2007 archive
No More Dead Bloggers (Updated) 1
I never met Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review.
About the time I started my sporadic visits to Drinking Liberally in Philadelphia, he was winding down.
But he must have been quite a guy, not just for his politics, but also for his intellect and his personality, judging from the comments from persons who I know and respect, who knew and respected him.
Persons like Susie, Duncan, Brendan, Phillybits, upyernoz (link added) and many more.
I don’t know of what medical ailment he died of. I do know that he was much younger than I, and that the actual, if not the medical, cause of his death was that he was self-employed and therefore had no employer-provided health insurance (just like me).
And he didn’t make enough money to pay the hundreds of dollars a month it costs to buy health insurance on the open market.
And the lack of health insurance kept him from seeking medical attention until it was too late.
Though he died from a medical condition, the cause of his death was political: The failure of the United States to deal with the health insurance situation and its contentment to rank 37th in health care, behind, for Christ’s sake, Costa Rica (number 36), while insurance company executives get the Live Large.
Susie has issued a call to action.
No more dead bloggers from lack of health care.
Addendum, Later That Same Evening:
A link.
Via Susie.
The FTC Sells Out 1
But that surprises us how? Republicans worship the dollar.
The FTC said in a report that, despite popular support for net neutrality, it was minded to let the market sort out the issue.
This means that the organisation will not stand in the way of companies using differential pricing to make sure that some websites can be viewed more quickly than others. The report also counsels against net neutrality legislation.
Via Susie.
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, as Amended 1
Relevant amendments, and some striking parts that do not need amending, are highlighted:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, unless we don’t like them. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness, unless the United States Attorneys’ offices can be packed with sycophants on the sly. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good, through his signing statements.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers and through secret endeavors to hide his activities from the plain light of day.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, including hitherto unknown branches of government, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states, not to mention commutations:
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation, only now they are called contractors.
He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
Summation 0
The local rag asks the question:
Isn’t it funny how it’s only the rich and powerful who are deemed to have suffered enough through the mere act of being tried for their crimes?
The editorial is worth reading. It puts the hypocrisy in a nutshell.
Celebrate Independence Day with Persons Who Have Actually Read the Constitution 5
Drinking Liberally, Tangier, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, 6 to 9, Tuesdays.
I hope to be there for once.
A Bushie Does the Crime, the Law Gets Slimed (Updated) 6
How incredibly–sorry, after six years, all to credibly–venal.
(snip)
“With the denial of bail being upheld and incarceration imminent, I believe it is now important to react to that decision,” Bush said in a statement issued by the White House early this evening. Although the president said he “respected” the jury’s verdict, he added that he had “concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”
Note that Mr. Libby’s sentence was three months less that Bush’s own (yes, it’s his, and we are stuck with it) Supreme Court found quite reasonable for the offenses in question.
This is the same Supreme Court that seems to think that we are a colorblind society (link updated) and that price-fixing is okay.
Addendum, 7/2/2007:
To no one’s surprise, there has been lots of comment in the Left Blogosphere about this.
Keith Olbermann also devoted almost half his show to it tonight.
But the most trenchant comment I saw was from Steve just up the road at ASZ (emphasis added):
Galaxy 2
A C-5 turning in its approach to Dover Air Force Base.
Watch it here.
The noise you hear in the background is the noise of the cooling tower place. Gradually, however, the sound of the jet engines overwhelms it.
New Server Update 0
I rolled over the log files yesterday.
The access_log file was up to 1.6 GB with no significant affect on performance. On the old server, if that file got over a gig, there would be a noticeable lag (resulting in emails from my brother saying, “I couldn’t get on your blog . . .”).
Ripped Off 0
I was going to use this title.
Can You Pass Eighth Grade Science? 2
I’m kicking myself. Only a B. And I used to devour the “All About” books. I can’t any information about them on the web (not that it isn’t there, but there’s too much other stuff with “all about” in it; they were a series of books about science targeted to 10-14 year olds back in the dim dark ages; each one tackled a single broad subject. The one on geology, for example, was called, I think, All about the Earth.
What kept me from pursuing a career in science was higher math. When you start proving that 1 = 0, you pretty much have lost me. I’ve got one daughter who has the math gene, and I’ll guarantee she didn’t get it from me.
Via Andrew Sullivan.
The Enemy Below 10
No, not Dick Cheney.
Just one of the best war movies ever made (and the book was better). And I stumbled on it tonight. (Yes, I have seen Saving Private Ryan. No, I haven’t seen Das Boot.)
The only better WWII movie I ever saw was Beach Red. (And, once again, the book–in this case a poem, was better.)
Citizens Benighted 0
I mentioned “Citizens United” earlier.
I get frequent calls from “Citizens United.” (See Note below.)
Tonight I actually answered one.
The caller said that she was conducting a poll for “mumble.” (No, she didn’t mumble. I just can’t remember what she said.)
After asking me a heavily biased question (something about “the latest outrageous proposal from the Hillary Clinton campaign,” not that I am a Hillary fan, but I can recognize bias when I hear it) the caller asked me whether I would listen to a short message.
I asked her if she represented Citizens United. She said, “That is the organization that I represent.” (Her “mumble” cited above in no way resembled “sit-i-zens you-night-ted”; Caller ID is your friend.)
I asked her if this were the same Citizens United responsible for the lying Newt Gingrich commercial about the recently defeated immigration bill (see the link at the very beginning of this post).
She claimed ignorance.
I said, “As far as I am concerned, your organization is nothing more than a lying Republican Front and I expect you never to call me again.”
We will see how well they respect the wishes of citizens disgusted.
__________
Note: I probably get all this Republican lies propaganda because of address changes resulting from my father’s death.
My father served as campaign manager for Bob Bloxom, a fine man who represented the Eastern Shore of Virginia well as a Republican in the Virginia House of Delegates, earning the nickname, “Conscience of the House.” My father served as his campaign manager because of his respect for Mr. Bloxom, not because of Mr. Bloxom’s party affliation.
Mr. Bloxom was eventually stabbed in the back by wingnut supporters of George “Macaca” Allen, Embarassment of Virginia, for not being sufficiently wingnutty. Subsequently, he was appointed Virginia Secretary of Agriculture by two Democratic Governors. My father, by the way, had as much use for the Current Federal Administrator as he had for dock weed.
He expected public servants (oh, I forgot, George DubbaYou is not a servant, he is a king) to serve with at least a pretense of integrity.
I will share one story.
We were sitting at home back in 1973 watching news reports of the Saturday Night Massacre. My father disappeared from the living room for fully 45 minutes. I figured out later he–who had voted for Nixon twice–was sending “impeach Nixon” telegrams (yeah, I’m old–you can’t send a telegram any more) to all our representatives incongruously assembled.
Indictment 0
Ted Sorensen summarizes the accomplishments of the Current Federal Administrator (I shamelessly stole this from Steve over at All Spin Zone.):
We have adopted some of the most indefensible tactics of our enemies, including torture and indefinite detention.
We have degraded our military.
We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner—by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.
At home, as health care costs have grown and coverage disappeared, we have done nothing but coddle the insurance, pharmaceutical, and health care industries that feed the problem.
As global warming worsens, we have done nothing but deny the obvious and give regulatory favors to polluters.
As growing economic inequality tarnishes our democracy, we have done nothing but carve out more tax breaks for the rich.
During these last several years, our nation has been bitterly divided and deceived by illicit actions in high places, by violations of federal, constitutional, and international law. I do not favor further widening the nation’s wounds, now or next year, through continuous investigations, indictments, and impeachments. I am confident that history will hold these malefactors accountable for their deeds, and the country will move on.
Politicking of Hatred 0
It’s pretty well-documented that a (probably) Rovian rumor skewered John McCain’s quest for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2000.
Steve over at ASZ points out how the politics of hate takes victims long after the campaign is over.
Trapped by the World Wide Web 0
Oh, my.
When he decided the place was empty, Tingey went into the manager’s office where he tried to break into the safe.
The problem was, DiStefano said, Tingey apparently didn’t know how, and turned to the restaurant’s computer to search for instructions. The search was interrupted when the restaurant’s two managers, who had been in another part of the restaurant doing paperwork, walked in, police said.
Well, it’s the dumb ones who get caught.