Man Yells At Dog
We have a snow day here in Philadelphia, so I’m home from work, as I no doubt will be by Wednesday as well if the prediction of Blizzard: the Return is accurate. By any standard, two feet and change in a single storm is a pile, and with an extra foot or more on the way, this will be the snowiest Philadelphia winter on record.
I had to take a ride out to the Home Depot this morning: I haven’t written about it, but Christina and I finally tiled the bathroom floor in a classic large-white-octagon-small-black-diamond pattern, a project we undertook in December. We’re in the middle of phase two: the tub surround, which when complete will be white subway tile with black trim. Once that’s done, we move onto the perimeter.
Anyway, I was pulling up to my parking space (reserved, Philly-style, with a garbage can preventing someone else from stealing my territory) when I saw a large man in a bright orange jacket having a loud argument with Li’l Bits, my neighbor’s pit bull. Li’l Bits is a barker, especially with strangers, and the man, who was also really drunk at noon, was having none of it. “You shuddup,” he yelled/slurred at the dog. “You shuddup! You wanna fuck with me? You wanna fuck with ME?!? Shut your fuckin’ mouth!” All of this did nothing but get Li’l Bits, who is just as harmless and as sweet a pup as can be, riled up, and she just barked louder than before and jumped at the gate.
By any standard, this was pretty awful behavior, but the context made the man’s belligerence even more worrisome: late last summer, someone walked up to my neighbor’s house and shot Li’l Bits’ older brother, Buddy. Just shot the poor dog in cold blood, three shots to the chest and walked away. To this day, I don’t think anyone knows who did it. So as I backed the car into the space, I tried to figure out who to defuse the situation, because I didn’t know if this was going to be a repeat of what happened 6 months ago. For all i knew, this could be Buddy’s murder in the flesh, but what did that matter considering the dude was three times my size, drunk, and enraged.
“Shuddup, you fuckin dog, shut up!” The guy would not let it rest. He was in an argument with a dog and losing. Badly. “Shut up! Shut– I’M THE BIG NIGGER ON THIS BLOCK, you hear me? Now shut UP!!”
I stepped out of the car with my groceries and yelled, good-neighbor-style, to the dog, “Li’l Bits, you stop barking at that man! You be a good girl!”
It didn’t shut the dog up, but it was like ice water up the drunk’s rear end. “I love you,” he shouted at Li’l Bits, unconvincingly. “I, uh, I looooooove you…”
As I slipped around the big guy, he muttered, “I didn’t mean no disrespect.”
“Hey man, it’s not my dog. But she’s a good girl, isn’t she,” I added in Li’l Bits direction as I walked toward my porch.
The man also kept walked down the sidewalk. “I didn’t mean nothing,” he said again, “I’m just having a walk. I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” I replied, as I stepped into my house and pulled the door shut behind me.
Conservatives are Sick in the Head
I think it’s really really funny that the conservatives and Republicans are angry at the daily Kos poll that shows that the right believes Obama is a socialist, who hates America and white people, wants the terrorists to win, and hates chocolate ice cream too. It’s funny because the right has been saying all of these things for at least two years, but once some liberal takes a poll and records their responses, all of a sudden, their very own words are suddenly off-limits.
Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, but Sunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report on the purported birth certificate — actually a “Certification of Live Birth” or COLB — claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100% certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: “a horribly forgery,” according to the analysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.
The Republican National Committee passed a resolution at a special session Wednesday condemning President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress for leading the United States toward socialism, a victory for the party’s beleaguered chairman who sought the toned-down language in the measure.
RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele adamantly had opposed the initial version of the resolution that had – presumptuously, some Republicans thought – called on the Democrats to rename themselves “the Democratic Socialist Party.”
That’s the question posed by Gerald Warner in the Telegraph. I don’t think the question is entirely fair, however. I think Obama only hates America as it was before it elected him President in November 2008. He might even be willing to forgive his country as of the date he was elected to the Senate
And on and on and on. The fact is the republicans and the conservatives really DO believe this, and they have no right to get upset when their personal, publicly expressed beliefs become a matter of the public record. You can’t have it both ways.
A Failure of Leadership
Over at Daily Kos, some fucking hippy is arguing that defeat is a winnign strategy. No, i’m totally serious:
Geez, don’t you get it yet? The more Obama is seen extending his hand and the more the Republicans obstruct, the more likely it is that the average American out there will get the message that the problem is the Republicans.
So the more they bitch that they are not being heard, the more ridiculous they look. Obama is extending a hand, but proceeding without them. Every time he is defeated, it looks worse for Republicans because Obama’s policies are what everyone is calling for (even the teapartiers are against the SCOTUS decision and want it fixed!)
This is what i call “stupid as shit”, and argued as much:
“defeat” does not equal “winning.”
it looks bad for democrats because A) they weren’t elected to play nice with the republicans, but to GET THINGS DONE; B) because the result of playing nice with the republicans has been a health care reform that can’t pass the house and a stimulus that was too small; and C) because extending a hand to the GOP tells right-wing fucktards like Ben Nelson that it’s OK to side with the GOP publicly on the Dems’ big issues, making the party look disorganized and weak.
Scott Brown didn’t lose massachusetts because democrats were too lefty: they were too accomodating to corporate interests and the GOP, and people got disgusted. that’s the facts.
I’ve noticed that there’s this hardcore group of Obama supporters that don’t really understand politics. This same person tries to conflate a presidency with grassroots movements, like those led by King and Ghandi. This is a false analogy: you can’t conflate mass action from the politically powerless with the refusal of political elites to exercise their power.
The former looks courageous as they stand up to entrenched forces with way more power than themselves, while the latter looks weak and duplicitous.
And it’s good to know that I’m right, because as i was responding to the hippy, the front page of Daily Kos read “What Democratic leadership failure looks like”. check out these two graphs:
This first one is the collapse of the Democratic Party over the past year. Kos finds two bumps: the inauguration and passing the stimulus. Once the victories stop (ie, the health care mess), support crashes. That’s because A) people like winners and B) people expect the party they voted for to do what they said they were gonna do.
Here’s the second graph:
Here, you can see the GOP, energized by the teabaggers they’ve been riling up all year, trending as the more popular of the two parties.
Not too hard to figure out, unless you’re a Democratic politician or consultant.
meta: green tea
A few weeks ago, my doctor told me that my cholesterol is higher than it should be. It’s not in the danger zone yet, but it’s elevated. We have a history of high cholesterol in my family, and both of my parents are on medications to keep their levels healthy. But my doctor says that she thinks mine should be addressed with dietary changes before meds are considered. So I’ve been working, with varying degrees of success, to lower my cholesterol.
You’d think with my love of cheesesteaks that cutting back on my red meat would be a problem, but so far it hasn’t been. I still enjoy the occasional steak (or in tonight’s case, trip to the Korean BBQ), but my weakness is cheese and dairy.
One way that I’ve been cutting my cholesterol, while at the same time boosting my work productivity (this post excluded), is by drinking copious amounts of green tea. There’s an Asian grocery a few blocks from work that sells a very nice and inexpensive gunpowder variety, Temple of Heaven, a loose tea. I have one of those tea cups with the built-in strainer (like this one but a different design), so after making my initial cup, I simply pour more hot water over the leaves, and voila, more tea!
I think I’m going to get a cup right now, which will help me plow through two difficult budgets I have to create.
Why Do You Keep Punching Yourself? Why Do You Keep Punching Yourself? (Part 2)
Emboldened by the response to President Obama’s face-off with House Republicans last week, the White House is intensifying its push to engage Congressional Republicans in policy negotiations as a way to share the burden of governing and put more scrutiny on Republican initiatives.
Top aides say Mr. Obama intends to follow through quickly on his State of the Union proposal for bipartisan White House brainstorming sessions. Republicans will also be invited to the White House this weekend to watch the Super Bowl, as well as to Camp David and other venues for social visits.
The outreach represents a marked shift in both strategy and substance by Mr. Obama and his allies at a time when Democrats are adapting to the loss of their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate and the president has been losing support among independent voters.
The White House’s goal is to show voters that Mr. Obama is willing to engage Republicans rather than govern in a partisan manner while forcing Republicans to make substantive compromises or be portrayed as obstructionist given their renewed power to block almost all legislation in the Senate.
NYT,”Obama Acts to Engage G.O.P., Testing Party’s Intentions”
That old trick NEVER works, as a certain flying squirrel might say. It sure flopped last year.
Why Do You Keep Punching Yourself? Why Do You Keep Punching Yourself?
Remember that awful bull from elementary school who pulled that trik on you? He’d mash your on hand into a fist, and use it to whack away at your head, taunting you with cries of “why do yo keep punching yourself?”
It looks like the DNC hs internalized that experience:
Joe Sudbay of Americablog reported that the DNC had forked over $459,760.00 to the Nebraska Democratic Committee, which, in turn, used that money to sponsor television ads on Nelson’s behalf. Those ads featured the senator explaining his support for health care legislation in part by noting he had changed the legislation so that insurance coverage would not be “run by the government.” It was a clear slight at the public plan.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Jim Manley, told Ben Smith of Politico that the money was not part of the deal to get Nelson’s vote. But the real question was why the DNC would pay for ads that maligned government-run insurance at the same time the party was rallying behind that very proposal.
It’s enough to make you wonder what real countries with functioning government are like.
Deep Thoughts
Anonymity and pseudonyms do not render one invincible or invisible.
It really IS a small world sometimes.
It’s always wise to be kind to strangers, because you don’t always know who ya know.
Karma works like a boomerang: you get what you give.
If I sound a little cryptic right now, it’s because it’s been an interesting couple of days.
Not Content with Ruining Health Care Reform, Baucus Now After Jobs Bill
Someone go throw this guy off a mountain or something:
Democrats from the president on down say jobs are their No. 1 priority, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expects to announce details of a bill this week. But a squabble among Senate Democrats is complicating early efforts to bring a bill to the floor…
And when they walked into a meeting in the office of Reid (D-Nev.) on Jan. 22, they thought they were about to cross the finish line — the Dorgan-Durbin plan would be blessed by the small group of senators in the room, presented to the full Democratic Caucus on Jan. 28 and then taken straight to the floor for a vote.
But Montana Sen. Max Baucus had other ideas.
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, where the health care bill was debated for months last year, surprised the senators gathered in Reid’s office by suggesting he wanted a chance to mark up portions of the bill under his committee’s jurisdiction before it went to the floor, according to several people who attended the meeting.
Here we go again: get ready for months of delays, fruitless efforts to get Republicans to support a bill they hate by gutting the bill, and an epic fail at the end.
Now is not the time to let an incompetent and corrupt (really corrupt) small state Senator ruin another presidential goal. The country is already underwater for the next ten years:
By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.
For Mr. Obama and his successors, the effect of those projections is clear: Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors.
…and those of us who don’t receive enormous contributions from the insurance industry need all the help we can get.
Seriously, someone needs to show Max baucus the door, and quickly.
How Do You Know
Lyres on a Tuesday morning.
Roman Gods
Just because…
