Edward R. Murrow

‎"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men."

For those who don't know Murrow was a great reporter and commentator. Keith Olbermann uses his closing remark "Good night, and good luck" as an homage to him, not to claim he is the modern Murrow. That full speech can be seen here as an excerpt from the movie about him, it was his retirement speech.

Best Bush Poster

It really pisses me off that Obama is now taking the blame for Bush's crap.

Bush trashed the economy and bailed out the big banks. When Obama came into office he attached the caveat that the banks had to pay us back, Bush just gave them the money, no strings attached. But now everyone blames Obama for the bank bailout. It was already a law passed by Congress when Obama took office.

Obama kept the economy - and likely the entire world's economy - from going off the cliff. We'd be in the Greater Depression if McCain had been elected.

SMBC

SMBC stand for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. It's a site of cartoons (so why doesn't the C stand for Cartoons? I don't know). Hours and hours of fun.

Crazy People

I found this cartoon at The Godless Liberal Social Society on Facebook and had to repost it here. This probably explains why I'm an atheist better than many pages of writing.

Muslims

Here is an article that lays out what the whole question is, it's not really about the Mosque at Ground Zero (which is not a mosque and is not at ground zero).

One thing is clear: the feverish discourse about Muslims’ role in American society is not about the proposal to build an Islamic community center a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site. Park 51, as it’s being called, merely let an ugly genie out of the bottle. The dark stain of Islamophobia had spread far and wide long before the controversy erupted.

Related articles by Zemanta

• "Protesters demonstrate for, against 'Ground Zero' mosque" and related posts (islamizationwatch.blogspot.com)
• CNN Continues to Promote 'Islamophobia' Accusation From Time (newsbusters.org)
• "Scenes from Ground Zero Mosque protests [Photos]" and related posts (islamizationwatch.blogspot.com)

The Story of Eggs

Image via Wikipedia

Tuesday morning I got sick as a dog, spent all morning in the bathroom, throwing up and other things. Finally went to bed around 11am and slept straight through until 4 pm. I was just out of it. I figured I must have developed an allergy to eggs suddenly. I might have had a fever but it's hard to tell with me since my internal temp fluctuates between 96 and 101 for no apparent reason and with no symptoms, so I usually don't bother to take my temp any more.

Wednesday night I hear the news blurb "Egg recall, story at 11." I didn't stay up until 11, still feeling pretty bad, so I watched the news in the morning and got the story; 300 million eggs recalled because of salmonella poisoning. That explains it I guess, it was a Ralph's brand. The funny part is that the eggs on Monday were the last three of the dozen.

I had some stomach gurgling after eating the other eggs but nothing too serious. Since I have IBS and get sick all the time anyway some extra gurgling doesn't get much attention. I wonder if the salmonella had time to multiple in those last 3 eggs after being in my fridge for a week?

Still not feeling great today and have no desire for lunch, although yesterday I had some pepperoni pizza. I always want awful foods when I get sick, I don't know why, maybe craving the grease? I donno.

Anyway, I'm off eggs for quite some time now, maybe forever. Even toast, which I ate with the eggs on Monday, sounds bad right now.

Fun times.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 380 Million Eggs Recalled for Salmonella Infection (eatdrinkbetter.com)
• Illnesses linked to eggs will likely grow (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Wright County Egg Expands Nationwide Voluntary Recall of Shell Eggs Because of Possible Health Risk (fda.gov)

Obama vs FDR

Image via Wikipedia

Jeff Shesol writes about the differences between Obama and FDR:

Heading into his first midterm, Roosevelt, too, faced an ailing economy and critics blasting him as a socialist. Jeff Shesol on how he beat the odds—and what Obama needs to tell America now.

FDR was not subject to a mid-term disaster that Obama seems to be heading toward, because he had vision.

One of the main reasons FDR prevailed—then and thereafter—was his ability to paint a clear, consistent picture of the kind of country he wanted America to be, the kind of country we needed to be in the industrial era.

....

In his inaugural address, President Obama spoke of a “new era of responsibility,” but soon dropped the idea in favor of another unifying theme (wrapped in a laundry list, inside a mixed metaphor): a “new foundation… built upon five pillars that will grow our economy.” The pillars—financial reform, education, clean energy, health care, deficit reduction—tell us a lot about his priorities, but little about his basic objectives. Where does this all lead? What defines Obama’s America? Absent a clear answer, Obama has, in effect, asked the country to infer his goals by inductive reasoning—to assume that on the basis of policies A, B and C, Barack Obama seeks X, Y, and Z.

I'm not sure if Obama is lacking in vision or is just unable to communicate it. What he has done is a number of individual acts, each that stands on it's own. It adds up to something very similar to what FDR did, but they don't reflect an overall vision for the country, nor do most people even know what he's done.

I sure hope he can turn this around. If we have fewer Democrats in the House and Senate things will jsut get tougher for him.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Obama Could Learn From FDR (realclearpolitics.com)
• Obama Should Look to FDR for Guidance (realclearpolitics.com)

Brett is Back!

Brett is coming back to the Vikings:
Image via Wikipedia

Steve Hutchinson, Jared Allen and Ryan Longwell were dispatched to Favre's home in Hattiesburg to convince the 40-year-old quarterback to return. He was contemplating retirement yet again because of a surgically repaired left ankle that was hurt in the NFC title game.

I was one who didn't want him coming back, he's just too old and it was obvious in the last game of his last season. He was clearly out of steam and struggling. Maybe he plays pretty well, but he just doesn't have the endurance any more.

But he's getting $25 million for a 2 year contract.

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• Brett Favre is back in Minnesota (mysanantonio.com)
• Favre set to rejoin Vikings: reports (cbc.ca)

There are different Muslim sects

William Dalrymple writes at the New York Times about the mis-named 'Ground Zero Mosque.'

Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative is one of America’s leading thinkers of Sufism, the mystical form of Islam, which in terms of goals and outlook couldn’t be farther from the violent Wahhabism of the jihadists. His videos and sermons preach love, the remembrance of God (or “zikr”) and reconciliation. His slightly New Agey rhetoric makes him sound, for better or worse, like a Muslim Deepak Chopra. But in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, he is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination.

The Mosque at Ground Zero

There is no mosque and it isn't at ground zero, as Keith more than adequately explains in this special comment. This entire fiasco has left me feeling that Americans are petty, small and cowardly. We seem to be scared of everything these days, and the minute some Republican tells us to be scared people start crying out.

At the end of this special comment Keith explains what REAL Americans should do in this situation. Maybe our fathers or grandfathers would have done that but we didn't. The fact is that putting a Mosque at Ground Zero would have been the most American thing to do, but that was in some past America, not this one.

Follow this link back to MSNBC and watch the video of an American Muslim woman who was one fo the first responders at Ground Zero. Look at the pain in her eyes as she realizes few fellow Americans would see her as being American at all.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What Voters Want

Here is a great article on what the American people want.

The good news is that it fits with the Democratic's stance on every issue, the bad news is that few seem to know that those ARE Democratic stances, they think the Republicans will make all those things happen and have completely missed the fact that the Republicans want exactly the opposite of what most Americans want.

This is a complete failure of the Democrats to get their messages out, most of the blame falls on Obama, he seems to have very little interest in telling people what he's done and what he intends to do. He seems to think that if he just does a good job he will get all kinds of accolades for that, not realizing he'll get no credit at all if no one knows he's done any of it.

So the Democrats are going to lose badly this November even though the public wants what they stand for and want to do.

Zemanta

Image by dragon762w via Flickr

I use Zemanta to add content to my blog posts, such as pictures. I've been having problems with it after switching to Chrome so I uninstalled it.

Now I've reinstalled it, so I know I have the latest version, but I suspect the problem is with Chrome, the Google browser doesn't work well with the Google Blogger.

Why this picture? Why the hell not? I have no idea who that is but it caught my eye ;)

Edit: Well it worked as far as publishing, which is where my problem was. I was getting error messages for illegal HTML code. heck, Blogger adds the code on it's own. I am still having a weird problem, I can't hit Return and move down the page for a new paragraph. I have to start the paragraph, then back space to the start of the paragraph, THEN his return.

Then it works. What a hassle. Much as I like Chrome I might have to use Firefox whenever blogging.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blogging with Zemanta (philipramsey.blogspot.com)

Tax Cuts for the Rich

Ezra Klein has a great picture to illustrate what the Republican tax cuts are all about.

If you are not rich the Republican party is NOT for you, period. They are the party that ONLY represents rich people and corporations, like their whining that Obama was being too tough on BP in making them pay for the oil spill and it's consequences. Boo Hoo, poor, poor BP people. Tony Hayward had to take his multi-million dollar salary and move to Siberia. How terrible.

An Encounter at Ground Zero

A friend of mine who lives in New York City sent me this email, which is such a great story and so well written I just had to post it:

Apart from being a moment of true, embarrassing old-fuckitude, I'm not quite sure in what venue where this wonderful story would fit -- apart from the old Playboy Party Jokes page -- except it's true. Maybe the Times NYC Diary, but then again no.

I boarded a downtown R train at Lexington Avenue and 60th Street and sat down in the last car to watch Rachel Maddow on my iPod. I put my huge back pack on the seat next to me, enjoying the illusion that it was somehow cleaner than the floor.

At 57th Street however, the crowd started to build, and this being a new train, and the seats being fewer, I put my bag on the floor. Across from me, a Muslim woman about 22 sat down. Fully wrapped, but for her intoxicatingly beautiful face (I'm a sucker for Persian eyes), she had a brown and white head-thingie, a blouse I can't remember and a flowing, silken, full length blue and black dress.

As we continued downtown I found myself wondering if she was getting off at City Hall Station -- my destination. Park Place where the Cordoba Center is to be and the WTC are just upstairs. With all the publicity about the Cordoba (now Park51) center downtown, the fact that an old Arab Muslim community (and mosque) has been downtown for ages made my speculation make sense. I kind of felt sorry for her. With all the vitriol and rage directed against them this summer, Muslim women in NYC must feel naked despite their conservative dress. Frankly I don't get the cover up, and find it not the least bit modest. In fact, I find it oddly provocative. Especially with a woman as beautiful as the one sitting across from me -- dirty old atheist that I am. And she had that whole Cleopatra eyes thing going on. Woo. Did I mention that?

Well sure enough, as I prepared to get off at City Hall, so did she. I hoisted my backpack over my shoulders and stood at the door. My iPod still going. As I stepped off the train, I felt a light tapping on my shoulder...

It was that woman. I thought she was going to ask me directions. I took out my earbud, and she hers, and she gently put her hand on my shoulder, leaned close enough for me to smell her perfume and feel her breath, and she whispered in my ear, in that exotic Middle Eastern accent the women on "24" use -- "Your zipper is open."

She laughed quietly after patting me on the back, royally I would even say, and went on her way smiling while I sputtered thanks and damn near broke my zipper pulling it up in spasm of sheer terror.

AHA!

Take THAT Tea Party. Open Fly Diplomacy! Bill Clinton would approve!

Obama's Accomplishments

Ezra Klein talks about Obama's accomplishments on his blog, talking about the cash for clunkers program, which was wildly successful in every possible way:

But the policy wasn't popular. Few liked it. Some thought it socialism. Some thought it cronyism. Which presents, of course, a difficulty for the White House: Saving millions of jobs and the American auto industry at an ultimately very small cost to the taxpayer is the sort of major policy accomplishment you should be able to run for reelection on. But what if people don't really understand that you did it, or that it worked, or that it didn't cost them much?

This isn't the only time this has happened. Obama changed health care in America, the biggest accomplishment of it's kind since Medicare was passed in 1964, he should be riding high off of that, but he didn't get the credit he should have.

Republicans bashed him and what they called "ObamaCare" they called socialism. It seems like those so upset over socialism haven't a clue what it means because there is nothing socialist about the new health care bill, and that upsets those on the left. We all wanted a single payer system but Obama took that off the table right away, then we wanted the public option but he sold that option to the health care companies so they wouldn't oppose him.

And people are still complaining about the government getting in between you and your doctor even though there is no way for that to happen. It will STILL be what it's always been, your insurance company getting in the way of you and your doctor. That's because the government has little to do with any of this except to subsidize some people who are too poor to meet the insurance companies outrageous fees.

Why do so many still think absurdities about ObamaCare? Because the Republicans are excellent at getting their message out and Obama is very feeble at it. The right wingers lie all the time and because there is a huge amount of right wing media out there the lies get told over and over until many people believe it. But Obama's message doesn't get told very often at all.

Obama and every member of his administration should be out there talking themselves up 24/7 but they don't do it. The single sound bite they get out gets lost in the conglomeration of of media out there these days. Obama has accomplished a lot, most nobody knows about and the rest are unpopular because the right wing has lied about it.