October, 2013 archive
A Glimpse of Republican Paradise 0
In North Carolina:
Now, at age 54 and two surgeries later, Baginski finds herself at an Urban Ministries homeless shelter in Durham – uninsured and applying for disability. Her former $28,000-a-year job today seems like an unattainable dream.
While Baginski’s reversal of fortune is beyond anyone’s control, the fate of her health care rests in the hands of North Carolina politicians. She is among a half-million state residents who would have been eligible for Medicaid in January had officials here opted to expand that government program for the poor and disabled.
But North Carolina, like about half the states, rejected Medicaid expansion because Obama.
Read the rest, if you can stomach it.
The Republican Party–Meanness, just because it can.
Deadbeats 0
Republicans, that is. Barney Frank explains it in the Maine Sunday Telegram.
A nugget:
I have a message for my former colleague John Boehner:
Don’t do me any favors. Specifically, please stop acting as if allowing the United States of America to meet the debts it has incurred as a result of votes both of us have cast is a concession you are making to me or anybody else. It is simply an act of basic responsibility.
(snip)
With one exception, raising the debt limit relates only to past spending.
The exception is that if you continue to enable the right wing of your party in its demand that America fail to meet its obligations, the interest we must pay when we borrow will probably go up.
Read the rest.
My Cheese Steak Search Is Over 0
If you see the words “Philadelphia Cheese Steak” on a menu in these parts, whatever you get is likely an abominable and detestable crime against nature.
I’ve finally found an exception–a place that knows that putting steak and cheese in a bun does not magically morph them into a “Philly Cheese Steak,” that cheese steaks do not include chunks of chuck, portions of peppers, tablespoons of tomatoes, or, for Pete’s sake, mounds of (shudder) mayonnaise.
Elias Cafe at Aragona and the Boulevard just a few blocks west of Pembroke makes as good a cheese steak as I ever had at the Deerhead (where the Deerhead double with everything is the cat’s meow and the bee’s knees).
Try it.
They also throw a good breakfast, a great Greek salad, and gorgeous gyros.
Afterthought:
My friend was irritated by my habit of interrogating wait staff about their so-called “cheese steaks” on their menus.
Then she had a cheese steak at Elias Cafe.
She still may not approve, but now she understands . . . .
Facebook Frolics 0
Twits on Twitter 0
The Stupid is strong in this.
The Secesh 0
Out in the New River Valley, the Roanoke Times is hosting a duel between the secesh and the sane.
Indeed, Godwin’s Law has come into play.
Here’s a snippet from a column by Halford Ryan in response to an exercise in Confederate revisionism by John C. Cahoon (that’s right, “Cahoon,” not “Calhoun”):
The Crazification Factor 0
It’s a reliable, steady 27%. For example, from Delaware Liberal,
“The Times They Are-a Changing” 0
Last night, we watched Wheel of Fortune, as both of us like word puzzles (my friend is an editor by trade and I’m a punster by avocation); I also like to marvel at Vanna White’s state of preservation, as in amber.
One of the contestants, during the intros at the beginning, allowed as to how he was married to his wonderful husband (Giuseppe, I think) and that they were in the process of adopting their first child. Yes, “he.”
And nobody batted an eye.
Afterthought:
I wonder whether the audience received any special preparation for the moment. I rather suspect so.
I bet that the studio’s mail will be interesting for the next couple of days.
Backfire 2
Dick Polman dissects the Republican backpedaling from the decision by Senator Cruz-missile and his teabags to blow up the economy over the Affordable Care Act. It doesn’t seem to be working out all that well for the geniuses behind it.
A snippet:
(snip)
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of politics – a minority of a minority in one legislative chamber can’t outfight a president who handily won re-election – knew that the GOP would wind up the loser in a shutdown showdown. Indeed, the smartest conservatives knew it, and warned against it.
Instead, the saboteurs are currently looking for something, anything, that might pass muster with President Obama and help extricate them from their ill-fated drive around the ideological cul de sac.
Expect the teabaggers to portray themselves as martyrs willing to nobly sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Heaven forbid they be seen as power-hungry hacks who think governance is a video game in which it’s okay to sacrifice the general welfare for hit-points.