Which side of history do you want to be on?

Times Union:

Government is not a four-letter word. Yet, at every turn, we hear a knee-jerk negativism, a shotgun rage charging that the country is going to the dogs.

Yet, if every forward-looking measure, like assuring people of health care, is branded a socialist or, worse, a communist plot, we are simply substituting slogans for thinking.

Just ask any of those people over 65 who are fuming over socialized medicine if they are ready to give up Medicare -- which is wholly run by the government. Ask them if they are ready to end Social Security -- which is wholly run by the government. Ask any politician if he or she proposes to abolish these government-run programs. That would be political suicide.

And ask people who are complaining about government spending intended to stimulate a depressed economy, would they prefer the approach of a Herbert Hoover, who stood by as the country slipped into its worst depression in history?

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Rand Paul doesn't appear on Meet the Press, and MTP gets even

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Mark Twain's autobiography to be published

This should be a lot of fun. The Independent:The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.

That milestone has now been reached, and in November the University of California, Berkeley, where the manuscript is in a vault, will release the first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography. The eventual trilogy will run to half a million words, and shed new light on the quintessentially American novelist. Read the rest of this post...

Military still blowing off vets' health care

So where exactly are the Teabaggers and the Republicans when our vets are suffering from an overbloated government health care system? Silence.

Improvised bombs rattled former Army Spc. Adam Pittman a dozen times in his three tours in Iraq, most severely when his Bradley fighting vehicle ran over one hidden in the dirt in 2005.

Now, part of Pittman's brain has gone dormant, and on most days he can't think straight.

He leaves the room and forgets what he was searching for. He gets migraines so piercing that his right eye sometimes curls away from his left. Anger comes easily, inspiring rages that sometimes have his wife terrified for herself and their 3-year-old daughter.

Although Pittman, who lives in Lillington, N.C., left the military in July 2008 complaining of headaches and memory loss, it took nearly a year for him to get a brain scan and another five months to start getting temporary disability benefits.

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Is the US really saying Agent Orange impact is inconclusive?

Whoever is promoting such an argument has no shame. I've spent a lot of time traveling throughout Southeast Asia as well as other poor countries and nowhere else do you see anything like you see in Vietnam. The number of victims is very high compared to other countries so to suggest this might be a nutrition issue is a scandalous lie. Those pitching these lies ought to be forced to spend extended periods of time in the areas most impacted by Agent Orange and see how arrogant they are at the end of their visit. The US did this and should face up to the consequences.

Vietnam says as many as 4 million of its citizens were exposed to the herbicide and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses caused by it — including the children of people who were exposed during the war.

The U.S. government says the actual number of people affected is much lower and that Vietnamese are too quick to blame Agent Orange for birth defects that can be caused by malnutrition or other environmental factors.

"Scientists around the world have done a lot of research on dioxin and its possible health effects," said Michael Michalak, the U.S. ambassador in Hanoi. "There is disagreement as to what's real and what isn't, about what the possible connections are."

That position frustrates many Vietnamese, who point out that the U.S. government banned commercial use of the herbicide long ago and provides benefits to American veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

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Wall Street continues to thumb nose at Obama and American voters

It's good to be da' king.

J.P. Morgan Chase awarded its chairman and chief executive, Jamie Dimon, $91,000 in personal travel on the company jet in 2009, up from about $54,000 the previous year. His total perks increased 19 percent, to $266,000. Dimon, along with Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and McLean-based Capital One chief executive Richard Fairbank, also received sharply higher perks related to personal and home security.

"Marie Antoinette could fit into this crowd without missing a beat," said Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library, which found in recent studies of several thousand U.S. companies that more chief executives received club memberships than a year earlier, and companies paid more to cover executives' personal use of corporate planes. "Many people would think the solution would be not to be so provocative of unrest and unhappiness, but no, they're saying, 'Go ahead and do that, just build bigger walls around your house.' "

A review of the 29 largest publicly traded financial companies that received federal aid found that nearly one in three increased fringe benefits for their chief executives. Those raises contrast with the belt-tightening that many Americans have experienced during the recession.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

So, today's main topic is elections and teabaggers. But, the star of the week, Rand Paul, won't be appearing on "Meet the Press" as scheduled. Paul canceled his appearance, but I suspect every other guest on every other show will be talking about him. Anyone willing to watch FOX can even hear Sarah Palin opine on Rand Paul.

One of the other big news makers from the last week's primaries is making the rounds today. The winner of Pennsylvania's Democratic Senate Primary, Joe Sestak, is on NBC and ABC.

CNN is also going to talk about the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Here is the full lineup. I realized ABC's website put this article in its entertainment section, which is actually appropriate. Read the rest of this post...

Southern Man

As John asked on Friday, what is it with the south? Every country has its fair share of nuts but they do seem to be in larger numbers down south. For any liberal that lives there it has to be frustrating. I used to be floored with what I heard when I briefly lived down there. Then again, because I was from the northeast and a Democrat many would talk as though I was a red-flag waving communist. It was a pleasure listening to the moralizers down there and then not being able to drive one highway exit without a casino. That and the obsession with enormous strip clubs (hey, they even have buffet lunches!) was bizarre. There was nothing quite like listening to their Bible thumping hypocrisy. Funny that I didn't stick around for very long. Read the rest of this post...

First female priest ordained in Italy

Don't hold your breath that we will see more of this elsewhere, though. Maria Vittoria Longhitano belongs to a small church that separated from the Roman Catholic church a few hundred years ago. BBC:

Mrs Longhitano, who will now be known as Mother Longhitano, said she hoped to break down what she described as prejudice in the Roman Catholic church.

"We are talking about an extremely hierarchical system; a male caste with a strong instinct of self-preservation," she said.

"And this is why there is this general attitude against ordaining women in the Church."

The Roman Catholic Church says it obeys the directives of Jesus Christ, whose 12 Apostles were all men.

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