Posts from — December 2009

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.

CBS reports that “Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the nation’s third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection”.

Another media conglomerate that went deep into hock to buy up radio stations. Then it centralized everything and fired a lot of people to maximize the profits, but couldn’t survive because of the huge debt load.

Local radio stations need local personalities to attract local advertisers. They need to connect to the local community or people will have no loyalty.

This is just the latest example of the basic stupidity of greedy people with no long-range vision. They aren’t investing, they are gambling with borrowed money.

The BBC reports that a principal leader of the reform has died:

Crowds of mourners are gathering in the Iranian city of Qom following the death of leading reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri at 87.

Some pro-reform websites say thousands of people are travelling to the city ahead of Monday’s funeral.

Other unverified reports say opposition supporters are also gathering in some squares in Tehran, fuelling government concern of increased political tension.

Iran faced serious unrest after its disputed presidential election in June.

Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, one of Shia Islam’s most respected figures and a leading critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself said in August that the turmoil following the election “could lead to the fall of the regime”.

Montazeri was something of a purist. He was the heir apparent to Khomeini, as his chief lieutenant in the Iranian revolution, but split over the form of the government. He was a firm believer in the separation of religion and politics, seeing religion as the loser in such an association.

When I can find time on Sunday I will be upgrading to the latest version of WordPress. It should be a fairly straight-forward and relatively quick process, but nothing is certain.

Update: Still not done, as I have to make some changes to the comments program in the new version, to make it work the way I want. It is cold, and I can’t type with mittens on.

Apparently Ben Nelson has only agreed to vote yes on cloture on the Senate bill, and said that if the bill coming out of the House-Senate conference committee changes any of his demands, he will effectively filibuster the vote on the final bill.

What is the point? Does anyone think the House will just rollover and accept the Senate bill?

Given what it has taken to get this garbage through Congress, why should anyone believe the claim that problems will be fixed, and the bill improved later? This is what Congress is willing to do, so where do you find a Congress that will fix it after the Democrats lose seats based on what they have passed?

Andante, Lurch, Melanie Mattson, and Jim Capozzola died because of the current system. My test for an adequate bill is simple – would it have saved any of them if it had been passed earlier? The answer I come up with for the current bill, which doesn’t even really start for four years, is no.

Note: title “borrowed from here.

Badtux went back to his archives, to show that he identified Obama as not being anything close to a liberal in January 2008.

I wrote in January 2008:

Natasha wondered about the other candidate in Obama: Another Liberdem? The answer is yes. Don’t listen to his speeches, read his positions. The man has more in common with Arlen Specter than John Kennedy. He’s a moderate to conservative Republican and further to the right than Hillary Clinton.

Avedon Carol points out how unliberal the “Health Care Reform” is. What is being offered is a massive windfall for insurance companies, for which people receive next to nothing. Having “health insurance” is not the same as having “health care”.

Digby notes that ActBlue has raised $114+ million on-line since 2004 and about one million went to Obama. Surely that qualifies ActBlue as a “Center” or “Power Forward” on Obama’s Team. If they were ActBlue, Inc., they wouldn’t be ignored, they would have gotten a slot as an ambassador to some small country where nothing happens.

People seem to forget that when you listen to an Obama speech, you are watching a performance. Obama isn’t the “playwright”, he’s the “lead actor”. Great orators write their own speeches, like Lincoln and Barbara Jordan. That’s a major reason why I have never heard an Obama speech. I assume he’s a competent actor, but I want to see what the play is really about. I see a lot of comments that indicate that people are falling for the form and missing the substance.

The county just ran a test on their reverse 911 system, calling everyone to test it, and then set off a warning siren at noon. The only thing going on is flooding along the Yellow River in the North County, but there is no notification up there as the signal fire system doesn’t work well in the rain, although the dogs should pick up the sound of the siren and start baying.

Apparently this is an opt-in system, so I guess I’m going to have to deal with it this afternoon.

On the labor front, the Pensacola News Journal reports: State jobless rate up to 11.5 percent

The Agency for Workforce Innovation said today there are 1,056,000 people out of work in the state. The state’s jobless rate is 1.5 points higher than the national average of 10 percent — and the highest Florida has recorded since May 1975, when it hit 11.9 percent.

Health care was the only sector that didn’t lose jobs. Too bad Congress can’t figure out how to pay for health care, since those seem to be the only people working.

I got a collect call from the county jail. I didn’t accept it. It must have been a mis-dialed number, because I’m not known for helping out people who do truly stupid things and I have major objections to the business that profits from the calls. In my opinion they should be in the jail, not profiting from it.

It is still raining and cold. When the rain stops it will get even colder. This mess is supposed to start moving North, which means major snow for the last weekend before Christmas. That will really help sales.

Update: Local bank, First Peoples Community Bank, got “eated” today. Actually, it was more of a nibble than a real bite, because they were small, but they got involved in the real estate madness.

Remembering the Sun

It will be back, right?

[Editor: Excise from late summer of ’08 because it is cold, damp, and miserable around here, and Real Life is being really time-consuming.

Friday Ark

Anyone who thinks there is any point in passing what is left of the “Health Care Reform Bill” in the Senate, either hasn’t really looked at the bill, or isn’t connected to the problem because they have good health insurance through their job, and don’t give a damn about the people the bill is supposedly helping.

First off, this bill does next to nothing until 2014. People are dying every day, but the bill writes off the 200k who will die from a lack of health care access between now and then.

All health insurance is funneled through the current insurance companies, and people will be mandated to buy it, or the IRS will levy fines on them.

The rules on rescission, stopping insurance companies from dropping coverage if you get sick, are exactly the same as the current rules that the companies use to cancel policies. The “fraud” loophole is the excuse that insurance companies now use, and it is in the Senate bill.

Insurance companies are still free to put a cap on coverage.

And the list goes on and on.

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Unlike the US media, the ABC seems to have actual news stories to report: Homes in flames as bushfires rage

Properties, homes and cars have been burnt in a large fire at Gerogery, north of Albury, in southern New South Wales.

The blaze began at a tip in the nearby village of Walla about 1:00pm (AEDT) and has burnt through grazing land between Glenellen and Gerogery.

Marg Wehner from the Rural Fire Service (RFS) says residents in the area should seek safety.

“If they do not wish to be in the area, it’s probably too late to be leaving now,” she said.

“The fire is within the vicinity and the smoke is very high. They need to just batten down the hatches and hang in there.”

RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons has told ABC local radio that an emergency alert has been issued for Gerogery, West Gerogery and surrounding areas.
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