Here was my attempt, with mike-cote’s stubborn response:

Not just the GOP

It’s true that it’s been GOP people like Michelle Bachmann who have raised a paranoid alarm about Muslim infiltration into government, etc, but their worries are backed up and eagerly agreed to by Democrats who call social conservatives the “American Taliban” and say that opposition to gay marriage is a form of sharia law. It’s Libertarians in both parties who fan the flames of anti-Muslim hatred.

dont-get-cute @ Mon 6 Aug 2:13 PM

Pathetically Wrong

Show a single news report of someone being killed for being hetero or being opposed to marriage equality. There are none, but without even trying there a dozens of stories of gay men and women and people just perceived as gay that are attached all the time in America, and your pathetic need to play “The Victim” at anything even close to that is laughable. No body likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll eat some worms…

mike_cote @ Mon 6 Aug 2:30 PM
Reply

Well, it took a couple weeks, but now I can show you a single news report of someone trying to kill people for being opposed to marriage equality, or as the deranged individual said, their “politics” in general. I’m sure you’ve seen the story, in spite of it not being discussed on this blog so far, so I won’t participate in your charade by blockquoting any of the details. I know you all know all about it. The only reference to “Family Research Council” I saw recently was tudor586 writing about the “kiss-in” at the Chick-Fil-A in Burlington, which as he proudly notes, got lots of coverage:

The American Family Association (“AFA”) and the Family Research Council, both Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate groups, also receive Chick-Fil-A dollars and have close ties to those calling for the execution of gay people in Africa. The AFA advocates imprisonment of gay people who engage in “sodomy” in the United States.

Coverage of the kiss-in in Burlington has been extensive.

You guys seem to be in deep denial about this incident and your culpability and irresponsibility. I think it should be an occasion for serious reflection, and not shameful doubling down. I hope BMG commenters won’t degrade themselves with stupid comments such as one I found at the story above: “Those who perpetuate hate through bigotry, homophobia and racism are responsible when retaliation comes there way.” That is a really scary sentiment that needs to be repudiated by responsible people on the left, who really need to ratchet down the rhetoric and stop putting marriage equality and post-genderism ahead of every other priority.

As long as they keep putting new pop stars on the cover of the magazine, no one will believe that we really need to pay attention to the boring article about numbers and politics. No one will think we really need to make changes to our lifestyle and culture and values. As long as the left is more worked up about Chick-fil-A than they are about AGW, no one will think global warming is more important than a gay wedding, which isn’t really very important in the scheme of things, now is it? But as long as the Left is so tied up in blatant contradiction about what matters, then the Right can feel justified fueling up their powerboats and running their air conditioners as much as they want. These aren’t unrelated things, gay literally means “carefree” and gay culture is notoriously consumption-oriented (maybe there are more green vegan gays and lesbians these days than there used to be, but the image is still more Queer Eye For The Straight Guy and disco and decadence than farming and walking instead of hailing a taxi.)

Another way AGW and SSM are related is the Koch Brothers and other big Libertarian PACs. The people supporting gay marriage on the left need to think about why they are in the same bed as the Koch Brothers and danfromwaltham and Eric Dondero. That’s a lot of gross dudes in your bed.

If we are serious about global warming, we have to prove it by making some major political concessions and lifestyle concessions, before expecting anyone who doesn’t even care about Global Warming to make any.

People were up in arms against McCain about how his plan would “tax healthcare” because it would treat employer health insurance contributions as taxable income, which they totally are.

But we can see now that McCain’s plan was way more honest about calling a tax a tax, and then spending to provide for the general welfare, by giving everyone a refundable tax credit to use with a regulated insurer on the national market, to buy as much insurance as they wanted, from a minimum level of treating common diseases and injuries at an ethical standard of care, without subsidizing abortion or contraception or sex change operations, to choosing a Cadillac plan with expectations of extraordinary care like organ transplants, aromatherapy, gym membership, and discretionary non-medical benefits like sex change surgery, contraception, pregnancy care, and other things only some people want and other people think should not be subsidized or even allowed.

McCain’s plan also would have smoothly moved people to individual plans and allowed businesses to drop coverage and focus on their business, without screwing over their workers, who would all smoothly transition to individual plans for no cost. Warren knows that businesses are burdened by the present system, that was the main reason she advocated for Single Payer. But McCain’s plan accomplishes that without mandating coverage or moving to single payer, just by offering these individual plans to everyone free of charge and automatically.

McCain should re-introduce his bill, he’s still a Senator. His bill was and is better, less coercive and offensive and expensive. Maybe Palin will pick him to be her running mate.

The two recipes, “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat” and “Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing,” appear in an article titled “Cold Omelets with Crab Meat,” written by Pierre Franey of the New York Times News Service that was published in the August 22, 1979 edition of the Virgin Islands Daily News, a copy of which can be seen here.

Ms. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing is a word-for-word copy of Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe.

Mrs. Warren’s 1984 recipe for Cold Omelets with Crab Meat contains all four of the ingredients listed in Mr. Franey’s 1979 recipe in the exact same portion but lists five additional ingredients. More significantly, her instructions are virtually a word for word copy of Mr. Franey’s instructions from this 1979 article. Both instructions specify the use of a “seven inch Teflon pan.” The 1984 Pow Wow Chow recipe reads:

File under “Plagiarism.”

UPDATE: Rob Eno beat me to this story at RedMassGroup, and also reported that that Howie Carr was the original source. I quickly posted this very similar diary about it here, using Rob’s RedMassGroup diary as a template. But I carefully changed at least 1/32 of it to make it my original work, though I am proud of its RedMassGroup Acadian heritage, and if anyone is questioning my qualifications, then, uh, well as Shaq says, don’t worry about it. It’s a space-time thing that Stephen Hawking can’t explain. Soon it will be the subject of a major motion picture and you won’t have to read or think too much.

But today, they had a giant front page story accompanied by a picture that looks more like a violent melee than the joyful celebration is actually is, and in which you can barely discern that Ward is black and handsome and the hero, accompanied by the headline “A SEASON ENDING GOAL SPURS A BARRAGE OF HATE.” Apparently they want black youth to feel that hockey is still off-limits to them, and hockey fans are racists. Posts on Twitter do not need to be front page news, anyone can say dumb things on Twitter and they do, especially after emotionally devastating season-ending games. But posts on Twitter can become news when the news wants to exploit racism to “rekindle discussion” and goad everyone into “re-establish their conviction that racism has no place in sports, civic life, or for that matter social media.” They end their editorial by saying that “neither the Bruins, the league, or the city of Boston have anything to apologize for’ but I think the Globe has something to apologize for. They should have shown Joel Ward’s joyful smile as he was embraced by his teammates on the front page yesterday, and taken the opportunity to inspire people and uplift people, and ignored the ugliness that no one would have noticed on Twitter.

Colleges are now exposed as evil corporations, overpaying their CEOs and star faculty, underpaying their actual workers, and overcharging their customers and the government, and blatantly misrepresenting the cost and value of their diplomas, and they pay no taxes, not even a property tax. Screw them!

A nice steep progressive tax on tuition would curb the trend of ever-rising tuition costs, and take the money from the schools, not the taxpayers. Yes, the increased cost of the tax would cause people to either pay it if they could, or choose a cheaper school, but soon I think the tax would eventually be absorbed by the schools, who would immediately have to lower their tuition rates to continue to attract students, and so they would have to cut salaries and research programs and new building projects and land grabs.

Ooh, and we should grab back some of that land, just to sell it to developers to make money, as per Kelo. We know where the money is, we can see all the new expensive buildings going up and see the Lexuses and BMW’s at the end of long perfectly manicured Cambridge driveways, we hear about needless research and programs they spend money on. If there is going to be a bail-out of student debt, and there should be, it should not be paid by the tax payers, it should be paid by the schools.

The Sex-Friendly Case Against Free Birth Control
By Conor Friedersdorf

Mar 13 2012, 10:30 AM ET 44

Its free provision privileges the pleasure-seeking of a cultural majority — but does nothing for cultural minorities, including gays and lesbians.

[snip]

We’re now in the last stages of a transition to a health care system where what’s covered by health insurance isn’t a matter of what policy an individual chooses to buy, or the deal he or she strikes at work, or even what health care costs are most suited to being covered through risk pools. Nowadays, what’s included in health “insurance” is a matter of what our polity, through its elected representatives, bureaucrats accountable to them, and judges who aren’t, decide that we ought to provide to all citizens. We’ve moved from coverage dictated by what markets will bear to coverage dictated by the sorts of inevitably redistributionist policies that a legislative majority regards as just. It’s gotten increasingly contentious because our values are increasingly implicated, something progressives sometimes try to elide by saying that something is “just part of health care,” [mr-lynne-"That's life"] a phrase that now effectively means “part of a system in which everyone is forced to participate, and that makes contestable judgments about what ought to be included.” We’ve blurred what is an insurance benefit and what is a subsidy or entitlement, for participating in a risk pool with our fellow citizens will no longer be a voluntary decision, thanks to Obama’s reforms.

[snip]

Once birth control for the poor is covered, I wonder why so many on the left either don’t recognize or don’t object to the redistributive consequences of pooling contraceptive costs among everyone else, even people who could afford them on their own. Compared to a system that just took care of the poor (or even to a system that included only the cheapest kind of birth control), here is a more detailed but by no means complete look at the winners and losers:

- Those who are sexually active, especially over long periods, benefit at the expense of those who aren’t, whether by choice or for lack of opportunity. This sure seems non-materially regressive.

- A wealthy man who holds assets in common with his wife benefits as the cost of their household birth control prescription is reduced, even as an unmarried, working class woman who wants to wait until marriage to have sex belongs to the risk pool that is defraying their costs.

- The fertile, who benefit at the expense of the infertile.

- Folks in their child-bearing years, who benefit at the expense of younger and older people.

- Those engaged in recreational sex, or who are trying to avoid pregnancy, who benefit at the expense of those trying to have kids.

- Folks who use expensive forms of contraceptive, who benefit at the expense of folks who rely on condoms or natural family planning.

- Straight people, who benefit at the expense of gays and lesbians, who have no use for birth control.

When it comes to marriage or gender-neutral bathrooms or transsexual rights, progressives are careful to insist that cultural majorities shouldn’t impose their heteronormative standards on society, but when it comes to the birth control debate, they’ve been quick to exploit the ways in which their preferences are shared by a cultural majority. They understand that frequently engaging in non-procreative, heterosexual sex while using prescription birth control is widespread.

As they see it, the existence of that cultural norm is an argument in favor of a subsidy for the cultural majority. Never mind that there are Americans who don’t value non-procreative sex, or who don’t value it as highly as some other fulfilling pursuit, whether surfing or Gregorian chants or yoga or hunting. As Amanda Marcotte argued, the straight, secular relationship to sex is “normal.” But why should the sexually “abnormal” (minority groups like gays and lesbians, asexuals, people who never manage to attract very many sexual partners, people who just care about sex relatively less than the average person, or care about other goods much more) have less with which to pursue what they value due to public policy that disadvantages their preferences?

Surely we can conceive of a woman assessing a year’s income, whether at age 18 or 24 or 35 or 44, and deciding that among her $27,000 or $35,000 or $64,000 or $102,000, the fraction that she could spend on birth control in the coming year would be better applied to a Hawaiian vacation, or a charitable donation, or a new dog, or a retirement investment, or a meditation class, or higher status as a Scientologist. Once you decide that society is going to mandate that something is universally available, even those who partake in the benefit lose the ability to opt out and spend their own share of resources in a way that suits them better, if only temporarily.

They can forgo the benefit, but will still need to pay the cost.

Those are excellent points about the “cultural majority” having their way over the rest of us. People who think the poor should have access to free contraceptives ought to be able to contribute to a charity that pays for poor people, without forcing everyone else to support it too. It seems like the point is forcing us to capitulate and lose to them, like it’s a punitive fine for being opposed to progressive feminism.

OK, that sets the stage. Now, should this pill be legal? Remember it has side effects that make people more paternalistic and sexist, so it isn’t just something you can let other people take. When other people take it, it marginalizes those who believe people should be more liberal about sex and homosexuality. So there will be some radical feminists and gays who think the pill shouldn’t even be legal. But most people will think we should let people control their own body, so it should be legal. Now the analogy comes, should those people be forced to pay for it, so that those who want to be straight and very paternalistic get it for free? What if it was only about $10 or $20 a month, and there were already lots of places that helped poor people afford their straight pills? Doesn’t that make it even more offensive to force feminists and gays to pay for a pill which goes against everything they believe? Shouldn’t they be allowed to at least opt-out of having to pay for a pill which offends them and that they think is bad for society?

He delighted right-wing supporters by replacing a graduated state income tax with a flat tax.”

Can someone explain to me why Massachusetts delights right-wing supporters by having a flat tax? It’s the highest rate of seven states with a flat tax. How come we don’t have a progressive tax here in Massachusetts? Have we ever?

Yes, there was a ballot question few months ago that got rid of the sales tax on alcohol, but ballot questions are not sacred, they aren’t immediately enshrined in the Constitution. The law they enact can be changed or replaced or repealed, just like any other law. But they should command a lot less respect than a law passed by the legislature, because voters are self-interested morons who can’t be expected to take a long view or a responsible view of anything. Heck, they’d vote Yes for Free Beer if that was a ballot question. Well, I guess it’s true we voted against lowering the sales tax to 3%, but that was somewhat miraculous, a result of fear tactics and over-reaching that reinforced the fear tactics. Usually we just vote for things that we think we want and would benefit us, like getting rid of the sales tax on alcohol.

Judges sharply challenge healthcare law
Skeptical questions from three federal judges in Atlanta suggest they may be ready to declare unconstitutional all or part of the healthcare law promoted by the Obama administration and passed last year by Congress.

Question: if this case results in the court saying that government can not force people to purchase health insurance, does that mean Massachusetts mandated insurance would be struck down at the same time? If the federal gov’t can’t force us to buy something, then state gov’t can’t either, right?

“They think if they’ve got a sore knee they’re entitled to having it replaced,” he said. “I think surgeons are overdoing it too, to try to meet that expectation.”

Dr. Ronald Hillock, an orthopedic surgeon in a large practice in Las Vegas that does about 4,000 joint replacements a year, sees the demand from patients.

“People come in and say `this is what I want, this is what I need,’” he said. “They could buy a cane or wear a brace,” but most want a surgical fix.

The numbers tell the story. There were 288,471 total hip replacements in 2009, nearly half of them in people under 65, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which tracks hospitalizations.

Knee replacements soared from 264,311 in 1997 to 621,029 in 2009, and more than tripled in the 45-to-64-year-old age group.

The hard questions: Do we make the elderly pay for all the 45 year olds knee replacements because they want to keep playing tennis? I have no problem saying that a poor child with an ear infection is entitled to our collective care, no one should go deaf because their parents can’t afford to take them to a doctor. And I have no problem saying that no one is entitled to knee replacement surgery. Instead of subsidizing knee replacements, I think we should tax the heck out of them, they should pay extra for diverting the medical resources toward their own private benefit. Rich people will always be able to afford knee replacements, and they’re entitled to spend their own money on them, but the rest of us shouldn’t have to subsidize them. They should subsidize everybody else.

Perhaps there could be companies that offer loans to pay for joint replacement surgeries, or people could purchase private insurance plans that cover joint replacement after ten years paying for the plan (obviously they couldn’t just wait until they need the surgery). But I don’t think we all should have to pay for everyone to become cyborgs with artificial joints all throughout our bodies. It’s not hard to draw lines between basic health care that we should expect to be entitled to, and stuff that they do on Star Trek.

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will vote for Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) controversial budget plan, he’s not out whipping other members to join him and he’s not even saying whether he supports all of its provisions.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring Ryan’s plan — which would substantially alter Medicare benefits — to the floor next week, forcing Republicans to take a position on the measure. McConnell, for his part, plans to force a vote on the budget that President Obama submitted in February.

“What I’ve said to our members is we’re not going to be able to coalesce behind just one [plan],” McConnell said in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” He pointed out that both Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have budget plans of their own that some members of Congress may want to support.

“Candidly, Chris, none of these budgets are going to become law,” McConnell admitted.

So it seems our young freshman Senator has an instinct for the right thing to say after all, and isn’t talking out of line or making rookie mistakes. In fact, he’s leading the leader.

Also, it’s nice to be reminded that it’s Harry Reid bringing Ryan’s budget to the floor. He’s the one making a show and wasting time, the Republicans want to get moving on the real budget talks.

When you fall on your bike,  insurance should cover the elbow x-ray, but I wouldn’t expect it to cover any costs if the guy is caught on camera trying to jump over a giant sand dune.

Do they have to pay extra?

Huffington Post in mourning over death of scholar

The Senate Government Reform Committee passed House Bill 2177 on Wednesday, and the House Government Committee passed a nearly identical Senate Bill 1157 on Tuesday…

The bills now each go to a vote of their full chambers…

The bills would require political candidates at all levels of government to show proof of citizenship in order to run.

It would require presidential candidates to give the secretary of State proof that he or she is a natural-born citizen.

The Senate version of the bill includes wording that some lawmakers said defined natural-born citizens as children whose parents were citizens at the time of the candidate’s birth.

That wording was eliminated from the House version.

Cristina Alarcon | Monday, 15 November 2010

An ecological blind spot

Contraceptives are polluting women’s bodies and the environment, but who cares?

There is a huge effort today to protect the physical environment from the unintended effects of human activity. We have international agreements and national policies to reduce global warming by curbing excess carbon, produced as human beings pursue their material wellbeing.

On a smaller scale, we each do our best to turn off the taps, turn down the lights, use public transport, cut down on the fumes, recycle, recycle, and definitely not flush any medicines down the sink – especially not the brain-altering or endocrine-disrupting kind. Yes, we are constantly seeking ways to reduce air and water pollution, and in Canada, the Environment Act even allows citizens to bring civil action when the government is not enforcing environmental laws.

But in spite of all our efforts, there are tell-tale signs that a particular type of pollutant, the endocrine disruptor, is wreaking havoc on our ecosystems. And as the world’s rivers are in a crisis of ominous proportions, we are witnessing the alarming effects wrought by estrogenic substances on aquatic life. Feminized male fish that lay eggs and/or have lost their reproductive abilities have been found near waste water effluent areas.

There are also growing concerns about damage to the human body from pollutants, although there appear to be no human data on long-term effects from this exposure. Not reassuringly, the World Health Organization reports that there are still many unknowns.

In an effort to curb pollution, Canada has recently declared bisphenol A a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act — a great victory for environmentalists, and a huge relief for Canadians, as exposed rodents have shown signs of neurological and behavioural developmental problems.

Used in the making of clear, hard plastics, as well as food can liners, BPA is known as the “gender bending chemical”. Even trace amounts found on some shopping receipts may contribute to impotence of male shoppers — while boosting Viagra sales — if they touch their mouths or handle food.

The endocrine disruptor has also been linked to low sex drive and DNA damage in sperm; it may disrupt female reproductive systems, and contribute to development of cancers and metabolic diseases. Its status is currently under review in Europe and the US.

But why are environmental crusaders hounding plastic manufacturers and the canned foods industry while ignoring the most obvious culprit: pharmaceuticals in our water supply? Not just what is dumped by manufacturers or consumers, but more importantly, what is flushed down the toilet after human consumption.

The fact remains that over the past 50 years countless millions of women have ingested synthetic hormones — great endocrine disruptors — to prevent conception, and excreted the waste product.

This is affirmed in a peer-reviewed paper by Alan D. Pickering of the Natural Environment Research Council, and John D Sumpter of Brunel University, who highlight that although some of the endocrine-disruptors are industrial chemicals, it seems clear that the most pervasive estrogens in the aquatic environment are steroids derived from human excretion. They readily admit that although, theoretically, the pill could be controlled at source, “the social implications of this would be totally unacceptable”. Meanwhile, whether the pharmaceutical industry could develop “an effective but environmentally less persistent alternative…remains an open question.”

Oh really? What makes hormonal contraception sacrosanct among other pollutants? Is it that there is absolutely no better way to guarantee women’s “reproductive choice”? Or is there, behind that slogan, an attitude to the female body that is out of sync with ecological thinking and, if the truth be told, not concerned with real choices for women at all.

Think about it: if estrogenic contaminants aren’t good enough for rodents or fish, why would women consume them? After all, women themselves suffer ill effects of hormonal contraceptives which are gradually being revealed, even as blogosphere chat rooms are increasingly flooded with expressions of personal malaise.

How many women know that in 2005 the World Health Organisation classified the contraceptive pill as a Group I carcinogen because of proven links with breast and some other cancers? Do they know that sex hormones can compromise the immune system?

How about recent findings that show the Pill may skew the biological cues that help a woman choose a compatible mate? (Imagine getting off the Pill only to wake up one day and realize you are lying next to a man you loathe!) Again, German researchers have linked the Pill to female sexual dysfunction, and neurologists are concerned the progestin component may be affecting our ability to think. Alzheimer’s anyone?

Actually, this gambling with women’s wellbeing goes back to the beginnings of the pill in the 1950s when American scientists took advantage of poor Puerto Rican women, not informing them that they were being corralled into a medical experiment with potentially dangerous side effects. It has continued through the Depo Provera controversy to the recent Ortho Evra patch fiasco.

Yet, even as lawsuits over Evra are quietly settled in both the US and Canada — the British Columbia government is suing to recover past and future health care costs for damages inflicted on women — as NBC reports, the millions paid out to victims is peanuts compared to the billions on profit sales.

How come after 50 years of militant feminism and environmentalism that nobody cares about the ecology of women’s bodies and the integrity of their person? How much longer will women agree to be guinea pigs “for the sake of the planet” — or for the sake of Big Pharma’s profits?

And what may turn the tide? The threat of impotence and sterility among the male population?

If the driving force of contraception really is choice for women — and not just social control of fertility — there is an alternative, just as there are alternatives to plastics and cans, oil and coal if we really want to find them. In fact, we don’t even have to look for a healthy method of family planning; it already exists.

Fertility awareness, or natural family planning, has been shown in scientific studies to be a highly effective method when couples are properly instructed and use the method consistently — as is the case with hormonal and other methods.

It does require a change in lifestyle, but the biggest barrier to change now lies with healthcare professionals, most of whom just don’t know enough about it, as a recent study co-authored by Dr. Ellen Wiebe at the Dept of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia clearly shows. In fact, most physicians underestimate the effectiveness of NFP, and only a small proportion of them provide information on this healthier option.

In a world increasingly preoccupied with conserving nature and singing the virtues of naturalness, this is an anomaly, to say the least. To continue along the path of promoting risky and polluting contraceptives while ignoring a wholesome alternative would look very like an ideological or commercial commitment, and nothing to do with women’s reproductive health at all. Or care for the planet, for that matter.

Cristina Alarcon is a Vancouver pharmacist and writer. She holds a Masters in Bioethics.

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“Just because we’re on an airplane doesn’t mean we change the way we do business! Just send me an email.”

“OK”

“Oh, another email from that suckup Brian about the shareholder’s meeting.  Watch this – delete!”

“uh..”

The legislature and Gov Patrick should show some adult authority and:

1) Restore the sales tax on alcohol.  They could remove the excise tax to avoid the complaint of it being a “double tax”.  People paying 100 bucks for a bottle of wine obviously can afford a $5 tax.  An alcohol sales tax is one of the fairest ways to raise revenue since it is entirely avoidable and raises the most from people who can afford to pay the most.

2) Repeal 40B, which leads to terrible car-centric suburban developments.  We need a new plan for affordable housing based on local and sustainable and walkable communities.

3) Lower the sales tax to 5% and make some deep cuts to the budget, and push for a higher national gas tax (to return to each state’s general fund) and a uniform national sales tax that also covers internet sales and would also be returned to the buyer’s state.

But keep this secret!  Don’t tell the Republicans about our sneaky plan, or they’ll choose the higher sales taxes just to stick it to the environment.  They actually enjoy driving to New Hampshire, it gives them a feeling of independence and smartness, like they are in control of their lives and saving money.  Some of them might keep on doing it just for that 3%.  But most people will reduce their driving and start walking to local shops run by local people.

Rep. Alan Grayson

U.S. Congressman from Florida’s 8th District

Posted: September 6, 2010 12:26 PM

What Robert Kennedy Said

Today is Labor Day. All across America, millions of people are discovering that the best way to celebrate Labor Day is by not working.

Do you live to work, or do you work to live?

If you are married, look at your wedding album: Are there any pictures in there of you at work?

And on your tombstone, do you want it to say, “I wish that I could have spent more time at work”?

Here is what Robert Kennedy had to say about this, 42 years ago:

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product… if we should judge America by that — counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

When Kennedy said these words, the unemployment rate in America was 3.7%. Today, it is almost three times as high. Too many of our working brothers and sisters are out of work, thanks to more than a decade of economic mismanagement. 10% of us are unemployed, and the other 90% work like dogs to try to avoid joining them. Which is just what the bosses want.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I look forward to a Labor Day where every worker has a job, every worker has a pension, every worker has paid vacations, and every worker has the health care to enjoy life.

My opponents call that France. I call it America, an America that is Number One.

Not #1 in wasted military expenditures.

Not #1 in number of foreign countries occupied.

Number One in jobs. Number One in health. Number One in education. Number One in happiness.

As Robert Kennedy famously said, “I dream of things that never were, and ask, ‘Why not?’” Why not? Let’s make it happen.

And then all of us who are Americans, including the ones today who are jobless, homeless, sick and suffering, we all can then say, “I am proud to be an American.”

Are you with me?

Truth,

Alan Grayson

Also, it wouldn’t hurt to identify yourself in the comments.

But the Kochtopus has left arms too.  Just as they have injected Libertarianism (or anarcho-capitalism) into the Republican party, they have injected the very same Libertarianism into the Democratic party as well, often with the same front groups, and often with different ones.  The Cato Institute and Reason Magazine are both strong and influential advocates of gay marriage, stem cell research, reproductive freedom, secularism, and other causes that people probably didn’t realize had anything to do with right wing capitalism.

They are masters of infiltrating movements and turning them into Libertarian movements, even groups that might be at odds about important issues find their messages bent into mere fundraising calls, and their efforts reduced to increasing libertarian influence in both parties.  The left needs to reject Libertarian spies just as much as the right.  

On the evening of August 29 Bill McKibben will talk about his new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

In his book, McKibben calls for communities to act together in ways that best work for their own circumstances and to support small farms, as one of the many ways of adapting to life on our changed planet.

…

Please mark your calendar now and plan to bring your friends and family to hear McKibben talk at Lexington’s Cary Hall on Sunday, August 29, 7:30pm.  Details are here.

The talk is sponsored by the Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition and the Lexington Community Farm Coalition (sorry, not by the Arlington First Parish Church as I wrote before, I misinterpreted the above announcement in their newsletter).  Come hear Bill McKibben speak and to thank him for writing the book and founding 350.org.  Ride your bike!

Eaarth is a devestating and heartbreaking read, to realize how wrong and bad we’ve been, and how bleak the future is for everyone on the planet.  But the second half of the book, which I’ve just entered, is about how we can survive and possibly even flourish (by “we” I mean us, literally me and stomv and David and Peter Porcupine, not our grandchildren.)

Has anyone else read “eaarth” yet?  I will gladly buy you a copy if you meet me in Harvard Square sometime.

Boston is one of only seven communities nationally to get stimulus money for battling both obesity and tobacco use. Of the city’s $12.5 million in grants, the Food Project is getting $600,000 to renovate a deserted greenhouse in Roxbury and build 400 backyard gardens in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, the neighborhoods with the highest obesity rates in Boston.

The rest of the two-year federal grant will support a variety of initiatives, ranging from expanding bike share programs to reducing soda consumption and limiting tobacco access. In the process, the city expects to create up to 50 temporary full-time jobs and 250 summer positions for local youth.

“We like to think of the first lady, Michelle Obama, as now the most famous vegetable gardener in the country, but you all are a close second,” said Sebelius of Boston’s work supporting local and sustainable food sources. “It really is us learning from you a model that we can take and replicate around the country.”

Sebelius said obesity and tobacco use, as leading causes of chronic disease nationally, contribute to rising health care costs. Today, 75 cents of every dollar spent on health care goes toward treating chronic diseases, she said.

The grants will also have an impact on a local level, especially on those living in neighborhoods with limited access to full-service grocery stores, said Margaret Williams, the Food Project’s executive director. Each of the 400 backyard gardens that will be built, for example, can provide a family of four with all of its vegetable needs during the summer.

For David Hicks, 18, this is his third summer working as an intern for the Food Project. This year, he is spending about 40 hours a week working on a farm in his hometown of Lynn, where he also goes to farmers markets to sell the peas, squash, kale, tomatoes, peaches, radishes, and raspberries he helped cultivate.

“When they told me I was farming, I was like, farming where?” he said. “I didn’t think there were any farms around in the city, but there are a bunch of them, actually.”

This season, 140 teenagers are working on the more than 40 acres of farm land in eastern Massachusetts overseen by the Food Project.

“We’re just lucky that officials a century ago planned for this and made the necessary investments,” she said, pointing out that nine years ago, the city spent about $80 million to build a new treatment plant that filters 14 million gallons of water every day.

But it occurred to me that lots of people probably are feeling that way, so maybe we’d be willing to pay our fair share of the cost of our selfish and foolish consumption through a surcharge on ticket sales to televised sporting events and television advertising.  I think a 10% tax on all those makes sense, and though the ticket tax would come out of people’s pockets for the first few years, eventually it would work its way down into the teams cost, I think salaries would go down to bring the price back down.  And a tax on advertising would wind up being paid by corporations cutting the amount they spend on making the ads.

So that’s the proposal: an immediate, permanent 10% tax on tickets for major sporting events, and a 10% tax on television advertising.

In court on Tuesday, Corona did not enter a plea, but vowed to fight the constitutionality of the charge.

“One of the reasons you don’t see this charge more often is that the law in New York State requires that there must be corroboration,” Genesee County District Attorney Larry Friedman told the Daily News.

Because the alleged act took place in a public park, in full view of several witnesses as well as the cops who responded, there was “no basis not the file the charge,” Friedman said.

Wow, who knew that was possible?  Three cheers for the cops for adding that charge.

Responding to the massive BP oil spill, Congress is getting ready to quadruple-to 32 cents a barrel-a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade.

The tax is levied on oil produced in the U.S. or imported from foreign countries. The revenue goes to a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help pay to clean up spills in waterways, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

A barrel is 55 gallons, isn’t it?  Perhaps less after refining, but still, a tax of only 32 cents a barrel is surely only about 1 or 2 cents a gallon at the pump, maybe 25 cents a fill-up, and people are objecting to that much of an increase?  Unbefreakinglievable!

I say increase the tax ten-fold, so that a gallon of gas costs $5 and a plastic Happy Meals toy makes people consider going to a real restaurant instead.