The Radical Moderate

When I have breakfast, it's usually yogurt or an english muffin. Fred gets the last spoonful of yogurt. After I finish the muffin, I pour some milk in the saucer and he has that.

A week ago, I got some of the grocery store bagels as a change of pace. Not great, but not bad. I put jelly or honey on the muffins but cream cheese goes on the bagels. Fred gets some cream cheese. I've noticed he turns up his nose at the milk after it, though it's the same milk.

I know it's skim, I have to watch my cholesterol (I know, cream cheese. I 'aint perfect). Still, he likes it when that's all the dairy there is. However, after cream cheese? Not worth it...

It's not just cats. We people get our rich foods or toys and, too often, forget the basics are still good. Sometimes it's no problem, as when we've had our fill of something better and just don't need the simpler things. However, too many people would begin to always reject the milk and demand the cream cheese as their right (metaphor alert!). Fred's smarter, when I go back to other foods, the milk is still good enough. Enjoy what you have. It's a short life.

The debate will begin in the Senate. Not because they challenged Republicans to filibuster, but because they handed out pork. As both parties do, they bribed recalcitrant members to follow the party line. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Senator, is proud of the $100 million for which she sold her vote. She and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas made it clear that the current bribes were only to bring the discussion to the floor and they'll need much more pork to support the measure.

It's more evidence that, though a few social issues create critical differences, there really aren't two full parties representing us. They act identically behind closed doors, demanding parochial expenditures that help ensure re-election regardless of any long term issue.

Pork isn't Democratic or Republican, it's bipartisan, dangerous and still with us in full force until someone in power has the guts to stop it. Trying to get a debate to the floor without sixty votes would have sent a clear message that things were different. They're not.

I'm listening to KFOG on the internet. It's an SF Bay Area rock station. I listened a lot for close to twenty years and I just heard something new: An ad to visit Alcatraz Island.

It's a subtle sign of the economy. Most people aren't taking the big vacation. Out of town visitors are probably down in most major tourist cities, so the park intelligently reminded people there's a local place of interest they might not have been in a while and probably only visited with out of town guests.

I like smart marketing, and that ad's a good one.

Listened to the radio news at the top of the hour. The Senate's Democrats want to bring the health care bill to the floor for debate. The Republicans are threatening to filibuster that.

Filibusters are usually used to stop a vote. This isn't about voting, but about discussing the pros and cons of the bill and offering amendments to the bills. I would think an intelligent person would be interested and getting up and specifying the problems he or she has with the bill. Pontificating on why it won't work and suggesting fixes or stating clearly why it's not fixable.

They played a segment of Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explaining why a filibuster is needed. His explanation? He stated that the proponents of the bill "have a lot of explaining to do." Huh?

He's saying that there are big questions about the bill so that it's in America's interest to prevent the bill from being debated. There are questions, but nobody can discuss discuss them? As usual, the Republicans are using exactly the wrong argument for their point.

"We have questions so we'll prevent the questions from being asked because they might be answered." If you look at it that, then you'll understand why they must filibuster. They've survived on fear and ignorance. A floor debate would have to use facts. That scares them.

Most readers are American, so you can ignore this is you want -- it's about soccer.

FIFA is the int'l body that regulates soccer and controls the World Cup, the greatest of tournaments. The round robin play for regional WC qualifications finished and this week was the playoffs for some second place teams for a shot at next year's tournament.

When FIFA announced the format, they said all eight teams would be randomly seeded. However, Portugal, German and France, all "top teams", failed to win their pools and were in the playoffs. FIFA changed their minds and suddenly announced the top teams would be seeded.

So France played Ireland on Wednesday night. It was 1-1 in overtime when one of France's stars, Theirry Henry, had a blatant hand ball, controlled the pass and set the ball up for France's winning goal. The play should have been called dead, but the referee and linesman all "missed" it. Today, FIFA said they wouldn't require a replay and the score would stand.

FIFA's had replays before and there was a famous instance in England (not a FIFA decision) when a winning team agreed to a replay under similar situation. In addition, for a number of years, FIFA has had a big campaign about Fair Play, throughout the world. It was to try to instill in fans that they shouldn't be violent, that they should treat each other honorably and everyone should have a fair chance.

So why this obvious negation of that goal? Well, remember the "winning" team is France. It just so happens that the President of FIFA is French. hmmm...

I moved back to the US with a box of kitchen things and a duffel bag of clothes. Six months later, the shippers finally stopped blackmailing me and delivered my lift, but it went straight to storage.

Today, Buck came by as he had to do some collections in the area and brought his truck. We brought my two clothes bureaus and two night stands back. Brilliantly, I forgot to bring my inventory list, so we couldn't pick the boxes that had my dress shoes or some other items I wanted. Still, I have dressers.

My duffel bag is no longer where I keep my clothes. It's wadded up and in the corner of the closet. My oldest dresser, bought from Goodwill many, many, many years ago, is reaching its limits. The staples holding the particle board together are starting to come loose, but it's still working. Considering how cheap it is and how many places its been, it's long past its expiration date, so I'm happy it's still usable.

Fred, no surprise there, was initially freaked out when he got stuffed in the closet and then when he saw all the new things. Then he realized they smelled familiar. He check them out, climbed on them, then calmed down.

Now I have to get a move on it and try to sell the old bed. If I get that done and get a few more boxes over here, maybe I can move to a smaller space and save a little money.

As I said from the Republican convention through the election, choices define the candidates' skills. One picked Biden and another picked Palin.

Last night's Daily Show had an interview with Joe Biden. Agree with him or disagree with him, it's your choice. However, there's just no way that anyone with working synapses could imagine Palin given that intelligent and level-headed an interview. Her fanaticism wouldn't allow it.

He had facts at hand and used them to back up his claims. He was self deprecating. He managed to get digs in at the other party, which you'd expect from anyone, in a polite and light way.

I'm a pundit, even if only read by five or six people. He's a leader. He has to speak in a manner that suits leadership. Palin doesn't seem to comprehend that. While positioning herself for a run at the Presidency and the destruction of the Republican party, she's speaking as a pundit. However, she's speaking as a cable television pundit, where punditry means opinions take over from facts. Death panels is only one example. An AP article describes a number of factual problems with the book.

Every book has some errors, from proofing to missed facts or inconsistent logic. However, her errors go straight to the claims she makes about herself and her party. She is disingenuous at best and presents a warped and hallucinatory view of reality.

It was bad enough that McCain flipped on his most important issues from 2000 in order to win the 2008 nomination. His nomination of Palin was the nail in the coffin. It's not her inexperience that mattered, that can be overcome with intelligence and an open mind. There are indications she's intelligent, but the closed and fanatical mind are problems that both hide the intelligence and outweigh what's there. Palin is a negative issue not just in her own political life but in that of the Republican party. They continue to make bad choices.

I've always said we don't even have a real two party system. Republicans and Democrats differ on whether to help only the rich or all of us, but completely agree that helping businesses that contribute to their campaigns is always issue number one.

Today's NYT has an article about forty-two Congress members. What did they do? Twenty-two Republican and twenty Democratic members of the House used almost identical language about part of the health care bill. While one said spoke against the bill and the other for it, both supported one section that tried to help research in the US. The wording in all was traced back to Genentech's lobbyist.

While many of those House members interviewed supported the unanimity of the statements as helping a "home grown" or "US" business, that's disingenuous. Genentech was a great US biotech success story. However, for years it's been owned by Roche, a Swiss company. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, mind you, what's wrong is the rationalizations used for cloning lobbyist statements doesn't fit the fact.

I found a great column about the decade of the 'oughts, 2000 through next year. Daniel Gross, in The Big Money, gives figures showing how little was accomplished for the average American during this decade.

Obama has made the decision to try many of the Guantanamo prisoners in civil courts. As usual, the hypocritical cries respond. Representative Lamar Smith and other of my home state House members are whining. John Cornyn said "These terrorists planned and executed the mass murder of thousands of innocent Americans. Treating them like common criminals is unconscionable."

Let's remember, it was Shrub, the Republican travesty, who decided the prisoners would not be classified as Prisoners of War. It was his choice and the Republicans solidly backed him. Given that choice, the prisoners deserve the Constitutional protections anyone held by our government deserves. However, just as the arbitrarily apply their religious texts, they choose to think that the Constitution and Democracy only matter when they agree with the far right.

Then there's the question of "planning". Timothy McVeigh didn't just plan. He killed hundreds and was still treated like a "common criminal", since he was. We arrest, try, convict, jail and execute murders all the time. We even, surprise, surprise, do that to mass murderers.

Republicans made the choice to define those captured people as civilians. They have no right to complain that the people are now, finally, getting their days in court -- Days promised by our Constitution and a foundation of a Democracy.

Saudi Arabia has been fighting in Yemen for a while. They've recently blockaded the country using the Saudi navy. They've shelled villages and reports of civilian casualties have come out.

Where is the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the attacks? The UN Human Right's Council's? How about the Arab League or the OIC? The EU? Human Rights Watch? Amnesty International? When's Goldstone going to investigate Saudi actions?

We all know the answer. When Egypt used WMDs on civilians in Yemen, nothing happened. Nothing will happen now. After all, there's no way to blame Jews, so it's not worth the bother.

BTW: More on Goldstone and the clear lies in the report: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3804323,00.html.

Those who are weird enough to regularly read this might remember my stories about first going on a highway. The high winds scared me.

This weekend, my turn signal broke. Today I drove over to get the part to replace the switch. I was comfortable enough to use my left hand to signal turns. Guess I'm getting used to it...

Pandora played a folk song, done like the old ones about working in mines or on the rails. The song is "White Collar Holler" by Stan Rogers. If you find it, listen. It's a chuckle.

Two articles on the front page of today's The Daily Beast are interesting for very different reasons. The first is one on Suzanne Somers selling snake oil, making millions and probably endangering the lives of many women. The second isn't a read, but a short clip.

There have been many articles leading up to today's 20th Anniversary of the opening of the East German borders and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The site has a short clip of Peter Jennings announcing the information that the East German government has said borders are open. A very simple, very short, very professional anchor announcement about a major change in the world.

Last night, around 3:30, I woke up. I was hot and sweaty. My stomach felt nauseous. Over the next 15-20 minutes, it got worse. The increase had me prepared. When the vomiting started, I was already in the bathroom, hunched over a trash can. Luckily, after 10-15 minutes of that, my body calmed down. I took an aspirin and called myself in the morning. My stomach's a little upset, but I seem to be doing ok.

However, during all that time I wasn't just thinking about how I was feeling. I was also trying to figure out what I'd do if it didn't get better or even got worse. I couldn't call an ambulance. After all, I have no insurance and those are expensive. I would have had to drive myself to the emergency room while very sick. Then, even if I got better while waiting, I couldn't go home. After all, I don't have a GP who'd only see me with a minor deductible and who would charge and insurance contracted rate. I'd have to pay full price.

Nope, either way, I would have had to wait at the emergency room until seen by doctors there. Since I would probably have been one of the least hurt folks there, unless I fainted, I would have waited a long time. And, even if I fainted, they would have rushed me onto a wheeled bed, then pushed me into a corner once stabilized, then ignored me again. It would have taken forever.

Do you think I'm exaggerating? In 1990, while driving up the coast of California, I was an idiot. I was driving too aggressively and crashed, off the cliff. Four hundred feet down a six hundred foot hillside that was around a forty-five degree angle. I should have died, I was only injured.

I don't remember if the ambulance folks asked me about insurance and I was too stunned to answer, or if they assumed my cheap car meant no, but they drove me to a hospital. Later, a nurse told me that if they'd known I had insurance, they would have taken me to the other Santa Rosa hospital -- I was specifically taken to the public one that deals with non-insured people. They dealt with insured who lived near there too, but it was the main one for locals without insurance.

Remember the cliff? I was on a backboard and my head was tied down, since I'd complained of major neck pain. It still took around four hours to be looked at. A potential spine injury and four hours because I was uninsured. They were very surprised when they finally got around to formal admitting and found out I had insurance. That even meant they changed plans and put me in a room that was semi-private (two people) rather than a ward room with four to six patients.

People should be able to buy extra insurance. Plans that allow elective surgeries, decrease deductibles, allow access to private hospitals, etc. However, everyone should have the right to equal treatment in an emergency, reasonable access to preventative medicine, and basic services from a GP. Basic health should be a right, one of the necessities for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." As the Declaration of Independence continues, people also have a unalienable right to a "Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

One of the foundations of those concepts of freedom is a basic level of health. National health care isn't a privilege. It is a right.

The House passed a health care bill. As of now, it's dead in the Senate. Why? Because Joe-Joe Lieberman and a few others won't vote for it because there's a public option. That shouldn't matter, since there are still enough votes to pass the bill; but there's one little catch. Filibuster.

Without enough extra votes, Senators against it can hold the floor and not allow business to happen. The Democrats aren't willing to push against the filibuster, and that's where the lack of spine comes in.

The Republican controlled Senate of the first six Shrub years ignored the Democrats and sometimes used a parliamentary trick to avoid filibusters even without a filibuster-proof majority. Democrats aren't willing to do the same thing.

More importantly, Dems shouldn't have to do that. They should bring the bill up and force a filibuster. They should widely advertise that they're trying to insure most Americans and that the minority who say only the wealthy and religious fanatics should be protected are stopping them. A strong majority of Americans believe we need a new health care system and that a public option is fine. Watch what happens when the Senate is shut down because the wealthy few don't want the rest of us to have affordable care.

There's a related example. During the Clinton years, the Republican Congress wouldn't pass a budget they claimed was bad. It just helped too many people. They tried to blame Clinton and shut the government down. Americans are smarter than both parties think, and much smarter than Republican leadership thinks, so the people sided with Clinton. Republicans had to scurry back under their rocks and Clinton got what he wanted.

Republicans are still fooling themselves that they're not the immoral minority. The Democrats are too spineless to realize that too; being used to the insular life of the Beltway. The Dems are blowing another one.

One of the errands I did today was to swing by the library and exchange books. I was browsing the fiction section and I caught some of what one of the information desk employees was saying. First she was telling the caller that copyright protections didn't protect ideas, only what was written down. She had to repeat that a few times in different ways before the caller got it.

The topic then switched to a discussion of patents. She said they were for registering inventions, but that the process was long and could cost a lot of money.

She listened some more. Then she said "No, I really don't think that President Obama will try to steal your idea."

Republicans are crowing that winning to State's races for Governor is somehow a referendum on Obama. Most headlines are focused on them. So, is it true? Not really.

Both losers were incumbents who had problems before last fall's election, and the elections could be seen as a continuation of 2008, when incumbents on both sides lost due to a strong urge for change.

Last night's election that really matters was also not about Obama, it was about the Republican party. In upstate New York, Democrat Bill Owens became the first person from his party to win a Congressional seat in his district for many, many years. The Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, is a moderate. Being a mid-term election, the nuts from either extreme are always more to the front than moderates, and in the Republican party the nuts took over the loony bin. They excoriated her and supported a third party nut job that met their needs. Scozzafava pulled out of the race last week and threw her support to Owens. Owens won.

Again, this wasn't about Obama. It was about the Republican party being taken over by fascist, reactionary punks, people who think woman should be barefoot and pregnant while gays should be burned at the stake. It's about them eating their young and killing their party.

The question for 2010 will be: which half of the Republican party will leave. Either the moderates will leave or the extremists will. The moderates could join the Democrats, but the odds are more likely that they might create their own party or remain independent. If the goose-stepping right leaves, they will form their own party.

My guess is that it will be slower than that. I think that next year will see a lot more moderate Republicans voting for Democrats and leaving their party, most likely registering as independents. The big breakup will come in 2012, when they try to field candidates to challenge and Obama second term. I think the schism will happen at that point.

Mid-week, I was woken up at 11:30 pm by a jack hammer. Construction noises started. I called the police. They checked, after forty-five minutes and two calls, and said it was the city water department working on a problem. I was told they'd be "done soon". They finished at 2:00 am.

A few weeks ago, they did some minor work to the parking lot next door. There was no flowing water. Nobody was without water. It was a minor problem and then hadn't rushed to finish. "Suddenly" it needed fixing at 11:30 pm? Right. The odds are high that it was city worker just wanted some extra overtime. They'd never do that in Shrub's neighborhood, or even a middle class block. I'm sure not everyone's like me, unemployed, and that many probably have multiple jobs with longer hours and less pay than that of the city employeeds. That overtime came at the expense of hundreds of people's sleep. However, poor folks have no rights.

However, while not balancing it, last night provided some compensation. Parents, for safety reasons, don't let their kids trick-or-treat from door to door. I didn't have to buy lots of candy. I didn't have to continually go to the door to hand it out to already overweight and out of shape kids. It was a pretty quiet night.

Ok, maybe not what lots of folks would notice. But, hey, I'm me, right... :)

The Republican "reject anything that doesn't help the rich" pundits are claiming the inclusion of the government option in the House health care bill was done only to appease the "Left wing" of the Democratic party. A Huffington Post article points to a new survey saying that 77% of Americans want a public option. Other polls show similar results.

77% in one wing, 23$ for body and right wing. Wow, there are some "balanced" claims from pundits.