Definitely worth watching and thinking about no matter WHAT side of the debate you’re on:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbPpcwtWvzY&feature=player_embedded if you can’t see the video embedded above.)

Here again we see the right wing being dishonest, and having it lead to hype and fear and uncertainty. The reality is that today’s health care reform plan is more conservative than plans touted by Republicans in the past- and they’re lying about how “unfair” the use of the reconciliation process is.

You know what reconciliation really is? It’s majority rules. You take a vote and if more than 50% of the Senators vote for something, it passes. These guys keep claiming that they represent “the will of the people” but if there’s 59 Senators that vote FOR something, and 41 Senators that vote AGAINST something, how is that not the “will of the people”?

The reality is that the people, when polled, favor things like guaranteed issue and the public option. The public favors those things by wide margins. It’s not even close. So why does the right wing pretend that the public doesn’t want these things?

Two reasons. First, they don’t want the Democrats and President Obama to get a political “win”. They don’t care about doing what’s right, or what the public wants; they just want to hurt Democrats, and if it hurts the nation at the same time, oh well. Second, they are indebted to the insurance companies that want to kill health care reform.

Thus you get guys like Grassley now going against something HE suggested earlier, and Hatch saying that reconciliation is a terrible thing even though he voted on the side of using it several times in the past.

Hypocrites. These people don’t deserve to be Senators.

The reason this is bad is that Fox News is deliberately partisan, and worse still, they are liars. They intentionally coordinate their message with whatever the Republicans are pushing, and they do not hesitate to lie.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

(here’s the link if you can’t see the embedded video: http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002577/ )

This video shows Sean Hannity claiming that then-Senator Barack Obama, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator Harry Reid were against the use of the process called “reconciliation”.

Today the Democratic Party is in the majority in the Senate and is possibly going to use reconciliation to get some health care reform through.

The thing is… Hannity is a liar. In the segment, there’s a little insight into the truth- these Senators were NOT speaking about reconciliation. They were discussing the Senate potentially using the “nuclear option”… but what they referred to as the “nuclear option” is NOT the reconciliation process.

The nuclear option, in the context of the Senate, is a process that would basically use a parliamentary procedure to end a filibuster. This is different than reconciliation, which prevents a filibuster from starting in the first place. Slate ran a pretty good explanation of it.

The nuclear option was being discussed by Reid, Clinton, and Obama in 2005 when the Democrats were trying to stop some of the Bush Administration’s judicial appointments.

The point here is that reconciliation to pass changes to spending and the law is a different deal than the nuclear option- and Hannity KNOWS that. He knows that very well, and yet in today’s context he aired that video of Reid, Clinton, and Obama, trying to make it look like they were against reconciliation just a few years ago and now are for it.

In other words, he’s lying. Worse still, he’s using his lie to smear his political opponents. (It’s one thing to merely lie about what your side wants; it’s another thing to lie about the other guys’ morality.)

And do you know why Hannity had to use video of Obama, Reid, and Clinton talking about the nuclear option and NOT video of them talking about reconciliation? It’s because they didn’t oppose the use of the procedure back then. Oh, they opposed the bills that the Republican majority in the Senate were trying to pass, but they didn’t speak out against reconciliation.

In other words, Hannity couldn’t find video that actually makes them hypocrites, so he used video of them talking about something else. It was a deliberate choice to try and make his opponents look bad.

Oh, by the way, reconciliation? That process has been used 22 times to pass bills in a method that avoids filibusters since 1980. (See this and this.)

Out of those 22 times, 16 of them were accomplished by Republican-majorities in the Senate. That’s right- over 70% of the times that a party used reconciliation, it was the Republicans.

So remember, the next time you see some Republican Senator like Alexander, Hatch, McConnell, Gregg, Grassley, or Snowe talking about how bad the Democrats using reconciliation would be, remember that THEY were the ones who used it just a few years ago to pass some of President Bush’s tax cuts.

I mean, WOW. WOW!

Here’s a quickie review of the James Cameron movie “Avatar”…

Plot: You’ve seen this story before, maybe a half-dozen times, really.

Writing: Sometimes painfully cliche.

3D: Awesome.

Computer graphics: Incredible.

Overall Spectacle: Totally awesome. Must-see.

Seriously. If you’re a movie snob who says “film” and looks at popular movies and thinks they suck simply because the low-brow masses enjoy them, then you’re probably going to hate “Avatar”.

BUT… if you’re a more normal person who just wants to be entertained, you have GOT to see this movie, in 3D, while it’s in the theaters. Simply amazing. And in IMAX, on a true IMAX screen, it’s even more amazing.

Must-see. Go see it NOW.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told a crowd at CPAC on Saturday that he could “empathize” with the suicide bomber who last week attacked an IRS office in Austin, and encouraged his listeners to “implode” other IRS offices, according to a witness.

I don’t really know what more to say. What’s disgusting is that these guys keep getting re-elected, despite the fact that they obviously hate the very government that they’re supposed to be a part of. What’s more, they swear an oath to serve and protect the United States.

Or how the Winter Olympics are hard-pressed for sufficient snow for some events?

One theme that you hear from them a lot is that there’s this huge industry that’s got a lot invested in ensuring that we all believe that climate change (aka “global warming”) is a real phenomenon. They act like there’s this great big conspiracy, led by… Al Gore, I guess, to make us all believe in climate change so they can radically change our economy and enslave us all for the next thousand years.

It’s ridiculous, of course, but it plays to people’s fears. (Whenever you can scare people, you can motivate them; fear is an intensely powerful motivator. Why else do you think that the radical nutjob right wing keeps pushing the negative images of Obama at us?

As a post on Daily Kos said the other day…

Heading into 2009, it seemed that Democrats had all the advantages: a President-Elect riding sky-high approval ratings; an overwhelming advantage in the House of Representatives; and a supposedly filibuster-proof majority as soon as the challenges to Senator-Elect Franken’s victory had made their way through the courts. Republicans were overwhelmingly unpopular because of their disastrous stewardship of our nation’s economy and military. Democrats were discussing implementing popular policies that would make a huge difference in the lives of regular people. Conservative ideologues had only one option: the hail mary.

There’s only one thing that can make a Representative from an unpopular Party stand up to a popular President pushing for popular policy: the Party base. The best way to unite the base? Scare base voters about Obama so much that resisting Obama became easier than resisting the base. And the best way to scare base voters about Obama? Well, when your target is the first ever non-white President, is named Barack Hussein Obama, is the son of a Kenyan, and spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the easiest way to scare the white Christian base is self-explanatory.

Republicans have been playing dog-whistle politics ever since Lee Atwater theorized on how to use taxes as a subliminal code for racism, but getting people to believe that a highly popular and historic President is a Bolshevik racist Muslim who is ineligible to hold his office and wants the terrorists to win? That requires a totally different frequency and amplitude.

In other words, they push this story because it’s all they’ve got.

Same thing with the climate change denialists. They latch onto the stories about some of the studies around climate change, like the one that has been exposed for the scientists deliberately choosing to ignore some data that didn’t agree with their conclusion, and later trying to delete emails that showed what they’d done.

Never mind that there’s dozens of OTHER studies that show the same thing (the problem in question had to do with whether or not growing cities, specifically in China, were the reason that temperature readings were showing a steady and fast increase). The deniers point to the single discredited study and scream that it proves the whole thing is a farce.

Well, no, it doesn’t; it proves that particular study is flawed and we should ignore it, but when there’s one flawed study showing “X” and a dozen other studies that nobody can find any scientific flaws with that ALSO proves “X”, the reality is that “X” is probably true.

Okay, I’m rambling a bit… but getting back to the theme- money and power. What the deniers claim is that there’s this huge group of people, motivated by money and power, who want to push climate change upon us.

I was reading a blog entry (by ex-Red Sox pitcher, and noted conservative, Curt Schilling, of all people) about climate change and there was a commenter who said something about how the scientists who were covering up their data in the flawed study and that the “left” would say they were just cleaning out their hard drives.

Actually, amongst the scientists, the guys who did this kind of thing- covering up contrary evidence that invalidates their study- are now outcasts. They’re discredited and shunned.

You know why? Because those few bad apples are giving all the rest of the scientists a bad name.

The “industry” around climate change is tiny compared with the industry that’s directly threatened by the implications of the scientific evidence. The evidence points to activities that crank carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and says “these are warming up the planet.”

The oil, natural gas, and coal industries are huge. They’re gigantic. They’re far, far bigger than any “industry” that’s currently existing or even proposed. Just look at the Forbes listing of the biggest corporations in the world… here’s the top ten:

1. Royal Dutch Shell (oil company)
2. Exxon Mobil (oil company)
3. Wal-Mart (retailer)
4. BP (oil company)
5. Chevron (oil company)
6. Total (oil company)
7. Conoco Phillips (oil company)
8. ING group (banking)
9. Sinopec (oil company)
10. Toyota Motor (automobiles)

7 of the top 10 corporations in the world are oil/gas companies.

To suggest that the climate change “side” of the argument is somehow this big, powerful cartel that’s dedicated to enslave the rest of us is utterly ridiculous. Climate change has nothing to do with politics, left or right.

In fact, it’s awfully ironic that “conservatives” are the ones defending these mammoth, multinational oil corporations and their TRILLIONS of dollars of revenue. Conservatives should, by their name, believe in conserving the earth. Instead, they’re on the side of the guys who want zero restrictions on pumping oil and gas from the ground and into the atmosphere.

Money and power? Believe me, it’s ALL on the side of those who’re denying climate change. You know what the revenues of those oil companies mentioned above is?

$2,204,676,000,000.

That’s over TWO TRILLION dollars- just among 7 companies.

If you take the top 20 petroleum companies, their total revenues are $3,608,244,000,000.

[b]Three and a half trillion dollars.[/b]

Don’t EVEN pretend that the oil and gas industry doesn’t have far, far, far more to lose, and far more money, than the scientists who are, by and large, working in non-profit colleges and universities around the world.

Doubt the science if you want- that’s up to you. But don’t be fooled into which side has all the money and power- that’s the side that’s likely spending way, way more to manipulate you into believing their propaganda.

And guess what? She put her crib notes onto her hand for the brief Q&A session that followed her speech.

Seriously. I couldn’t make this up:




(see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtcVMTZkTZQ&feature=player_embedded for those who don’t see the video above)

Awesome. In case you think the video is faked, check this out; it’s an AP photo taken during her speech that shows the notes on her palm…

Here’s some closer shots of the notes:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4014/4337216550_4fc4343589_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2793/4337216594_f654772641_o.jpg

And here’s the CNN video of the the incident, and at about 1:23 in she checks her palm where the first word is “energy” and then she rambles on about energy for the next minute or so.

(go to http://cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2010/02/06/palin.tea.party.qa.cnn for those who can’t see the video embedded.)

I’ve warmed up to Apple products over the years, without becoming a mindless Applevangelist like my friend Luis. (He has a bunch of Apple stock, which has turned out to be a pretty good buy, but even if he didn’t own stock he’d still be showing them the love.)

He wrote a big long post that takes on most, if not all, of the criticisms of the iPad. It’s a good post. But while I think he hit the points well, I find myself unconvinced by the arguments.

My wife has been waiting for the iPad. I bought a netbook computer back some months ago and I just love it. It does everything that I want/need a portable laptop to do, but without tons of extras that would only add weight and more importantly, price. Netbooks are perfect for use on the road, when you don’t want to tote around a heavier computer.

Ginger, though, is a big-time Mac person. Her main computer is her MacBook; it’s old (I don’t even know how old it is) and still runs okay. She could use a more powerful machine, and a bigger hard drive, but lately has been burning a lot of discs and clearing out space, so she’s got more room and is okay with her machine for now.

What she’d really like is something that’s more use on the road- and as a flight attendant, she’s on the road a lot more than the average bear!

So she’s held off from a netbook for a long time, hoping that Apple would put out something pretty awesome.

Now? She’s kind of “meh” when she saw the iPad. Same reaction that I had, really.

Here’s the main thing: Despite the protests of “it’s upgradeable! The software and OS will be changing!” the reality is that even if you upgrade it, it’s still not much more than a bigger iPhone or iTouch-verion iPod. That’s the reality.

No keyboard. Okay, many of us have adapted to typing reasonably well on the iPhone’s virtual keypad, and the much-bigger size of the iPad means it’ll be even easier- but in reality you just can’t touch-type on it. It’s not meant for much more than even light-duty text entry (barring some revolutionary voice recognition software upgrade to the OS.)

Then there’s the utter lack of plugs. It’s kind of funny to see some of the same people who rail against Microsoft as being a lock-out-monopolistic type of company turning around and defending Apple. Apple’s even WORSE about trying to screw over the consumer and make them pay more via a monopoly; Microsoft is content to stick with the software, but Apple wants the software AND the hardware.

So if you want to plug in… well, damn near anything useful, then you’re going to have to use an adapter plug. Memory card from your camera? You’ll need an adapter. Anything USB, from a mouse or keyboard or microphone or external drive or any of about a bajillion other devices that you might want to use? You’ll need an adapter. Network cable so you can get higher speeds? Not even possible (I think- it could be that it’ll work with an adapter.)

You get the point. Basically, as it comes, you have to either want to use it exactly the way that Apple says, or you’ll have to spend extra dough.

And getting to what you can do on it… a lot. It’s a really cool machine in a lot of ways. But what does it really do that an iPhone can’t? Not much; it just does most of the same stuff BETTER. Surfing the web on this will be better than on an iPhone, because it’s got a bigger screen. Reading your email will be better, same thing. Many of the apps for the iPhone will be better, and I’m sure new ones will come out that take advantage of the iPad’s higher-powered CPU… but overall? Meh.

Costs. Here’s where it really sucks. For 200 to 300, maybe 350 bucks, if you’ve already got an iPhone, you can buy a netbook that will do almost anything that an iPad can- and which will do several things significantly BETTER. And that 350 dollar investment in a netbook is at least 150 dollars less than the least-expensive iPad. What does it buy you?

For one thing, a keyboard. Okay, maybe this is more important to me than to you, but I think it’s pretty dang important. It also buys you a built-in camera (facing the user) for use on video conferencing. And the biggie is that it gets you as much as 250GB of storage- compared with the iPad’s measly 16GB.

Oh, but you can get more storage on the iPad. Heck, you can get up to 64GB… of course, that’ll cost you $700. For a Wi-Fi-only version.

What? You thought it came with an almost-everywhere data plan through AT&T Wireless? Well, sure, but that version, with 3G built in, costs more. For the 16GB version with 3G, it’s $630; for the 64GB version with 3G the price is a stunning $830.

And then you’ve got to add the data plan costs; that’s another $30/month. Granted, you could then drop the data plan from your iPhone if you want, and the price would be a wash- but now your iPhone is just another cellphone, with no web surfing or email or even visual voicemail. No apps like Google Maps or a whole host of other apps that need the data plan.

Of course, if you get the netbook, you can simply tether your iPhone to the netbook and it doesn’t cost anything extra.

This, I think, is where the iPad is going to run into the most troubles. Yeah, it’s super-neato-cool. Yeah, it kind of fits into the market in a spot for something even lighter-duty than a netbook. Yes, it’s got superb design.

But holy fucking bank vaults, Batman, the thing is expensive. It’s going to add ANOTHER $30/month to your already-too-high cellular bill, and the costs of the damn thing up front are huge compared with devices that pretty much cover everything it does.

And here’s why I think all of this: If Ginger had really insisted, Santa would probably have brought her an iPad next year. Santa can afford it in our household, even with the additional data plan costs.

But she said “how much is it?” and “I can’t plug a camera memory card right in?” and looked at it, and said “well if we can spend 300 to 500 dollars less up front AND not have to add to our cellular plan, let’s just get a netbook. Do they come in pink?”

Why yes, honey, they do.

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Seashell-1005HA-MU17-PI-10-1-Inch-Netbook/dp/B002P3KMYE/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1265098280&sr=1-7

Only question now is whether she has to wait until Santa brings one, or until her birthday in a month or so.

So is the iPad bad? No, not by any means. It’s a pretty awesome device. It’s slick, has cool design, and has a ton of really neato stuff about it. I love my iPhone, and it’s essentially a big iPhone (except without the phone part of it).

But do I want one? Meh. It’s just kind of expensive. Get it down to the 150-400 dollar price range for the 16GB to 64GB storage range and MAYBE it’ll be worth it to me. Until then, not so much.

It’s usually a way of ignoring the issue and making it about a personal thing instead.

But in this case, I just can’t help myself.

You might have seen these “teabagger” people- the ones who launched the tea party protests last year to express their outrage over… well, I’m not really sure, to tell the truth.

The original tea party in Boston was because the colonists were angry about getting taxed without any representation in the British Parliment; the tea party protests here in the USA last year HAVE representation in Congress and the Senate, it’s just that the guys they wanted elected lost.

In other words, the teabaggers are sore losers who don’t really get how democracy works. But I digress.

The “leaders” of the tea party protests include a lot of scumbags. A perfect example is Sgt Charles Dyer, aka “July4Patriot”, who was a bigwig in the “OathKeepers” subgroup of the teabagger movement.

Mr Dyer was recently arrested for allegedly raping a 7 year old girl. A search of his house apparently turned up a (stolen) grenade launcher along with the typical collection of firearms you’d expect to find in a right-wing, anti-government wacko’s house.

Now, it kind of makes sense that these types are really anti-government; they don’t want the police telling them which children they can sodomize and so forth.

That’s a guy leading the tea party movement. Quality dude.

But the problem is that they SOUND semi-reasonable. They exhort their followers to “enlist” on their web site, and people (who don’t do any research) get manipulated into “signing on” with their goals.

It just kills me to see people who normally wouldn’t associate with scumbags so eager to sign on and follow losers who’re manipulating their emotions.

Step back for a minute, folks, and think. Health care reform- the current bills passed by the Senate and the House would not take away your present plan. It wouldn’t give the government “power” over your decisions, or your doctor, or whoever. It wouldn’t even make most people pay for the costs of ensuring the presently uninsured.

Yet the teabagger types have everyone believing that it’s some kind of huge socialist plot that’s intended on controlling Americans.

Meanwhile, the teabagger leaders are scrambling to cover up the fact that they were associated with accused child rapist Dyer. They’re even lying about the fact that he was ever involved with them (fortunately, the internet has stored proof that they’re covering it up).

The Democratic equivalent? I suppose it’s John Edwards, surprising exactly nobody by admitting he’s actually the father of his ex-girlfriend’s child. (Gee, we’re shocked.)

Wake up and smell the raped children, folks. These “teabaggers” are a bunch of friggin nutjobs, and the Republicans in Congress are using them and their followers to cover up the fact that they don’t have any ideas other than to try and stop the Democrats from actually doing anything that they were elected by a wide majority to do.