It has been very difficult in these last few days to decide whether or not to respond to the House Republicans’ first major political initiative of 2011 – their introduction and passing of the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act. Why respond, when responding suggests that the initiative is sufficiently serious as to warrant a carefully crafted reaction? Why respond, and give the initiative a legitimacy it probably does not deserve? It has been very difficult to decide.
This video Resistance linked to is also interesting - recovering oil from plastic. Again, you have to evaluate whether he is spending more energy melting the oil than he is getting back, but it sounds good.
By William K. Wolfrum on Thu, 01/20/2011 - 6:57pm | Humor & Satire, Personal
TUPELO, MISS — Tim Johnson – a vital source to journalist and blogger William K. Wolfrum – has been declared missing after disappearing a week ago following a camping excursion. Johnson, 43, was last seen doing arm curls with a baby bear last Friday. His whereabouts are currently unknown.
Johnson has been a featured source in numerous blog posts by Wolfrum, including:
Geithner's latest FSOC report attempts to buttress JPMorgan but unwittingly provides Progressives a road map to real reform.
Simon Johnson made mince meat of Geithner's latest report which blatently attempts to enable the, imo, Daley-Dimon plan to expand JPM. www.economix.blog.nytimes.com/2011/20.
But thanks to Geithner, the report is the perfect bogey for Progressive bank reformers to dissect for years to come. In other words if this is the best they can do in defense of the status quo, it's a rich target.
Sarge was an idealist, a man of boundless heart, and a hard-headed businessman who from the ground up built a government program—and he was never afraid to call it just that because he disdained anti-government stereotypes—that has become an enduring force for American purpose and compassion, vastly popular at home and around the globe.
I am what one would call a liberal-libertarian. At least that's what the political compass says. I tend to be socially conservative and economically very left of center. I don't like the terms progressive or liberal since their means are too open to interpretation. I do favor more local control and implementation of various social and economic programs, and this piece by Sam Smith sums up my thoughts on this quite well. here are a few excerpts from it, with my thoughts as well.
So I got paid on the 15th and something bugged me about the number I took home. It was lower than it was in December and yet it shouldn't have been. This pay cycle was the first one where I benefitted from the 2% payroll tax holiday, something I believe I touted here before when Obama agreed to it.
The most obvious things are often the hardest to see: for example, without a mirror it is impossible to see the nose on your face... unless of course you suffer from severe concomitant esotropia, in which case you hardly see anything else but the nose on your face. Much of American political discourse is victim to both mirrorlessness and mental esotropia.
By William K. Wolfrum on Wed, 01/19/2011 - 12:28pm | Humor & Satire, Religion
VATICAN - Pope John Paul II will be beatified on May 1, after Vatican officials judged that the deceased pontiff's ability to make child molestation and sexual abuse charges seem like no big deal was officially a miracle.
Maybe that's a flip way to say it, but the one thing I remember most about the first Gulf War was all of the hyperbole around it. Saddam Hussein was Hitler. Kuwait was Poland. If we didn't stop him then, we'd never be able to stop him as he rampaged throughout the region, taking over Saudi Arabia and Iran in the process. Saddam Hussein had, we were told again and again, the fourth largest army in the world.
By Doctor Cleveland on Mon, 01/17/2011 - 10:10pm | Politics, Social Justice, Religion
We've been talking a lot lately about civility, for obvious and painful reasons. And our public conversation on that topic tends to go astray pretty quickly, because we don't all mean the same thing when we say "civility," and often aren't even sure what we mean by the word ourselves.
A story of a dog’s dedication to its family, following their deaths last week in Brazil. Translated from Fohla.com:
The former street-dog Caramelo helped rescue the bodies of its owners, whose were killed during last week’s rains, then did not want to leave the makeshift grave of his owner.
In a righteous world, someone in control would watch this video and then use it as evidence in a courtroom. Instead, because the victim is a child and the perpetrator is her mother and they're participants in a reality show, it is aired as a part of a segment and nothing happens.
By William K. Wolfrum on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:25pm | Politics, Humor & Satire
SWEDEN - After a full decade of research, a team of Swedish scientists has confirmed that no matter how many guns a man owns, his penis will remain small and insignificant.
SWEDEN - After a full decade of research, a team of Swedish scientists has confirmed that no matter 