Saturday Night Open Thread – Fantasy Bucket Lists

It’s Saturday night. Time to unwind.  Summer was pretty much a bust weather-wise and so I’m looking forward to the colorful hues of the Fall.  I’m also thinking about my “Bucket-List.”  You know, that “things to do before I die” list?  I’ve been checking things off recently and I figure that I better add a [...]

Charter schools, Standardized Tests and the Tianamen Square Effect

Vastleft’s post on the NEA’s response to Obama’s education plans reminded me of piece I had seen in the NYTimes last week just before I went on vacation.  In Dangling Money, Obama Pushes Education Shift, the Obama agenda on education starts to crystallize as an increase in charter schools and an emphasis on standardized tests. [...]

Your Breakfast Read, Saturday Edition

Health Care Pseudo-Reform Should we (Liberals and Progressives) worry even more than before about the health care legislation? Sure Tom Daschle knows how to navigate the Senate but the noises he has been making about the type of legislation have been unpleasant. Oval Office Visit Hints at Daschle’s Role As Obama’s health-care agenda teeters in [...]

Er, Happy Birthday, Hawaii?

Today is the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood. yay Oddly, no one here is celebrating.  Well, OK, we outmaneuvered Queen Lilioukalani to force her to give up the monarchy.  That wasn’t nice.  But Hawaii has a thriving Hawaiian culture, most of it vigorously rescued in the 60′s when I lived here as a kid.  It [...]

Friday Morning News from a Hoosier Perspective

Good Friday Morning!! Riverdaughter goes to Hawaii for her vacay, but here I am, “back home again in Indiana.” Except for occasional trees dotting the landscape, you can see the whole horizon. It’s not quite as flat and treeless as my birthplace, North Dakota; but it’s close. It’s where I grew up. There’s not a [...]

The “Racists are now ‘left of the left’ Oxymoron” (emphasis on ‘moron’)

Some of you may be wondering where I disappeared to.  I am sitting on the lanai of a rented condo in Maui, looking at a the clouds.  It’ll pass, I’m sure.  Today, we are taking the road to Hana.  It’s early morning here.  I finally got a decent internet connection.  I’ve been following the news [...]

The Culture of Cannibalism in US Politics: The Cycle of Corruption

Mark Twain, in “Cannibalism in the Cars,” suggested that cannibalism of the body politic is a logical outcome of the practice of the political values of the elected representatives of the United States, in dire circumstances. What would occur, if such dire circumstances did not require a natural disaster, but became a systemic feature of [...]

His name is Clayton Bigsby

Ooooh, a scary white racist with guns!  Wanna meet him? Make the jump:

Without Public Option, Bottom Falls Out of Support for Obama’s Health Care Initiative

Rasmussen Reports’ latest poll on health care reform shows that only 34% of voters support the current bill if the public option is removed from the bill. Even more striking, only 9% are “enthusiastic” in their support of the bill if it doesn’t include a government-run program that will compete with private plans. Last week, [...]

There’s a New Squid in Town: the view from the belly of the beast part II

In the first installment of my three-part series on healthcare, I covered the insanity of trying to get things covered by the private insurers.  Today I’m going to examine the second half of the problem: getting things paid.   If you are a healthcare consumer, you are likely at least a little familiar with the [...]