If You Don't Like It Then Why Don't You Just Move Somewhere Else!

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Friday February 05, 2010 · 9:49 AM PST

2010/02/05 · 09:49

This is the kind of crap I see every day in the local media. Arizona may be purple but we're still in the middle of Dumfukistan in the fifth largest city in the USA. This has got to be the most conservative large metropolis in the country, if not the world. If you remember, when Obama last came to visit there were wingnutzis walking the streets with assault rifles. Some folks around here think that this is still the wild west, vigilante justice and the whole nine yards.

Our local paper is the Arizona Republic, but we prefer to call it the Arizona Republican, I'll let you guess why. I'd estimate that at least 25% of their letters to the editor include the title phrase of this post, either implicitly or explicitly. Their website is even worse, this slogan ranks right up there with blaming illegal aliens for all the ills of society in prevalence.

Which is why I freaked when I was subjected to this same attitude here on The Daily Kos, as we like to consider this a progressive outpost of sanity in a fucked up propaganda machine. If you'd like to hear the story you can follow me over the fold, but beware...

Beyond here there be Dragons!!!

Poll

33 votes Show Results

Which option would you prefer?

33 votes Vote Now!

Which option would you prefer?

Attempt to pass the Senate HCR bill as is

0 votes

Attempt to pass the Senate HCR bill with the planned minimal set of reconciliation fixes, not including a public option

11 votes

Kill the Senate HCR bill and attempt to split the whole thing up and pass a new set of bills piecemeal

10 votes

A pony

7 votes

Pie

5 votes

Obama's Lost My Support...

aztronut

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Sunday August 16, 2009 · 4:45 PM PDT

2009/08/16 · 16:45

At least for tomorrow. At least on health care reform. I was intending to go out to downtown Phoenix and suffer through the 110F temperatures to counter whatever whack job presence might show up at the VFW for Obama’s health care reform town hall.

Obama back in Phoenix after touring Grand Canyon

Not so much because I support Obama’s proposals as I support the idea of robust health care reform that includes a public option tied to Medicare and its negotiated payment rates. I’m really for a single-payer system and the insurance companies be damned, but I’m willing to settle for a so-called public option. What I’m not willing to settle for is half-assed reform measures that allow the private insurance industry the latitude to "innovate" their way out of providing complete and secure health coverage for everyone at an affordable cost.

Then I saw the news this morning...

Poll

115 votes Show Results

What are you willing to give up to pass health care reform legislation?

115 votes Vote Now!

What are you willing to give up to pass health care reform legislation?

The single-payer option

34 votes

The public option

3 votes

Payouts tied to Medicare rates in the public option

2 votes

End-of-life provisions

15 votes

All of the above

16 votes

None of the above

45 votes

A Message to My Congressperson on Health Care Reform

aztronut

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday August 03, 2009 · 7:55 PM PDT

2009/08/03 · 19:55

Dear Congressman Harry Mitchell,

I can't help but notice that the health care reform message on your website says nothing about your support for a vigorous public option as part of a health care reform package to be passed by Congress. Please clarify your position on this topic as it is critical to my potential support for your reelection effort. I have previously contacted you regarding my interest in health care reform and support for a public option to compete with private insurance, but I still don't have an answer to whether you support the public option.

I would like to attend any constituent meetings you may plan to discuss current health care reform initiatives. Please be aware that those who may attend your meetings on this topic and attempt to disrupt the proceedings are likely not your constituents, as I am, but rather insurance company shills coached to shout down anyone who disagrees with them. They represent the corporate interests, the ones who are spending over a million dollars a day, taken directly from health insurance premiums, in order to deny health care to your real constituents and all the individuals in this country who the government is supposed to be of, by and for.

continued below the fold...

aztronut

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Thursday April 09, 2009 · 11:18 AM PDT

2009/04/09 · 11:18

Last night I watched an Angels game on MLB Extra Innings, which I bought so that I could catch the Angels all year from AZ. Their brightest pitching prospect was starting, Nick Adenhart, 22 years old and pushing his potential by gaining a birth on the starting staff due to injuries to more established pitchers. Adenhart was just short of brilliant, pitching six innings of shutout ball and leaving the game ahead 3-0. What followed was a tragedy of epoch proportions, not because the Angels couldn't hold the lead and lost the game in the ninth inning but because Nick Adenhart was killied in a traffic accident only hours after the game when a red-light runner apparently T-boned the Mitsubishi Eclipse that Adenhart and three friends were in. Two died at the scene, one in the hospital and only one of the four has so far lived through the experience.

LA Times Story

aztronut

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Tuesday February 10, 2009 · 12:42 PM PST

2009/02/10 · 12:42

I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more! Go to your windows...er, well, no don't go to your windows, go to your Republican congressperson or their website, or phone line, or snail-mail address, or wherever you can make contact and tell them what you think of their strategy of obstruction.

I blew a gasket today and wrote both of my senators, and it's very painful to write "my" in this context, John McCain and Jon Kyl. What a pair, huh? I'm sure they probably already have me on some disgruntled constituent list since I've written before, but I just couldn't hold it in any longer. Hence...

To Sen. McCain:

As an unfortunate constituent of yours and a registered Republican who always votes, I must register my disgust with your recent efforts to discourage bipartisanship. You just don't get it do you? That's exactly the reason that I voted for Obama last November. It will be a cold day in hell before you get my vote in the future.

It was cathartic, if not persuasive, so I wrote Kyl too...

aztronut

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Thursday January 15, 2009 · 6:15 PM PST

2009/01/15 · 18:15

U.S. Air Flight 1549 pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, a true American hero. He executed what experts say was a perfect emergency water landing, didn't crumple the plane at all, so all the exit doors were still functional. The plane was structurally intact after the water landing and floated for over two hours. This was all done in a really short span of time, snap judgements had to form a sequence of emergency response reactions, all of which needed to be correct and were.

MSNBC.com

"He is the consummate pilot," his wife, Lorrie Sullenberger, told the New York Post. Sullenberger is an U.S. Air Force Academy grad who flew F-4 fight planes while in the Air Force, she said. "He is about performing that airplane to the exact precision to which it is made."

Sullenberger is an airline safety expert who has consulted with NASA and others, according to his resume posted on the Internet. He has 40 years of experience, 29 with US Airways, and hold masters' degrees in public administration and industrial psychology.

For those searching for competence in this country these days, here's an example of excellence in one's chosen profession, a trial by fire.

aztronut

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Thursday December 18, 2008 · 2:33 PM PST

2008/12/18 · 14:33

The festival of light pollution that we call the holidays is upon us once again, which means its time for me to step up on my soapbox and prepare to duck the rotten eggs, tomatoes and shoes which are sure to be flung my way as I voice my generally unpopular opinion on this matter. Sometimes you just have to stand up for what you believe in, especially when its not what most folks want to hear.

First, let me say that I've got nothing against Christmas, nor Hannukah, Kwanza, Festivus, et.al. I admit to a general dislike of organized religion but that's not what's driving me here. I celebrate Christmas and always have, because I appreciate the sentiments and purposes that are involved, and because I've been conditioned to my whole life. It's not easy to break with tradition, nor is it to question the standard practices of tradition. However, like those folks in Appalachia who continue to vote against their better self-interests, traditionalists often choose to do the wrong things for what they consider to be the right reasons.

On to the point of discussion, to borrow a teaser from Slate:

"Sorry, Dude. Your Christmas Lights Are Destroying the Planet."

aztronut

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Wednesday November 26, 2008 · 12:17 PM PST

2008/11/26 · 12:17

It seems they need it now more than ever. This is where I make the bulk of my charitable donations and I believe it provides an effective bang for the buck. No fundraising percentages cut out and little or no bureaucratic overhead means your money goes directly to the people who need food.

I've recently received an incredible response to this suggestion from a right wingnutzi business associate that went something like this, "People don't starve to death in America, that's a myth!" Gobsmacked? What can I say, I sure was. I didn't even know how to reply to that, I just kind of stood there with my mouth hanging open while he walked away...

UPDATE: Thanks to burningapathy for a food bank donation link: Feeding America

aztronut

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Friday November 21, 2008 · 10:36 AM PST

2008/11/21 · 10:36

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used ground-penetrating radar to discover numerous buried glaciers on Mars, covered with dirt and up to a half-mile thick. This is only the latest sign that life may be sustainable on Mars. John Holt of the University of Texas at Austin is the lead author (along with 11 co-authors) of the article describing these findings in the 11/21 issue of Science (vol 322, p 1235 by subscription).

NewScientist

The glaciers, found at latitudes between 30 and 60° in both the northern and southern hemispheres, sit underneath fields of rocky debris. The appearance of the landscape suggests the debris flowed from hills lying up to 20 kilometres away.
[...]
The glaciers likely formed during a time when Mars's pole pointed more towards the Sun, says co-author James Head of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Because Mars lacks a massive moon that can stabilise its tilt, the planet is thought to wobble dramatically every 120,000 years or so.

aztronut

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Friday July 11, 2008 · 2:53 AM PDT

2008/07/11 · 02:53

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The FISA bill was just the last handful of dirt on the body. The Bill of Rights has been trampled over in the last 8 years and now we've reached the tipping point. When those in the high echelons of power pardon themselves for violating our civil rights and choose to ignore admitted high crimes and misdemeanors by the chief executive, what does it mean to say we live in a country ruled by laws and not men?

aztronut

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Tuesday April 29, 2008 · 11:11 PM PDT

2008/04/29 · 23:11

Barack Obama has netted, to date, 1490 of the 1627 pledged delegates he needs to capture a majority of the delegates elected to secure the Democratic nomination for POTUS. Since the consensus is that the superdelegates will not overturn the majority of the elected delegates, then Obama merely needs to obtain this number of 1627 pledged delegates to achieve victory in the primary process. Obama needs to garner just 137 of the remaining 408 elected delegates, or just 34% of the remaining pledged delegates. This is the magic number, 137, that needs to be focused on in the upcoming weeks, as it is reduced to zero Obama's nomination becomes mathematically assured.

BTW, prior to the PA primary, Obama needed to win 37% of the remaining elected delegates to obtain the majority. So in losing PA, he reduced his required percentage of the remaining elected delegates to the aforementioned 34%. It doesn't seem like much of a victory for Hillary when it's put in these stark mathematical terms. In fact, it demonstrates that PA was a victory for Obama because it brought him closer to winning the nomination, any way you slice it.

Poll

101 votes Show Results

When will Obama achieve a majority of the elected delegates?

101 votes Vote Now!

When will Obama achieve a majority of the elected delegates?

5/6

8 votes

5/13

9 votes

5/20

60 votes

6/1

2 votes

6/3

9 votes

After 6/3

8 votes

Never

5 votes

This is what we're dealing with...

aztronut

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday April 28, 2008 · 3:41 PM PDT

2008/04/28 · 15:41

Al Landsberg, 66, approached the counter of the voter registration office at 4 p.m., an hour before deadline. Hefty, with a hint of sweat on his white mustache, he looked as drained as the employees behind the counter who rested their heads in their hands. Voting exhausted him. Ever since he cast a ballot for Ronald Reagan, Landsberg has always felt as though he was trying to choose the lesser of two evils.

For this election, though, he decided he had no choice but to vote. A lifelong Republican, he planned to switch his party affiliation so he could vote in the Democratic primary. That Hillary Clinton wasn't great, he said, but she was just as good as presumptive GOP nominee John McCain and a heck of a lot better than that other guy, "you know, uh, Embowa. He'd take this country right down the tubes."

Landsberg's wife, Evelyn, collects porcelain dolls, and her co-collectors send the Landsbergs frequent political e-mails, most of them critical of Obama. "From what I can tell, if he becomes president he will refuse to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and we will leave Iraq unprepared," Landsberg said. "I'm not going to sit at home and let that happen."

Poll

59 votes Show Results

Despite what Hillary says publicly, who do you believe she'll vote for in the privacy of her polling place in November?

59 votes Vote Now!

Despite what Hillary says publicly, who do you believe she'll vote for in the privacy of her polling place in November?

Barack Obama

6 votes

John McCain

17 votes

Ralph Nader

0 votes

Hillary Clinton (write-in)

31 votes

Other

0 votes

Hillary's gonna sit this one out

5 votes

Newer
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RSS

If You Don't Like It Then Why Don't You Just Move Somewhere Else!

Obama's Lost My Support...

A Message to My Congressperson on Health Care Reform

The Promise of a New Baseball Season Crashes for Angels Fans

May I Suggest A Cathartic Scream?

Obama Should Invite Sullenberger to Inaugural

Holiday Hubris

Please Donate to Your Local Food Bank [Updated w/ Donation Link]

Glaciers on Mars

RIP 4th Ammendment

The Magic Number is 137

This is what we're dealing with...