thanks.

and, ftb ... ftb ...

heart, heart, heart.

Boy, I was so enjoying the Andrew Sullivan post, as well, from the Atlantic. College Republicans, INDEED!!!!

Hey, I remember Segretti and Stone and all those other guys who were all about winning, and not about doing any good. In fact, I think winning meant that you lost and you couldn't do anything.

VL - thank you for that post. I always like it when people speak from their own experience. I have always had excellent insurance, and hate to imagine what could have happened to my daughter if we did not.

I love apple butter. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, which has a fair amount of apples, we used to consume vast quantities of the stuff. Vast.

Pretty blue skies over the area this morning. Good day for some yardwork and, perhaps, sitting in the back yard with a nice glass of wine and a book.

And regarding yesterday's demonstration, Nate Silver has a nice post on the perils of overestimating crowd size and underestimating anger.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/size-matters-so-do-lies.html

Good morning, all. Hey Cassandra!

No paper yet, which is highly annoying. What's with those people?

dmd, loved the moonflower photos. I grew mine from seed at CqP's behest and they have done fairly well, considering that they are in full sun in the whiskey barrel. Next year, I may try mixing them with morning glories and mulch them early.

You gardeners do realize, don't you, what a sea change it is for me to consider growing morning glories? The second most prolific weed in the South (after kudzu)? If I had a nickel for every morning glory I pulled at my mother's place in the country, I'd be as rich as Bill Gates.

Yesterday I trimmed the tomato vines so I could get to the iris plot and dig and separate the plants. Had lots left over, let me know if you'd like some. They are lavender and burgundy/taupe. Today I need to deal with the amaryllis. Last year I put them in the coolest, darkest place on the lot and they didn't bloom. This year, I'm going to cut off the leaves, put them in paper bags, and store them in the refridgerator till mid-November. Maybe then they will bloom. Suggestions are welcome!

I love it when the Washington Post comes with free food.

Morning boodle! Love the late night music links, it broadens my horizons. Here's one in return.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG-ww7JsnOA

Oh, and to back-peddle to those great Hubble pics. badsneakers had asked about the false-color imagery:

http://www.slate.com/id/2227828/

Morning all!! Coffee's taken care of, and my oh my, it's a marvelous morning to sit in a Floataway Chair under the tree in the yard and watch immature cardinals feast on sunflower blooms on the stalk... :-))) WiFi ist wunderbar, neh??

Yes indeed, bc, 'twas a wonderful evening, TYVM, mon ami. :-)

*swinging-back-and-forth-under-the-tree Grover waves*

RD, thanks for the link about the colors. It makes more sense to me now.

The rain has stopped finally. Hoping to get back to painting later today. I am obsessed. This happens to me sometimes, I plan my entire life around some task or chore until it's finished.

I planted morning glories last year and had so many they engulfed the side of the deck and grew up through the umbrella and out the top of it. So I passed on them this year. I might plant some next year, but fewer. I did start them in peat pots after soaking the seeds overnight.

Scotty, I hope you aren't just misunderstanding those cardinals' behavior. I mean, they may be young, but calling them immature?

Well, Weed, a few of them landed in my tree and started squawking at me... Perhaps I need an umbrella?? :-)

Scotty, there is probably some sentence that begins with 'Lest' that we could employ (correctly or not).

Lest we get cause the Floataway Chair to imitate a #37 trebuchet...

I was only going to stay under the tree until the batteries got low, but it's too darn nice out here... I broke out the extension cords!! *L*

More explicitly than Gene Robinson, Maureen Dowd calls out Joe Wilson as a racist redneck.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13dowd.html?_r=1

And Bono rocks. That is all for now.

Oooh. Nice defense of that quaint concept of unbiased reporting. I especially like the bit where it is asserts that in the blogosphere there is often no distinction between journalism and propaganda.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/media

Hey, I am totally worn out by the secession BS and the racial undercurrent. Groups of angry tea baggers... congressmen who take 100's of thousands of dollars to act like ninnies...

Well, we can easily accept a multicultural world if we "just put our minds to it!!!"

Let's get happy!

http://www.panonthenet.com/classics/hells_gate.htm

Takin' Sunday off from my concern. Working a bit and saddened by what happened on the Red Line.

Scotty... I think those cardinals will argue with you about whether it's your tree or not.

And in case anyone else was wondering...

http://www.beachfinds.com/floataway1.jpg

Hey Jack... those northbound trains do the same thing when they pass across the street from Son of G's apartment. A long, loud whistle. He's used to it now, but it always wakes me when I'm staying with him. Like others who live near tracks, he now finds the sound soothing and comforting.

I wish I were a headlight on a northbound train.

Talking with the neighbours this morning I discovered there is a movement afoot to have the birdfeeders-raiding bear declared a nuisance animal. That would start the process of trapping and displacing this particular Yogi. Good luck with that, the bear has only been doing normal bear things like raiding birdfeeders, knocking down gas grills, rooting through compost pile and garbage bins, etc. The ministry of natural resources only traps bears that are doing extraordinary things like trying to get into sheds or garages or approaching humans without fear. Still I sent my support e-mail to the city councillor for the area. We'll see.

I pulled my feeders 10 days ago when I realized it was a full size animal, not a teenager. The bear ripped feeders that were suspended 6.5 feet from the ground, so I knew it had to be a full-size one. Recent sightings have confirmed that. I'll put the feeders back when the bear leaves (or is made to leave...).

I'm looking at immature cardinals right now. They are so cute with their permanently ruffled look. They are visiting the feeder suspended under the eaves, a solid 12 feet from the ground. This feeder would be safe from everything but giraffes. We don't have much of a giraffe problem so this one is safe.

Good grief! It's almost noon FCOL! I admit that I slept in, which for me was 8:00-ish. Just couldn't go any longer.

I think I'm allergic to the Body Shop Aloe shower lotion product. I wasn't at first, but now my skin is itching, and so I think I'll take my business (at least in the shower area) to Aveeno. My skin has become so sensitive over the years.

Anyhow, I read Maureen Dowd this morning, and I suspect that she's right. And, indeed, I'm not surprised. I'm wondering if I'm too old to be an ex-pat again. Languages come easy to me, so that wouldn't be an issue, but the body is in much worse shape than it was almost 35 years ago when I moved to Sweden. And then, there's the issue of making a living.

During the Bush administration, I made it a point to stay out of the way, and I find that I still have that feeling. The tiny, tiny segment of the population to which the Post seems to want to pay attention (i.e., putting their tantrum above the story of Obama's gathering) is really scary to me. Their cavalier assessment of the Nazis and the Holocaust so cheapens those concepts (which may be the point).

What gets me is that I'm sure that many cheered what Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma City and talk about 9/11 as if it happened personally to them -- instead of to the entire world, just on our soil. And 9/11 also happened to a government building (Pentagon), which I guess is exempted from their hatred of government for now. There are tons more McVeigh's out there, for sure.

Yeah, it's closing in on 2010, and there are a whole lotta people who haven't wandered far outside their caves.

Sorry for the rant, but I really don't like what I'm seeing in this country. I sure hope the security around Obama and his family is as tight as can be.

Okay, then. Let's get the backhoe out on this office!

(and, thanx, Weed for the hearts)

I am channel-flipping between NFL Today on CBS and Fox NFL Sunday. Soooooooooooooo happy. In 36 minutes starts 21 weeks of weekend joy.

'Mudge, did you catch Shannon Sharpe's shorts with the suit jacket and dress shoes on NFL Today???? Somebody ratted him out!! *L*

I saw that, Scotty. And he was the only one who picked the Skins over the Giants.

Well, if he's smart enough to not bother wearing pants behind the desk, I like the 'Skins chances! :-)

Ravens on the board first...

What a wonderful day for televised sports, that Italian Grand Prix from Monza, and then a full day of NFL football (I'm in Fox/CBS flip-back mode, too).

I took care of most of my chores this morning, and I think I can manage the laundry during the games.

Salut, all.

bc

Any good crowd estimates? I have been checking some blogs reporting "millions" marched in DC yesterday. Well, I don't believe that. I also read "20,,000."

One particular blog I was fascinated by. The commenters (teabaggers, birthers, deniers, racists, white supremists, know-nothings, illiterates, angertainers, rage-aholics, schizophrenics, and I presume a few anti-Masonics, snake-handlers, and mouth-breathers as well) seemed to have as one of their main goals frightening liberals. This was repeated many times. That, and a preoccupation with coprophagia, preferably performed by Socialist Liberals, but mentioned far more than seems psychologically normal in most conversation. In other words, a psychiatrists' version of a Cheney grouse hunt.

Check RD Padouk's link to Nat Silver at fivethirtyeight Jumper...

Hmmm... Drew Brees already has 2 TDs and almost 100 yards in the 1st Q againt the Lions...

Jumper - Nicely done. Now tell us what you really think! :-D

WONDERFUL scrambling by Flacco for the Ravens' first TD!

Someone appears to have applied Teflon to the RB's cleats in Bawlmer today...

Yah, Scotty, Flacco's move forward between the defenders, then turning and running parallel to the line of scrimmage and throwing on on the run to McGahee as the play broke down was pretty sweet.

bc

Wow -- like beating the Lions is news?

Anybody but me watch Michigan win over Notre Dame yesterday? Great nail-biting game! Well, great only because my team won, you understand.

I think 'Mudge is likin' the Iggles game...

I watched the Michigan game, ftb. I'm always happy when Notre Dame loses. Michigan's quarterback is very impressive. Nothing seems to faze him. The way he rolled around dodging tackles on the incomplete pass before the winning touchdown showed that. Then when Sean McDonough said that Notre Dame was blitzing on the next play, I said "Michigan touchdown." The quarterback was in shotgun formation and had no problem finding an open receiver. Wonderful finish!

seasea,

That's great that you will be able to see Steely Dan. The reviews I've read of their shows have been excellent. Enjoy it!

And for your Sunday afternoon enjoyment...

http://tinyurl.com/nxggo8

Thanks, pj!

Rafa's knocked out of the US Open. Del Potro played really well.

Graet pix, TBG!!!

Yes, Scotty, them Iggles are kicking some serious Panther patoot. Wish I could have watched it here.

Is KC better than expected, or Ravens kinda lackluster? It's a better game than anyone expected, I think. KC just tied it up at 24.

Little of both on the Balt-KC game, 'Mudge...

Love the pic TBG.

Beautiful September day here, eighty and sunny - July may have been awful but so far September has just been wonderful.

Off to continue trying to control the Wisteria - I believe it may be on a mission to take over the neighbourhood.

I haven't the strength to back boodle to see if this was posted earlier. Please forgive, if.

> http://wonkette.com/411046/friendly-da-saves-andrew-sullivan-from-life-sentence-in-gitmo-for-smoking-marijuana#more-411046
>

Not good when your opponent GAINS yards on a fumbled snap... *SIGH*

Hmmmmm... I believe Joe Buck just said Campbell threw for more than 32 yards last year.

Yep, he sure did. *SIGH*

Wish Randal-El had just thrown for more than 32... *SIGHHHHHHHHHH*

Whew that was a lot closer then I expected,glad the Ravens offense was up to the task.500+ yards total offense is unheard of for us.

Hope everyone else's team is enjoying success on this opening day.

Off to the river to see if the fish still love me.

Oy, nonexistent tackling on that Manning-to-Manningham TD.

Bah.

And then Campbell throws a pick from across the line of scrimmage.

Sheesh.

I doubt Mudge is liking what happened to McNabb in Carolina today. If Donovan's really broken some ribs, we may be seeing Mike Vick taking snaps during the regular season as soon as he's eligible (Week 4?).

bc

I was at the rally yesterday helping out with the coverage and it looked to me like roughly 100,000 people or so -- but very hard to tell, particularly with the reflecting pool right in the center of everything. Big turnout for sure. The 70,000 figure also seems reasonable, though I wonder who in the fire department made that estimate and based on what. It's baffling to me that Malkin repeated the 2 million rumor which would be bigger than the inauguration (as Nate Silver points out in his blog). I may blog on this tomorrow.

Joel,

How for down the Mall did the crowd go? And were they on the Capitol grounds or just around the reflecting pool? As you noted, that reflecting pool is huge and its trapezoidal shape makes it hard to get a feel for the size of a crowd.

Crowd filled the west lawn, across the street, around the pool, and spilled a little bit across 3rd street into the mall proper.

Nice fake kick, by the way...that punter only took about 20 minutes to get into the corner of the end zone by my calculation...

Joel, if you do Kit about the crowd size on the Mall yesterday, consider the idea that they may be the same folks estimating the size of those protests in Iran a short time back.

Measuring organized demonstration crowd sizes on the Mall and in other places has been a notoriously slippery thing. At times, the attempts to propgate information that favors one postion over another relative to, well, the facts, can be breathtakingly far from the perceptions of those who actually Observed the events.

Washington scores on a fake field goal in the closing seconds of the half. Better than nothing, I suppose.

bc

The Reflecting Pool became trapazoidal?

No, not happy about McNabb. Not happy about Campbell, either.

The one up around the Capitol, Mudge. Not the one by the Lincoln Memorial.

If you look at a map of the area (Google Maps is fabulous) you can see that there aren't many right angles in that area. Tough to figure out how many people can get in there. But I think you could teach a section of high school geometry on the various shapes on the Capitol grounds.

One problem solved. No need to worry about undocumented workers, or at least those from Mexico, getting government health care in the US. The Mexican government is making moves to cover them with its public option
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/121/33350/mexico-offers-health-insurance-migrants-united-states.html

I hope Jon Stewart is saving stuff like this for when he comes back from hiatus.

It's "by" the Capitol on the west side, not "around" the Capitol. Although from time to time having a moat there is very tempting .

Frosti, he'll be back tomorrow. Yay!

Yuck. I don't believe I need to explain myself further.

I don't find anything baffling in Malkin reporting that 2 million figure. As Nate Silver points out, technically, what Malkin wrote is true. It is just naïve, but being naïve can be strategically useful. Perhaps she reasoned that if the figure turned out to be proven wrong she could just claim an honest mistake confident that the misinformation was already out there. Further, I am sure she was confident in her ability to spin any blowback as typical opportunism by the Liberal Media, which is exactly what she ended up doing.

It reminds me of the way Bush stated that the British had reported Uranium Oxide coming from Africa way back in that infamous State of the Union Speech. In both cases the lie is in the implication that what is being repeated is universally accepted and above reproach. In both cases such lies of omission may have been justified because they made a larger point. In Bush's case that Iraq was developing Weapons of Mass Destruction, and in Malkin's case that there is massive opposition to Obama and everything he touches. And I assert that in both of these cases this larger point is pretty much equal in validity.

I'd amazed if there were a total of two million people in the District yesterday doing ANYTHING, let alone hanging around the Mall.

For tennis fans, Jack Kramer died at age 88.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/13/AR2009091301777.html?hpid=topnews

Well, here I am back in Calgary after many exciting and fun days elsewhere. I'm already missing my DC-area friends. The family reunion was, well, the way those things are. Good fun and disfunction in about equal parts. We toured the Niagara region "Benches" (up the escarpment, not Niagara on the Lake) to visit five wineries and had a fabulous dinner in little Jordan Village (were relieved that we were all present and accounted-for after crossing the Jordan river). I bought four bottles of wine and one of verjus, only to discover that Air Canada charges more for a suitcase two kilos overweight than the wine was worth. Oh well, at least these are wines I can't get here, mostly estate wines from artisanal vineyards.

Should I backboodle? Or just hope Joel blogs about the rally and saves me the effort?

You haven't missed anything, Yoki.

Glad you're home safe and sound.

Thanks 'mudge. Nice to be here.

I've been thinking today about Norman Bourlaug, father of the Green Revolution, deceased at 95. The obit on the WaPo front page quotes from his 1970 Nobel Prize lecture: 'Beyond food, he continued, a "decent and humane life" requires "an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."'

He did, indeed, feed the hungry. On the other hand, the Green Revolution also has given us national economies that depend upon monoculture and factory-farming so that a nation's well-being can be destroyed by a mere food fad, agricultural runoff that destroys the environment and creates male fish that produce eggs, dependence on agricultural industries for crops that cannot be bred and reseeded outside of controlled conditions, and environmental segmentation and deforestation. The way I read Bourlaug's 1970 speech is that agriculture gave us breathing space to fix our other problems, but we (and Bourlaug himself, I think it turns out) dropped the ball on accomplishing the next steps for a truly sustainable society. The shadow of Malthus still hangs over us.

SciTim, I agree with your assessment. We are overdue for a catastrophic event that halves the number of people alive.

I believe that the most prudent course for humankind to control population is to ensure that girls and young women receive the education, employment opportunities, and civil rights to be full participants in the life of their communities. Given a choice, women will not bring into the world more children than they can successfully rear.

Watching the Bears/Packers Sunday Night game and at this point I'm not sure if either team is going to win it or simply do less than the other team to lose it.

bc

I'm with you on monoculture, but, the fact is, there is plenty of food and water in this world, and the trick is to get the distribution right. One of the things many of us have been working on for many years is how to do that. I still think it is a worthy cause.

A truly sustainable solution may be to kill off more than half the world's population and go back to hunting and gathering, but since that isn't going to happen, we need other mechanisms of equity.

That is the new challenge. It is now more a question of philosophy, the commonweal, sacrifice, social activism, than of technology.

And not many societies are really interested in the debate, because it means they all give up some comfort.

In one of those blogs I saw one of the "over a million" people calculating an average space of two square feet per person. I calculate around nine, in a crowd. (And someone else used a "radius of three feet" but somehow came up with the same inflated number exceeding a million.) All this lends credence to Joel's honest and likely logical attempt to come up with a ball park figure of 100,000.

Malkin? Michelle Malkin? I thought she was an obscure loon who appealed to wealthy reactionary retirees in small towns like mine. The sort who would just as soon do without Medicare.

561 comments. The comment section may burst by Monday morning.

Yoki, sustainability is hard to come by. David JC MacKay proves that, issue by issue in "Sustainable Energy -- without the hot air".

I'm imagining that the huge Capitol reflecting pool might be made drainable so the spot can be used for demonstrations.

Good thing disaster movies are out of mode. Someone would make one in which 200,000 rabid demonstrators jump up and down in unison, creating stress waves in the roof of the expressway underneath. Then bang! The roof falls and everyone lands in the Purple Tunnel of Death. Secret fuel and water storage facilities alongside the Tunnel are ruptured, causing flaming gasoline and diesel to float every which way as piranhas escaped from the Botanic Garden nibble at the survivors.... This is starting to look like a bad imitation of Garrison Keillor. Hope he's healthy enough to be inventing better stuff for next week.

Two square feet per person??? Ain't no way. Sardines aren't packed in that closely. People couldn't move if they are that close together. Even two foot square would be pushing it.

Kim Clijsters, former champion and mom, won the US Open. Good for her - good match.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/13/AR2009091303266.html?hpid=topnews

From the pictures I saw on TV, those Teaparty protesters didn't look like they were very close together.

PJ, I agree, the shots I saw seemed to be more on the order of two square yards at least. Which is 36 square feet.

Well of course, Seasea.

They're rugged individualists, not socialist hippy communist people-huggers.

Just getting ready to retire, but wanted to post this link to the Toles cartoon. Those of us who don't get the paper paper usually miss these gems.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinion/ssi/images/Toles/c_09132009_520.gif

The guy has an uncanny gift for getting it right.

G'night, all. Here's to a new Kit tomorrow - this one's soggy and tired and puffy.

The second picture in the accompanying gallery shows a guy flying a flag upside-down. I find that disrespectful and disgraceful. If there were true patriots there, he should have been severely reprimanded.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/09/12/GA2009091202183.html?sid=ST2009091201255

I should take a hint from the boodle and go to sleep.

Good morning, you all.

Sleep well, yellojacket.

Dawn patrol is lonely these daze.

Coffee is ready, cheerios and fresh blueberries for the commuter crowd.

Looking forward to your Monday efforts, Joel. The Boodle worked hard on this one, over 600 posts!

New day, praise be.

VL,
I will have some of those Dawn Patrol blueberries. Rick Bayless at his Frontera Grille restaurant serves a really rich blueberry ice cream with dessert. Yummo.

Way deep in Kurtz's post-mortem on Van Jones, he reveals that a group founded by Jones is one of the ringleaders running a boycott of Glen Beck.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/13/AR2009091302573.html?hpid=topnews

Can you say 'retribution'? I knew you could

Good morning, Ms. Lady!

I can count on you having properly roasted coffee!!!

Jkt, not so covert and very successful. Beck has been crowing about getting back at Jones. Now, he thinks he can pull up "bad things" about a list of folks that are heading or are already in the White House.

About 4 years ago, my daughter opined to me that it seemed in politics that people who ARE BEHAVING A CERTAIN WAY usually try to paint their opponent for being the exact same way.

Since she was 14, I explained it by saying that one needs to respond, "I know you are, but what am I?"

Beck is, at the very least, fueling racism and lack of respect for the Presidency, if not a racist. Over 60 advertisers have made the correct analysis, as well.

Good morning and happy Monday to all my friends here! Thanks for doing breakfast, Ms. Lady! Fresh blueberries, yum. Cassandra, you up yet?

Another busy week ahead. Life is just so much better when a person gets to pick the projects to be involved with, instead of having them assigned. Retirement is a blast!

I'm looking forward to a new kit, but it's okay if Joel sleeps in a bit this morning. After all, he had to work over the weekend.

Just before Joel puts up a new kit, couldn't resist this picture - seems Polar bears love bacon too. Great series of pictures.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/09/11/GA2009091102531.html?hpid=multimedia1&hpv=national

Morning all! I just have to say the office chair comes out rather badly in a head-to-head comparison with the Floataway chair under the tree. Oh well. :-)

yello, the upside-down flag is usually seen as a semaphore for "trouble" or "render assisstance," so it's not disrespectful to the flag, certainly. *shrug*

Cutler threw 4 INTs while the Broncos get the lucky bounce? My heart bleeds, really.

*in-full-counting-down-the-days-before-a-week-off-mode Grover waves* :-)

Oh, and Kanye West really, really needs to switch to decaf... *raised unibrow*

Snuke,

I only caught a few seconds of the Bears game while having a late dinner with a friend and I think I may have seen one of, if not the worst, "ill advised" passes ever thrown in the NFL from Cutler. It represented the intersection between the worst idea and the worst execution.

If you think that the Redskins are the result of Danny Snyder trying to buy a championship, then it is hard to conceive of how Cutler "got away."

Beautiful day here, perfect for painting - am I obsessed or what? My todo list for the day is; scrape and wash window painted yesterday, paint two living room windows, put finish coat on two downspouts, put finish coat on screen door. I should be able to get the whole front of the house done this week. This will leave the hard parts that require tall ladders, which I do not like at all.

Help me, you guys! I can't read, or something...

from the Wash.Post online business section:

Stock futures lower on US-China trade concerns

By STEPHEN BERNARD
The Associated Press
Monday, September 14, 2009; 7:55 AM

NEW YORK -- Stock futures are pointing to a lower opening Monday amid concerns about a growing trade dispute between the U.S. and China.

Overseas markets also fell sharply on concern about tensions between two of the world's largest economies.

Late Friday, the U.S. administration imposed trade penalties on tires coming into the country from China. The Chinese government quickly condemned the move, calling it protectionist and a violation of global trade rules.

President Barack Obama has until Thursday to accept, reject or modify a U.S. International Trade Commission ruling that an increase of Chinese tires moving into the U.S. hurts American producers.

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OK, did the ITC rule that the US is being hurt by Chinese tires (and can defend itself by imposing tariffs)? Does President Obama have an opportunity to reject that thesis?

I am cornfused.

Maybe it's me.

New kit

Yup, like dmd says, there's a new kit. See, I was over there, and there was nobody else there. I mean, zero peeps beside me and Joel. There were tumbleweeds blowing through the Boodle. It was like a Twilight Zone theme, where'd all the people disappear to?

So c'mom over. Otherwise it'll be just me and Joel telling newspaper war stories all day.

not to mention the fact that - um - has anyone looked at who is funding Joe Wilson's campaigns? American Hospital Assoc. is his largest contributor. Blue Cross is way up there, as is AstraZenica, CareCore, American Society of Anesthesiologists. need i say more?