Current affairs

I'm a cranky Democrat today. This headline in the Los Angeles Times deeply irks me: "Obama court pick withdraws, thwarted by Republicans in Senate." As does the quote from Obama I'll include in the story excerpt. Former New York state attorney Caitlin Halligan, President Obama’s choice for the U.S. Court of Appeals here, withdrew her name Friday, defeated by the Republican minority in the Senate. Halligan’s withdrawal is the latest example of how the GOP has employed the filibuster rule not only to block major legislation, but routine presidential appointments as well. The D.C. Circuit decides significant challenges to federal regulations,…

Good news: the Tea Party-inspired phobia against extending light rail to Clackamas County got some pushback from a judge who, unlike the county's newly elected right-wing commissioners, understands what "contract" means. Hopefully those commissioners now won't be so eager to spew crazy talk about voters being able to ignore legally binding agreements. Judge Deanne Darling slapped them down in a recent ruling. Clackamas County circuit Judge Deanne L. Darling ruled this week that the ballot title on an advisory light-rail measure the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners placed on the May 21 ballot is “insufficient and unfair.” Attorney and Oak…

I've got to give the Republicans credit.  Now, having written that warm-and-fuzzy sounding first line, I'm faced with figuring out what I should give them credit for. Hmmmm... I'm stumped. Is it the late night hour? Lack of caffeine?  Perhaps. But much more likely is the fact that the only recent accomplishment of the not-so-Grand Old Party is its undying commitment to unreality.  Republicans are really good at not comprehending what is real. Faced with a clear consensus about human caused global warming among 97% of the world's leading climare scientists and obvious planetary effects... Republicans say, "not happening." Faced…

False equivalency is the refuge of those who fail to understand the difference between 0 and 1. Meaning, there's a lot of different differentness between having nothing of something, and having a totality of something.  One-tenth, for example, is a lot closer to zero than nine-tenths is. Yet this is just about how I see the anti-science biases of liberals and conservatives in the United States.  Sure, liberals have some wacky notions. Many think vaccines cause disease and that genetically modified foods are poison from Monsanto. (There may be some truth in both propositions, but not much.) However, when we…

Well, a majority of Clackamas County voters decided they wanted a no-nothing Tea Party type, John Ludlow, to head up the Board of Commissioners. They're getting what they deserve: a guy who doesn't understand the meaning of "contract" -- a simple word that most people grasp.  An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law.  An agreement enforceable by law. That's what Clackamas County and Tri Met have in regards to an extension of light rail to Milwaukie. But Ludlow has set the County on a collison course with a court case he is…

I accept your apologies, gun advocates. In quite a few posts on this blog, I've been stating the obvious: controlling the availability of guns produces fewer gun deaths. After all, guns kill people. People don't kill people.  (The number of bare-handed murders is hugely less than the number of murders by a gun.) But I've gotten quite a few comments from defenders of unfettered gun availability who ignore research proving my point. Hopefully a new study will come closer to convincing them that while they're free to believe what they want to, they aren't free to make up their own…

On the whole it's stupid to make across-the-board spending cuts to much of the federal budget. That's what the sequester legislation does, which both parties and Obama agreed to.  Stephen Colbert likened this to someone trying to lose weight by using a scalpel to slice 2% of his poundage off over his entire body. The image was appropriately gruesome.  I don't like the sequester either, in large part because Republicans have come to like it. Anything that shrinks government, they're for. Even if the programs and services being cut are valuable, necessary, and desired by the citizenry. But many progressives…

It took me two nights of bathtub reading to get through the 26,000 words of Steven Brill's masterful cover story in TIME magazine: "Why Medical Bills are Killing Us." It was time with TIME well spent. Do it. If you haven't already. Read the story. You'll never look upon the health care system in the same way again. Most likely in this way: If you aren't already convinced that hospitals (both non-profit and for-profit), drug companies, and medical device manufacturers aren't dedicated to screwing over the American public, Brill's expose will make you scream: You bastards!  If you were already convinced,…

Don't know if this condition is an official psychiatric diagnosis, but lots of people in Clackamas County (Oregon) sure seem to have it: an irrational fear of trains.  Secondary related symptom: an irrational fear of highway transportation congestion caused in part by a lack of trains. Such is the strangeness of thought disorders. This one just happens to have manifested in a majority of those voting in recent Clackamas County elections, along with a majority of county commissioners.  Watching the malady manifest from Salem, a southward rail-lacking point where we'd love to have light rail to Portland and high speed…

Last night I watched Marco Rubio's Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address with some trepidation. After all, TIME magazine has just annointed him on its cover as "The Republican Savior."  And I'm a Democrat. I don't want the GOP to be saved. I want it to continue on down its road to ruin. Thankfully, proving that my prayers to Tao, Buddha-nature, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster paid off, Rubio gave a thoroughly mundane speech which, in my oh-so-reasonable opinion, wouldn't sway many (if any) Dem-voters to the Republican side. I tried to picture independently minded swing…

Here's a great "comic" by Jen Sorensen that would be funnier if it wasn't so disturbingly true. l've been thinking in much the same way about what would happen if the NRA's wet dream became reality, and the United States was filled with people carrying military-style assault rifles and other guns openly around in public. That'd be great for mass shooters. Blend right in. Start shooting in a mall, kill a few people, then run around a corner with your rifle over your shoulder and start yelling, "Oh, my God! There's a shooter back there! Take cover. I'm going to…

Let's do it, Oregonians! Catch up to Washington state on "living free." Last year Washington affirmed the legality of gay marriage and legalized marijuana in a groundbreaking election.  While Oregon weenied out on legalizing pot. So now our neighbor state to the north will reap the tax revenues from Oregonians journeying across the border to score some legal weed.  Today I was excited to learn that Basic Rights Oregon has decided to put a measure on the 2014 ballot that would legalize same-sex marriage.  Basic Rights Oregon has been laying the groundwork for a statewide vote on the issue since…

When it comes to gun control, the NRA likes to claim that it represents the American public. Not true. Obama does. A national survey conducted January 17-20 among 1,006 adults found that 52% feel that Obama's are about right (39%) or do not go far enough (13%).  By contrast, only 31% say Obama's proposals go too far. (No opinion: 17%) Clearly Obama isn't a radical when it comes to gun control. He's got a majority of the country on his side. Hopefully this majority won't remain silent when it comes time for Congress to vote on requiring background checks for…