Mark Newman, from the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan has posted the yummy cartograms of the 2008 US Presidential Election results. I could bore you with discussions, but instead, I suggest you go check out his work.

It’s awfully nice, as a Texan, not to have Travis County as a remote little island of blue in a sea of red. This time around the central counties of our major metropolitan areas all went blue, too. So here’s to you, Harris, Dallas, Bexar, El Paso and Jefferson counties. And three cheers for all you folks in the Valley and out West, too. Especially my dear friends in Maverick County!

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them — in roads and airports and hospitals and schools. And taxes are necessary for the common good, and there’s nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less. For us to say that makes you a socialist, I think, is an unfortunate characterization that isn’t accurate.

source: CNN

Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare, pt 1

Mythbusting Canadian Healthcare, pt 2

Good reads, both. Especially if you want the ground-level view from someone who lives there to use against people who speak loudly about it even though they don’t have first hand knowledge of it.

The military adventurers of the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room,” the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay — or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.

From: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174884/chalmers_johnson_how_to_sink_america

We all have to acknowledge that our problems were in part brought on by the failure of our government to regulate the institutions and markets that are now in crisis. The irresponsible fiscal policies of the past decade have led to a national debt that amounts to $9 trillion. The irresponsible so-called free trade policies of Democratic and Republican administrations over the past three decades have produced a trade debt that now amounts to more than $6 trillion, and that debt is rising faster than our national debt. All of which is contributing to the plunge in the value of the U.S. dollar.

At precisely the point in our history in which this nation has become ever more dependent on foreign producers for everything from clothing to computers to technology to energy, our weakened dollar is making the price of an ever-increasing number of imported goods even more expensive.

Open your ears a little wider.

• http://youtube.com/watch?v=GjZ_pVR1mbk
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=vpVgD2srqog

You’ll be excused for whatever parts of your body drop off at the sight of an American politician who isn’t a liar or a self-serving weasel.

“Keeping us here eats away at families,” the Georgia Republican told The Washington Post. Hoyer and the Democrats who will soon take control of the House, Kingston charged, “could care less about families – that’s what this says.”

Well, here’s what liberal blogger Nancy Greggs had to say in response:

Representative Jack Kingston
2242 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Sir:

Having read your quote of last week in response to the announcement that under the newly elected Democratic majority, you will be working a five-day week as opposed to your traditional three-day workweek, I have to say that I truly commiserate with your desire to spend more valuable time with your family.

As you so graciously put it, “Keeping us up here eats away at families,” and who could possibly argue with that statement?

When one thinks about all of the people who will not be spending time with their families, especially as the holidays draw near, it is a truly depressing state of affairs.

There are those who, thanks to your support of this president and his policies, will be missing family members who they will never see again, because they died in Iraq fighting for that Noble Cause we’ve heard so much about. I’m sure that many of them would be willing to work 12-hour workdays, without a single day off for the rest of their lives, if they could spend one day, or even one hour, with their child, their spouse, their best friend who is no more.

There are those from New Orleans who will not be spending any time at home with their families, because their homes no longer exist. They were destroyed while you and your colleagues did nothing, and still stand in ruins in a city that waited for assistance that never came.

There are those who cannot spend time with their families because they now have to work two jobs, sometimes three, in order to make ends meet, while your party supported the outsourcing of the one good-paying job they used to hold.

There are those who cannot see distant relatives as frequently as they used to, because the price of gas has made driving long distances unaffordable, in spite of the tax breaks you supported for the oil companies and their record-breaking profits.

There are others who cannot afford to travel because they are paying for the prescription drugs their elderly parents need to survive – drugs on which, due to your party’s endorsement, pharmaceutical companies reap enormous profits without having to offer any discounts to those in dire need.

And sadly, there are those whose families were scattered when they fell below the poverty level under your party’s rule, families that can no longer afford to stay together under one roof – unless it is the roof of a cardboard box on a street corner, or the roof of an abandoned car.

Yes, there is nothing more important than being able to spend more time with one’s family – especially someone like yourself, who has worked so tirelessly for the good of your constituents, and for our nation as a whole.

One can only imagine how exhausting it has been to spend three days per week rubber-stamping Bush’s every whim, trying to act busy when you are supposed to be exercising oversight and are instead doing nothing, staying ever-vigilant about your colleagues lest you get caught up in the corruption that seems to be rampant among Republican elected officials these days.

No one would dispute the fact that bearing such a heavy workload for three days out of every seven would require long periods of relaxation with your family.

I would strongly suggest that if the Democrats are going to insist on a full workweek for the paltry $165,200 they pay you (plus benefits, pension and perks), perhaps you should just hand in your resignation now. I have no doubt that a hard-working American like yourself will have no trouble finding more reasonable employment in the booming economy that you and your party have worked so hard to create.

In closing, I would be remiss if I did not mention your statement that “the Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”

Well, that’s the Democrats for you, and you should have seen it coming. They are just too focused on making things better for all American families to devote their time exclusively to you and your family. What a bunch of uncaring, unpatriotic bastards.

I sincerely wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year, and hope I have not ruined your family togetherness by reminding you that your family is not the only family in the country experiencing rough times.

Yours with all the respect you rightfully deserve,
Nancy Greggs

Visit Nance Rants for the aftermath and all.