I just needed to tell someone what happened at the Chester County Ballet production of the Nutcracker. Yes, I know I live in rightwingville but did you know that the Nutcracker now has the songs “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful” in it?
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Upon seeing on the CSPAN that the nation's stupid Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy regarding gays in the military had been overturned on Saturday, the Rude Pundit celebrated in the old way: by inviting a bunch of queer soldiers from every branch (even the Coast Guard) over to Casa de Rude for tequila, ecstasy, and more blow jobs and fingering than in the parking lot of your high school after the junior prom. By the detritus left behind, he knew it had been quite the celebration, even if his only memories involve repeatedly hearing orgasmic cries of "Hoo-ah" and watching a lesbian couple slow dance as a third sang, "Off we go into the wild blue yonder." On Sunday morning, the Christmas tree was festooned with empty condom wrappers, the three wise men in the Nativity were positioned as if they were fucking the camels and donkeys, the nutcracker's mouth was stuck shut, the poinsettia was uprooted, and the pantsless Marine still asleep in the tub had mistletoe tied to rest just below his belly button. A splendid Yuletide festival, indeed.
Early in the morning on December 21 a total lunar eclipse will be visible to sky watchers across North America (for observers in western states the eclipse actually begins late in the evening of December 20), Greenland and Iceland.[...]
The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun.
"It's a ritual of transformation from darkness into light," says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto's Wiccan Church of Canada. "It's the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation.
"The idea that the sun and the moon are almost at their darkest at this point in time really only further goes to hammer that home."
A lunar eclipse taking place during the solstice is not an event Hawkins has seen in research, but he said it would have been viewed as something special.
"Eclipses could be taken either way," he said. "Certainly it would have been an omen, but it would have been up to the interpretation of specialists of whether it was good or bad."
Disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has left his job at a small kosher pizzeria in Baltimore after working there for nearly six months.
Pentagon Prepares for End of DADT
DADT Repeal Allows Gays Out of Closet, But McCain Stays In Cave Like Japanese WWII Holdouts
WE WON! Senate Joins House in Passing the Local Community Radio Act!
Today a bill to expand community radio nationwide – the Local Community Radio Act – passed the U.S. Senate, thanks to the bipartisan leadership of Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and John McCain (R-AZ)(He did something right? Holy shit! - G). This follows Friday afternoon’s passage of the bill in the House of Representatives, led by Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). The bill now awaits the President's signature.
The Local Community Radio Act will expand the low power FM (LPFM) service created by the FCC in 2000 – a service the FCC created to address the shrinking diversity of voices on the radio dial. Over 800 LPFM stations, all locally owned and non-commercial, are already on the air. The stations are run by non-profit organizations, local governments, churches, schools, and emergency responders.
The bill repeals earlier legislation which had been backed by big broadcasters, including the National Association of Broadcasters. This legislation, the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act of 2000, limited LPFM radio to primarily rural areas. The broadcast lobby groups claimed that the new 100 watt stations could somehow create interference with their own stations, a claim disproven by a Congressionally-mandated study in 2003.
When historians look back at 2008-10, what will puzzle them most, I believe, is the strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever.
The answer from the right is that the economic failures of the Obama administration show that big-government policies don’t work. But the response should be, what big-government policies?
President Obama, by contrast, has consistently tried to reach across the aisle by lending cover to right-wing myths. He has praised Reagan for restoring American dynamism (when was the last time you heard a Republican praising F.D.R.?), adopted G.O.P. rhetoric about the need for the government to tighten its belt even in the face of recession, offered symbolic freezes on spending and federal wages.
None of this stopped the right from denouncing him as a socialist. But it helped empower bad ideas, in ways that can do quite immediate harm. Right now Mr. Obama is hailing the tax-cut deal as a boost to the economy — but Republicans are already talking about spending cuts that would offset any positive effects from the deal. And how effectively can he oppose these demands, when he himself has embraced the rhetoric of belt-tightening?
Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it’s another to open the door to zombie ideas. When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain — and quite possibly your economy too.
JEEZ, can’t we all just get along? Can’t we be civilized? Can’t we reach across the aisle, find common ground and get things done? Can’t we have a new Morning in America as clubby and chipper as MSNBC’s daily gabfest, “Morning Joe”?
This is actually the manifesto of the new political organization called No Labels. It’s no surprise that its official debut last week prompted derisive laughter from all labels across the political spectrum, not to mention Gawker, which deemed it “the most boring political movement of all time.” But attention must be paid. In its patronizing desire to instruct us on what is wrong with our politics, No Labels ends up being a damning indictment of just how alarmingly out of touch the mainstream political-media elite remains with the grievances that have driven Americans to cynicism and despair in the 21st century’s Gilded Age.
The notion that civility and nominal bipartisanship would accomplish any of the heavy lifting required to rebuild America is childish magical thinking, and, worse, a mindless distraction from the real work before the nation. [...]
Beltway conventional wisdom is equally responsible for another myth promoted by No Labels: that the Move On left and the Tea Party right are equal contributors to America’s “hyperpartisanship.” In the real world, no one could seriously believe that activists on the left have the sway over Democratic leaders, starting with President Obama, that the Tea Party has over the G.O.P. Nor, with all due respect to MSNBC, does the left have a media megaphone to match the Tea Party’s alliance with the Murdoch empire, as led by Fox News, and the megastars of talk radio.
Besides, polls consistently show that hyperpartisanship is more prevalent among Republican voters than Democrats. [...]
Yet what’s most disturbing about No Labels is that its centrist, no doubt well-intentioned leaders seem utterly clueless about why Americans of all labels are angry: the realization that both parties are bought off by special interests who game the system and stack it against the rest of us. Indeed, No Labels itself is another manifestation of this syndrome. Its two prime movers are a political consultant, Mark McKinnon, a veteran of the Bush and McCain campaigns known for slick salesmanship; and a fund-raiser, Nancy Jacobson, who, along with her husband, the pollster and corporate flack Mark Penn, helped brand the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign as a depository for special-interest contributions.
WHAT America needs is not another political organization with a toothless agenda and less-than-transparent finances. The country will not rest easy until there are brave leaders in both parties willing to reform the system that let perpetrators of the Great Recession escape while the rest of us got stuck with the wreckage. [...]
As The Times reported, Citi is now marketing all-new lines of loosey-goosey credit cards to debt-prone Americans much as it stoked the proliferation of no-money-down mortgages during Rubin’s tenure in the housing bubble. It can do so with impunity, since the incoming chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Spencer Bachus, has already guaranteed institutions like Citi a pass. As Bachus’s instantly notorious pronouncement had it, “My view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”
In truth, this congressman’s view has been the prevailing view in Washington under both parties since the Reagan administration. If No Labels is the best our centrist political establishment can come up with to address the ills eating away at America, its culture is as bankrupt as Citigroup would be if taxpayers had been allowed to let it fail.
Congress Repeals “Don't Ask”
Passes “Don't Dream.”
Abu Dhabi Hotel Spends $11 Million Decorating Christmas Tree
Does nothing for Hanukkah.
Study: Fox News Has Most Misinformed Viewers
Least misinformed viewers: ScyFy Channel.
Latest Nixon Tapes Filled With Anti-Semitic, Anti-Black, Anti-Irish, Anti-Italian Remarks
And he didn't have very nice things to say about you, either.
A bill allowing openly gay people to serve in the military was approved by the U.S. Senate today, drawing cheers from gay and lesbian military veterans and other members and supporters of the LGBT community who gathered in San Francisco to watch the vote.
The Senate today voted 65 to 31 in favor of the bill to end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday and will now go to President Obama to be signed into law.
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"There's no guarantee," said Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a group of aviation enthusiasts in Delaware that found the pieces of bone this year while on an expedition to Nikumaroro Island, about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii.
"You only have to say you have a bone that may be human and may be linked to Earhart and people get excited. But it is true that, if they can get DNA, and if they can match it to Amelia Earhart's DNA, that's pretty good."
It could be months before scientists know for sure — and it could turn out the bones are from a turtle. [...]
Up To 10 Feet Of Snow Expected In Sierra
Sand and Sandbags are available for residents of Nevada County.
For once, I actually agree with something that with Tom DeLay said. The former Republican leader of Congress recently declared in his most somber tone, "The criminalization of politics undermines our very system." Wow, so true, Tommy.
Of course, what I mean by the "criminalization of politics" is very different than what he means. DeLay was bemoaning the stunning fact that a Texas jury had just convicted him on two felony counts of money laundering. He wailed that he was a victim of a political vendetta by Texas Democrats, calling his prosecution "an abuse of power."
Yes, Tom, politics has been criminalized. It's been turned into a criminal enterprise funded by corporations for corporations. Reprobate politicos like you have turned the People's House into a shameful pay-to-play parlor.
DeLay was so good at hitting up corporate lobbyists for money, then pounding their wish list into law, that he was nicknamed "The Hammer." But now, The Hammer's been nailed--not by Democrats, but by a jury of 12 common citizens, whom his own hot-shot lawyers helped select. These honest people diligently sifted through reams of evidence and ultimately saw him for what he is: a felon.
In a late afternoon Senate floor verbal dustup Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer lambasted Sen. John McCain for characterizing time spent debating the Zadroga 9/11 health bill as "fooling around."
Congressional Democrats were working to secure Senate ratification of a new arms control treaty before the holiday break when Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) asked if there could be a "time agreement" on the debate, as it was getting late.
McCain (R-Ariz.) dismissed the idea, saying that, "after all the fooling around that we've been doing on the DREAM act, on New York City, on all of these other issues that [have] taken up our time, we will not have a time agreement . . . until all members on this [the Republican] side have had an opportunity to express their views." [my em]
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S. 3447 (Akaka) builds on the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, which was enacted in June 2008 and provides education benefits for veterans at World War II levels, recognizes the sacrifice of our 1.8 million Reserve and National Guard troops by better aligning their educational benefits with their length of service, and also allows unused education benefits to be transferred to spouses and children. S. 3447 seeks to rectify many of the ongoing technical concerns that were highlighted after passage of the bill. First, the bill would address a major shortfall expressed by the veterans’ community by those who would prefer to attend a non-college degree program that would meet their professional goals. This bill seeks to expand on the eligible programs of education to include apprenticeship and on-the job training, in addition to flight training and non-college degree programs of education. This legislation would also provide veterans with a housing stipend when taking courses strictly through long distance learning and would allow student veterans to use their education benefits for pay for national tests, and licensure and certification tests. Finally, this bill seeks to recognize a families’ role of caring for an injured veteran by extending the period that a family member can use his or her education benefits.
S. 3860 (McCaskill) addresses recent reports which identified a number of troubling problems at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC). The bill requires reports to Congress on the management of ANC, including gravesite discrepancies, the management and oversight of contracts, and the implementation of recent Army directives. This comprehensive survey will further investigate reported burial errors, determine the full scope of the problem, and provide the first step to a concrete solution.