Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths

A nice opinion piece from the Denver Post debunking the standard right-wing myths about the Canadian Health Care System.

Wow… Almost a full year later…

So it’s almost been a full year since I posted to my blog. Unbelievable . I’d like to think that it was the growing demands of parenthood as well as work and other commitments, but I can’t say that. It’s probably just scandal fatigue, and the capitulation of the Democrats to a president with a sub-30% approval rating. Politics just makes me so depressed sometimes.

Having said that, I am going to try to resolve to post more often, and at least get all the things I’ve wanted to write about off my chest a bit more frequently.

Amazing quote from Sidney Blumenthal

TPMCafe has a recurring feature, their Book Club, where they invite the authors of selected books to come post for a week and invite their regular writers to offer their thoughts as well. It’s a great idea, and it’s implemented well, as the authors and regular writers respond to each other and expand upon topics in the book as well as topics that each individual brings up. This weeks book is Sidney Blumenthal’s How Bush rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime. In one of the posts Mr. Blumenthal has made this week, he offers the following quote to describe our fearful leader:

But Bush’s temperament is an essential part of the dynamics. His stubbornness, lack of curiosity, shallow reservoir of knowledge, Manichean division of the world, and contempt for “nuance” are parts of a personality that key members of his administration play upon to get their ways. They carefully restrict the flow of information to him and flatter him as a great historical figure misunderstood by the mere mortals of his age. Their constant manipulation of Bush is an important part of the decision-making within the White House…

Just an amazing, dead-on description of Dubya.

Why can’t more elected Democrats say things like this?

From Senator Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana (h/t atrios):

“In light of the rantings that went on for 30 minutes by two colleagues from the other side, I’d like to state for the record that America is not tired of fighting terrorism; America is tired of the wrongheaded and boneheaded leadership of the Republican party that has sent six and a half billion a month to Iraq while the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. That led this country to attack Saddam Hussein, when we were attacked by Osama bin Laden. Who captured a man who did not attack the country and let loose a man that did. Americans are tired of boneheaded Republican leadership that alienates our allies when we need them the most. Americans are most certainly tired of leadership that despite documenting mistake after mistake after mistake, even of their own party admitting mistakes, never admit they do anything wrong. That’s the kind of leadership Americans are tired of.”

She concluded,

“I’m not going to sit here as a Democrat and let the Republican leadership come to the floor and talk about Democrats not making us safe. They’re the ones in charge and Osama bin Laden is still at loose.”

Sen. Landrieu isn’t perfect, but this statement was about as perfect an encapsulation of reality as you can get.

The importance of voting and getting out the vote (GOTV)

The San Francisco Chronicle’s website has just published an article which demonstrates how important it is to get everyone registered and voting (h/t this article at Sepia Mutiny). Basically, a new study shows that California’s growing diversity is not showing up at the ballot box; those doing the voting are predominantly more likely to be white and more well off than those who are not voting.

Why is this important?

First post at wordpress…

So I’m thinking of switching over from blogger…here’s my first post at wordpress! I’ve copied over my posts from blogger; we’ll see how this goes!

What’s on my mind today 01/24/06

One of the best words to define the current administration, and dubya in general, is "truthiness". This administration spouts an incredible number of half-truths and no-truths that they want to force you to believe that it is quite disheartening. A great example is in regards to the current illegal wiretapping scandal. The administration wants to believe (and wants you to believe) that their wiretapping was legal. Forget for the moment that even after authorizing warrantless wiretaps (in violation of FISA *and* the Fourth Amedment of the Constitution), our fearful leader stated that court orders were still required for wiretaps. Glenn Greenwald points out today that the current administration in 2002 refused to support legislation by Senator Mike Dewine (R-OH) that would have eliminated the very requirements of FISA that the administration violated. In other words, the administration went against a bill that would have legitimized the very tactics they ended up using. And why did they do this? Because, among other things, the Department of Justice was concerned that the legislation would have violated the constitution! Read Glenn Greenwald's article; it's well worth it.

Another great read: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) speech today at the Center for American Progress. His points are all dead on, including the question of what is going on with Osama Bin Laden. For all of this current administrations posturing on "national security", four years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still running around free and making threats against our country. Reid hits all the big points on the administrations current failures.

Armando at dailykos brings up an excellent article by E.J. Dionne providing a bit of a framework for what Democrats need to do to stand up to Republicans on the Nat'l Security issue.

Finally, on a somewhat lighter note, my California Golden Bears (men's basketball) return home after a road split last week at the Arizona schools in the Pac-10. While winning on the road is always tough, Cal blew a golden opportunity to defeat the weakest Arizona team in years. After many blowout losses to UA in Tucson, it certainly was encouraging that the bears kept it close and had a chance to win at the end. However, in my opinion, after watching the game, the bears offensive flow was pretty poor, and even an average offensive outing would've led to an important win. As it is, Cal needs a big win over visiting Washington this thursday (as well as a win over Washington State on Saturday) if they want to improve their resume for an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. If they continue to play like they have, however, my guess is that they'll need to win the Pac-10 tournament to get an NCAA bid. With such a weak Pac-10, and the bears' strongest team for a while, that would certainly be a disappointing season.

First Post…

The beginning of the blog… a place where I will post my musings and thoughts as they come to me (and I have the time to do so!). So what will the focus of this blog be? Anything I have an interest in… These days, my interests include sports (primarily Dallas Cowboys football and University of California collegiate athletics), politics and how to get this country out of the terrible state it is in, cooking, photography, hiking, family, and any other things that might get my attention. As a starter, I’ll list a few of the websites that I like to peruse:

Sports:

• Dallas Cowboys Official Website
• California Golden Bears Official Website
• The Bear Insider (Scout.com’s Cal website)
• BearTerritory.net (Rivals.com’s Cal website)

Politics:

• Dailykos
• TPMCafe
• The Left Coaster

Photography:

• Photo.net