This from Susie's blog stuck in my mind:

Mo on 15 Oct 2009 at 6:54 am

I blame the collapse of health care reform in the 90s with the Brittney/Christina/N’Sync/etc. wave of music a few years later. Day jobs that artists generally take stopped paying for health insurance, and parents stopped supporting their twenty-somethings trying for a creative career. Probably is also a big chunk of the reason for the collapse of the indie film scene in the US.

I know we take now that lack of support for anything non-MBA for granted, and the era of grunge soon turned into another bubble. But the early 90s were different.

Reposting from Ms. Madrak:

http://susiemadrak.com/2009/10/14/17/30/...

I just got off a conference call with Arlen Specter where I asked him why the Democrats don’t talk about the wave of entrepreneurship that would be unleashed if people knew they could leave their jobs, start a business and still get affordable health coverage for themselves and their families.

He was surprised, said it hadn’t occurred to him and wants me to give him names of people who would start their own businesses if they knew they could get affordable insurance.

Go to her post, and talk about your dreams there. I know at least one couple who'd ditch their day jobs and start a restaurant, if it weren't for keeping their family's benefits.

... because someone on it posted this succinct summary of what position our position is in:

This collapse was carefully engineered, and Obama is owned by the forces that set it in motion and are right now still governing the looting of the US economy. They are using TARP bail out funds to pay for legislation to give them MORE money and MORE power! This is an economic cytokine storm, a system so compromised and so turned against its own inherent regulatory mechanisms that it is utterly doomed.

The author is named Klempsi Ptwalazsnacht, and if I knew of a blog of his/her, I'd tell you to go to it -- but this was too good a meme to leave on FB, to be eventually forgotten.

This is interesting:

A House panel has subpoenaed documents that lawmakers say could shed new light on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's role in Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The subpoena comes ahead of a hearing next week in which Bernanke is scheduled to testify.

Lawmakers have accused Bernanke and President Bush's treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, of pressuring Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis into the deal and urging him to keep quiet about Merrill's financial problems.

Not divulging that information would have violated Lewis' fiduciary duty to the bank's shareholders.

And yeah, it's the AP, but hopefully it's worth the risk....

Just laying this down as a data point:

And then the teacher walked in. He had a gray crew cut, a message-free tank top and shorts, without a Buddhist bead or Sanskrit phrase visible anywhere.

“Come on people, let’s get started,” he said in a New York accent, as if leading a conference call.

Then he cranked up “Misty Mountain Hop” by Led Zeppelin and led the students through a warm-up of sun salutations. Soon he had them stretching into a difficult split pose.

(I'll try to place spoilers below the cut, but there will be plenty of them about the rebooted Star Trek franchise.)

This has nothing to do with politics save the tendency of marketers to copy what works. I saw Star Trek (XI), and agree with most critics that it's a lively, fast, fun movie with nothing else on its mind but entertainment. (That's its problem, but I'll get to that in a bit.) What its larger marketing phenomenon has reminded me of is a certain space of days in 2008, between the end of the primaries and the DNC, when blog posts flew fast and furious in an attempt to discredit anyone who did not support Obama. This was when the irregularities in seating and counting were still quite fresh, when caucus legitimacy had not yet been overshadowed by disinfo birth certificate disputes.

I thought this would be posted by now:

But the dramatic move means that at least temporarily the U.S. government would have the right to call all of the shots at the Detroit automaker -- as part of its $15.4 billion in loans to GM to date. GM said today it expects to receive another $11.6 billion in loans from the government this year.

Missing media critique not so missing anymore. From, yes, the AP (looked for other sources, to no avail):

WASHINGTON — Despite a pledge to open government, the Obama administration has endorsed a Bush-era decision to keep secret key details of an FBI computer database that allows agents and analysts to search a billion documents with a wealth of personal information about Americans and foreigners.

President Barack Obama's Justice Department quietly told a federal court in Washington last week that it would not second-guess the previous administration's decisions to withhold some information about the bureau's Investigative Data Warehouse.

So, okay, I've been paying attention to Kings on the slim chance that NBC can program an imaginative drama instead of reality shows. Since it has Ian McShane, it has its interesting bits, but this week it turned the corner from mildly amusing and lyrical Biblical allegory into media critique.

I can't fill in Obama's name, not yet.

I can't give up the hope that someone in our political culture will notice if McKinney's policies are supported by voters. Yes, I know she has no organized downticket presence, and the WaPo article made her and her supporters sound addled, and everyone and his banker thinks Obama's the smart play.

But I cannot forget how he allowed his supporters to treat people he thought were in his way. And I have absolutely no faith that he can profit from his own triangulation of his backers' neo-liberal interests with his gauzy rhetoric to Americans.

This time for babies:

In August, Sanlu's testing "revealed melamine in the baby milk powder and showed that it was contaminated," the ministry statement said. It did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings. On Thursday, the dairy announced a recall of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

I've stayed away from Daily Kos because y'all know why, but there's one poster there, DogEmperor, who is the go-to guy for all your Christianist/Dominionist research needs:

http://dogemperor.dailykos.com/

I started out with Palin, went to Assemblies of God and the cell-church movement (in which he might fail to account for Saddleback and their adaptation of that approach for more mainstream megachurches), and fell into Amway, Hobby Lobby and US Plastics -- the corporations that back the takeover (steeplejacking) of non-cult churches until they spill out with feral Russian murderous homophobes. It's like a horror show with Air Force access to nukes, and The Family having access to Senator Clinton.

Whoa. They even beat us in dumb show.

"After Sarah Palin speech, GOP conducted roll call vote. Second-place finisher: Ron Paul, with 5 delegates; third place, Mitt Romney."

http://twitter.com/RMN_ME

Now I heard squat about the roll call vote today. Did you? Searched for "roll call" on my papers' websites, and found nothing. Found this through Google:

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/a...

"Sarah Palin's speech may have been the highlight of Wednesday night's Republican National Convention, but the official business was to formally nominate John McCain as the Republican candidate for President.

The CNP

Last week, while the media focused almost obsessively on the DNC's spectacle in Denver, the country's most influential conservatives met quietly at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.

So I saw The Dark Knight, and I liked it. I admired its seriousness among the bombast, but did not love it. I had bones to pick about its plot --

A DA is the salvation of his city?
And he uses RICO, a Federal instrument? Without Federal intervention?
And offers himself up as bait, endangering the prosecution of hundreds of criminals to catch one psycho?
And houses his star witness with the psycho in a corrupt precinct house? And orders no metal wanding of the psycho's henchmen with cellphones visibly sewn into their flesh?
Really?

In the spirit of wishing openness and transparency for all our presidential candidates' affairs:

Mc Cain has a bit of a gambling problem -- he doesn't acknowledge that he does gamble, at least to the one group that matters, the IRS. From the Time article:

I know, I know, Susie's good people, and she's been patient with one very persistent troll. (She's also got car trouble, so she has more important things on her mind.) But when I read this post and saw the exact same paragraphs quoted by two different trolls -- one full force nasty, one concern-like -- I lost my sense of decorum and good taste.

Troll A:

I suppose you could follow the lead of historiann, anglachel, riverdaughter, and the rest of the PUMA dead enders and claim that obama is really another hitler, worse than bush, planning a totalitarian takeover of the US of A, etc. etc.

or, if you read the original article you find this:

Well, no one could say Mr. Nader is a shy, retiring type:

Nader was asked if Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama's pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

Now it all makes sense.... as long as the American consumer doesn't get a bit of direct relief first:

"I'll make oil companies like Exxon pay a tax on their windfall profits, and we'll use the money to help families pay for their skyrocketing energy costs and other bills," the Illinois senator said.

It's a full-Democratic congressional push, so it just might have a chance...

"Senators were to vote Tuesday on whether to consider a windfall profits tax against the five largest U.S. oil companies and rescind $17 billion in tax breaks the companies expect to enjoy over the next decade."

Bringiton, I think you're lumping the wildass speculation in No Quarter's comment streams with the relatively well-considered and sourced work Diamond has done. It's part of his job as a labor activist to fight the damage corporations have done in spreading the "Labor = Mafia/Corruption/Communists!" meme.

Read this post, and tell me he's not discussing the same subject as we are: How Obama's most feral handlers and supporters would really appreciate it if we stopped asking for solid reasons to support his campaign, and instead just give them our money and loyalty now, OK?

(reposted from a comment on Avedon's blog)

How can leverage be built, or used, without the threat of a negative outcome?

If votes from Clinton supporters are desired, doesn't someone have to ask for them?

Doesn't someone have to stop insulting them by continually saying their opinions are invalid, that their power is either illusory or unimportant, or that they are delusional for wanting to wield that power in the first place?

Since there are no third parties worth even that much of a damn to consistently field downticket candidates in every state, how else should Clinton supporters -- who have been called everything from bitches, dried-up divorcees, to racists -- behave, but to offer their votes to the McCain campaign if their policy concerns are not discussed with respect?

Disavowal is for amateurs. Let's see if the crackerjack MSM deigns to ask this important question:

"Senator Obama, should Mr. Rezko not succomb to a small airplane crash or a massive heart attack prior to his imprisonment, would you rule out either giving him a pardon or commuting his sentence on wire and mail fraud, money laundering, and aiding and abetting bribery?"

"If you are not ruling out the possibility of showing him mercy, should we expect your pardon to occur before or after you declare your reelection campaign?"

"Would a promise either way be as firm as your promise to your Illinois constituents to serve your full term, instead of interrupting it with this, your first presidential campaign?"

"Do they allow Unity Ponies in prison?"

Questions, questions....

I was prepared to go to bed when I read this:

Black campers recruit against history, stereotype
(...)

GADSDEN, Ala.—The throngs filling campgrounds across America this weekend will include hardy outdoors types and those who prefer creature comforts, but they'll have at least one important thing in common: Nearly all of them are white.

A small but committed group of campers is trying to change that by growing a generation of black campers, one person at a time.

The National African-American RVers Association is composed almost exclusively of black people who camp, although it includes a few whites and Hispanics. The group doesn't have much money to buy ads or solicit new members.