President Obama has announced 15 recess appointments in an attempt to get a fully functioning government in the face of unrelenting Republican obstructionism. This is 15 out of 74 that have been blocked ...
“A profound songwriter and expressive singer, San Franciscan Kathy Kallick is a mountain gal at heart. Her singing has always been earthy and passionate. As a songwriter, she knows how to pen beautiful impressionistic pieces with memorable contemporary messages. A troubadour and exquisite storyteller, (her) arrangements are tightly crafted, with each song given its own non-formulaic treatment.”
—Joe Ross, BLUEGRASS NOW
Kathy Kallick and the band perform her song "Wildflowers" at the grand opening of the new Freight and Salvage Coffee House in Berkeley. The band members from left to right are: Annie Staninec, Tom Bekeny, Kathy, Dan Booth and Greg Booth.
From 'Aly Meets The Cajuns' 1988 UK documentary
(james taylor, steve winwood sheryl crow, levon helm, emmylou harris & jacob dylan)
Craft beers, loosely defined as local brews produced by traditional methods, reflect not just specifics of their regions but offer a peek into the psyches of their creators as well. Like any label, those on craft beers bear a brand name and product information and meet the legal requirements of state and federal law.
But the estimated 1,500 craft brewers in the U.S., who sold slightly more than 4 million barrels of beer in the first half of 2009, are an intensely independent lot. Having broken from the conformity of so-called macro-brews, like Coors or Miller or Budweiser, microbrewers naturally take the next step and produce labels as quaint and curious and quirky as the liquid in the bottles.
Some of the stories beer labels tell turn out to be a bit too provocative for the authorities who oversee the industry.
Nude Beach Summer Wheat Beer, produced by Stevens Point Brewery Co. in Wisconsin, was banned for the mere suggestion that the sunbathers on the bright and playful label were, well, naked behind those strategically placed surfboards and volleyballs.
State liquor authorities in Maine and New York banned the import of Santa's Butt Winter Porter, a seasonal beer that made a visual pun out of a portly Santa seated on a wooden beer keg — known in the industry as a "butt."
And here in California, Weed Beer, brewed in the tiny town of Weed, came under fire for its bottle cap, which jokingly urged shoppers to "Try Legal Weed." (They also offer "Shastafarian Porter" - G)
PHOENIX — John McCain and Sarah Palin will be back on the campaign trail Friday, their first time campaigning together since McCain lost the presidential election a year and a half ago with Palin as his running mate.
Poll: Majority Favor Earlier Bedtime for McCain
I admit it: I had fun watching right-wingers go wild as health reform finally became law. But a few days later, it doesn’t seem quite as entertaining — and not just because of the wave of vandalism and threats aimed at Democratic lawmakers. For if you care about America’s future, you can’t be happy as extremists take full control of one of our two great political parties.
To be sure, it was enjoyable watching Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican of California, warn that by passing health reform, Democrats “will finally lay the cornerstone of their socialist utopia on the backs of the American people.” Gosh, that sounds uncomfortable. And it’s been a hoot watching Mitt Romney squirm as he tries to distance himself from a plan that, as he knows full well, is nearly identical to the reform he himself pushed through as governor of Massachusetts. His best shot was declaring that enacting reform was an “unconscionable abuse of power,” a “historic usurpation of the legislative process” — presumably because the legislative process isn’t supposed to include things like “votes” in which the majority prevails.
A side observation: one Republican talking point has been that Democrats had no right to pass a bill facing overwhelming public disapproval. As it happens, the Constitution says nothing about opinion polls trumping the right and duty of elected officials to make decisions based on what they perceive as the merits. But in any case, the message from the polls is much more ambiguous than opponents of reform claim: While many Americans disapprove of Obamacare, a significant number do so because they feel that it doesn’t go far enough. And a Gallup poll taken after health reform’s enactment showed the public, by a modest but significant margin, seeming pleased that it passed.
For today’s G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the party of Ronald Reagan — not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the antigovernment fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy American freedom. It’s a party that sees modest efforts to improve Americans’ economic and health security not merely as unwise, but as monstrous. It’s a party in which paranoid fantasies about the other side — Obama is a socialist, Democrats have totalitarian ambitions — are mainstream. And, as a result, it’s a party that fundamentally doesn’t accept anyone else’s right to govern.
In the short run, Republican extremism may be good for Democrats, to the extent that it prompts a voter backlash. But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t.
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Personally, if this is the tact the GOP is going to take in its insatiable hunger to regain power, I'm all for it. Nothing like positioning yourselves as crybaby, sore-losing, self-serving obstructionist do-nothings hellbent on selling your souls, and the nation's best interests, in order to win a few House and Senate seats. So much for McCain's "country first" campaign promise. As we've seen this week, what truly comes first is the coffers of their fatcat corporate special-interest pals and the personal bank accounts of their rich, tax-loathing constituency. Fuck the poor, the middle class, the sick, the needy, the uninsured. I got mine, now go get yours. At least we know what matters most to these selfish elitists.
Last July Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) arrogantly predicted that health care reform would fail and become Obama's "Waterloo" and that "it will break him." With this week's victory and the political capital its bestowed on the president, even conservatives like American Enterprise Institute fellow David Frum fear that Republicans have not just blown an unprecedented opportunity to help shape major policy, but also served to empower Obama, which is the exact opposite of what they aimed to accomplish. "The political imperative crowded out the policy imperative. And the Republicans have now lost both." He said Obama's health care victory is now the Republicans' Waterloo. "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat."
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I can hardly believe it, but apparently America's wife beaters have actually decided to use the defense that these Democrats are "asking for" death threats from the right wingers because they are "making them mad." I documented Sere and Cantor's warnings this morning, but there are more:
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TRIBECA (WABC) -- The coyote stalking the city was cornered in an outdoor parking lot in TriBeCa.
The coyote was spotted walking the bike path along the West Side Highway, south of the Holland Tunnel, just before 11 a.m.
Police were accompanying the coyote, which was walking in the bike path along Hudson River Park.
They followed the coyote into an outdoor parking lot, near Watts Street.
Members of the NYPD's elite Emergency Services Unit tranquilized the coyote and pulled it out from under a red car in the parking garage.
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There are songs about love, songs about loss and songs about love lost. There are plenty of songs about trucks and trains, moonlit nights and dogs, but most of those are still about love, loss and love lost.
Then there are a surprising number of songs - across all genres - about food.
Apparently, food is the balladeer's perfect muse. Food is life.
"It's sacramental, it's worship, it's celebration and it's human need," says Marsh. Which means it's often a metaphor for sex.
The two are inextricable, he says. "It's the sensuality and carnality of food that makes it a fitting topic."
The Texas Tornados surely had something other than dip on their minds when they sang about "making guacamole all night long."
Food and sex "are the quickest paths to the most dopamine," says Colin Brooks, a member of the Band of Heathens. [...]
But, while many food songs are about sex, sometimes a doughnut is just a doughnut.
Measure to legalize marijuana will be on California's November ballot
The measure's main advocate, Richard Lee, an Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, savored the chance to press his case with voters that the state's decades-old ban on marijuana is a failed policy.
"We're one step closer to ending cannabis prohibition and the unjust laws that lock people up for cannabis while alcohol is not only sold openly but advertised on television to kids every day," he said.
Possession of an ounce or less has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine since 1975, when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who was then governor, signed a law that reduced tough marijuana penalties that had allowed judges to impose 10-year sentences.
With polls showing that a slim majority of voters support legalization, the legalization campaign will be trying to appeal to a slice of undecided voters who are mostly mothers. "It's always easier for people to say no than to say yes for an initiative," said Mark Baldassare, the pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California.
SO what do I know about this issue? As the physician and City public health administrator tasked with the initial implementation of Proposition 215 (legalizing medical marijuana) - I learned a lot.
On the data side, I compiled every bit of published research about marijuana (positive and negative) from the previous thirty years, researching every conceivable symptom and/or adverse event. The results were published and widely cited. I also gave talks using this same information about the health implications (and the quality of the data to support or refute claims) to any group interested in hearing it.
So how'd that go? While giving the exact same talk, using the exact same slides, I received impulsive, giddy gifts from both a San Francisco medical marijuana club (an enameled marijuana pin - "finally, a physician willing to speak the truth about how safe marijuana is!") and from the Santa Clara police department (a navy-blue district attorney mug - "finally, a physician willing to tell the truth about how dangerous this drug is!"). I had simultaneously become the unwilling darling of both ends of the spectrum. I learned from this experience two things:
Correction: Earlier this week, the Rude Pundit erroneously called the Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph "staged." However, as several rude readers pointed out, the photographer says it was not, and all evidence points to that being the case. Either way, Glenn Beck is still a motherfucker.
Facebook 'linked to rise in syphilis'
Coyote in Holland Tunnel: Didn't Pay Toll
We're told that the NYPD's elite Emergency Services Unit has been called to the Manhattan side of the Holland Tunnel to chase down a coyote initially spotted in the tunnel.
According to the most recent report from the cops, the commuting coyote left the tunnel and was last seen on Varick Street. "It's an ongoing job right now," a police spokesman told us moment ago.
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