bmagnus

Flint and Steel

What happens when you strike flint and steel? Fire.

In this case, lots and lots of fire.

Back on March 25, the City of Flint, Michigan made the decision to lay off 23 of 88 firefighters and 46 of 150 police officers. Almost immediately, the fires started. Several fires, every night. Sometimes, 8 or 9 fires. Mostly, they were among the 3000 vacant structures in need of demolition. Two were apartment buildings. A couple have been occupied homes. All have been called “suspicious.” In fact, the Mayor calls them a series of “coordinated criminal attacks.”

The remaining firefighters are understandably exhausted, and this makes them prone to making mistakes that can maim or kill themselves or their co-workers. Citizens are not happy at all, because there is always the fear that their homes could be next — either as a primary fire or as fire spreads from the vacant houses that dot their neighborhoods. One interesting detail is that only 6 of the structures are specifically known to be bank-owned.

Not surprisingly, many are blaming the Mayor, who had to do whatever it took to close an estimated $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 budget shortfall. A recall effort is underway to get him out of office, but that won’t change the fact that the city needs millions more dollars than it has. The Mayor has proposed a $13,000,000 bond sale to both cover the shortfall and help the city get its financial house in order. Some say that just won’t be enough to do the job, but the Mayor’s budget for the next fiscal year projects a surplus.

The surprising thing — shocking in fact — is how little attention the mainstream media is paying to this. When Colorado Springs turned off the streetlights to save money, CNN and all the rest were there to make sure we all knew about it. But when a city in Michigan starts slowly burning to the ground, block by block, because they can’t afford enough firefighters? Only a bit of coverage from the local paper, a couple of firefighter groups, and the local ABC affiliate. It isn’t even a story in the newspapers down in Detroit, a mere 66 miles away.

Shameful.

Cross-Posted at The Moderate Voice

In Closing: unemployed workers per job opening (and remember, that’s the narrow, Department of Labor definition of unemployed); hell has a special place for people whose job is to find reasons not to pay unemployment benefits; relationship red flags (if I had limitless time and energy I’d add to this list); Should the Vatican have adopted the sorts of reforms already in place in the United States? Does the CSM really need to ask this question?; on school lunches; on “too big to fail” (um, yeah); So you call the cops to report a crime, do you really want his first question to be whether you can prove you’re a citizen?; if only there weren’t some truth in this letter from the Baby Boomers to their children; and one doctor tells us how she thinks Health Insurance Reform may cost everyone more money.

Low Hanging Fruit on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

This is a special post for Blog Against Theocracy Weekend. Yesterday’s post was a repost of my 2007 offering.

Nobody is harmed by the fact that “In God We Trust” appears on our money.

Most of us can ignore public prayers at a public school event — or compose our own alternate prayers and meditations in our minds.

Some of us held our noses when considering the political implications of who was chosen to offer prayers at President Obama’s inauguration, but nobody died as a result.

But church meddling in our newly passed Health Insurance Reform bill may well cause harm and perhaps even death to some people. However, since those people are women, some people don’t care. Moreover, church meddling in civil law may well bring harm to the poor in Washington DC.

It is of course the low hanging fruit: the Catholic Church.

In a petulant fit of pique, Catholic Charities threatened to cut off services to Washington DC if they actually made it legal for gay people to marry. When they realized that they could not in fact do that without legal repercussions, they instead decided to deny benefits to all new employee partners, gay or straight. Further, they demanded that new employees sign a statement that they won’t violate the tenets of the Church!

Remove the plank from thine own eye, Catholic Church!

If there were ever a stronger case for a public safety net rather than depending on the fickleness of charitable organizations deciding that this issue is important and this not, I am not familiar with it. As much as we all appreciate the work that charities do, it is simply not acceptable to pick up your ball (or shelter, or food kitchen) and threaten to go home if you don’t get your way. And pressuring new employees into signing documents regarding their private lives is just a little onerous, particularly in the middle of a recession where the only new jobs really being created are temp positions with the Census. Denying partners health insurance within weeks of a law being signed requiring mandatory insurance in a few years? Just twist the knife already in the new employee’s back.

Of course, it is now well known how the Catholic Bishops meddled in the Health Insurance Reform Bill, even over the objections of the Catholic Nuns — who for all their own faults aren’t accused of covering up dozens of priests who committed sexual crimes against thousands of minors under the age of consent. There. I didn’t call them pedophiles, but what they did is criminal and should be prosecuted. Since there was a clear conspiracy, no statute of limitations applies.

So then, when something tragic happens to a woman in your life and she must make the terrible decision to abort an embryo or fetus, remember that it would have been covered under her mandated health insurance policy if it weren’t for these meddling kid-molesters. If she finds it difficult to find a provider who will help her, remember that it is Catholic groups that have hounded doctors out of the business. And remember, not a single one of these Bishops will ever get pregnant, will ever have a wife who might get pregnant, will ever have a daughter who might get pregnant. Talk about no skin in the game.

As easy as it is to lob shots at the Catholic Church right now, I don’t want to overlook another serious threat to the separation of Church and State. Susie Madrak has pointed out that there is now an investigation by CREW into whether the shadowy religious group known as “The Fellowship” or “The Family” has been breaking the law by providing below market rents to the Congressmen who live in their C Street residence. Rep. Stupak and Sen. Ensign both could have [additional] problems as a result. Since it is relatively well documented that the purpose of this group is to put control of Congress in “godly” hands — their narrow definition of godly, of course — this investigation is necessary and overdue.

In Closing: They don’t make recoveries like they used to; job creation looks even worse compared to population growth; huh, I guess it is possible to teach a large number of students at once; I’ll say it again on the 19th, but this is what Militias are about; You can’t talk bad about your boss!; bankruptcy filings up you say? Well, as long as they aren’t spiking!; it’s surely a sign of Armageddon for me to link to Politico, but Banking Hypocrisy; melanoma may be more complicated than staying out in the sun too long (which never seemed to hurt our great grandparents much); and no, you should not laugh out loud if you see somebody drowning.

Blog Against Theocracy Weekend Kickoff

Blog Against Theocracy Weekend is underway! While I intend to have an original post up this weekend, please enjoy this bonus repost (with minimal editing) from the the 2007 Blog Against Theocracy Weekend. It was originally titled Church | <====> | State. I am especially pleased that I managed to make a Biblical argument for separation of church and state!

A Special Item for the Blog Against Theocracy Weekend

I have been asked to say a few words on Separation of Church and State this weekend. If I may, I’d like to point out a couple of very good items I read earlier this week: “A look at the Christian Right’s legal muscle leading the fight to end the separation of church and state”; from CNN we have the very provocatively titled What Would Jesus Really Do?. This item is so full of wonderful quotes that I wouldn’t blame any preacher who stood up and read the whole thing Sunday morning as part of the sermon, but this is my favorite passage:

An African-American pastor I know in the Midwest was asked by a group of mostly white clergy to march in an anti-abortion rally. He was fine with that, but then asked the clergy if they would work with him to fight crack houses in predominantly black neighborhoods.

“That’s really your problem,” he was told.

They saw abortion as a moral imperative, but not a community ravaged by crack.

If you don’t mind, I am limiting the discussion on the religious side to Christianity, because many believe this nation is and was founded as a “Christian Nation.” There is no credible movement in this country to have a theocracy based on Jewish or Moslem or Hindu or Buddhist scriptures, but there is a movement to make our government more closely aligned with a rather narrowly defined Christian ideology.

Let’s begin with the Biblical reasons that Christians should support Separation of Church and State. I’ll begin In the Old Testament with Samuel 8:1-22. Something like the following conversation occurred with the Prophet/Judge Samuel as intermediary:

Israelites: GOD! All the other nations have kings and we don’t!

God: Um yeah, and you know what else they have that you don’t? Idols and high taxes and drafts of military aged men and corrupt government officials. And you know what they don’t have? A sovereign omnipotent God!

Israelites: But God!!! We want a King like all the other nations!

God: If all the other nations jumped off a bridge would you?? Fine, have your King, but don’t come crying to me if it doesn’t work out the way you’d like!

Samuel of course then sought out a king, and found Saul. Who of course didn’t turn out to be all that. Saul had to choose between doing what God said and what the People Who Wanted A King In The First Place wanted (I Sam:15:24). And then he tried to kill a political adversary (I Sam 19:11). Even a government appointed by God was corrupt. But how do the people challenge a divinely ordained government?

The next King was really only marginally better. He had a civil war to deal with (II Sam 3:1), and his very own sex scandal (II Sam 11:2-12:23) — quite a feat when you already have a harem — and even a traitorous son (II Sam 13-18). And this was the King everybody says was so Godly.

If you don’t like the Old Testament, let’s go to the New Testament. Even Jesus himself thought Church and State should be kept separate, most succinctly put in Matthew 22:21, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. and to God the things that are God’s.” This caused the listeners to “marvel.” Frankly, by this standard even Christians should object to “In God We Trust” being on coins. What Would Jesus Do indeed.

Just in case you don’t think Jesus meant we should extend this thought to mean Christians should follow all the laws of God in addition to all the laws of the State — and that there would be minimal overlap — the Apostle Paul spells it out nicely in Romans 13:1-10, which begins “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.”

Let’s follow up with the reasons every American should support Separation of Church and State. I will set aside my Bible (RSV if anybody cares) and get out the Constitution. As I have pointed out before, it was written by men who knew a thing or two about history.

They knew that many of their forbears had come to this land seeking religious freedom, including freedom from the Government-sponsored Church of England.

They knew there had already been religious persecution in the colonies.

They knew what happened in Salem.

Extremely well read gentlemen like Thomas Jefferson had a basic familiarity with world religions; Mr Jefferson even owned a copy of the Quran.

For these men to have turned around and written “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” means they thought Government and Religion should keep a respectful distance of one another.

People who think our Government needs more Old Time Religion need to turn around, and clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit the sick in their own communities (Matt 25:31-46).

Survival of the Shorties

Just so you know up front: I’m not big on April Fools jokes. The only thing I ever did was send a new maintenance guy to fix a toilet in a non-existent apartment. My boss was more amused by it than I was. Anyways, on to the Shorties!

Unemployment is Certainly No Joke: It’s high. There’s no sign that it will get better soon. We’re still losing jobs in this economy, and Spring Semester doesn’t end that long off now. Tim Geithner calls it “unacceptable” but hasn’t really offered a plan on what to do about it. Well then, as long as he’s clear on that! Perhaps we could have some sort of, I dunno, public job creation plan? Well, here’s an “ugly truth” about how you can buff your resume.

Something Approaching Justice: The terrorist who killed a doctor in the middle of a church because he happened to perform a medical procedure he didn’t like (and couldn’t have in any event) has been sentenced to life in prison. The soonest he could possibly get parole is 50 years.

Something Light: Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things.

Doing Something: It’s better than doing nothing. School tries new ways of stopping bullies that don’t involve platitudes to the victims.

Maybe Doing Nothing Would Be Better?: A doctor talks about unnecessary tests. No, not because a doctor is covering his ass.

Something to do when you grow up: Perhaps something that begins with a K.

Something Old: a little history lesson regarding our nation’s banking issues.

Something Serious: It’s Autism Awareness Month.

Something you probably already suspected: Asset Forfeiture Laws can be horribly abused.

Something that will either horrify or amuse you: Scarface, as performed by pre-schoolers. Come on, it’s only 2 minutes and 11 seconds!

And finally, Something I Totally Do Not Need!: Hello Kitty Message Watches. Price, $620-800.

CrimeChurch

As the Christian Holy Week progresses (and Passover ends), it becomes harder to ignore the fact that not all Men of God are in fact Holy.

Exhibit one is, of course the problem of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. While this was initially thought to be “a few bad apples,” it has become clear that this scandal is continuing to bloom and spread its scope like wildflower blossoms in springtime. Lately, you can’t go a week without learning of some new problem. Nor can we even safely say the problem is isolated to one country. As things stand, there is every indication that child molestation is epidemic if not endemic! The nice folks at Crooks and Liars helpfully sum it up as “Holy Crap.”

And what has the Church done about it? Have any Bishops said “Say 200 rosaries and turn yourself in to the police while I apologize to your congregation or school”? No! They’ve covered it up! The “infallible” Pope himself has dirty hands, and he would do well to remember what Jesus said about hurting little children. Because if he even half-way believes what he preaches, it’s coming. It’s coming for him, and all the molesters he enabled.

At what point should the entire thing be considered a criminal enterprise?

The apparent answer: when a “church” starts threatening to shoot people.

Oh, the media is careful not to call the Hutaree a church! If they did that, people would start to draw parallels between this and the Branch Davidians — Is your church approved by the BATF? They allegedly threatened police officers, and while nobody sane wishes any harm to our police (or other citizens), they had not actually done anything. Yet. Nevertheless, let us not forget two things: first, we aren’t calling them terrorists nor even terrorist sympathizers (they are white Christians, not brown Muslims); second, they are only accused of plotting murder, whereas the priests have actually harmed little children.

As wonderful as it is to prevent a tragedy, it is more fitting for our justice system to right wrongs that have actually occurred.

In Closing: Due process for detainees is not a pretty business; about time the President followed the Chief Justice’s hint and got some recess appointments in place; too big to put in jail? I bet Bernie Madoff could use company!; school lunches are a lifeline for many families (and it’s hard to pay attention to math and reading when your stomach grumbles), but there’s not really enough money to do the job right and some places don’t even seem to want it done right; the treaty that has to go; Wallstrington; because clearly a 15 year old girl is “confused” about how important it is to graduate high school?; killing bibliophiles; at least the government is set to make a profit somewhere; put some fear into the banks, enforce the law; “Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor“; state of financial emergency; and yes, let’s talk about ballot initiatives! Vote NO!

Just another day in Vegas

I took this picture yesterday from the third floor of the Clark County Courthouse, around noon. It was a beautiful day.

In Closing: “And the recess appointment power doesn’t work why?”; common sense; keeping their priorities straight; yeah, I think many of us would have bought the T-shirt; NY Times catches up to the end of private practice (they’re only about a decade late); now can we work on the unemployment problem?; and as much as I hate to even think about it, lessons from the Baby Sitter’s Club.

Paging Dr. Dynasaur!

For the benefit of younger readers: Back in the old days before cell phones, there were pagers. And before that, there was the overhead paging system. Not that many years ago, it was normal to hear things like “Dr. Jones to 4B nursing station, please” on the hospital public address system.

Ok. It’s law now. It looks like the health insurance reform bill that got passed and signed into law was neither as bad as it could be nor as good as it should be. There’s some benefits, and some stuff that’s absolutely odious. However, it is only a first step. At least two crucial things are missing.

First and probably most important is a non-profit health insurance option. The law, as it stands, requires us to all buy health insurance by 2014, which forces us to do business with the very same companies that got us into this mess. The best answer to this problem by far is Alan Grayson’s Medicare-For-Anybody bill, which has 80 co-sponsors so far (click here to sign the petition to demand a vote!). Howard Dean has even endorsed Rep. Grayson at least partly as a result. You remember Howard? The doctor who became a Governor and managed to get health insurance for almost every kid in his state despite the fact that they don’t vote? This bill is revenue neutral for the Government — it won’t raise the deficit a cent because it says the premiums will be set at what it costs to provide the insurance. Bringing this thing to a vote puts the opposition in a tough spot: if Medicare is good enough for Grandma, why isn’t it good enough for me?

The other thing it needs is a program I like to call MediKids. Regular readers have heard me beat this drum before, but we have a system where most health insurance is purchased by employers. And most kids don’t have employers. The existence of an automatic enrollment health insurance program for kids under 18 (and in my ideal dream world, any full time student under 25) would help almost every family in America. It would of course have a disproportionate effect on low income families that are likely to have inadequate insurance for themselves and their kids, if they have insurance at all. Moreover, by keeping our kids healthy, it would improve schools and the quality of our future workforce. Even if there were a modest premium associated with the program like there is for Vermont’s Dr. Dynasaur program, it would be worthwhile.

In Closing: Why aren’t you in school, you lazy bastards?; stupid banker tricks; three times more Chapter 7 than Chapter 13 bankruptcies; air worship is like air guitar for shrine visits (maybe the Catholics could try this? Then it doesn’t matter if the priest is a pedophile); as fast as financial reform made it through committee, I must wonder what political favors are embedded in it; and let Mr. Otis get you high. I mean, like to the 20th floor.

Shorties Row

Follow Up on Sexting Case: Remember a while back we learned about a Pennsylvania prosecutor who decided to prosecute girls whose pictures had been taken unless they submitted to a re-education class on what it means to be a girl? A judge has ruled that the parents have the right to block the prosecution. No ruling on the fundamental Constitutional issue of not letting anybody see the evidence.

Stick a fork in the airlines, they’re done: TSA official has gone on the record that full body scans will very likely become mandatory for airline passengers, despite the fact that the scanners don’t really do half of what they would like us to think they do towards deterring — let alone preventing — terrorism. That’s over and above the health and privacy issues. Heck, if they want to strip search everybody, just be honest about it.

In Memoriam: There will be a memorial garden in honor of the pets killed by tainted food. Scroll down for information and links on how to donate.

Why do we need Health Insurance Reform to stop this crap?: Fortis (and probably other insurers that just haven’t been caught yet) has been actively trying to find ways to cancel the policies of HIV positive customers. Stopping recission and punitive cancellation should be a simple, 3-5 page bill that should have unanimous support in both houses of Congress (or else), but no! They want to pass a monster-behemoth bill that nobody has read that’s loaded with oodles of political favors.

Hey Mister, Wanna Buy a Factory?: Factory utilization is near an all time low. This means we have lots of currently unused capacity. Pair that with the current unemployment rate and it sounds like an opportunity to make some stuff and get the economy going again. Maybe you could even get a piece of that new $38,000,000,000 jobs bill to do it.

Modest, by Billionaire Standards: Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, makes do in a 5000 square foot home.

Oh, you knew I couldn’t resist giving you some obligatory Health Insurance Reform items: Susie Madrak got to interview Michael Moore, and here’s part of what he had to say. Ok, the bill is supposed to cost roughly $940,000,000,000, but it’s supposed to save $1,300,000,000,000. Did the progressives win anything here? Enh, a little. This is why buying your abortion coverage separately is a terrible idea for every woman. Well, actually it’s only one of several reasons. And thankfully, Grayson’s Medicare-for-Anybody bill is up to 75 co-sponsors. I love the fact that it’s short, and politically difficult to stand against. It gives me hope that some things can be fixed with this turd in the punchbowl of a bill after it gets passed.

Where Health Care Meets the Scandal of the Day: Senator John Ensign’s office “organized a telephone call Wednesday night to thousands of Southern Nevadans represented by Rep. Dina Titus, where he spoke out against the pending health care reform bill and urged his audience to call her about it.” A local political scientist called the move “clumsy”. Rep. Titus, if you hadn’t guessed, is a Democrat, newly elected in 2008. Now, the interesting thing about this is that today, Senator Ensign got subpoenaed by the Department of Justice. Oh, and his wife. His Chief of Staff. His political advisor. A few local businesses. Probably the local power company. And a veritable “who’s who” of local political rainmakers. And they don’t just want stacks of documents, they want people to appear before the Grand Jury at the end of the month.

No Child Left Behind: What the heck went wrong? I mean, other than “better” as a standard, and rules designed to make even good schools fail.

You mean they want the banks to pay up? Crazy Talk!: It so happens that 82 of the roughly 700 banks that got TARP funds aren’t paying the dividends they owe the Feds.

And now, a moment of Spring: how to tell if last year’s seeds are still good.

Goodbye Kitty

If you have known me for a while, you probably know that I have been a Hello Kitty fan for a number of years. Alright, decades. I’m not one of those fanatics such as this man’s wife, but I do have some household Hello Kitty items, a few Hello Kitty T-Shirts, and yes just a little bit of Hello Kitty jewelry. There’s a little Hello Kitty hanging from my rear view mirror, along with a Starfleet Academy dogtag. Ok, and yes, I have a Hello Kitty/Chococat tattoo. So something I enjoy doing when I happen to get to the mall is wander up to the Sanrio store. In fact, I was there yesterday afternoon.

Sanrio used to make its money selling cheap stuff like coin purses and pencils to schoolgirls. No more! The target demographic has grown up, and now you can purchase everything from baby towel sets to garnet pendants. I kid you not. I guess you don’t have to sell very many $3500 watches to be wildly profitable.

But has this backfired? The cute little handbag that I might have whim purchased for $20 was $80, a price at which it better be leather and not have a cartoon cat on it. As it turns out, that was a bargain; it would run me $120 plus shipping online. It’s just as well I didn’t even see the $500 Hanamo limited edition 35th anniversary commemorative handbag. Sorry, these are prices at which I’m just not buying. Have they priced themselves out of their core audience, or are they taking advantage of the fact that there are many women my age who are willing to shell out this kind of money?

I guess the economy can’t possibly be as bad as it seems if these products are actually selling. So then the question remains: at 35, is Hello Kitty having a midlife crisis, has she jumped the shark, or is she crazy like a fox?

In closing: American maternal mortality rates are appalling; imagine there’s no government; nearing retirement, and unemployed or underemployed; loan modifications delaying the inevitable; food stamps and obesity; Howard Dean and Karl Rove set to debate, live!; why don’t we use some stimulus funds to, you know, renovate crumbling infrastructure?; should police really be arresting people they think might be planning a crime, particularly without anything like a warrant?; Why “liberal” ideas die in Washington (ha, not many real liberals up there anyway, just a lot of “moderates” whose opponents paint them as liberal); Cheers and Jeers; the “Screw the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions at the Same Time Act of 2010“; and PC World officially doesn’t get the iPad. It doesn’t need any of that crap for business, because it’s not meant for business at all! Saying it needs alternative browsers to Safari is like saying the iPhone really ought to run Windows Mobile.

Twist the Facts

Yesterday morning, I wrote a post over at Age Against the Machine on British research showing that oral contraceptives reduce women’s risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease. Those happen to be the top two causes of death for American women, so it’s a big deal. And we aren’t talking about some teeny study, but over 46,000 women in a study that went on for 39 years. I think this is good news for the vast majority of women!

Yet I could not help but think that this news might not be welcomed by all. After all, there is a segment of our society that might think this encourages promiscuity. When I ran this past my partner, he thought that was just nuts.

But unfortunately, we live in a society where parents withhold vaccines that could someday save a woman’s life not because of safety concerns with the vaccine itself, but because they think she might think it’s ok to have sex (because good girls don’t like sex, good girls are never sexually assaulted, and good girls certainly never have cheating husbands). We live in a society where pharmacists who should know better are arbitrarily deciding not to dispense oral contraceptives because of “moral objections” and/or the mistaken belief that they can cause “abortion” of an embryo that has not implanted (never mind the other medical indications for oral contraceptives, and never mind that these pills prevent pregnancy rather than end it; arguably they prevent abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancy). We live in a society where the so-called-pro-life crowd thinks abortion causes breast cancer. We live in a society where some people value the lives of embryos more than the lives of full-grown adult women and their families.

So yes, I expect this study to be either ignored, mis-quoted, or mis-used by the Religious Right. They will focus on the small but unexplained increased risk of death by accident or violence — See? The Pill increases your risk of [violent] death! — if they acknowledge the research at all.

Mere minutes after posting, I found this article at the Christian Science Monitor — hardly a “liberal media” source — with the headline “High divorce rates and teen pregnancy are worse in conservative states than liberal states.” It turns out that educated women and access to contraceptives lead to greater family stability and fewer unwed or teen mothers than “that old time religion.” Yet the Religious Right has hamstrung both trends by getting the Feds to go along with “abstinence only” sex ed, which not only doesn’t work, fails to teach about contraceptives and disease control, and outright lies to children, but attempt to reinforce very outdated gender roles.

And then I read about how the Texas State Board of Education has decided to re-write history, decreeing what may and may not appear in textbooks. Sure, the Civil War was about “states rights” — specifically the right of states to say it’s ok to own other human beings! Sadly, Texas is a large enough textbook market that students around the country may be subjected to this ultra-conservative, highly Protestant, reinterpretation of reality.

You can say what you like about reality, but you can’t change it.

In Closing: 30! 30 bank failures this year, ah ha ha ha! (reference); fattiest fast foods; mortgage insurance providers say “sorry, we won’t cover this fraudulent claim“; obligatory health insurance reform items (notice I don’t call it health care reform, or worse yet HCR which always makes me think HRC instead) includes Go Grayson Go! Put them on the spot of either saying yes to a real public option, or going on the record as being against Medicare!; oh sure, let’s make it more complicated; what recovery?; Oh No! Obama’s Liberal base is “disengaged!” Could that be because they’ve kicked it in the butt at every opportunity?; most Americans think Wall Street needs better (i.e., more) regulation; for that matter, most Americans would like to see the Government make some progress on anything; don’t take the battery for granted; median wealth, $5; and Blog Against Theocracy weekend is coming.