The Earth Moved

Only a 2.7 quake tonight. It felt smaller. Damn, I was just starting to doze off too.

Something Someone Else Said

"As the war over health-care reform rages on and Beltway commentators tut-tut over the decline of respectable political discourse, I invite observers everywhere to step back from their passions and policy preferences for a moment and bask in the glorious absurdities of the American political system: Watching the president of the United States make the rounds to deny that Congress is planning "death panels" while protesters compare him to the twentieth century's greatest monster is in some ways depressing. Looked at another way, though, it resembles nothing so much as good-old-fashioned entertainment. No screenwriter could possibly gin up a scenario this delightfully loony, and if one did, no one would believe it." -Peter Suderman, Reason.com

If the success or failure of President Obama to achieve his goal of substantive health care reform were not literally measured in human lives I might find these absurdities somewhat more entertaining. As it is, I am indeed finding the entire affair more depressing than anything else. Is there such a thing as "chronic cynicism"? Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking...

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The Hubble Ultra Deep Field In 3D

Sometimes scientific discovery purely for discovery's sake is the best use of our extraordinary technology and curiosities:


Just imagine the incredible views we'll discover when the more powerful and righteously named James Webb Space Telescope is finally deployed in 2014.

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Conservative Protester Elevates The Dialogue

This disturbed wingnut has apparently fashioned himself into a "death panel" of one:

There were signs comparing President Barack Obama to a Nazi and showing him with an Adolf Hitler-style mustache, but federal officials believe another sign referencing the president and his family went too far.

A man who was holding a sign reading "Death to Obama" Wednesday outside a town hall meeting on health care reform in Hagerstown, Md., has been turned over to the Secret Service.

Washington County Sheriff's Capt. Peter Lazich said the sign also read, "Death to Michelle and her two stupid kids."

Lazich said U.S. Secret Service agents took the unidentified 51-year-old man into custody Wednesday afternoon after deputies detained him near the entrance to Hagerstown Community College.

And we're supposed to be listening to and debating with these people? Yeah, no anger or hate here: Just patriotic Americans who are only upset about health care legislation and deficit spending. The second sign about the president's wife and kids is definitely the scariest part of this story. Remember what I said about "the ominous undercurrent of right-wing anger"? And how much do you want to bet that this guy owns several guns and regularly listens to Glenn Beck or some other irresponsible provocateur? I'm relieved that he's been taken into custody but you can be sure that he isn't the only one out there who feels this way.

Women In Bikinis Reading Star Wars Scripts

If you're asking "Why?" you and I obviously live on two different worlds:


I saw some real passion there and these girls are definitely quite talented. OK, "talented". It's just so cute when they try to pronounce "auxiliary" though, isn't it?

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Mythology Fail

This just proves that studying the classics is still important.

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Obama's Health Care Dilemma

Yesterday reader BD left the following comment concerning this quote about President Obama's health care reform plan being conflated by the right with programs from Nazi Germany:

Amen. I am concerned that Obama has lost control of the health care conversation which will result in no new legislation. I'm not burying myself into the details enough to speak super intelligently as to the actual plan details, but the right is accomplishing what they wanted: major FUD...I get it that both sides of the aisle have their faults, but the right just does some crazy shit and turns a blind eye to some crazy shit - unfortunately they've become pretty good at it. That, or the American public's ability to smell shit has lessened. Probably both factors at work. Sad.

At this time I'm afraid I have to agree with his assessment of Obama's handling of this issue. As I've said before, health care is hardly my area of expertise (or even an area of personal interest, aside from having a need for it) so I've never really understood why the White House abdicated so much of the responsibility for crafting legislation to Congress in the first place. Many say that it was to keep from making the same mistakes as the Clinton administration in 1993 or that it was intended to help foster a bipartisan solution with Republicans and they're probably correct on either or both counts. Regardless of his reasons though, Obama should nevertheless have recognized that a legislative body as large and diverse as Congress would need a fair amount of guidance to successfully implement a plan as vast and complex as the one he asked for, and his failure to provide that guidance thus far has cost him both valuable time and political capital.

Any chance of creating a single-payer plan for the nation was already dead from the start while the public option is quickly losing support and is being watered down more and more with every compromise put forth by Congress. And despite Obama's recent explanatory speeches and town hall meetings the White House still has yet to frame the issue completely in a way that can be adequately understood by the average citizen. The senators and congressmen who support the legislation have done a piss poor job of explaining and supporting the various policy proposals while the resistance of the supposedly fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats has only aided Republican obstructionism in both houses. And that's not even mentioning any likely behind the scenes problems caused by the glaringly obvious conflicts of interest for dozens of lawmakers who continue to receive generous campaign contributions from the very same insurance and pharmaceutical industries they're attempting to regulate.

Speaking of Republican obstructionism, FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) certainly sums up this fairly successful strategy quite accurately. Not only is national health care reform a monumentally ambitious political undertaking but with its effects on so many industries and aspects of American society it is also intricately complex, consisting mostly of confusing medical terms and procedures coupled with extraordinarily dry actuarial tables and financing programs. Republicans, the aptly named "Party of No" on this issue, recognized these complications quite early in the debate and instead of wasting time crafting any actual legislation of their own capitalized on them by making callous yet simplistic appeals to people's innate worries and worst fears. And they have indeed become pretty good at it, using rhetorical obfuscation and outright lies to force the Democrats to back off passing any meaningful legislation until after the autumn recess.

Having said all that though I hope I can allay BD's and anyone else's concerns about no new legislation getting passed on this issue. Although whatever eventually does make it out of committee for a vote on the floor may be a somewhat diluted version of President Obama's original vision it will still be of paramount importance to ultimately get something substantial onto his desk and I believe that his insistence on moving as quickly as possible from the outset is a clear indication that he understands this much better than Clinton ever did. Creating a near-universal right to health care coverage (and despite right-wing protestations to the contrary I do consider health care to be a human right) is a necessary first step in building the political will for true cost controls on the pharmaceutical and insurance industries along with substantial reform of our entire system.

As for the American public's lessening ability to smell shit, it is indeed sad but while I blame the average citizen's intellectual laziness coupled with a general anathema to partisan politics for this failure they are not the only ones at fault here. One expects the unthinking hordes that comprise the hardcore base of the Republican party to buy into and repeat the outrageous lies about creeping socialism and governmental death panels being propagated by FOX News and AM radio as a matter of course but for the rest of the corporate-owned media to have lent these untruths such legitimacy over the past few months is truly disheartening.

Now of course the quest for ratings (read: advertising dollars) largely drives how the media covers political issues so obviously creating a narrative of conflict by pitting left vs. right is and always will be preferable to fostering honest debate, and as a society we've come to expect this to some degree from for-profit journalistic outlets. However most Americans don't have the time to wade through the complexities of the various aspects of health care reform legislation themselves and they should be able to rely on news organizations to at least have enough journalistic integrity to present them with unbiased coverage and accurate information as they report on such important and complex issues. Shit definitely becomes a lot harder to smell when it's coming from a supposedly nonpartisan news organization that gives it the same amount of airtime and legitimacy as they do the literal truth; a "fake balance" as it were.

So while I do fault the American people for buying so much of the right-wing propaganda about Obama's health care reform the blame also lies with the corporate media and news outlets that have been willfully selling it to them. And while I fully expect Obama to eventually get some version of reform passed into law I also have several real concerns about just how substantial those reforms will be and what form they will ultimately take. He warned us that these would be hard times with very few easy solutions and I take those warnings just as seriously now as I ever have. By taking on so many problems and adversaries at once he's been playing a very complicated and dangerous game, but then real change always is.

Something Someone Else Said

"Let me see if I understand right wing reasoning...

Those evil liberals are engaging in "class warfare" by wanting to raise the highest tax rate to where it was through most of the 1990s -- and at least 11 percent lower than it was through most of Reagan's term in office -- but when we rant about the "liberal media elite" and their disdain for Sarah Palin and all those wonderful people we produce in those always-invoked small towns in America, we're just standing up for Joe Six Pack.

When the president unilaterally suspends habeas corpus and imprisons American citizens indefinitely without charging them with any crimes, undermines the rule of law and ignores treaty obligations in order to justify torturing people, engages in wholesale data mining and records virtually every phone call, email and text message sent or received anywhere in the country without getting a warrant, thus negating the 4th amendment completely, and then argues that no court has the authority to even consider a challenge to that totally unbridled authority, and hires thousands of armed mercenary thugs to go kill Iraqi people in the name of God, that's protecting the country against terrorism. But providing healthcare to the people who don't have it so they won't die or go bankrupt trying to stay alive in the event of serious illness? That reminds them of the Nazis!" -Ed Brayton, Dispatches From the Culture Wars.

18 Movie Spoilers

Can you identify them all? "The villagers sacrifice the policeman" was the only one I got stumped on, although a couple of the others I've never seen were admittedly guesses. The answers are listed here.

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Man Waits For Obama With Loaded Handgun

Yeah, that's right. A guy was waiting for President Obama to arrive at a town hall meeting yesterday actually carrying a loaded weapon:

President Obama hosted a town hall meeting about health care in New Hampshire today.

Outside the event, a group of protesters shouted slogans and held signs. Raising some eyebrows was protester William Kostric, who showed up with a gun strapped to his leg.

New Hampshire is an open carry state. Kostric said police asked him to move back from school property, but because the gun was in plain view, he wasn't breaking any laws.

There are federal laws about how close a firearm can be brought to a school, but Kostric got permission from an official at a church to stand on its property.

Kostric said he was there to voice his opinion, like everyone else.

New Hampshire has a strong streak of independence running through its citizenry (the state motto is "Live Free or Die") so this occurrence is not altogether surprising and this man will most assuredly not be there wielding his gun when President Obama finally arrives; I have ample trust in the Secret Service to make sure of that. Clearly he did this just to cause a stir and draw media attention to himself. Even the nuttiest of wingnuts obviously know that it's unacceptable and unallowable to wait for the arrival of the president of the United States with a loaded handgun strapped to your leg. But what bothers me about this story is how it dovetails quite neatly with all of the other right-wing fear mongering and intimidation tactics we've been seeing with regard to President Obama lately.

Full disclosure: I am a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment to the constitution and I fully believe that Americans have every right to own and operate firearms as long as they conform to the laws of this country, and there's no indication that Kostric actually meant any physical harm to the president in this instance. That said, the ominous undercurrent of right-wing anger seems to be roiling closer and closer to the boiling point lately. Incidents like the Glenn Beck-inspired, would-be national guard base attacker are obviously committed by the fringes of society but just like with this gun toting idiot and the various unhinged town hall shouters (they're called "Healthers" now) the atmosphere of discontent is being driven farther and farther towards that fringe while the overall message has been getting uglier and uglier.

First Obama was a Muslim, then he was a Kenyan (from way back in the day), after that he became a Socialist, he got fitted for jackboots to become a Nazi and now it turns out that he's even a eugenicist. Or to put it in "Republican *wink*wink* to our base" speak: He prays to the brown god of your enemies, was born in another country and thus is not really your president, wants to take all of your money and give it to welfare queens and illegal aliens, wants to control every aspect of your life from cradle to grave and speaking of which, ultimately wants to put your retarded child and poor grandmother to death as part of his Final Solution...we mean, as part of his "health care reform". And these claims are not just being made on wacko conspiracy-theory websites read by a few lone malcontents, they're being repeated ad nauseum and pushed as legitimate news stories by the mainstream of conservative media.

So now surprise, surprise, people who disagree with Obama are bringing prominently displayed and loaded firearms to town hall meetings. It appears to me that the actual intent of this man was neither to protest health care reform nor to show support for his right to bear arms: A homemade sign or printed t-shirt would have adequately served either of those purposes. What this guy wanted was for everyone to see not just that he disagreed with Obama but also that he obviously owned a deadly weapon. Again, I'm not saying that he ever intended to shoot the president but the current state of vehement unrest on the right coupled with the incessant demonization of Obama by their media flacks certainly made him feel justified in having that gun on his person with the president en route.

The question some are now asking in lieu of this incident is this: How long is it going to be before someone else feels similarly justified in bringing a firearm to one of these town hall meetings, although much better concealed and with far more nefarious intent? Or as Glenn Beck ominously predicted a few days ago:

You know, um, I have to tell you I think the clock is ticking, gang. I think everybody needs to back away -- not from your passions, not from what you believe in. You believe in health care, you keep going. You believe it's wrong, you keep going.

But we need to be very, very careful. I fear for the future. Somebody's going to do something stupid and it will change the Republic -- [snaps] -- overnight.

Let's just hope that he's as wrong about that as he usually is about almost everything else, although Zeus knows there's no shortage of crazies out there who would be quite happy to see it happen (and undoubtedly a few who wouldn't mind pulling the trigger themselves).

And on that note, a final thought: What do you suppose the media/law enforcement reaction would have been if instead of a hick-looking white guy waiting for Obama to arrive this had been an obviously well-armed black man waiting for George W. Bush? Or better yet, a brown-skinned guy in a turban carrying a sidearm and yelling about "the blood of tyrants" whilst standing on the lawn of a neighborhood mosque? I personally have a feeling that New Hampshire's rather lax gun laws would have become a bit more stringent while at the same time that man would suddenly be living a lot less free.

(hat tip: Doug"e")