Armistice Day

That’s what this day was originally about. It wasn’t about veterans (our country already had a day for that — it is called Memorial Day). It was about peace, world peace, after the loss of life and destruction of the First World War. It is still observed in that same way in other countries that were involved.

I see no reason to have two days to do the same thing. I also think there is far too much made of all of it. War should not be glorified and those who have served since the draft was abolished do so at their own risk.

People who never served, like Bill Bennett, slobbering over themselves on a day like today is more than repulsive. If he cared so much he would have served. Instead, he was too smart to serve and got a deferment. He wasn’t married and didn’t have any children. My father wasn’t so lucky. He served and then was called back during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He missed my birth because he was called back.

It’s a point that has been made again and again: if you are so pro-war, then you had better have served. The problem is that for many in the military, like my father, war was the last thing they wanted. It is what they train for, but the hope is that it won’t happen.

Originally, today was supposed to be about peace. In some ways it still is — at least for me and for most of the world. With Iraq, Afghanistan, The Congo, and Burma, among other places with conflicts, there is a long way to go.

War cheerleaders and supposed military supporters are not helping.

Deja Vu

But not really.  I have this theory — idea really  — that people are trying to make the Fort Hood shooting Obama’s 9/11.  I predict (in the Limbaugh way) that in the future we will hear that Obama didn’t protect us from terrorists because he sent a shout-out to an Indian man instead of using a bullhorn on the day it happened — oh and he yukked it up — oh and he used a teleprompter — oh and when he bothered to go a week later, he sent more shout-outs to his buds thugs in his cabinet.

Yes, the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 and this is how our president reacts.  Idiots.

That is exactly why it is so important to label this a terrorist attack.  Shall we go back and tag the DC shooters terrorists just to disprove Bush’s and Cheney’s claim of keeping us safe all those years?

I expect to see how this was the first terrorist attack during the Obama Administration.  Just wait.

In an upside-down world, I’m also going to register for Little Green Footballs — after all these years.

Tear Down This Wall

I work with people from all over the planet — every continent and almost every country.

Not a single one of them credits Ronald Reagan with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I lived in (not as a tourist) a former Soviet Republic.  Twice.  No one there credited Ronald Reagan with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I visited Gdansk.  I didn’t see any monument to Ronny.

But this freaking meme will not die.

Even Gorbachev and liberal historians agree that Reagan was the driving force behind ending the cold war. Why would you want to deny it? So strange to me.

Completely unsourced and untrue.  I lived with people who lived through it.  I didn’t just visit them or read some book.  I lived with them.

What nonsense this woman spews.  She doesn’t even know what she is talking about.

On The New Hour tonight, West Germans admitted that while they paid for reunification monetarily, the people of East Germany paid in other ways, painful ways.

I will always remember my colleagues.  There were some good aspects of their system.  Ones that they missed.  Before independence, women weren’t assaulted.  Just go and search you tube for Russian prisons.  And now parts of the former Soviet Union have “leaders for life” — that’s progress if you don’t care about the people who live under those rulers — or don’t even know where those places are.

Credit Cards for Med and Dental

Local KHOU had one of their “Defenders” reports on tonight about Care Credit credit cards.  It featured a couple of people who should have read what they agreed to and switch dentists.

I’ve had a Care Credit credit card for a number of years now.  Initially, my dental insurance only covered $1000 worth of dental bills each year and had all sorts of restrictions on certain procedures.  For example, you could only have one quadrant root planned per year — even though it is a painful experience and easier to do as an upper and a lower.  I signed up for Care Credit through my dentist so I could get everything done at once.

It’s easy to understand.  Depending on the bill, you get a predetermined amount of time to pay the bill off at no interest.  Since I switched jobs and couldn’t get dental coverage, I have used it for all of my major dental.  If you have an honest dentist, they give you an estimate, counsel you about the treatment and the cost, and don’t charge you until they do the work.  That way you can plan to pay it off without interest.  Poor Care Credit.  I have never paid them any interest.

From the “Defender’s” report, the company took care of all of their examples of problems.  To me, it looks like the providers are the problem here, but did the “Defenders” focus on them?  No.  They were off the mark here.

(Link to the report tomorrow.)

Step by step

ZOMG.

One step closer to rational health care we are.

I admire Nancy Pelosi more than ever.

Bite that Harry Reid.

step by step

 

They Don’t Really Care

I listened to Natalie Arceneaux this afternoon and a bit of Michael Bery last night.

They don’t really care about what happened at Fort Hood.  Natalie didn’t mention it at all and Berry was way more intent upon making our President look bad.

Neither care about much more than themselves.  They both want listeners.  They both tease their audiences.  They both lie.

They are both part of the “I’ve got mine, fuck you” party.

As a radio critic, I think Natalie needs to lose her wild cackle (it gives the lie to her supposed tearful call for 300 (it came off as her being pissed about not being asked to speak at the latest tea party thingy).  And Michael needs to lose that habit of pulling his pants down and showing his ass.

There are people who are hurting.  People who are shocked and weary.  But all Natalie can focus on is politics and Michael, well, he vomits.

Dylan Gwinn from Local Traffic Reports to Big Time Talk Radio

I finally found this guy on the intertubes.  He’s done traffic for KTRH and has a you tube channel for his traffic videos.  His blog is nonexistent (you could buy if you want). He hasn’t done anything on his website for 2 1/2 years.  He does have the St. Ronny worship covered, as well as his liberal hate on.

(I’m listening to him right now — he’s full-tilt Obama is the problem, everything is his fault.  He’s also got a pretty good white man whine going about how he can’t speak his mind or that people knew about the shooter at Fort Hood yesterday couldn’t say anything to stop this before it happened.  Also, there’s the predictable anti-Muslim nonsense.)

Here are the podcasts from his show from yesterday (November 5th 3:00 and 4:00 p.m.).  For whatever reason, they couldn’t get his name right.  He should look into that.

Two things to listen for:  from the first hour — towards the end– Gwinn reads from an article about a mayor who suggests paying people not to have children as a solution for problem parents.  “AN outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country’s child abuse problem – pay the “appalling underclass” not to breed.”  After a rambling and convoluted rant connecting this mayor’s suggestion to “death panels” and health reform, he states that he doesn’t know where Kiwi is. (rim shot)

The second thing:  from the second hour — right at the beginning — a woman calls in bellyaching about how President Obama started giving his closing remarks to a Native American Conference at the White House instead of immediately talking about what had happened at Fort Hood.  The woman is so pissed that she gets everything wrong (she thought he was talking about the health care bill, and that he was praising people working on health care).  Gwinn doesn’t check his facts, but jumps in with both feet and ad libs outrage.

Later on in the second hour he responds to a caller pointing a finger at the private companies making the flu vaccines as having some responsibility for the delays in getting them out.  Gwinn turns around and tells her, no.  It’s Obama’s fault because he ordered single dose vaccines instead of double dose and that’s what slowed everything down.  This is nonsense.

(Gees, here at the end of his show, he’s accusing liberals of hating America.)

So, my critique of what I heard, Gwinn is scattered — and stale.  He’s just regurgitating the same old things and even the way he deals with callers is typical.

Oh, great.  Now Michael Berry is on to continue with the white man whine about political correctness.  And he repeats his statement from yesterday that people should be cautious and wait for the facts to come in about Fort Hood, which he did do, but only after trying to get the journalist he interviewed first to SPECULATE more than once.

And I’m going to turn him off because he’s already said that he’s going to concern troll the President about how he handled his “press conference” yesterday (which WASN’T A PRESS CONFERENCE dumbass).

It’s too soon to know anything for sure

except that people have died and people are wounded and families are hurting and confused.

But that doesn’t stop anyone calling local radio station 950 AM or its substitute host* (whose name I couldn’t find or figure out) from jumping to conclusions.  The name of one shooter was released — Malik Nadal Hassan (a major) — and it’s off to the race accusations.  One caller advocated that no Muslims should be allowed in the U.S. military.  Another suggested that Muslims are more prone to believe propaganda.  Yet another was so very angry that the President Obama went ahead with prepared remarks and his meeting with the President of Botswana just 20 minutes after the shooting happened (when most of the press pool didn’t even know about it) instead of getting on Air Force One and zipping down to Fort Hood.  The substitute host jumped right in and made an analogy to former President Bush’s reaction to 9/11 (like a shooting on a military base is analogous to a plane flying into a skyscraper).

Speculation at this point is useless.  (But  I’m listening to Michael Berry doing that right now.  Sheesh.)

I feel for the wounded and for their families and the families of those who died.

*And Michael Berry is the person in charge of who is on the air, so he is ultimately responsible.

Seafloor Spreading

Crazy that I just gave my advanced students a test on this and it comes up.

There’s a really cool video that I showed my students of the continents spreading apart and coming back together — all over millions of years.

In time, lots of time, the national boundaries that we have will no longer exist.  The land that exists will change.  How I wish I could live for millions of years just to see that happen.  It’s a foolish wish, I know.  But to see the plates move and reconstruct themselves would be fantastic.

Election Night ‘09

I voted after work.  Sometimes I vote early, other times I like to vote on election day.  People like me must drive turnout predictors crazy.  By 3:30, 114 people had voted at my precinct.  While there was no waiting, all six voting booths were pretty much occupied while I was there — with my handy League of Women Voters guide (cue wingnut cry — why is it just for women!!!!!).

Local station KHOU has been keeping tabs on the returns (I’ve been looking for Kuff, but he hasn’t shown up there yet.)

Locke and Parker are neck and neck.  I guess I could live with Locke, but I voted for Parker.  My man Ron Green is keeping ahead of the wingnut Pam Holm.  Here’s hoping that continues, and that his lead grows.

The three elections that will show that the GOP is on the upward turn look like a mess (I don’t click on Politico).   If exit polls show that national issues (Obama) weren’t import factors in people’s decisions, then does that mean that the president is irrelevant or is it a defeat because he wasn’t the most important factor?  This is all so stupid.

And not to let my wingnutty (double post ha ha) peeps down — the Texas Republican Party has decided that one Justice of the Peace switching parties is a “wave” and spreads unfounded rumors that President Obama’s approvals in the state is at 20%.  Nice try!

From KHOU’s latest update, Jo Jones is beating the white (!) man who has tried twice against her.  That must make Michael Berry mad.