New Health Care Poll: We're Losing!

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Wednesday August 26, 2009 · 10:12 PM PDT

2009/08/26 · 22:12

The absolutely non-partisan polling firm of Anecdotal & Hearsay, Inc.* have released a revealing new poll that sheds light on Americans’ feelings about the health care debate. This poll was conducted before the death of Sen. Kennedy, so the answers may or may not reflect the sympathy in the populace for one of the few senators that always seemed to cause problems for the well-meaning and benificent upper management of the holding company accountants that dispense America's Health Care.

* Anecdotal & Hearsay, Inc. is a non-profit Heath Care research firm funded by America’s largest, most awesome, and most beneficent Health Care conglomerates-- most of which have billions in profits that are just basically sitting around with nothing to do.

Pangloss

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Monday August 24, 2009 · 7:21 PM PDT

2009/08/24 · 19:21

Of the top three dozen or so industrialized nations of the world, the United States stands alone in its refusal to provide health care to its citizens through some sort of government intervention. We have the most guns, the least regulation, the most violence, more poverty, and a larger disparity of wealth than most other industrialized countries. Most of our traditional allies and economic competitors enjoy safer streets, lower infant mortality, a higher life span, more vacation time, less public debt, better secondary education, fewer citizens in the criminal justice system, less private debt, and a cleaner environment than the United States.

Fifty years ago the U.S. was head and shoulders above any other nation in the world by almost every measure. Today, we’ve fallen behind Japan, most of the EU, and even some emerging economies in measures where we once used to take pride in our success--- overall standard of living, education, health, crime, manufacturing, technology, and economic security. While Europe and the Pacific Rim have been gravitating to an economic and social model that depends on government intervention to assure a thriving and stable market economy, the United States has gone in the exact opposite direction.

Pangloss

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Tuesday August 18, 2009 · 9:16 PM PDT

2009/08/18 · 21:16

You know the vague, haunting feeling that you’ve been through something before? The nagging sense that everything going on around you is a re-play of some hazy memory, experience, or premonition?

I..... I.... I’m having trouble putting my finger on it, but I’m getting an eerie feeling that in some weird way, I’ve been through this Health Care Reform legislation crisis before. I’m hearing voices.... Familiar voices.... Ah.... It’s coming to me now.....

Pangloss

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Monday June 22, 2009 · 8:46 PM PDT

2009/06/22 · 20:46

I was only about seven years old, but I remember as clear as day a miniscule moment from a weekend that I spent with my step-father some time around 1969. Me and my half-bother (my step-father’s son) were spending the weekend at my step-father’s apartment with him and his girlfriend. We were going out to an outdoor concert. We’d just left the apartment and started walking down the stair to the car. Then my step-father said, "Wait! We forgot the Love Beads." He went back to get them.

DFHness ensued for the rest of the afternoon.

Pangloss

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Sunday May 31, 2009 · 11:58 PM PDT

2009/05/31 · 23:58

The following diary includes sections that were submitted as a Letter to the Editor to the Bloomington-Normal Pantagraph

It’s long past time for the citizens, press, politicians, and business leaders of Bloomington-Normal to unite behind high-speed rail development. Very quietly and with not much fanfare, Bloomington-Normal’s Amtrak station has grown to become the fourth busiest Amtrak station in the Midwest by a wide margin.

In 2007, the station passed Springfield as the second busiest station in the state, and the 2008 boardings and alightings in increased by 19.2% while the Central Illinois Regional Airport increased its passengers by only .14%. The Amtrak station in Normal now serves more than a third of the passengers of the local airport, at considerably less cost.

Only Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis have more Amtrak passengers each year than Bloomington-Normal. The tiny, neglected "Amshack" station in Normal serves many more thousands of passengers every year than Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Detroit, New Orleans, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Cleveland, or Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Pangloss

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Tuesday May 19, 2009 · 8:11 PM PDT

2009/05/19 · 20:11

Whenever someone asks me, usually with a voice filled with frustration, "Why do so many lower-middle class whites vote against their own economic self interests by supporting Republicans?" I have developed a ready answer. "It’s the Tycoon Fantasy," I say.

Pangloss

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Wednesday April 29, 2009 · 7:57 PM PDT

2009/04/29 · 19:57

A few years ago I thought about writing a cook book based on my travels and living with a chef from a major Chicago restaurant. The idea never came to fruition in print. During a prolonged period of unemployment from 2002 to 2004, I had to perfect some of my recipes from a cost standpoint. I thought that with so many people struggling right now, I'd provide some of my recipes to anyone interested in having a tasty, affordable, and simple-- yet rich-tasting meal-- for not much money.

If it catches on, I'll continue the series. Follow the diary after the break for a tantalizing soup and an affordable, simple, and luxurious pasta dish.

Pangloss

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Wednesday April 22, 2009 · 11:49 PM PDT

2009/04/22 · 23:49

"Damn you, Barack Obama! You’re not Clark Kent with a tan! You’re not gay! You’re not Bernie Sanders!! You’re not an idealist with 10 or 12 rigid, unyielding progressive positions that you’re looking to force on congress!! You’re not looking to dismantle the military to spend all the money on social programs!! I have just discovered this, and I am outraged!"

Anyone that thought Barack Obama was some sort of lefty idealist was either not paying attention, listening to Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric in the primaries, or listening to Fox News in the general. Those of us that knew Obama from before 2008 knew him as a pragmatic progressive, with the emphasis on pragmatic. And that’s why I supported him from the very beginning, when I sent $50 to his presidential exploratory committee.

Pangloss

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Wednesday April 15, 2009 · 11:32 PM PDT

2009/04/15 · 23:32

The Republican media machine-- supported by the full weight of Fox News, Talk Radio, conservative bloggers, and word of mouth of the 28%ers—tried to take their best swing against Obama, Progressives and Democrats on Wednesday. National turnout, even by the most optimistic projections, was around 250,000. The 0.2% of the people that voted in a national election four months ago have had their say. Now it’s our turn.

Pangloss

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Thursday April 02, 2009 · 7:53 PM PDT

2009/04/02 · 19:53

I woke up this morning to
NPR laying out all the pitfalls and parochial political interests that were awaiting Barack Obama in his dealings with the international community on his first foreign trip, and the barriers to his success were seemingly irreconcilable. France had threatened to walk out entirely, Germany was immovable with an election coming up in six months, China had recently expressed doubt in America’s economic leadership, and demonstrators in London were agitating for punitive measures against the prevailing economic leadership.

Yet somehow, the untested, naïve, empty suit known as Barack Obama managed to thread an impossibly narrow needle-eye and come out with an international agreement beyond the wildest dreams of any supporter, let alone skeptic. Meanwhile, the First Lady was mobbed by British schoolchildren as a figure embodying hope and inspiration; the Dow shot up wildly and reached a level above where Bush left office; Iran and Russia are moving closer to the rest of the international community; China and Brazil are stepping up to support new American initiatives; and there are faint indications that the stimulus package is accomplishing its goals domestically.

Pangloss

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Wednesday March 04, 2009 · 9:03 PM PST

2009/03/04 · 21:03

One Friday morning when I went into work in August 2002, a rarely used office near the entrance of my company’s suite had the light on and the door open. That was unusual. As I got a little closer, I peered into the office and made eye contact with the company’s bookkeeper as she was shredding documents.

Uh oh.

Rumors had swirled for months that the company was in trouble financially following the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare. The major part of the business was a direct mail ("junk mail") company, and even more than 9/11, the anthrax scare had taken a huge bite out of business.

Sure enough, by the end of the day I had all my office possessions in a cardboard box, and I braced myself for the walk out onto crowded Michigan Avenue where everyone would see it and know what just happened.

Pangloss

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Monday February 23, 2009 · 7:39 PM PST

2009/02/23 · 19:39

In late 2005, just a few months after the horror of Katrina and the GOP’s absurd contortions to try and place the blame elsewhere, some of America’s most astute political analysts finally began to sort out what this new, poisonous, jihadesque brand of Republicanism was really about.

On December 5, 2005, author and columnist Rick Perlstein nailed itwith a famous post on the then-fledgling, liberal-leaning blog HuffingtonPost.com:

In conservative intellectual discourse there is no such thing as a bad conservative. Conservatism never fails. It is only failed.

Perlstein’s prescient observation was prompted by a comment from liberal blogger Digby at Hullabalo, who said: "'Conservative' is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals." But Perlstein brought down to an essence what was powering the GOP drive toward what they had designed as a Permanent Republican Majority: total allegiance and discipline in service to a philosophy that always had a ready excuse for its abject failure.

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