Month: October 2009

Over There

by digby

Yesterday two devastating suicide bombs were detonated at government offices in Bagdad. The LA Times ran this story, which brings what happened into stark, personal terms:

At the Mansour Melia hotel, parking attendant Zaid Haidar was puffing on a Galois cigarette when the first explosion sent glass and debris raining down. He started to bleed from cuts on his arms, hands and back. Nonetheless, he ran out and rushed toward the Justice Ministry, where there were dead all around, but the statue of Faisal was intact.

“Nobody knew what was going on. I forgot about the blood from my hands and legs, especially after I saw four dead women on the ground. They had on head scarves and looked like civil servants,” he said.

He also passed four lifeless Iraqi soldiers in a car.

The blast had torn down the ministry’s facade and flames ravaged the building. A jawbone and blackened teeth lay on the ground. Policemen and soldiers fired assault rifles and machine guns in the air.

Others began to curse the security officers and politicians:

“You are doing nothing.” “All you do is stand and play with your mobile phones.” “The parliament and government are fighting for their seats and leaving the criminals alone.”

Haidar, 27, picked up two wounded men and put them on a pickup truck before heading back to the hotel. Friends rushed him to the hospital for treatment. In the late afternoon, he returned home.

“My mother was crying when she saw me. I told her, ‘I am OK, Mom. I am in good shape.’ I saw my 5-month old son, Mohammed. I never thought I’d see him again,” he said.

Haidar, talking by phone late Sunday night, made it clear that he thought the situation would only get worse. He found himself alternately wishing that American troops still patrolled Baghdad or that officers from Saddam Hussein’s regime would return and save the country.

He said in an exhausted voice: “We will see more bombings and more violence. Political disputes will increase. Things will never be solved here.”

Heckuva job.

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Bibamus, moriendum est

by digby

Brad DeLong passes on an amusing cultural observation from Rick Perlstein:

So I lectured at San Angelo State U today in West Texas. We repaired for the evening to “In Vino Veritas,” a combination wine store/wine bar. We go in, and there are half a dozen men in cowboy hats enjoying the vintages–I learn they’re in town for the “Roping Fiesta,” in which, to quote the local paper:

top ropers from around the world converge in San Angelo for the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo Association’s Wrangler Roping Fiesta…. (New to this year’s lineup is the double mugging competition, in which competitors work in teams of two to rope and tie down a steer.)

At the end of the bar, a VERY Texan dude with a burly beard–I’m not making any of this up–lectures me about how it’s absurd to drink a decent claret unless it’s aerated first. Then he tells me the criteria for what constitutes an authentic honkey tonk.

The owner’s name is Steve. His store is filled with $100 vintages with their “Wine Spectator” scores marked on the bottle; and, some of them, tags reading “Steve’s Picks.” I remark how ironic it is that liberals from the East like me are always excoriated by Texas Republican types for being wine snipping snobs. His indelible response:

Most liberals have really shitty taste in wine…

As an effete, west coast liberal who has made an exhaustive anthropological study of the matter, I can’t help but share my own personal observation that most conservatives have really shitty taste in beer. Go figure.

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The Future of Electric Torture

by digby

Foster Kamer at Gawker explains:

Intrepid cNet reporter Caroline McCarthy went out to the desert to hang out with some TaserBros, and by TaserBros, I mean “The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.” They introduce her to the pictured X12 Something Or Other Killer Death Shotgun. The gentleman assisting McCarthy helpfully notes that what’s so awesome and neat about the X12 DeathShotty is that it only accepts ammunition for a Taser, so you know, god forbid somebody confuses the Bumblebee Shitspinner with an actual shotgun, they won’t be able to pump Grade A American Lead into those pussyass kids screaming about the whales or whatever. Just voltage, pure and simple.

If only that were all. They also exhibit a shockingly awesome (heh) Wall of Tase, which, from what I can tell, works like this: say your little brother has some friends over and they’re being real fuckers. You set up two “walls” on each side of the garage, facing each other. You coax them, in your driveway, to come back in the house. As they walk through the garage, you hit the trigger, and BA-BLAW! All nine of those little gremlins are now on the ground, unable to steal your weed. For extra fun, make them eat a bunch of popcorn kernels and see if you can get them to pop post-consumption.

So yes! Taser technology isn’t going anywhere; in fact, it’s getting cooler than ever. Kinda makes you sentimental for an old-fashioned nightstick beatdown, though, doesn’t it? Sigh. Those were the good ol’ days.

Actually, these are the good old days:

The police officer who used a Taser on a mentally ill man who died as a result of the two high-voltage shocks will not be disciplined and remains on patrol, the Fort Worth police chief said Friday.

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said the administrative investigation into the April 18 death of Michael Patrick Jacobs Jr. is closed but declined to comment on it. He said he turned it over to the district attorney and expects a grand jury to review the case next month.

If Officer Stephanie A. Phillips were to be indicted or convicted, the 17-year police veteran would face disciplinary action, Halstead said.

Jacobs’ family had called police that day to report a disturbance because he had not been taking his medication for bipolar disorder, relatives have said. Officers said he became combative.

In August the medical examiner ruled that Jacobs’ death was a homicide. Phillips stunned the 24-year-old with a Taser twice—the first time for 49 seconds and the second time for 5 seconds, with a 1-second interval between the shocks, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office report.

Neither paramedics at the scene nor emergency room personnel could revive him, and he was pronounced dead about noon—an hour after police used the Taser, the report said.

Tasers issue a 50,000-volt shock that over-stimulates the nervous system and causes muscles to lock up, temporarily immobilizing a person.

An autopsy concluded that the primary cause of death was “sudden death during neuromuscular incapacitation due to application of a conducted energy device,” and said no traces of alcohol or drugs, electrolyte imbalances, or signs of heart or lung disease were found—all of which can be contributing factors in a death.

The good thing about tasers is that they are harmless so all these neat new electrocution devices are probably even more harmless.

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How The Mighty Have Fallen

by digby

You’ve all probably read the Rush got punk’d on the Obama thesis hoax. He refuses to apologize, but then that’s just the kind of guy he is. Here’s the NY Daily News story on it.

But this made me laugh out loud:

The original post with the fabricated details about Obama’s college thesis was written as a satire on a humor blog.

An obscure blogger, Michael Leeden, mistakenly picked it up, reporting the satirical post as fact, and then Limbaugh ran with it on his national radio show Friday.

Leeden has since apologized.

You know the neocons have have hit rock bottom when one of their premiere propagandists is reduced to the status of obscure blogger…

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Promises, Promises

by digby

Who is this guy and what has he done with Howard Fineman?

Obama’s pointless bipartisanship.

[T]he pursuit of Snowe is pretty close to obsessive, which is not a good thing either for Democrats or for the prospects of health-care reform worthy of the name. First, Snowe’s exaggerated prominence is both the result and symbol of Obama’s quixotic and ultimately time–wasting pursuit of “bipartisanship.” In case the White House hasn’t noticed, Republicans in Congress are engaged in what amounts to a sitdown strike. They don’t like anything about Obama or his policies; they have no interest in seeing him succeed. Despite the occasional protestation to the contrary, the GOP has no intention of helping him pass any legislation. Snowe may very well end up voting for whatever she and Democrats craft, but that won’t make the outcome bipartisan any more than dancing shoes made Tom DeLay Fred Astaire.

I keep imagining conversations in the White House right now, where Obama turns to Rahm and says, “You promised that if made these deals with the industry we’d get at least 15 Republicans on board. Now our whole bipartisan argument depends on Olympia Snowe?”

Rahm replies, “I know Mr President. But no matter how much money the industry gave them, the Republicans refused to go along. They won’t give us any cover for this no matter how much it costs them.

Obama: So maybe we should just pass the bill with the public option and get it over with …

Rahm: But, sir. That would mean breaking our word to the industry.

Obama: What about our supporters?

Rahm: You never promised them a public option, remember?

Obama: Right, right. Thank God for that, eh?

Rahm: Damn straight. Nothing makes a president of either party look more bipartisan than sticking it to the Democratic base. Independents will reward us next November.

Obama: And if they don’t?

Rahm: We’ll blame it on the bloggers…

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Plumbing

by digby

Reason number 3,272 why we should trust insurance companies to be good corporate citizens and keep their premiums low after the government hands them tens of millions of new customers:

Checking the “female” box when buying health insurance is likely to cost extra — perhaps up to 50 percent more than a man would pay for the same coverage.

Gender-rating — or what some term as flat-out sexual discrimination — is linked to the simple fact that women, particularly those under age 50 or so, go to the doctor more often than men.

But outrage over how women are treated in the individual health insurance market is mounting as stories emerge of companies refusing to cover maternity benefits and denying coverage because of past domestic violence or cesarean sections, including a Colorado woman who was told she would have to get sterilized to qualify for insurance.

Federal proposals, as well as pending state legislation, would ban gender-rating and require maternity coverage, even as the insurance industry warns that lowering premiums for younger women could mean higher premiums for most everyone else.

Colorado women age 40 and under shopping for health insurance in the individual market, not through an employer, pay from 10 percent to 59 percent more than men, according to analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.

They pay more even when maternity coverage is not included. And in many cases, a female nonsmoker pays more for health coverage than a man who smokes.

“Women should not be penalized because their plumbing works differently and needs ongoing maintenance,” Colorado Insurance Commissioner Marcy Morrison told a state health care task force.

Isn’t that great? Because women are the ones who bear the physical burden of gestation and the responsibility that entails, they are paying up to 50% more in premiums. When Jon Kyl whined about not wanting to pay for maternity benefits, he was defending that status quo.

But sure, let’s trust the insurance companies to behave decently. There’s no need to assume that just because they’ve been outrageously gouging their customers for decades and penalizing the half of the population that has the temerity to visit their plumbers on a regular basis, that they won’t turn into decent corporate citizens now. See, they are more than willing to cover these women and everyone else now that the government is making it mandatory. What they won’t stand for is anyone telling them how much they are allowed to charge for that or offering up a non-profit competitor. But there’s no need to worry. They’ve assured all the important people that they will make their insurance affordable for everyone who is required by law to buy it. Really, they promise.

The truth is that they realize that their current financial model has probably run its course. The bad PR of denying coverage to babies and telling women they need to get sterilized to qualify is pretty overwhelming at this point. So they are “giving in.” And in exchange for covering everyone they require the freedom to charge these mandated customers outrageous prices, partially subsidized by the taxpayers, with no competition. It’s an awesome scam if they get away with it.

h/t to bb
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We Have Watches, They Have Time

by digby

This speech by Paul McGeough, senior correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, is a must read if you are trying to get a handle on the current situation in Afghanistan and possibilities for the future. McGeough has been writing from Afghanistan since 2001. Here’s just a short excerpt:

After eight years, Washington finds itself in the same position that the Soviet Union was in Year 8 of its occupation of Afghanistan, seemingly having learnt nothing from history – until McChrystal’s bombshell assessment.

I want to read from a defence official’s letter dated August 17. He calls for an honest admission of failure after eight years, citing the squandering of huge material resources and considerable casualties and a failure to stabilise the country – militarily or politically. Most of the population has lost trust, because the campaign is bogged down and a strategic breakthrough is unlikely.

“The experience of the past years,” he continues somberly, “clearly shows that the Afghan problem cannot be solved by military means only. We should decisively reject our illusions and undertake principally new steps, taking into account the lessons of the past, and the real situation in the country…”

That might have been a note to General McChrystal as he prepared his report – but the date was August 17, 1987. And the author, Colonel K. Tsagalov, was addressing the then newly appointed Soviet defence minister, Dmitry Yazov.

Same ole, same ole… The two wars are replete with dispiriting similarities. Perhaps the most striking for my purposes is the near identical position on the timelines, in which Moscow then, and Washington now, are placed. Timed from the date of their respective invasions, only three months separate the letter by Tsagalov and the report by McChrystal. And just 18 months after the Tasgalov letter, General Boris V. Gromov walked over a bridge on the Amu Dari and into Uzbekistan – he was the last of the Soviet occupation forces to quit Afghanistan.

[…]

The greatest strength the Taliban has had – and still has – is time. I’m indebted to Ambassador Eikenberry for first drawing to my attention a quote that already is a leitmotiv of this conflict. As he told it, either he or one of his officers was quizzing a Taliban captive on the insurgency’s view of how the crisis would unfold. “The trouble with you American’s,” the prisoner said, “is you have watches – we have time.” And it was the Coalition that gave the Taliban time – in spades.

This is obviously important on a policy level. But it is also important to understand as we begin to see the right wing gear up to become the defenders of the Afghanistan mission. With Dick Cheney out there shamelessly accusing the president of “dithering” after having punted for eight years, caring nothing about Afghanistan, ignoring Pakistan even to the extent that they didn’t even bother to find people knowledgeable of the region to staff their embassies. His obnoxious gall knows know bounds.

This tracks with their views of terrorism before 9/11. Dick Cheney, essentially a simpleminded imperialist, and his neocon allies (who have a more sophisticated if equally delusional worldview) believed that a powerful nation’s only defense against any threats is a show of massive overwhelming force. And if it’s perceived as somewhat irrational, so much the better. (“My guy’s crazier than your guy!”) Just as the PNAC and other neocon organizations like it ignored the terrorist threat, which by its nature depends upon such things as shared intelligence, diplomatic outreach and economic cooperation far more than military action, they ignored the fundamental challenges of trying to deal with Afghanistan. If a nation’s leaders believe that human beings are only motivated by fear and hatred then a constant show of massive force and cruel authoritarianism is logically their main organizing principle. They simply ignore threats and challenges that don’t fit that paradigm.

They actually believed that “victory” in Iraq would solve the problems in Afghanistan. The bad guys would see that you don’t fuck with Crazy Uncle Sam and we’d open up outposts all over the world just in case someone needs a reminder of that “lesson.”

The hawks are actually incapable of dealing with the challenges of the current world order. But they are going to be pushing the administration’s buttons in ways that are tiresome and boring in their predictability. And they may very well be effective because many Americans are likewise drenched in a puerile national chauvanism that has them believing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that America cannot lose. It’s that fantasy that makes people turn even an obvious ignoramus like George W. Bush into a “war president.” The political temptation to give in to that is overwhelming.

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Bigger Problems

by digby

Tough negotiations are always opaque and it’s very difficult to see what the bottom line really is until you get there. All you can do is keep your own goals in mind and plow ahead. But at some point the fog begins to clear and you see the contours of the deal.

I have, for months now, predicted that this was going to come down to what Barack Obama really wanted. We assumed the president would want “what works,” particularly after fetishizing pragmatism throughout his campaign, which meant that he would require a real public option. But he had also fetishized bipartisanship. And then there were those side deals …

But the picture is becoming clear:

President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan “triggered” into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks.

The administration retreat runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Obama’s presidential campaign. The man who ran on the “Audacity of Hope” has now taken a more conservative stand than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), leaving progressives with a mix of confusion and outrage. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill have battled conservatives in their own party in an effort to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Now tantalizingly close, they are calling for Obama to step up.

“The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top,” said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

“Everybody knows we’re close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don’t want to do it because it makes the politics harder,” said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn’t seen as bipartisan. “These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them.”

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Back in the dog days of August when the teabaggers were in full effect and all the gasbags declared health care reform dead, I wrote this:

[The first term Blue Dogs are] toast if there’s no health care reform anyway, because Dems are going to suffer big losses with Obama’s failure and they will be the ones who lose their seats. It’s not like the Republicans are going to go easy on Blue Dogs in swing districts out of the goodness of their hearts.

They are tied to Obama’s coat tails, not the liberals who are in safe seats. And according to Charlie Cook, there are about 20 of them who stand to lose, which still leaves the Dems comfortably in the majority. The liberals have the power to do this.

I don’t expect the villagers to be able to see that the game has changed, because they live in an alternate universe where time stood still somewhere around 1997. But one would hope that Obama understands that he needs liberals to stick on this one. If he pushes them too far, he loses it all.

Jack Cafferty, of all people, put it rather starkly today, when he wondered if Obama was “tough enough”:

Americans are going to see how Obama governs when it comes to a divisive issue like health care reform. Even though there are many critics, will he push through on the public option, which is probably the best way to compete with the insurance industry and bring costs down.

And it’s not just about health care either. Some suggest the President’s beginning to appear weak and wishy washy on a range of issues, whether it’s gays in the military or immigration reform or going around apologizing to other countries. At times the president appears to be ineffective at even leading his own party as the Democrats continue to wander around like a gaggle of unruly children. Mr Obama ought to call a meeting of the Democratic leadership and say “I’m the boss and if you don’t like it, there are ways of making your life miserable, especially when it comes time for your re-election.”

I don’t often agree with Cafferty, and the president is not a dictator. But he is the leader of his party and in a situation where the issue boils down to whether or not the Democrats can hold 60 votes for cloture, there is no excuse for bargaining away the store and telling the progressives in the House that they have to cave rather than the minority Blue Dogs.

Unless, of course, that’s what he wants to do, in which case we have much bigger problems. We’ll know soon enough.

It seems that the administration believes that it’s better to deliver a bill that will not work than to take a chance on losing some seats. Since it’s nonsensical to think that that Republicans would take those seats because of the public option but not health care reform over all, they must believe that they must deliver a devastating blow to the majority of their own party in order to prove their bipartisan bona fides and give Rahm’s Blue Dogs a tea bag to take home with them. (Certainly, nothing would make the villagers happier…)

If the reports we are hearing are true (and that’s a big if) it looks like we have bigger problems.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Wild child, full of grace

By Dennis Hartley

Pathos, on a cliff by the sea: Where the Wild Things Are

Shilo, when I was young
I used to call your name
When no one else would come
Shilo, you always came
and we’d play

-from “Shiloh” by Neil Diamond

Childhood is a magical time. Well, at least until the Death of Innocence…whenever that is supposed to occur. So at what point DO we slam the window on Peter Pan’s fingers? When we stop believing in faeries? That seems to be the general consensus, in literature and in film. In Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire; only children can “see” the angels. Even when the fantastical pals are a bit more tangible, the adults in the room keep their blinders on. In Stephen Spielberg’s E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial., Mom doesn’t initially “see” her children’s little alien playmate, even when she’s seemingly gawking right at him. Of course, when the protagonist with the “imaginary” friend is an adult, he’s either dismissed as being drunk (Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey), crazy (Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams), or both (Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club ). These adults, naturally, are merely acting…“childish”. Why is “childish” such a dirty word, anyway? To paraphrase Robin Williams, what is wrong with retaining a bit of the “mondo bozo” to help keep your perspective? Wavy Gravy once gave similar advice: “Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life. Either you laugh and suffer, or you got your beans or brains on the ceiling.” Basically (in the parlance of psycho-babble) they are advising to “stay in touch with your Inner Child”.

Director Spike Jonze and co-screenwriter Dave Eggars both get their Inner Child on in a big way in Where the Wild Things Are, a bold and wildly imaginative film adaptation of the classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak. Blending live action with expressive CGI/Muppet creations, the filmmakers construct a child’s inner fantasy world that lives and breathes, while avoiding the mawkishness that has been the ruin of many a children’s film. In actuality, this arguably may not qualify as such in the strictest sense; perhaps no more so than Lord of the Fliesor Pan’s Labyrinth can be labeled as “children’s” films.

Young Max (Max Records) lives with his mother (Catherine Keener) and teenaged sister Claire (Pepita Emmerichs) in suburbia. Max is a modern poster child for Ritalin; he’s the type of kid who, before the days of ADHD over-diagnosis, would likely have been described as having a “rambunctious” nature and in possession of an “overactive imagination” (one could even describe him as a selfish little brat). At any rate, we’ll just say that he definitely has some anger management issues stemming from (among other things) feelings of abandonment by his father (whether this situation was precipitated by death or divorce isn’t made quite clear, unless I overlooked something obvious). He appears to have a loving relationship with his mom, but her job pressures, along with the additional stresses of single parenthood are obviously putting the damper on their quality time together. His sister is too sidetracked by the social whirlwind of her burgeoning adolescence to take interest in bonding with Kid Brother, and he isn’t shown to have any real peers to hang out with. In short, Max is a textbook example of the Lonely Little Boy.

One evening, his mother’s boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) comes for a visit, which precipitates a particularly unseemly episode of “acting out” on Max’s part. A defiant standoff with his exasperated mom culminates with Max physically attacking her. Surprised and confused by the veracity of his own behavior, an extremely spooked Max runs off into the night to wrestle with his demons. Somewhere in the course of this long dark night of his 9 year-old soul, in the midst of a panicky attempt to literally flee from his own shameful actions, Max crosses over from Reality into Fantasy (sometimes, even children need to bleed the valve a bit on the “pressure cooker of life”). This pivotal transition is handled beautifully and subtly by the filmmakers (it reminded me a lot of the unexpectedly lyrical and fable-like interlude in Charles Laughton’s otherwise foreboding noir thriller, The Night of the Hunter, in which the children find respite from trauma via a moonlit, watery escape).

Max washes up on the shore of a mysterious island where he finds that he suddenly has the ability to not only wrestle with his inner demons, but run and jump and laugh and play with them as well. These strange and wondrous manifestations are the literal embodiment of the “wild things” inside of him that drive his complex emotional behaviors; anthropomorphic creatures that also pull double duty as avatars for the people who are closest to him. At first, the beasts are reflexively territorial, threatening to serve him up for dinner if he doesn’t prove his mettle; Max is quick enough on his feet to figure out that he is going to have to make up in clever invention (his specialty, luckily) for what he lacks in physical size in order to keep himself out of the soup kettle. Somehow he convinces them that he is not only worthy of their trust, but is an excellent candidate to become their “king” as well (I’m no psych major, but if your emotions threaten to consume you, the only effective way to conquer them is to take control of them, right?)

Max forges an instant bond with the fearsome yet benign Carol (James Gandolfini) who serves as both father figure and soul mate (he also thinks it’s a hoot to rage and howl and break shit to blow off steam). Inversely, Max also is drawn to the calming countenance of the laid-back KW (Lauren Ambrose), who is a morph of a maternal/big sister confidant. It is intimated that KW and Carol are weathering a rocky period in a long-running personal relationship (I don’t need to spell out the significance of that). All the voiceover actors do a commendable job of infusing some genuine heart into the various creature personalities (Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Catherine O’Hara are on board as well). The episodic nature of the film’s structure may be trying for some; on the other hand, one must consider that such leaps of faith in logic are, after all, the stuff dreams are made of.

That Jonze and Eggars were able to wring this much compelling narrative and fleshed out back stories from what was essentially a child’s picture book with minimal text and virtually no exposition, and execute it all with such inventive visual flair (lovely work from DP Lance Acord), is quite an amazing accomplishment. In a way, Jonze was the perfect director for this project. His two previous feature films (both collaborations with the iconoclastic Charlie Kaufman, known for writing densely complex, virtually un-filmable screenplays) were expert cinematic invocations of journeys into “inner space”. In Being John Malkovich, the protagonist literally finds a portal into another person’s psyche; Adaptation dived headlong into the consciousness of a blocked writer. With his new film, Jonze seems to have drilled a portal both into the mind of Maurice Sendak, and straight into the collective memory of childhood lost. And now, if you will excuse me, I’m going out to the back yard to play for a while. And may your wild rumpus never end.

Through the looking glass: Dreamchild , Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan (1953), Hook, Neverland, Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The City of Lost Children, Spirit of the Beehive, The Secret Garden (1993), Labyrinth , Heavenly Creatures, Bridge to Terabithia, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Chronicles of Narnia, Coraline , Donnie Darko.

Previous posts with related themes:

Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea
Pan’s Labyrinth

…and speaking of “retaining the mondo bozo”:

RIP Soupy Sales: 1926-2009

So long, Soupy-the most wonderfully subversive children’s show host of all time.

He helped make me the silly manchild I am today. May he rest in pies.

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Bipartisan Fail

by digby

The policy wonk who designed the public option explains why triggers are bullshit — in great, convincing detail:

A workable trigger would, at a minimum, need to achieve three goals: (1) establish a reasonable and measurable standard for private plan performance that sets out clear affordability and cost-containment goals for a specifically defined package of benefits, (2) assess this standard in a timely fashion with information available to policymakers after reform legislation passes, and (3) if this standard were met, quickly create a public health insurance plan that would effectively remedy the situation.

The modifier “quickly” in the third goal is crucial: Runaway health costs are a grave and growing threat to federal and state budgets and to the health security of workers, their families, and their employers. Waiting longer than absolutely necessary for affordable coverage is certain to cause great harm. Indeed, it might actually compound the current crisis. Without an imminent threat of public plan competition, private insurers are likely to raise premiums in anticipation of the implementation of reform—as suggested by AHIP’s recent prediction of big premium increases if reform passes. Delaying a public plan may also jeopardize the cause of reform itself, because requiring Americans to buy unaffordable coverage has the potential to provoke a political backlash. (Polls show that Americans are more supportive of a mandate when they know they will have the choice of a public plan.)

There’s more policy details at the link.

Obama simply has to find another way to appease the jackass triplets: Landrieu, Lincoln and Nelson — and he has to rid himself of the idea that Olympia Snowe brings anything to the table if she refuses a public plan. Her objections are irrational and stupid if cost is her primary concern. And if bipartisanship is the White House’s primary concern they should recognize that irrational, stupid Republicans are a dime a dozen and if that’s what they want then there are a million ways to destroy health care reform with far more of them on board. Dealing only with Snowe guarantees that failure will completely laid at their doorstep. Why do it?

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