Always update to the latest version before setting out on long trips, or you might have to stop and ask for directions.

From the New York Times [via MSNBC] Denied 2 full victories, Obama takes validation

From Copenhagen to Capitol Hill, the president determined the outer limits of what he could accomplish on climate change and health care and decided that was enough, at least for now. He brokered a nonbinding agreement with other world powers to fight global warming, averting the collapse of an international summit meeting. And he blessed a compromise on health care to guarantee the votes needed to pass the Senate.

In order to get two checkmarks for his curriculum vitae, Obama has cast off liberals, independents, new voters, women, environmental voters, pretty much 80% of the people who voted for him. He hasn’t actually fought for anything, he has just read a few speeches when he thought it was necessary to quiet the masses.

So far he has maintained all of the executive power grab that the Shrubbery claimed, continues to abuse civil liberties, has enacted policies that help Wall Street, and bowed to the wishes of the Blue Dogs. He has more interest in courting the votes of Republicans, than his own supporters.

Pyrrhic victories are a fine thing if you don’t care about your “troops” and aren’t interested in winning the “war”.

PO’ed at demands from Haloscan during the NoDWISH holidays, Steve Bates has moved his site to http://yellowdoggereldemocrat.blogspot.com/.

He is maintaining the old site for archival purposes at http://www.yellowdoggereldemocrat.org/doggerel.htm, so your legacy links will still work.

The people who bought out HaloScan, JS-Kit, have quite possibly made the worst marketing decision since New Coke. Sending out a demand during the holidays, during the biggest economic down turn since the Great Depression, a period when people are not thinking about blogging comments, but a multitude of other things, might qualify these guys for the Obama administration, but not for the real world.

Depending on your priorities, there may be something for you is the Senate’s ?Health Care Reform? bill, as long as you aren’t looking for reform of the health care system.

As Connecticut Man at Corrente notes, if you look at the PDF of the manager’s amendment and go to Page 5, Line 11, you will see that your Second Amendment rights to possess an arsenal are extensively protected.

No indication as to what the “right to bear arms” has to do with health care reform, but since nothing else in the bill has anything to do with health care or reform, I’m not actually surprised.

It is rather obvious that the Senate listens to the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the NRA, and US Conference of Catholic Bishops, but people who want sanely priced health care can just pound sand.

At 11:47AM CST the winter solstice occurs marking the longest night of the year. If everyone has been good, the days start getting longer tomorrow. Locally, the sun will rise at 6:38AM and set at 4:49PM for a total of 10 hours and 11 minutes of daylight, but tomorrow will be a whole 2 seconds longer.

This also marks HogWatch, so don’t forget to put out the turnips.