Happy New Year

I am very disappointed about a number of things: even though the Fox Tea Bagger movement is more popular than the Republicans, nobody has yet put a stake through the GOP's heart.

The Supreme Court appears poised to give corporations the same rights as people. You think things are bad now!

Health Reform is a mess, but apparently the best we can get.

Afghanistan. Oh, Afghanistan.

As usual, Gail Collins sums up the year pretty well.

Despite it all, I believe as strongly as ever that Obama is the right man for the job right now. Bullied Pulpit had a good post last week that explains why.

Happy New Year. Here's hoping 2010 is the start of a long run of outstanding years for you!

The Self-Regulating Food Industry

The GOP's 30-year campaign to "get government off our backs" – because as Saint Ronnie said: "the government IS the problem" – is really starting to pay off.

Let's see, we had the housing bubble, followed by the financial meltdown, followed by the worst recession since the Great Depression. A startling success.

Now we're starting to find out what a government that didn't believe in government let people put in our food. I dare you to read the first five paragraphs of this story, then go have a hamburger at McDonald's.

Merry Christmas!

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The Worst of 2009

Time to start our list of The Worst of 2009. Pretty quickly I can come up with:

1) Anheuser-Busch, for it's adolescent Bud Lite advertisements, shown during football games, that ask "How can you tailgate without any tail?" and complain about "putting on a condiment". Ha-ha. Get it? Condom-ent. Ha-ha. How did things get so vulgar? Who are they really selling beer to?

2) The pharmaceutical industry, for Viagra/Cialis ads. Obama once said he'd like to be able to enjoy a football game with his daughters without having to explain to them what erectile dysfunction is. Indeed.

3) The banking industry, those "best and brightest" "masters of the universe" whose stupidity and larcenous behavior destroyed the economy. And who are at it again.

4) Fox News, for its fraudulent reporting, including fabricated news film. Goebbels would have been so proud.

5) The pharmaceutical industry, for campaigning against health insurance reform.

6) The Republican Party, for always appealing to worst instincts of the least informed in order to protect the most materially blessed, and for making sure America misses the boat on the emerging energy economy. We'll be buying our windmills from China.

7) The Chicago Bears.

8) Joseph Lieberman. What a tangled psyche.

9) Those television ads for lawyer referral companies, trolling for medical malpractice and personal injury cases, promising "We can get you money!" Talk about your ambulance chasers and bottom feeders! You can make a lot of money in this world if you have no shame.

I don't think Palin, McCain, or Cheney rate an honorable mention. They're just weird. Okay, Cheney is evil, but out of office he's mostly just entertainment. But we gotta have ten, because these lists always have ten.

Who have we missed?

Christmas Cheer – Not!

Tom Friedman bemoans America's inability to do anything important.

Maureen Dowd retaliates for being taken off McCain's Christmas card list. Not that what she says isn't true.

Looks like the prison at Guantánamo is going to be operating until at least 2011. Cowardice seems to be the main reason.

Speaking of Guantánamo, don't miss this story about a former prisoner there.

Lieberman

Gail Collins apologizes to John Kerry, and takes back an apology to Joe Lieberman. More about this later.

Usage and Use Are Not Interchangable

Thanks to Suellen for spotting this amusing little review of the reprint edition of Fowler's original A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, a book which holds an honored place in our house.

The writer is a little critical, so at the end of the essay covers his back in a clever way.

When We Were Crazy

I can't tell you how depressing it is to have memories that are half a century old, but here it is:

When he was in high school, my older brother, Ted, was something of a science geek. Between building models of missiles, I remember that he built a Geiger counter and performed an experiment that measured the amount of radioactivity that made its way to Bergenfield, New Jersey, when the Chinese began testing their nuclear bombs (which, as Tom Lehrer pointed out, we called "a nuclear device"). As I recall, and Ted correct me if I'm wrong, the increase in radioactivity was quite measurable.

Imagine that.

The madeleine that set off that memory was this little walk down history lane by Josh Marshall, who reminds me – if I ever knew – that in 1962 alone the U.S. conducted 105 nuclear tests (two every week). And we put some of them on the tips of missiles, one of which veered out of control!

I'll have to hold on to this factoid. Sometime when I get really discouraged about the rate of progress the world is making, when the Fox News morons and Ayn Rand cultists seem to be in the ascendancy, I'll pull that out and feel a little better.

Endnote: In fact-checking this post, I realize it must have been a Russian or American nuclear test Ted was monitoring, since the Chinese didn't start testing until 1964. But I left the story the way it was because 1) memory plays tricks on you, and 2) I like the Tom Lehrer quote so much I just had to leave it in.

And because I love you:

Nobel Laureate

I watched Obama's Nobel speech on streaming video this morning. I'm glad I did. It will be criticized by some as "professorial," which it certainly was. You can read the text of it here. But this professor is Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force in history.

What kept going through my mind was how grateful I am to have this guy representing this country on the world stage. What an improvement.

He was speaking, I think, more to the European audience than an American audience. He provided his rationale for being a Nobel Peace Price laureate at the same time he has ordered American troops into battle. He spoke to his audience as though they were intelligent people who might, after the Iraq War, have their doubts about whether American leadership would generate anything but an endless succession of wars.

I repeat: it treats his audience as intelligent people who can handle thinking about complex ideas.

Compare and contrast:

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Update: The NY Times editorial about the speech is worth a read.

Health Insurance Reform

Where have I been? Well, one morning a couple of weeks ago I was doing my customary morning reading when I noticed I was really, really angry about what I was reading. So I took my blood pressure, and saw a number I'd never seen before.

"This ain't good," thought I.

So I've been working on anger management, which in a world with Republicans in it is a real challenge.

Gail Collins manages to laugh at it all.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to family, friends, and readers!

For the past few days I've been cooking turkeys in preparation for the free Thanksgiving dinner we give at our church. Cooked six turkeys, de-boned seven, and cooked two breasts. It is not my definition of fun. There's not much to cooking a turkey, but that de-boning is a nasty business.

We ask people to call and make a reservation for the dinner, so we have an idea of how many to expect, but we've never turned anybody away for lack of a reservation. This year reservations are at an all-time high, and include at least two families with children. Sadly, the parishioner who made balloon animals for the kids passed away a couple of years ago, and we really have nothing to amuse them. If you want a sure-fire way to delight little kids, learn how to make balloon animals.

Reservations are so high that there's a chance we won't have the room or the food to accommodate them. Keep your fingers crossed.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

I Lied

THIS is my favorite video of all time:

Odds & Ends

The New York Times yesterday posted a good analysis of the debate on medical screening tests here.

This week, the science of medicine bumped up against the foundations of American medical consumerism: that more is better, that saving a life is worth any sacrifice, that health care is a birthright.

Two new recommendations, calling for delaying the start and reducing the frequency of screening for breast and cervical cancer, have been met with anger and confusion from some corners, not to mention a measure of political posturing.

The backers of science-driven medicine, with its dual focus on risks and benefits, have cheered the elevation of data in the setting of standards. But many patients — and organizations of doctors and disease specialists — find themselves unready to accept the counterintuitive notion that more testing can be bad for your health.

And speaking of science, the climate change unbelievers believe they have found evidence, in hacked email messages, of a scientific conspiracy. The story is here.

Frankly, there's nothing reprinted from those emails that leads to any conclusion other than scientists don't fully understand everything, which they're willing to concede. But there are apparently folks who believe they have found incontrovertible evidence that Roosevelt wanted the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor there is a vast international plot, involving nearly every scientist in the field, to scare us out of our Constitutional right to drive a Hummer.

Finally, Greg Marx at Columbia Journalism Review has an appropriate bit on the inside-the-beltway pundits' tendency to miss the point:

As media narratives go, this whole “Barack Obama is a popular individual and a gifted speaker with a compelling personal story, but doesn’t automatically get everything he wants!” thing is getting awfully old, awfully fast.

The theme popped up months ago, when the press began to notice that though America had elected a “change” president, the world was—surprise!—not changing overnight. It cropped up again around the time of the off-year elections, when the media noticed that Obama’s personal appeal is not a magical amulet that can be transferred to unpopular Democrats. And it has framed much of the coverage of Obama’s recently completed trip to Asia.

And Marx cites a Politico article, typical of the genre.
Marx observes,

[I]sn’t it a reporter’s job to explain how the world really works, not just to reinforce lazy notions? It would have been much more interesting—and honest—to frame the story like this: “No big news was made, but we shouldn’t have expected it. As for long-term ramifications, here’s Obama’s plan, and here’s his timeline. What will he have to do in order to accomplish his goals? What are the odds that he will accomplish them? How might this trip pay benefits—or create risks—down the road?”

It is no indictment of Barack Obama that his personal charms did not sway Chinese policy. It’s a minor indictment of the media that they feigned surprise at that outcome.

Anything for a Buck

Chicago Ted said I "don't have the guts" to share this Jon Stewart segment, and offered a dollar if I did.

I think what Ted was referring to is that the clip has some decidedly adult humor on it, and we have a classy joint here, and want to keep it that way.

What Ted failed to take into consideration is that I'm saving up to buy a new camera, and I'll take a buck anywhere I can get one, even if it means abandoning my unimpeachable values.



$1 down, $2,698.95 to go.

P.S. It's funny, but the ads are horrid.

The Breast Brouhaha

Let me say from the outset that I stole that title from Gail Collins' column in the New York Times today. Not that it's so good, I'm just not very inventive this morning. Make sure you read the column. The woman is wise, and makes a very good point about leeches.

I have been nothing short of flabbergasted that for the past three days the lead story on ABC's evening news program has been the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force report about the need – or lack thereof – for annual mammograms by some women. Last night they even had a doctor willing to say – on national television – that this was the beginning of rationed health care. (As though we don't already have rationed health care, and as though he had no economic interest in doing lots and lots of mammograms. Heck, if he can question the motives of the Task Force, we have a right to question his motives, too.)

And I guess that's all I'm going to say about that.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Probably my favorite video of all time: David Attenborough introduces the lyre bird.



Amazing.

But maybe you'd already seen it. I'll bet you haven't seen this one, though:



For the record, the first video is absolutely legit. The second ... not so much.

Bowing and Throwing Up

Today the Washington Times, a Moonie rag in its last days*, ran an op-ed by an "editor emeritus" named Wesley Pruden. Here's enough to give you a sense of the kind of person Wesley Pruden is:

Now we know why Mr. Obama stunned everyone with an earlier similar bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, only the bow to the Japanese emperor was far more flamboyant, a sign of a really deep sense of inferiority. He was only practicing his bow in Riyadh. Sometimes rituals are learned with difficulty. It took Bill Clinton months to learn how to return a military salute worthy of a commander in chief; like any draft dodger, he kept poking a thumb in his eye until he finally got it. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, seems right at home now giving a wow of a bow....

... Mr. Obama, unlike his predecessors, likely knows no better, and many of those around him, true children of the grungy '60s, are contemptuous of custom. Cutting America down to size is what attracts them to "hope" for "change." It's no fault of the president that he has no natural instinct or blood impulse for what the America of "the 57 states" is about. He was sired by a Kenyan father, born to a mother attracted to men of the Third World and reared by grandparents in Hawaii, a paradise far from the American mainstream.

And they printed that.

Life Magazine said, when the next picture was published, that Eisenhower was bowing to a little [Third World] Korean girl.

I think it was good of Ike. It's the custom there, and he was being polite.

For this one, though, I make no excuse.



Why is America in such bad shape? Because for the past 30 years it was run into the ground by people like Wesley Pruden, who really think this is important stuff.

* If you haven't been following the Washington Times soap opera over at Talking Points Memo, you've been missing a delicious story.

Comedy Central 2

More than one reader has said the only way they get a chance to watch Jon Stewart is if they find a video here, so below are two priceless pieces involving Fox Network's falsification of information in a story about Michele Bachmann's "Superbowl of Freedom," in an attempt to make it seem successful.

The Obama Administration has pointed out that Fox News is not news, it is a propaganda outlet. It was appalling how many mainstream news people saw this simple statement of fact as an attack on the real press. Don't they see themselves as any different?

They might be right. We have a right to ask these people why it took a comedy show to expose this story.

Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage

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Make sure you stick around for the end of this one:

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Values

From Crooks and Liars:

Michael Bloomberg spent a reported 105 million dollars on his re-election campaign, the same amount Norway donated in 2007 to The World Bank for a health care initiative for the poorest nations.

And from Kevin Drum:

Congress passed something today. Hooray!

Congress gave final approval Thursday for an additional $24 billion to help the jobless and support the housing market as climbing unemployment poses a growing liability for elected officials.

The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the House and headed to President Obama for his signature Friday, extends unemployment nsurance benefits that were due to expire and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, while also expanding it to cover many other home purchases.

And Democrats only had to break three separate filibusters in the Senate to get this passed! The first filibuster was broken by a vote of 87-13, the second by a vote of 85-2, and the third by a vote of 97-1. The fourth and final vote, the one to actually pass the bill, was 98-0. Elapsed time: five weeks for a bill that everyone ended up voting for.

Why? Because even though Republicans were allowed to tack on a tax cut to the bill as the price of getting it passed, they decided to filibuster anyway unless they were also allowed to include an anti-ACORN amendment. Seriously. A bit of ACORN blustering to satisfy the Palin-Beck crowd is the reason they held up a bill designed to help people who are out of work in the deepest recession since World War II. ... That's called taking governing seriously, my friends.

Breath-holding Time

Looking for an image to illustrate this post on Michele Bachmann, I searched Google Images for "crazy". And sure enough, up popped an image of Michele Bachmann! (I am not kidding you! Try it yourself!) But the image included scatological terminology, and since we're a high-class blog we had to leave it alone. So here's a picture of crazy without the scatology:


Today Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, of the 6th Minnesota Congressional District (they must be so proud!), is planning an anti-health reform rally of Tea Baggers at the Capitol Building, after which she will lead them into the hallowed halls of Congress to confront Congressmen and Senators who might be intimidated into voting against health reform. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? The woman is a loon.