Show me what you've got....

Letter recently sent to a GOP congressman who shall remain nameless:

I attended your town hall last night and wanted to ask a question but there was no time, so I left a message on the voice mail system after the call. As a follow-up, here are my two questions. First, the U.S. has well over 35 million uninsured citizens and we are the only major industrial country without universal health care. The only one! Republicans were completely in charge for 6 years and did nothing. Now that Obama is proposing changes all you do is dredge up the tactics of fear, but you still offer nothing. In fact, just this morning Roy Blunt said that his committee will not produce an alternative. My first question is this: If you think that Obama's plan is so bad, what is your better plan, or do you think it's OK to maintaing the status quo. My second question relates to government control. You noted several times last night, and had a survey, about people wanting the government to control their health care and as expected, 93% said "no". If you think that government involvement in health care is so bad, why don't you submit a bill to dismantly the VA, Medicare and Medicaid? Seriously, if you are so convinced that the private sector can do much better, let's turn those three programs over to the insurance companies. You noted at the end of your town hall that you will respond to all messages, and I will hold you to this. Last night you got a slew of "softball" questions, all easy pickings for you. I've posed some that aren't so easy, and if you are doing your job you will answer these also.

Any response received will be posted here.

What's the news across the nation....we have got the information....

Tragedy or Comeday? Is this a statement about the American public or the American Media?

anniversary dessert

And now, the best astronaut footage ever:

anniversary fireworks

One of the coolest things about astronomy is that it's the most democratic of the sciences, a discipline in which amateurs regularly make significant discoveries and contributions to our knowledge of the universe in which we live. Here's the cosmic celebration of our first Lunar landing, and the visible results of the statistically nearly impossible second time Jupiter has been clobbered in fifteen years. The object that did this would have virtually wiped out life on Earth if it had hit here. Congratulations to Anthony Wesley of Australia for the discovery of a lifetime.

Moon Shot

Feel free to skip to about 2:50 for the "meet" of the matter.



Nice.

forty years

It's SADurday....

You and the "silly one" give each other lots of extra love for us, will ya?

free spirit

RIP Squirt.

Dear MSNBC,

Is Pat Buchanan outrageously racist enough to stop putting him on your broadcasts NOW?

Disgustedly,
Milo

Desideratfuck

High-end swindler Bernard Madoff has started his 150-year prison sentence. Buck up, Bernie. Don't think of it as a death sentence. Take a tip from a Seventies veteran.


Think of it as the first day of the rest of your life.

hail seizer

I just picked this up off of my back porch. That's a quarter in the photo. I hate Kansas.

howzat again?

I just noticed this TV program listing: "Thomas Kinkade: Fine Art"


I'm a bit puzzled. Which one is it?

skewed priorities

It's impossible to avoid the massive festival of grief-for-profit that is the Michael Jackson memorial in Los Angeles. The corporation that was footing the bills for Jackson's now-canceled "final" tour stands to make millions of dollars by milking their star's death and it's a certainty that there will be a multi-DVD package of the event that may make as much money as the concerts would have.

I find it difficult to stomach all of this weepy eulogization of a man who was about as psychologically unhealthy as it is possible to be and who really wasn't as gifted a musician as he is being portrayed. Groomed for stardom like an Iron Curtain gymnast of the Sixties, Jackson grew up to be a popular performer not so much for his musical talent but for his image and ability to stage a spectacle of proportions suitable for the ancient Colosseum. Being lauded for his abilities as a musician is a bit odd, since his primary contribution was as an entertainer rather than as a composer.

Regardless of how he became famous and for what, the most tragic part of all of this is watching the state of California (which is now sending IOU's to state employees, welfare recipients, and many of the most vulnerable people in one of the wealthiest states in the union because of its dysfunctional and debt-ridden government) foot the bill for this incredible display of insipidity.

Bread and circuses for the suffering masses, but millions of dollars in support of wealthy private citizens and companies that are profiting like mad off this ginned-up festival of grief. This is how empires die.

happy Fourth of July

There's still some democracy left in the tube after all.

rejuvenated

I just finished taking a four-mile walk on a lovely seventy-five degrees fahrenheit summer evening with a gentle, warm rainshower the entire time, all while I was wearing only shorts and sneakers. I haven't done anything like that in close to thirty years. It was a near-transcendent experience, a communing with the universe of the kind I haven't felt in decades. I think I will probably remember this walk for the rest of my life. Every once in a while you get a quiet pause where you fully grasp the flavor of how wonderful it is to simply be alive and to drink in the sensation in a setting where there are no distractions and the only thing that exists is the moment and yourself. Those brief flashes make everything else worthwhile. Life is good.

uh-oh

According to Firedoglake by way of a CNN source, "a criminal indictment" for Sarah Palin is pending authorization and will be enacted within a few days.

You betcha.

lest we forget

Palin bailin'!

I guess she needs some time to get that log out of her own eye.

UPDATE:

After watching that breathlessly disjointed and scattershot statement, I can't help but wonder if Sarah hasn't made good friends with Levi's mother and is huffing down piles of that classic hand-made Wasilla meth. Or, that there's another shoe going to drop really soon, like maybe that accusation against David Letterman was unintentionally right and the 14 year-old is preggers now, or that Sarah has been hitting her own Appalachian Trail, or that there has been some illegal behavior from the governor's office that's about to come to light. No matter what, this is way more entertaining than the Michael Jackson coverage.

yeah, he takes after his dad...