edited by: Lisa Mossie,
Pennsylvania Editor
As Mike Lux points out, nothing means anything in the healthcare bill right now.
[...]Apparently it struck a chord with women around the country when the Massachusetts senatorial candidate spoke out against the Stupak amendement, because she’s raking in the bucks from women:
Women from every state have donated, usually in small-dollar amounts, to the campaign war chest of Attorney General Martha Coakley, [...]
Everyone is, of course, in a complete tizzy this morning since we are expected to get an inch three inches or less of snow.
The supermarket must be packed this morning. French toast and toilet paper!
Snow always reminds me of this Dar Williams song:
[...]I thought that was just the taste!
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. (AP) – December 4, 2009 (WPVI) — Unilever PLC’s U.S. subsidiary says it has recalled all canned Slim Fast drinks because of the possibility of bacterial contamination that could cause diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
[...]Yeah, “Music and Lyrics” was a hokey movie. But I love this song, penned by Adam Schlesinger:
[...]Joan Armatrading:
[...]Marti Jones with the John Hiatt song:
[...]Elvis:
[...]Steve Earle with one of my favorite songs:
[...]I don’t even know what to say, except that it’s sad what some people will put up with for money.
[...]Imagine being willing to put up with this to get rich.
[...]I’m glad I don’t have Aetna, but I know people who do. Better be really, really careful about anything you claim:
Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.
In [...]
This morning I had to get my custom ankle brace fitted, and the satellite office was in an office park, right next to the Very Horrible Place (trade school) where I used to work some years ago.
Still, I survived the proximity to Evil, even stopping long enough to check out [...]
I look at it this way: Is it such a big deal to use a headset, just in case?
[...]How come resources are only “limited” when it comes to us, and not for another war? As Duncan pointed out yesterday, one of the reasons the deficit is growing is because so many people aren’t working and paying taxes.
[...]Why hasn’t anyone shot a banker yet? It’s not as if there’s no provocation:
Bernanke talks as if increasing taxes on the wealthy simply isn’t an option.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) followed Bennett and pointed out that “there’s only really two ways you can deflect this deficit, and that’s either by [...]
In the days since President Obama announced he is massively escalating the Afghanistan War (and yes, a 30-40% troop increase is massive), it has become assumed fact that he is just fulfilling his campaign promise. The idea is that nobody has a right to be angry at him, because [...]
Has just informed us that the AARP is only supporting the Democratic healthcare bill because of the “windfall” they will get.
Unlike all those other insurance companies, of course!
[...]In the next seven days: To the dermatologist for more biopsies, to the dentist because there’s still pain from the recent root canal, and FINALLY the fitting for my ankle brace. (Just realized I have to cancel the eye doctor in order to see the dentist.)
Plus, my COBRA runs out [...]
From the BBC, via Our American in London, Avedon.
She has a Hubble version, too!
[...]Now, this is a TV show I’ll watch!
[...]So Blackwater CEO Erik Prince says he was a CIA asset:
But the truth about Prince may be orders of magnitude stranger than fiction. For the past six years, he appears to have led an astonishing double life. Publicly, he has served as Blackwater’s C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, [...]
The senator from Vermont put a hold on Ben Bernanke’s nomination for a second term.
I hate the holds, I think they’re the enemy of good government – but as long as we have ‘em, our side should be using them.
[...]What do you suppose the odds are of this actually being turned down? I mean, I’d like to think so – but I don’t believe it’ll happen:
WASHINGTON – Comcast Corp. will likely have to accept substantial conditions if the cable TV provider wants to win regulatory approval for control [...]
(Thanks to reader Dan for the graphic.)
Well, I didn’t make it. Thanks for all your votes, though!
[...]They seem determined to make themselves irrelevant. Oh well! And as for Murdoch? He’s got RSS feeds OF OTHER PEOPLE’S SITES on several of his. But then, honesty was never his strong suit:
LONDON – Google Inc. is allowing publishers of paid content to limit the number of free news [...]
So I went to the dermatologist’s last night (late afternoon, really, but I had to wait four hours before he actually saw me), and he told me the biopsy of the spot on my lip was precancerous, with squamous cells. (I don’t get how it has cancer cells without being [...]
Start with the short-term economics. What we’re in right now is the aftermath of a giant financial crisis, which typically leads to a prolonged period of economic weakness — and this time isn’t different. A bolder economic policy early this year might have led to a turnaround, [...]
Depressed about the war machine? Time for a little Todd:
[...]U2:
[...]Have you noticed there’s never anything on except reruns?
“Domino theory” = “Cancer spreading to Pakistan”
“Vietnamization” = “Handing over responsibility to Afghan forces”
“A wider pattern of aggressive purposes = “Safe haven for terrorists”
Jim Boggia:
[...]If Reid doesn’t get this done, he won’t be Majority Leader for long:
Talk about using budget reconciliation to pass healthcare reform in the Senate has faded from public view, but Democratic leaders continue to hang the threat over centrists in private.
FYI: They’re not “centrists” – they’re corporate conservatives.
Senate Majority [...]
Apparently the Goldman Sachs management is starting to connect the dots? Alice Schroeder from Bloomberg writes:
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who [...]
I hope it’s enough money to cover the care he’s going to need for the rest of his life. This sort of thing is why I wouldn’t want my kids playing football:
La Salle University has agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of a [...]
Big Tent Democrat on Bill Clinton’s first year and why it was much more transformative than Obama’s.
[...]Faux journalism. It’s basically a less obvious Washington Times.
[...]You know, there was a really ugly Vietnamese Buddhist temple in my old neighborhood, but no one looked at it as anything other than an oddity (and maybe an aesthetic failure).
There’s no doubt in my mind this had much more to do with racism
[...]Looks like we can cross off Canada on the ex-pat wish list. The more I read, the worse it gets.
[...]I mean, not that I’m looking to Rick Warren for spiritual guidance, but it’s notable how his concern for human life is so unevenly applied.
[...]At some point, Krugman’s going to realize no one in this administration is listening.
[...]
Wow, I can’t believe it. If you keep me in the top five, that makes me a finalist. So go vote if you haven’t already!
It sure would be funny if I won this thing, wouldn’t it? I’ll remind you when the second round of voting [...]
For all the liberals who hypnotized themselves into thinking Obama was an anti-war candidate. It was a major case of projection – he was always pretty clear that he was going to expand the war in Afghanistan.
[...]Glenn calls him out as the amoral piece of crap he is.
[...]You know, it really is depressing – and infuriating – to see how little will actually be accomplished with this so-called health care “reform.”
And unless the House waves a magic wand in the conference committee hearings, I doubt anything will change:
Measured against the promises President Obama and congressional Democrats [...]
Well, the couch is inside. (Good thing, since it’s pouring rain.) I had a friend come over to take the wall unit apart, and then he and my other friend carried the sofa upstairs. (Oh, and he also removed my window a.c. and put it away.)
I have to say, though, [...]
What Digby said. What Taibbi said, what Krugman said, what just about anybody with a brain said.
[...]Can someone please get me a Xanax? Matt Taibbi:
… The Obama administration is filled with people connected to Rubin, including Orszag (who headed Rubin’s Hamilton Project, an economic think-tank founded by Rubin*), NEC director Larry Summers (who worked under Rubin in the Clinton White House), Tim Geithner (ditto), NEC [...]
It’s like deja vu all over again. Despite the fact that we know the causes of deficits are more important than the actual deficits, despite the fact that most top economists are calling for more economic stimulus and jobs programs, the New York Times has embraced the anti-deficit theme [...]
The Mamas and the Papas:
[...]
I’ll bet this has something to do with why the French get universal health care and we don’t.
[...]A growing trend: students applying to honors programs at community college to save money.
[...]From the New York Times, we find out just how many Americans now qualify for food assistance:
MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in [...]
If the Obama administration doesn’t realize they’re playing with fire over this, they’re just plain stupid.
[...]I’ve been saying this all along to people: The only real obstacles are in your head. There’s no reason in the world to keep throwing good money after bad.
And he’s right. Banks won’t negotiate with borrowers until more people start to do this:
Go ahead. Break the chains. Stop paying [...]
For Glenn Beck to admit he was wrong:
Experts around the world believed the ice was recovering because satellite images showed it expanding. But David Barber says the thick, multi-year frozen sheets crucial to the northern ecosystem have been replaced by thin “rotten” ice that can’t support weight of the [...]
Our commenting friend Izquierdo was in town from the Left Coast to see his daughter (today is his birthday – happy birthday, Iz!) and talked me into going to see some kind of holiday show in the lobby of the new Comcast world headquarters. (I never even heard of it [...]
New couch does not fit past IKEA wall unit. Still hurt all over from last night – the thought of taking unit apart is akin to climbing Mt. Everest. The new couch is sitting on my front lawn.
Why oh why did I not think of this before I sold my [...]
Despite my aching body, I really wanted to go to Noz’s birthday party tonight. So I gave myself a little pep talk, got dressed and walked to my car. But I slipped and fell on a patch of mud and pitched right into a deep mud puddle. (There went my [...]
Like Glenn, I just don’t get the double standard. I’m literal that way, I still care about the exact same issues.
[...]It’s now Obama’s war, God help him:
KABUL, Afghanistan — An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still secretly holding inmates for sometimes weeks at a time and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the [...]
Okay, the new couch is here. And so is the old one. The new one is presently out on the side porch because I simply don’t have enough upper body strength to lift it. (I wondered, but the seller insisted it was “really light.” It wasn’t.)
So I told the artist [...]
If you have neighbors you think might be in this position, send over some leftovers:
ALBANY, N.Y. — Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired lifelong habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first [...]
Just wanted to send a shout-out to friend and commenter upyernoz, who’s celebrating his 40th birthday AND getting ready to adopt a child (from Kazakhstan, no less – you know there’s a punchline in there somewhere).
Also, to those who wondered: Chris and his wife named the new baby William. They [...]
I thought this was interesting, because I’ve always dated comedians. (Not professionals, but you get the idea. And yeah, there’s probably a dig in there somewhere, and also some clues as to why they all ended badly. Hmm.)
But I’m always funnier. (At least, I think I am – because [...]
Rickie Lee:
[...]Member of the Four Aces and local TV icon Al Alberts, 87. His show was so strange, you never wanted to miss it:
US singer Al Alberts, a former member of the hit 1950s pop group The Four Aces, has died at the age of 87.
Alberts led the quartet to success [...]
In 2000, the Pentagon admitted it has lost — yes, lost — $2.3 trillion. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a subsequent Department of Defense study said it was only $1 trillion. To put such numbers in perspective, contemplate what those sums could finance. $1 trillion, [...]
Frank:
[...]Mr. Waits:
[...]Melody Gardot:
[...]Diana Krall:
[...]I decided a few weeks ago to get rid of my couch. It’s really big – it’s a queen-size sleeper with one of those chaise lounge things that stick out on one end. I fell in love with it when I first saw it, but after two years, the thrill [...]
I dunno, I just don’t get off on institutionalized shopping. Plus, at 3 a.m., a person should be home in their cozy bed, not standing in a long line at Best Buy.
My brother-in-law is a store manager, and he had to be in work at 4 a.m. today. That’s [...]
Why spend all that money for a new TV? Remember what I learned last year: If you’re in the market for an LCD TV, check Craigslist the day after Christmas – when everyone upgrades, and they have to get rid of the “old” one.
[...]Today, I give thanks for my kids, my family, my friends, for an apartment with heat and electric included, for a car that runs, readers who always give me something to think about, music, books, the occasional medical provider who knows what he or she is doing, compassionate people, people [...]
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
[...]You absolutely shouldn’t go out and get the newest Rolling Stone, because you’d read the new Matt Taibbi story about how Obama handed economic policy over to Wall Street and the RS editorial about what serious doubts they have about Obama, and then you’d be really depressed.
Taibbi [...]
You remember AIG, right? The bottomless pit into which the government poured our money?
AIG had reason to be pleased with its purchase. Water utilities are one hell of a profitable business, with international corporations easily making a 20 to 30% profit margin, according to a 2007 report by Food [...]
Parts 1 and 2:
[...]
