A Curse on Both Your Houses!

OMG watching the House "work" is so upsetting.


Listening to the GOP whine that Democrats are causing a shutdown by "refusing to negotiate" is so insulting. Here we have a house who keeps trying to pretend it is offering a budget, when it is instead passing up an ideological bill that attempts to take advantage of the hostage situation to cut women's rights, and kill of health care for Americans, which was *already passed.*

so, let me get this straight, we're supposed to re-negotiate things they are sad about losing on, every time a budget needs to get passed?

Time for a new budget? Oh, heeeeeeyyyyy, remember how we didn't get what we wanted on that defunding women's pap smears thing a few months back? Yeeaahhh, I'm gonna need to shut down the government to get what I wanted.

Shutting down WIC is literally leaving children to STARVE. They are taking food from babies. This is the party that claims to care about life, showing their true colors.

The ACA ("ObamaCare") was already approved by both houses and has been declared constitutional. Holding the well-being of our nation hostage so a few zealots can showboat is a disgusting state of affairs.


Remember, dear tea-partiers, last time the government was shut down by the GOP, we re-elected Clinton afterwards.  You are all on your way out, so I can only assume you are putting in your final theatrics to secure a book deal or a spot on Fox News after you are ousted.

I mean, while kids are starving, and the EPA stops monitoring the superfund site I work at, take your time to secure that book deal. Just don't say you did in for Americans. We don't stand with you.




OH FUCKING HELL. WHY ARE THEY OPENING WITH A PRAYER?!??!

Cable News

So, about that TeeVee.

Holy Crap.

We don't watch much TV. I did finally buy a TV last year, mainly because I wanted a second monitor for working from home (which I rarely use in that capacity because as it turns out, televisions make lousy monitors due to some weird difference in the format of pixels, blah blah blah)

We do have television hardware, but we do not have cable or the digital antennae necessary to watch broadcast TV. Which? Is fine. I don't want to watch it and I don't have time. I have just barely enough time to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report and the internet the day after they air.


But in Kansas!
We watched. So. Much. TeeVee.
And so much "news"

And
so
many
republicans.


So interested in lady parts.
I'm honestly shocked that prenatal testing is the next frontier of "controversy" for them to take away.

Anyway, the only way to recover from sitting through hours of cable news about republican primaries in Kansas, is to give some money to Planned Parenthood.

Thank you, rick santorum, for reminding me to support all the good work Planned Parenthood does. I hope I was able to provide some women some abortions or something. Or, shudder, some PRENATAL TESTING. ZOMG.

I hope that every time we have to watch some of this crap, we remember to respond by pitching in to the frontlines to counteract this garbage. So please, if you've just sat through some horrendously offensive republican "debate" or accidentally forgotten to mute the TV before being exposed to a soundbite about how muslims are ruining America, or atheists are waging war on Christians (puhlease!), or how torture is just fine...
The best way you can wash your ears, eyes, and soul out after such a trauma is surely to visit the donation pages for ACLU, Planned Parenthood, or Rootstrikers!

words

I for one, am VERY excited about tomorrow's closing of the despicable U.S prison in Guantanamo Bay!

I've got my party hat on in wild anticipation and everything.

Woot! Hope! Change!

Tell Congress to Get It Right! Protect Women’s Access to Abortion in Health Care Reform

I just did this, and you can too! From the ACLU:

The health care reform bills in both the Senate and the House include severe restrictions on women’s health. We must let our senators and representatives know that both provisions are unacceptable and must not be included in any final health care legislation.

Now, as the House and Senate prepare to reconcile the differences between their two bills, please tell your senators and representative to go back and get it right!

Will you take action, too?

http://action.aclu.org/StopStupak

I have admitted to Paul that I have a big ole' crush

on Obama. And when I hear him speak, he is so dreamy-- his complete, grammatically correct and yet lovingly crafted sentences! His full thoughts, the pauses where he does that thing-- what is it called? oh, right, he THINKS. Right, he thinks before speaking, and afterward too, apparently. His erudite command of the language we love, and his understanding of the democracy and ideals we love in our country.

Also? Big girl-crush on his wife. She is so strong and powerful, and humble and funny.


Now, it continues... a BLOG! How cool is that? Add it to your reader with the feed link.

Last night we celebrated. The last night of this asshat:


Yes, it's funny, and terrifying.

I honestly do not know if we can get America back to its former strength. I do think we are going to try to get it back to its former meaning and morals.

Bye, Bye, Big Three

Full disclosure: I hate cars. I don't know how to drive, and if I did, I would rarely do it. Well, specifically, I don't hate cars themselves, but the culture around them. There is a time and place for cars, but it is not as we use them today.


When Paulson first tried to pass of his 3 page plan (loosely: "hey! I know! Why don't you give me 700 billion dollars to do with what I want, without any oversight at all?") that should have raised big red flags. He has no business doing what he is doing. Bailing out corporate failures is a mess, and the package is a very expensive mistake.

It's not going to work to try to make the banks lend out this free money. Duh, they were failing at their jobs, so we gave them our money to throw after it? No really, here is some very good explanation of why it isn't working. Article 1, and its follow-up. Of course, it is more complicated than those two articles, and I recommend anyone interested in economics take to reading that blog more in-depth for excellent and usually very readable analysis.

But, this new thing? This automaker thing? Outrageous.

The other day I bookmarked something I wanted to write about (found via Boing Boing Gadgets). It's a Business Week article titled "The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have" and the gist of it is, Ford has a clean-diesel car in Europe that gets 65mpg, but they won't bother with it here because Americans don't want diesel. Production and import would be expensive, and, they say, "We just don't think North and South America would buy that many diesel cars."

Fucking ridiculous. These American automakers will not bother with new tech, they won't bother with trying to sell better engineering to Americans. They just want to continue to suck out loud, and then they want us to give them money to continue some more. Why? So they can keep producing SUVs?!?!?

Ironically, the day before I read this, a coworker sat and chatted with me about the new car he is on the waitlist for. He canceled the car he had ordered when he heard about this great new one, a clean-running diesel that got something like 65mpg! From? oh, some European carmaker.

Thanks, Big Three.

Then, yesterday, also via Boing Boing Gadgets, I saw this article in Forbes about Honda. Really, it's a great article, and worth reading about a manufacturing company where engineering rules and problems are there to be solved, with weird angles if necessary:

"But there's nothing Honda hates more than waste, and there is nothing Honda likes more than an engineering problem. Indeed, how else to explain why Honda has studied the maddeningly evasive cockroach (for anticollision technology), decoded the rice genome (to increase crop yields and create more-productive crops for biofuels) and developed a robot that can get instructions by reading human brain waves (to learn how machines and humans can better coexist)."

Why can't our Big Three invent? Why do they refuse to do anything but throw money at marketing SUVs that are good for nearly nobody?

More importantly, why should we throw money after them? They should fail, so that new ideas can come in their place. Capitalism may or may not be the best system, but it will not work at all if bad companies are not allowed to fail. What reason do they have to change? What evidence do we have that they can change? If they are propped up by our precious few tax dollars, we will be dragged down with them as we waste our money on investing in the past rather than the future.


PS: you agree? Go here, and contact your congresscritters

Damn I wish I had found these before

Vote Because He Doesn't Want You To

Ugh, disgusting.


Early voting is so wrong!
Poor, old people are voting!
Except it's ok when *I* do it.



I'm guessing this guy never waited 5 hours in the rain to vote.
I hear his argument, and it is lame. So lame, I can't even figure out if he's serious or joking.
Poor old people voting early is bad because something might happen in the last week to change our mind???? There is NOTHING that could have happened in the last week to change my mind about the presidential election. Many of us just wanted it to be over (on both sides, I'm sure) and voting early means you can move on. I am sure there are those who are still weighing, and they were well served by coming in to vote on election day. But for those of us who are disgusted by the shell of McCain and the filthy campaign he's run, there was no chance of an October Surprise, unless it was that we woke up and it was all a bad dream.

And if that is his argument, why is absentee voting ok? I have an absentee ballot, so it is ok for me to vote early? WTF?

This is an unfortunate man, trying to make an excuse for what he really wants to say, which is, people shouldn't be allowed to vote. We should make it as difficult and painful as possible for (other) people to vote.

Blech. Disgusting.

Why get married?

I didn't really have a good reason to want to get married. Paul and I were already committed (mixing 401Ks and mortgages is a *lot* more serious than a silly marriage certificate, legally speaking) and we were already living together. Most of my family had already decided that we were really married deep down inside. So why do it? For my part, I have been inspired by the wonderful marriages of my parents and grandparents, and once I had Paul and knew he was for me, I wanted to get *married" and I wanted to grow that into something as beautiful as what my grandmother and grandfather had.

As we planned our wedding, I was also secretly sure nothing would change, and partially wondered why throw a big party to say “we're married now!” when really you were married all along in your souls. I was ready for the anti-climax.

But I was wrong.

There is something different about being married. And I don't know what it is. Some undefinable change happens, and you make it happen, but it is also outside of you. We threw a wedding and tried to include as many people as we could, with the belief that the community's support was a necessary part of taking just being in love to being married, to a public commitment, and a commitment from the public, to support and grow this new family unit. There is something invested by the community, into the couple, that is bigger than what we could make for ourselves.

And every day I look at Paul a little differently, though nothing has objectively changed. But, somehow, it has changed.


And with heavy heart I worry now that this right will be taken away from millions of people in my community. Tomorrow the people of California will vote on whether to take away marriage from people who love people of the same gender.

During the wedding planning, I read of several couples who decided not to get married legally because they could not go along with an institution unfairly denied to gays and lesbians. I was happy that I didn't have to make that decision, and proud to get married in a state where all of my friends and fellow Californians could marry as they chose. How civilized! How loving!

And that day? I was never one to fantasize about dream weddings, and fuss about the perfect details of My Perfect Wedding Day, but you know what? It was perfect. Because I was surrounded by my community, and they were there in love to witness and support our marriage.

And I want that right for all of my friends. The deserve it. They need it. Their children need it.

I've heard the arguments:

• that Prop 8 is bad for children won't someone think of the children!??!?! (but what about the fact the gay teenagers have such high suicide rates? Perhaps if they weren't ostracized, they'd have an easier time of it? Oh, and since other countries have already moved forward, we already have studies, showing the kids are alright.)
• That marriage is a religious ideal from that person's church. Well, fine, that person's church can do what it wants, but as long as the state is involved, it must be an equally available institution. I could just as easily make up a religion and start saying marriage was only for gay people. So what about my religious beliefs? The best answer would be for the state to only honor and create civil unions, and have nothing to do with "marriages," which are apparently owned by whatever religious institution the person you are talking to belongs.
  
• That this will destroy marriage is my favorite. With a divorce rate of 50%, I think straight people have done a fine enough job of destroying marriage. And for my part, for my marriage, I will be honored to have taken part in an institution that is shared by all the people in my community, many of whom are gay and lesbian. Applying a “separate but equal” institution would honestly make me a little less proud of the “married” thing. Marriage should be a tool of community building, not separating, and entered with love and compassion, not fear and paranoia. (and? I've looked into it. Civil unions do NOT give the same rights and protections as marriages do. Yes, allowing people to ride the bus is great, but making them sit in the back is not equal, and should not be tolerated.)
  

There are two pieces of video that I hope everyone will take a moment to watch. The first is a commercial supporting Prop 8, except the words have been changed slightly, so you can see what this is really about. Please let this sink in:



The second piece is a heartfelt speech given by the mayor of San Diego in September of 2007. The mayor was set to veto a resolution in support of gay marriage, and had vowed he would do so. Instead, he gave this press conference:



His speech was heartfelt and thoughtful, and gave me hope that even those who have been mistaken on this issue in the past, even the vociferous haters of equal rights for gays, can grow and change and see a better way. Is there anyone in your life you can reach, to help them see things in a better way?

And please, if you do nothing else, vote against Proposition 8.

Why not?

The (I-can't-even-think) Straght Talk Express

What I hear when I watch

Voter Fraud

Think Palin is too much even for the middle america christians? Think Obama is a shoe-in because, well, duh, the other folks are too scary?

OK, so even IF the masses are convinced not to vote against their own interests. Even IF the masses want Obama over MCain... what if it doesn't matter?

I linked this in my "What I'm Reading," but I think it's important enough to draw attention to. Voter fraud is starting, it is in full swing, and what is being done?

If we want this change to happen, we need to keep an eye on the process itself, and see to it that the election is not lost to vote fraud and scare tactics.

I'm a Community Organizer

psst, pass it on!

One of the most disturbing things I saw last week at the Republican National Convention was the open ridicule of community organizers. It shocked even me, already having a low opinion of the politicians in that party, to see the derision aimed at those who work in their communities to make the world a better place. I had assumed community organizers were a shared value of the big cities and the small towns, whose values they claim to be solely theirs, I had assumed that we all held in reverence the idea that grassroots organization and working together was what made our country and democracy possible and great.

I guess I was wrong. Giuliani and Palin made fun of people who work in their communities, and the convention attendees ate it up. Demonizing people who serve their communities was met with laughter and applause.

So, fine. Here it is.

I am a community organizer, and I'm for Obama.

• In the last year, I have worked as part of a team that launched the first year of my company's global service initiative. We had several thousand people all over the world doing service in their communities. I not only organized project in my own community, but as the coordinator of project signup tools and therefor having a lot of work with the project leads, I helped community organizers all over the world! (maybe they're for Obama too)

Before that, I 've been a community organizer in many ways:

• I was part of a small team that took on fundraising and other issues for a motorcyclist friend with a massive head injury stranded thousands of miles from home. We mobilized the community to raise funds and awareness, and coordinate his return home and ongoing visitors and care in the local hospital.
• I've served on planning and execution various large-scale service projects and events with Girl Scouts over the years.

My parents are community organizers. My grandparents are community organizers. This value of service and community has long been the thing I admire most about them. To see this tradition mocked so openly by the Republican Party was shocking and disheartening to me. I expect to differ on issues of politics, but to find that we don't share even the same basic value of people taking action and involvement in their communities was new to me. It tells me there's no place in their view of small towns and small people making big impacts. In this view, a person has no hope or responsibility to make a difference. Maybe they are saying that action and change should only come from big government and trickle down?

I'm a community organizer, and the Republicans think that's disgusting and ridiculous.



I'd like to start a chain here. If you have a blog, please take a moment to talk about community organization in your life. Are you a community organizer? Do you think community organizers are stupid like the Republicans do?
No blog? How about an email, or, heck, even snail mail.


pssst, pass it on!

Do it NOW!

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=365&pg=makeACall

State of the Union

I am so glad this is Bush's last State of the Union.
My liver cannot take listening to another.

do it for the monkeys!

This boggles my little mind.

14:39 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Monkeys waving white flags joined protesters outside the district office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco today to speak out against the Democratic leader's support for measures that organizers say undercuts the mission of the troops in Iraq.

Now, I thought that monkeys were illegal in California. I could be wrong. I know helper monkeys are illegal here, but perhaps protesting monkeys are not. When I read the article, I assumed they meant "dumbasses dressed as monkeys," but, no, these appear to be actual monkeys (dressed as dumbasses, but I don't think they chose their outfits)

So you have a monkey. And that monkey is protesting. I wonder how many monkeys they polled to find two who supported the war effort. I have to think most of them were like "No time for that. Can't talk now. Flinging poo." Not Jake and April. They jumped at the chance to exercise their First Amendment rights! Yay two party monkey system?

(I can't be the only one who thinks it's funny that these people chose the animal that is so often used in cartoons to mimic Dubya's facial features)

April looks very stylish in her beret, but she should learn to sit like a lady, not some wild west liberal hussy.

No Backsies!

WTF, is this 4th Grade?

Fielding said the two would speak to lawmakers in private and not under oath. He indicated he was not prepared to negotiate in the matter.

So the sticking point is that Bushco demands they not be under oath?!?!
So, what, they can just cross their fingers behind their backs?

Isn't requesting that something said not be "under oath" pretty much the same as saying beforehand that you plan to lie through your teeth?

I mean, not that anyone in this administration would ever do that.