Alfonse D'Amato calls out racist on Fox News

Forget about the tired old "let's privatize everything" story and check out D'Amato teeing off on the racist. I never thought of D'Amato as being someone who would take such a hard line so it's surprising. (The response to the racist starts almost five minutes in.) It makes you wonder how far left in the GOP he would be if he was still in the Senate. Read More......

Joe Biden: Message to progressives

I'm putting this up without comment, just to put it on the record AMERICAblog–style. Biden made his plea in a long taped interview with Rachel Maddow. Good choice of venue.

I've trimmed the segment to include just the message for progressives; to see the entire segment, click the link above.



Just putting his argument out there in one more place.

GP Read More......

Pope warns on Christmas

If this Pope gig doesn't work out, I think he has a future at Fox News. The Guardian:

In a key passage, he said: "I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalisation of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance." This was a clear reference to Britain, whose tolerance he praised on the first day of his visit.

He went on: "There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience."

NOTE FROM JOHN: Actually, I believe it's Ratzinger and his pedophile-enabling minions who like to try to force Catholic politicians to act against their conscience. How many Catholic politicians have they threatened, or refused to give communion to, because the politician wouldn't bow to the Pope's will, rather than simply voting his own conscience? Read More......

BicycleMark reports from the Afghan elections

The facts about today's Parliamentary Election here in Afghanistan are out there floating around the internet. Along with the facts comes the analysis and the declarations, everyone wants to draw a clear conclusion right now, which fits neatly into an evening headline or a blog post.

The big print reads "Kabul Slammed By Rockets" which is an exaggeration, it was actually a calm and good day in Kabul. Other headlines read "Low Turnout for Afghan Elections", yet the actual rate is 30% of the electorate turned out, 1.68 million Afghan citizens. Of course there is also the "Widespread Fraud" that has been reported as rampant, I actually wouldn't argue that this is an exaggeration, I'd simply point out that fraud is a tradition in democracies throughout the world, welcome to the club Afghanistan.

Nothing I can say, no facts that I can present, no first-hand observations that I can share are likely to change your mind. A glance at the comments to this post or the headlines in any newspaper shows that the verdict was reached before the votes have even been counted. So just ignore me when I tell you today's election in Afghanistan did take place, and while there was violence and a long list of problems, there were also millions of people participating in a democratic process.

Oh and before the insults start rolling in, here are a few photo's courtesy of my friends at Democracy International:



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Aetna gets green light to raise insurance rates 19% in California

It's good to be da' king. What other industry can manage to raise rates this much during one of the worst economic periods in the last 100 years? Even worse, how could the Democrats fail to get more when everyone who has health insurance is aware of such obnoxious rate increases year after year?

More than 1 million Californians will see their health insurance premiums rise Oct. 1 now that regulators have wrapped up their review of a plan by Aetna Inc. to raise rates an average of 19% for 65,000 individual policyholders.

Aetna was cleared Friday by the state Department of Insurance to proceed with its new plan. It was the last of four major insurers to be reviewed by the department, which has OKd double-digit rate increases by Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Health Net Inc. in the last month.

Regulators stepped up their scrutiny of the insurers after Anthem announced plans earlier this year to raise premiums by as much as 39%, triggering a backlash among policyholders, lawmakers and the White House. The insurer canceled the hikes and sought smaller increases that were allowed.

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GOP anti-masturbation Senate candidate 'dabbled in witchcraft'

I think we have a winner here.

Then Maher did the big reveal, a short segment which included actor Jamie Kennedy listening incredulously to her story.

"I dabbled into witchcraft," [Christine] O'Donnell says in the clip.

"I didn't join a coven, Let's get this straight," she says, as Kennedy asks her questions. "I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not makin' this stuff up. I know what they told me they do."

O'Donnell, sporting super permed hair, a blue sweater and black pants, then describes "one of my first dates with a witch."

It was "on a satanic altar and I didn't know it, and I mean there a little blood there and stuff like that," she says. "We went to a movie and had a little midnight picnic."

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Right-wing Swedes launch attack on girl who blogged about her sick mother

Some things are universal.

A young Swedish woman blogs about the story of her sick mother being kicked off the federal benefits system by Sweden's conservative government. Within 24 hours, the story goes viral on Facebook, and is forwarded over 20,000 times. The Facebook attention catches the eye of the media, that then interviews the girl and her mother as the top story on the nightly news, which leads to her being profiled as the top story of the largest Swedish daily.

Twelve hours later, the candidates for the prime minister-ship are meeting for their last debate, two days before the national elections. The story of Emilie and her mother is brought up, and the candidates spend ten minutes discussing health care and conservative budget cuts, all the while the current sitting Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, remains silent until forced to comment on the case by the debate moderator.

Over at Balloon Juice, a progressive American blog, Tim F. wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog post about how the Swedish right needs to attack this girl, just like the American right would do in their stead.

The Swedish right needs to find some way to caricature people like that blogger as an alien ‘other’ who, unlike true Swedes from real Sweden, doesn’t deserve any sympathy at all.

And what do you know? The Swedish right did just that. When confronted with a real life story of a mom and her daughter in need, they went on the attack, and denigrated the girl and her mom. They called her a liar, claiming that her story part of a left-wing plot to win the election. They did exactly what the right-wing in America does whenever they're confronted with a real human being, a real American, who's been hurt by Republican policies and politics. They go on the attack, and attempt to destroy the victim one more time.

The girl has now responded, and it's a great response. Here is her blog post in Swedish. And here is the Google Translate version in English, which is more than readable enough to understand.

Here is one criticism she received:

"I agree with everyone that this is terrible. BUT how you honestly can sit in an interview on TV4 and claim that this was not planned, admit that you are active in the Left and then pretend that you would not have posted this blog entry if you had known that the reaction would be so great. Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing - why didn't you write about this right after the incident but instead waited until four days before the election? Again, it's tragic that the whole thing has taken place, but to publish now smell desperation! ILL and dirty! "

Here is one small part of her response:

[How] could this have been planned? I don't know if you realize it, but up until now, my blog only got a few visitors a day. That it was like this now came as a shock to me. Even if I did plan to write this to coincide with end of the election, how could I know that it would have such an impact? And do you seriously that I'd name my blog "Chlamydia Letter" if I thought it would turn me into a public figure? It is embarrassing to be "chlamydia girl."

I'm not a public figure.... I'm an ordinary girl. I had only talked to my friends about the situation. But I wanted to make sure that my friends would know, that they'd understand better why I feel the way I feel. The enormous pain inside me has grown long and then wanted it just come out. I figured now would I share with my friends. And it happened to be the night of Wednesday, when I wrote the post for three hours. I did not have the slightest eye on the election campaign, because I have not had the energy. I just wrote about my mom. As I have previously written about my PMS, about how the teaching profession is the world's best job, how I mixed a good drink, or how I feel. I love to write, that's all. The reason why I started this blog is one of the very first posts.

The only thing that is unforgivable is that sick people do not get the support they deserve. Even if it was that this was deliberate - which, as I expressed clearly, it was not - why is it unforgivable, bad and dirty? Those of you who write in this way should learn to appreciate the basic principles of democracy.

Here's a Facebook fan page devoted to the girl's plight.

And here's a viral video that's been going around, in English (it's funny, and not unfamiliar to an American audience). Read More......

Howlin' Wolf, Smokestack Lightning

Our evening temperatures are now dropping down into the low 40s which means it's getting to be the right temperature for mountain food. Last night we dropped into a nearby restaurant and I had stuffed cabbage and a heaping side of la truffade Auvergnate. If you like potatoes, cheese and garlic this is perfect for a cool evening. It's right up there with a tartiflette, but truffade uses Cantal instead of Reblochon cheese.

Last weekend we had a discussion with friends about people saying "thanks" at work. Their belief was that the French are especially bad at giving any compliments in the work environment. It seems like something that's easy to do but somehow, it is much too hard for some. Strange. Do people say "thanks" to others where you work? Read More......

Spray on clothing?

I'm not convinced it has much of a future as clothing, but for medical purposes, it does look interesting. Video inside the link. The Guardian:

Manuel Torres joined forces with scientists at Imperial College London to invent the spray, which forms a seamless fabric on contact with the body.

Torres took 15 minutes to spray a T-shirt onto a male model in a demonstration today, ahead of his spring/summer collection at the Science in Style fashion show in London next week.

The spray consists of short fibres that are mixed into a solvent, allowing it to be sprayed from a can or high-pressure spray gun. The fibres are mixed with polymers that bind them together to form a fabric. The texture of the fabric can be varied by using wool, linen or acrylic fibres.

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GOP SC state senator says slavery photo is evidence of how far SC has come

Yeah, because now they only pretend to treat black people like slaves. Read More......