Helen Thomas National Treasure

Has some advice for President Obama.

Remember, the generals work for you. Think about how Harry Truman once proved the point. He had just fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for publicly disagreeing with his policy against expanding the Korean War into China.

Truman elaborated on the decision for reporters in his typically blunt fashion:

"I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."

We do not need war. We need health care!

Do Not Care

The GOP plan is to do nothing because they do not care about you.

Fife And Drum

Rollin and Tumblin

I'll be tumblin If I do not sleep soon!

It's Bad You Know

More RL Burnside.

Ass Pocket Of Whiskey

Still wanna sleep.

Just Wanna Sleep

Rotted Fruit

Robert Borosage.

Recovery requires fundamental reform of America's economic strategy. The old shibboleths of the conservative era—shrink government, cut top-end taxes, free multinationals to move jobs abroad, deregulate finance, wage war on labor unions, declare that trade deficits don't matter —have failed ignominiously. They must be discarded, like yesterday's rotted fruit.

Where will the jobs come from?

Failure!

The war on drugs is a failure. How long can we keep this conservative failure going? We can no longer afford prohibition. An op/ed in the NYT.

The problem is becoming so dramatic that elder statesmen, senior law enforcement officers, intellectuals and philanthropists the world over are speaking out loud and clear: The “War on Drugs” is a disastrous policy that achieves none of its aims and inflicts huge damage on global security and governance wherever it is prosecuted.

They argue that state regulation of the drug market would reduce the health and social risks posed by narcotics and generate huge tax revenues, which could be hypothecated to absorb any costs. At the moment, the vast profits from the illegal drug trade go into the pockets of organized crime syndicates and terrorist groups.

Solar Forest

Ths should be required on all mall parking lots.

Origin Of Stupidity

The Xristian Xrazies are giving out copies of Darwin's Origin Of Species with a special prebuttal argument. Here is a rebuttal.

The Man Can Set You Up!

Be Careful out there.It is a funny video, but scary too! Do not let yourself get set up.
Via Constitutional Scholar Jonathan Turley.

Help Wanted!

Via the Telegraph.co.uk/

I will pay you $1 to sit in my bathtub full of noodles while you wear a one piece bathing suit. I will not be home, nor will anyone else while you do this. I will leave the key for you, and you will sit at your leisure. DO NOT bring any sauce. I will season the pasta after I return home prior to dinner."

Click the link for other interesting Graig's list adds.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day

The five A's.

Warming

Warmest August ever.

RIP Mary Travers

Mary Travers from the great folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary has died from cancer. Their album Peter, Paul and Mommy was an important part of my childhood. Here is every kids favorite, Puff (the Magic Dragon).

Wow!

Almost a million Americans were arrested for marijuana last year. That is almost a third of 1%of Americans were arrested for marijuana.

Police arrested 847,864 persons for marijuana violations in 2008, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. The total marks a three percent decrease in marijuana arrests from 2007, when law enforcement arrested a record 872,721 Americans for cannabis-related violations, but still remains the second highest tally of annual arrests ever reported.

Marijuana arrests now comprise one-half (49.8 percent) of all drug arrests reported in the United States.

Amazing. What a waste of time and money.

Food Care

Michael Pollan on how food affects health care.

But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.[...]
As for the insurers, you would think preventing chronic diseases would be good business, but, at least under the current rules, it’s much better business simply to keep patients at risk for chronic disease out of your pool of customers, whether through lifetime caps on coverage or rules against pre-existing conditions or by figuring out ways to toss patients overboard when they become ill.[...]
The moment these new rules take effect, health insurance companies will promptly discover they have a powerful interest in reducing rates of obesity and chronic diseases linked to diet. A patient with Type 2 diabetes incurs additional health care costs of more than $6,600 a year; over a lifetime, that can come to more than $400,000. Insurers will quickly figure out that every case of Type 2 diabetes they can prevent adds $400,000 to their bottom line. Suddenly, every can of soda or Happy Meal or chicken nugget on a school lunch menu will look like a threat to future profits.

I wonder if the rules will ever take effect.

We Can Not Afford To Wait

Try This At Home

Go for it!