Have a cup of tea and watch this for a little perspective …
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Tea Party Activists Promise to Shoot Those who Disagree With Them
Tea Party activists have gathered on Capitol Hill today for a “Code Red” rally against health care reform. …. The gathering was organized by Tea Party Profiteer organizations … ThinkProgress …. spotted a sign threatening violence if health care passes. The sign reads: “Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can,” referring to Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) and a Browning …
So what does this mean? If I know someone is in the Tea Party and I know they know I supported health care reform, should I kill them preemptively? Seriously. I live several hundred meters from Michele Bachmann’s congressional district. I’m surrounded. What do I do?
This is why I like Joe Biden.
The Bill is Law
President Obama has just signed the health care bill into law.
Well, that was easy. OK, next problem?
Bio-artist interprets science through art
The relationship between art and science today “is a little bit like romance,” said Lynn Fellman. What’s being learned about our species and about each other “is like getting to know someone new,” she said. “It’s surprising; It’s a sense of discovery,” one that artists, who speak through a visual language, respond to. “You know that there’s beauty in the idea of evolution,” she said, adding that art can express that beauty.
The Minneapolis-based artist, a member of the bio-art movement that seeks to bridge the worlds of art and science, uses recent discoveries about the human genome as the basis for portraits and other works that offer a glimpse into our roots
Happy Birthday Mike Dunford
Mike Dunford of Questionable Authority was born this day some years ago. Wish him a happy birthday.
Moveon.org’s 10 Things Every American Should Know About Health Care Reform
People are complaining that the health care bill that is currently on the verge of being law is flawed.
Well, duh. People who actually claim that this bill should not become law because it is flawed come in two flavors:
1) Those who are simply against all health care reform and are just blowing this out of one orifice or another. Birthers, teabaggers, Republicans, heatlh care lobbyists, other undesirables.
2) People who have little knowledge of how these things work and just woke up to find that reality is not what they assumed, in their ignorance it to be. Have you ever heard of the EPA and environmental regulation? The “Great Society” and legal protections for disadvantaged groups? The New Deal and banking regulation?
All three of those major shifts if the interrelationship between society and government, all of which progressives look back on and can justifiably claim to be good things, started out as sucky law. This is how it is done. You propose some good law, the yahoos show up and delay, damage, mess with the process until you finally have something that can’t pass. Then you give up.
Then you come back and do it again. And again. And again. And finally, you get the law passed.
Then you have this law that is not what you wanted, but you DO have a bill. You are now, finally, at the table. The basic idea of having laws of some kind dealing with a basic issue … racial discrimination, environmental protection, banking regulation, or people- and health-oriented health care insurance regulation … is then a reality, and further negotiations must start from that point, in stead of the perspective that the notion of reform is alien.
If you look a those early versions for these other, earlier efforts they were much less developed and probably much less effective than the current health care bill is. And to demonstrate that, I give you the recently posted list of ten good things about this bill from Moveon.org:
Continue reading Moveon.org’s 10 Things Every American Should Know About Health Care Reform
Acorn: A great Republican Success Story
Understanding Scientific Terms About Climate Change
An item from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
Continue reading Understanding Scientific Terms About Climate Change
Let’s Get this Done
The current health care bill, which we DO need to pass (Stop whinging that is not perfect. Neither are you. We let you pass.) has two more steps to go through. Reconciliation and signing by the President. Barack will take care of that second part, but we need to pressure congress to take care of that first part.
Harry Reid has a petition for you to sign to help develop this support.
Randy Neugebauer is the latest poster boy for Republican yahoohism
A statement from the statesman:
“Last night was the climax of weeks and months of debate on a health care bill that my constituents fear and do not support. In the heat and emotion of the debate, I exclaimed the phrase ‘it’s a baby killer’ in reference to the agreement reached by the Democratic leadership. While I remain heartbroken over the passage of this bill and the tragic consequences it will have for the unborn, I deeply regret that my actions were mistakenly interpreted as a direct reference to Congressman Stupak himself.
“I have apologized to Mr. Stupak and also…
Oh shut up, asshole. The only honorable action you can take at this time is to resign. But you will not do that. You will not even learn to behave like a civilized human being. Your statement was forced on you by your party’s leadership. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Jeessh. Teabaggers.
If you are on facebook, and you are an atheist…
… this would be a good time to “attend” the “A” Week on Facebook event. Click here and RSVP and put the big A in there as your face.
Patriarchic institutional structures exist to manage power and sex
But that it has always been true does not excuse …
Continue reading Patriarchic institutional structures exist to manage power and sex
Huh. James Randi just came out of the closet.
…. I had a feeling this was going to happen….
Anyway, praise FSM, I’m talking about him being gay, not being, like, a climate change denialist or something.
In truth, this is not really all that interesting. I mean, like, whatever. But the guy is the original skeptic, he’s 81, and he always has interesting stuff to say. So it is really all that interesting after all.