tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58263612009-11-26T05:00:47.408-06:00Blog Of The Working Man's Thinking Man!CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comBlogger1270125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-70449857446224262622009-11-26T04:59:00.001-06:002009-11-26T05:00:47.417-06:00

Well, I'm off to NYC for Thanksgiving to be with relatives, I'll be back here in Chicago on Monday.I complain about things a lot, and of course there are lots of reasons to complain, which I'm sure you all know. But as bad as things have for me personally for the last few years, the truth is that I, and most of you reading this, are still much better off than many people on this planet. I have

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-85726342565785846262009-11-23T16:46:00.000-06:002009-11-23T17:04:53.834-06:00

Atrios points out: One day perhaps people who run cities will remember that they're places that people can actually live, instead of potential sites for tourist attractions.They could've made the waterfront a very attractive place to live with nice view. Instead it's a series of parking lots. It has good transit to Philadelphia, Trenton, and Atlantic City.I hear Broadway is becoming more and more

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-59989269577209504972009-11-20T19:29:00.001-06:002009-11-20T19:33:47.899-06:00

Avedon has apparently come to the conclusion that President Obama is a "conservative", which I guess now means anyone who can't deliver a liberal paradise in nine months in the face of a well-organized, well-funded opposition. I challenge anyone, including Avedon, to name a contemporary liberal politician in America who could a) Win a national election (assuming they even want to run) and b)

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-69478722282813963242009-11-20T05:12:00.002-06:002009-11-20T05:27:44.725-06:00

Avedon links us to an interview with reformed evangelical Frank Schaeffer on Rachel Maddow discussing the latest "prayer" by the religious right for President Obama (praying that he be killed in office mainly). This doesn't surprise me, having met a few of these loons (though not the violent ones), they really do believe they are God's Chosen and it's impossible to argue with them. Like

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-14244753893797452282009-10-30T10:16:00.002-05:002009-10-30T10:33:55.080-05:00

I hadn't realized it'd been so long since I made a blog post. It's not that I haven't had any opinions about what's been going on, it's just that I haven't really been able to clarify them apart from yer basic "this sucks" or "this is great". And of course I have been concentrating on more things in real life lately.It also doesn't stop me from thinking about the larger picture, and about life

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-20687980444305436772009-10-02T12:46:00.000-05:002009-10-02T12:47:09.916-05:00

WTF?

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-68757648438790773192009-10-01T00:38:00.001-05:002009-10-01T00:38:21.452-05:00

According to a new study by David Cecere of the Cambridge Health Alliance for Harvard University, nearly 45,000 people die annually in the US because of a lack of health care coverage. That means someone dies about once every twelve minutes. That's five people every hour and a hundred and twenty people a day.Just another fun fact from life in these United States.

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-12905685257646515032009-09-11T03:03:00.002-05:002009-09-11T03:07:29.903-05:00

I see a few people are getting into the 9/11 spirit right away, saying we should never forget. For them of course, it means not forgetting that there are brown people on the other side of the world who wear funny clothes and don't talk like us who always want to kill us blah blah blah. Here's a list of things I wish we would never forget:Never forget that, and this is the nicest thing I can say

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-71579960487389930612009-09-06T12:09:00.001-05:002009-09-06T12:09:52.769-05:00

Failure to enact any kind of health care reform simply means that our current system will remain as it is for at least another generation, and there's no reason to believe that the "free market" will improve things: after all, the only reason we are having this argument again is because the private sector has done nothing to improve things since the last time reform was defeated sixteen years

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-79442408675404746832009-08-26T15:12:00.002-05:002009-08-26T15:20:22.013-05:00

I watched with dismay this video of a woman at a town hall meeting in Oklahoma asking Sen. Tom Coburn if he can help with her husband's catastrophic illness since he lost his job and no longer has insurance to cover his care. Sen. Coburn replied that the government wasn't the solution (though oddly he offered the help of his office: isn't he the government, too?), and that the neighbors ought to

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-44636628959096138952009-08-26T15:10:00.003-05:002009-08-26T15:13:44.678-05:00

We'll miss you.

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-77720498371510910622009-08-16T11:04:00.001-05:002009-08-16T11:05:55.684-05:00

An Oklahoma senator says the angry tone of the health care debate is the result of people losing confidence in government.Republican Sen. Tom Coburn says the government has earned that loss of confidence.At times during protests, critics of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul have likened him to Adolf Hitler.Coburn calls health care a symptom of the debate over an uncontrolled federal

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-76216050787546115922009-08-10T17:29:00.002-05:002009-08-10T17:33:11.572-05:00

Digby, on the GOP's propensity to throw a hissy fit:The solution to this is obvious. The Democrats should always put something really outrageous into every bill to give the wingnuts something to rend their garments over. In the stimulus they should have set aside a couple million for illegal alien subsidized beachfront housing. In health care they should have put in a tax on guns to cover plastic

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-14487056730183091002009-08-08T23:08:00.000-05:002009-08-08T23:09:13.632-05:00

It seems to me that if there WERE a group of powerful people acting behind the scenes on a global scale, and I'm not speculating one way or another, then the question is, what is their endgame? If the ultimate goal is some form of corporatist world order, then bringing down the United States would be a logical means to that end, as a single global superpower that is free to launch war (as in

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-12672486965496158562009-08-05T18:51:00.003-05:002009-08-07T18:17:43.483-05:00

Make your own!

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-2413511352636923322009-07-28T13:05:00.003-05:002009-07-29T11:24:29.989-05:00

I think we'll eventually get single payer, but not right away. The sports analogy I like to use is that you can't hit a three-run homer without putting people on base first, but let me instead make a historical comparison:When the UK and Canada passed their national health care systems, there wasn't already a pre-existing system in place. They built it, pretty much, from scratch. Not so here,

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-78273557705165628172009-07-21T09:50:00.005-05:002009-07-21T19:59:45.173-05:00

If Congressmen and Senators had to go through all the bullshit the rest of us have to in dealing with the profitized health care industry instead of having the socialized health care they all enjoy, we'd have had a national health care system decades ago.All this talk about how, under a national health plan, some guvmint byeurrr-oh-crat will tell you which doctor you have to have or any of the

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-12453196821883097392009-07-20T00:01:00.000-05:002009-07-20T00:01:00.776-05:00

As many of you are probably well aware, today is the fortieth anniversary of man's landing on the Moon. I still feel that this is the single greatest achievement in human history, not just for the technological achievement of landing people on the Moon and returning them safely home, but as an example of accomplishing something that was deemed impossible.It's easy for us to be cynical in this

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-2776344872288860202009-07-18T01:02:00.000-05:002009-07-18T01:03:43.153-05:00

You would think that when it becomes clear that the jig is up, the crooks would either just bow to the inevitable and give themselves up, or turn their weapons on themselves, or whatever.But not the health care profiteers. Everyone who isn't an elected government official or otherwise covered by some sort of non-profitized health care system knows that what we have now is clearly a scam. After

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-49770512692623538512009-07-17T02:11:00.003-05:002009-07-17T02:13:11.388-05:00

I think if you could sum up the last thirty years in general and the last ten or so specifically in one, simple phrase, that would be it.Welcome to the sucker class, suckers.

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-85331302810432019132009-07-14T09:35:00.002-05:002009-07-14T09:49:52.569-05:00

That's about as long a time as I can recall not posting. Two reasons for this: personal issues and the fact that I'm writing more non-political stuff over on Facebook (and you can find me there under the name Joe Vecchio if you're on that as well).I saw an article in the NY Times that said that 6% of Americans think the Moon landing was a fake. That may not seem like a lot, but consider that 6%

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-53116663187357995962009-06-29T19:07:00.001-05:002009-06-29T19:08:49.267-05:00

MadKane expresses her feelings in a double limerick about Rush and Sanford called De-Moralized?:Rush claims that Obama’s to blameFor Sanford’s disgrace and his shame:The stimulus billDestroyed Sanford’s will.Wow, even for Limbaugh, that’s lame.When a Democrat strays — no excuse!Just right-wing attacks and abuse.But conservative sinsAre spinned — turned to wins.Try to reason with Rush? It’s no use

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-48223511742608465002009-06-27T19:01:00.002-05:002009-06-27T19:06:15.077-05:00

I don't normally do this sort of thing, but this made me laugh so much I had to steal, er, share it. It's a letter to Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. I should point out that the poll results on the original post indicate that nearly 20% of the readers think this letter is a fake, and the sad truth is that right-wingers are so insane that it's hard to tell what's a parody and what's not. Here's

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-26076181041199767172009-06-27T01:38:00.000-05:002009-06-27T01:39:46.362-05:00

The only kind I want

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826361.post-82571883032211880002009-06-26T23:28:00.001-05:002009-06-26T23:30:41.789-05:00

Some of you know that I'm a military man, an Air Force vet who, while hardly an ideal airman, is proud of the work I did in calibration at Air Force bases in Japan and Montana. I happen to love fighter jets and enjoyed working with F-16s, which are sleek and beautiful to behold bot in the air and on the ground. I also have a love of the great battleships, from the American Iowa class to the

CupOJoenoreply@blogger.com