I got an e-mail yesterday from somebody or other (Democrats.com or MoveOn or something; can’t find it right now), that said the House had voted for the “public option,” and now it was time to put pressure on the Senate. I wish you could actually reply to these e-mails, ‘cuz I’d like to ask them, what option? As far as I know, there’s no “option” involved in what the House passed. An public option would be, like, you have the option of choosing between your employer’s plan or the public plan. Not, you must take your employer’s plan or get fined. That’s the real option there – get fined or don’t get fined, depending on what you can afford best.

There also seems to be no real regulation on the insurance companies, either. First off, they get until 2013 to jack up rates as high as they can (which they’ve already promised to do). After that, they’re not allowed to deny people based on existing conditions (supposedly; who wants to bet they won’t find some loophole in nearly 2,000+ pages of needlessly complicated legislation), and supposedly caps out of pocket expenses, but I don’t see where it limits how much insurance companies can charge for premiums. And the idiot Republicans have the audacity to call this a “government takeover” of health care.

Which just goes to show that they should have just insisted on Medicare for everybody. Then maybe we could have gotten something worthwhile (that didn’t attempt a “back door” ban on abortion).

Oh well. On the bright side, it’s still OK to send grown-up babies to their deaths in Afghanistan, as CBS is reporting that Obama has decided on sending about 40,000 additional troops there – upping our presence to 100,000. Or not. That report was quickly denied. Whether it was just a trial balloon, or the Obama administration doesn’t really know what the hell it’s doing, who knows? Both of those seem plausible to me. One thing I’ve come to believe in the past 10 months or so is that the Obama machine is a lot better at running for office than actually being in office.

Did you think that Carrie what’s her name with the fake boobs was finally over with? You were wrong. Her fifteen minutes has been extended once again, and she’ll be on the Today Show this morning to talk about masturbating on video. I must admit, I’ve been a bit behind the curve on this one, haveing not even heard about it until I watched last Friday’s podcast of “Countdown” yesterday. No word on whether or not the video is available on line somewhere (just a matter of time, I reckon), or who was behind the camera (or did she just set up a tripod and have at it), but, well, pardon me but is it illegal to masturbate? Or even immoral or whatever? As always, I admit I’m no bible expert, but I don’t recall reading about that being in there. “Thou shalt not diddle thyself, nor be diddled by others.”

Of course, if you think about it in the extreme sense, masturbation is kinda like gay sex, in that you’re having “same sex.” So nobody who has ever masturbated should be able to get married. Or is it that you just shouldn’t marry yourself?

I dunno, this bible shit is just piled too deep for me to understand.

OK, time to bore you sports talk today, ‘cuz it’s a big night here tonight as SU basketball season officially begins (and none too soon the way football season is going). Our coach – Jim Boeheim – begins his 34th season tonight against Albany. In his first 33 seasons (all here at Syracuse), Boeheim had 799 wins (better than 24 wins per season), which means he’ll be trying to become just the eighth coach to reach 800 wins. Boeheim hasn’t been known exactly as a personable person over the years, but I’ve always liked him. For one thing, he’s from these parts, having grown up in Lyons, NY (about an hour west of here). Back in 1962, Boeheim passed on a scholarship to Colgate, and instead walked on to the Syracuse freshman team. He never left. By the time he was a senior, he’s earned a scholarship, was team captain, and – along with teammate Dave Bing and coach Fred Lewis – had helped take SU from the one of the worst teams of all time (including what was, at the time, an NCAA record 27 consecutive losses over two seasons) with a 2-22 record in 1961-62, to a 22-6 record and Sweet Sixteen finish in the 1966 NCAA tournament (which was a lot harder to get into back then). Boeheim went on to become an assistant coach under Roy Danforth (fun fact: my sister went to school and was good friends with Fred Lewis’ daughter, and I went to school and was good friends with Roy Danforth’s son), and took over as head coach in 1976 (becoming the first NCAA Division I coach to win 100 games in his first four seasons). Boeheim also holds the record for most 20-win seasons: 31. He’s been asked why he never left Syracuse, and has always said it was because he never wanted to go anyplace else. Of course, my favorite Boeheim quote comes from when a reporter asked him if he was looking forward to getting out of Syracuse in December to go play in a tournament in Hawaii. “Ah, Hawaii,” he replied. “Syracuse in July.”

Press the Meat has creepy Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylania.

Faze the Nation has Governor-elect of VA, Bob McDonnell, plus members of both Congressional armed forces committees: from the Senate, he’s got Jack Reed and l’il Lindsey Graham, and from the House it’s Ike Skelton. Also on, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrat of Florida, and Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, and Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland. Plus Bob McDonnell.

At the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus has Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Bozo the Clown, Michael Steele to talk about the 2010 midterm elections, health care and the economy.

CNN’s State of the Union has General George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, to discuss the shootings at the military base in Ft. Hood, Tex., combat stress, and the war in Afghanistan, plus Mikhail Gorbachev, to talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.

On CNN’s GPS, Fareed Zakaria discusses the Afghanistan and Pakistan – including Hamid Karzai, and the prospects for peace in the region – with Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan.

So, the House managed to pass a version of Health Care Reform last night (at least, I think they did; word was they had the votes, but I had to call it a night before the final tally) – in part due to the leadership of the President, and also in part due to Bill Owens, the newest Congressman in the House, who showed the chickenshit Democrats that you don’t have to run as a fake Republican to win an election. As flawed as the bill is, I reckon I’m happy that it passed, mostly because it helps to put the Republican Party in its place.

Republicans are the party of Satan. And everybody knows you gotta keep the devil way down in the hole.

Big vote on the crappy House health care bill today, and they’ll apparently be struggling to get it passed. Not really sure how I feel about that. Somewhat ambivalent, I guess, ‘cuz I’m not sure that the House bill (which is probably better than whatever the assholes in the Senate will come up with) is better than nothing. Oh, it’ll be touted as a big defeat for Obama and a huge victory for teabaggers (and teabaggees) everywhere, so, I guess in that respect alone, I have to hope the bill passes in the House today. As for it passing on the merits of the bill itself? Not so much.

As I understand it, if your job offers health insurance – no matter how crappy and expensive – you’ll be forced to buy it or get fined 2.5% of your annual income. The only way you’d be able to get a government run insurance plan would be if you can’t get insurance on the job. An example of how wonderful this would be, is for Wal-Mart employees. According to this site, the average full time Wal-Mart “associate” earns $2,000 less than the Federal Poverty limit for a family of four. As for Wal-Mart’s employee health plan:

* If an average full-time Wal-Mart employee chooses the least expensive family coverage plan, they would have to spend over 20% of their income before the health insurance provided any reimbursement.[ EBRI Issue Brief October 2007]

* An average full time Wal-Mart Associate faces a serious family health issue. They have to pay the entire out-of-pocket maximum for the least expensive health plan, which adds up to pay 53% of their income. [ EBRI Issue Brief October 2007]

In other words, a Wal-Mart employee would quite likely be better off getting fined 2.5%, rather than get health insurance. Unless they got sick, that is. In which case, they’d be screwed either way, really.

Now, there are subsidies for the poorest families and all that, and I don’t know all the details of the bill (I doubt many people do), and I don’t know how it’s gonna work if you’re part time vs. full time or whatever, but I think it’s pretty fair to say the bill sucks. At the very least anybody ought to have the option of electing to go with the government plan. In fact, that ought to be the deal – take your company’s plan, or you’re automatically enrolled in the public one.

But, no, that’s not good for the insurance industry. They can keep raising rates, and you have to pay, unless you’d rather get fined and roll the dice and go without coverage.

Oh, I suppose for the people who will actually get some sort of insurance who otherwise wouldn’t this is better than nothing – at least in the short term. But for what this will cost us all in the long run when insurance rates more than double (one of the few promises from the insurance industry that you can believe), I think this will turn out to be far worse than nothing. Why we can’t just “redistribute” all those private insurance premiums into Medicare, get rid of the for-profit insurance model, and just cover everybody automatically is beyond me.

I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand all the nuances, but here’s what I think about Health Care reform:

The Democrats suck (with a few exceptions).

Obama sucks.

I can’t think of any words to adequately express how disgusting Republicans are. Nor can I express how disgusted I am with the US Government.

But, maybe I’m just in a bad mood ‘cuz the dog park’s closed for a cross country race today, and I’m faced with watching SU lose yet another football game.

Just a few thoughts to ponder this morning.

First, you don’t need to wait until all your items are rung up at the checkout (there’s a quaint phrase from the olden days, eh? “Rung up,” as if cash registers still had bells) before digging through your purse to find your credit card. You can swipe your card at any time. Honest. It’ll be OK. And if you’re paying with cash, you don’t need to paw through your purse trying to separate the pennies from the linty life savers at the bottom, looking for exact change. The kid behind the register needs the practice, and the rest of us in line have lives we need to get on with. If you happen to have change in your pocket, fine, but please, you don’t get a prize for coming up with exactly seventy-three cents (especially if it consists of more than three pennies). Throw it in a jar at home and consider it your medical savings account (trust me, you’re gonna need it). If you’re writing a check – really? You’re writing a check? – presumably you already know the name of the store and your own name, right? So, um, maybe you could have all that pre-filled, and your little checkbook out and ready (plus the twenty-seven forms of ID you’re gonna need)? And, goddamn it, if it says no payroll checks, then jeezus frickin’ charlie crist, no payroll checks!

By the way, the self-checkout isn’t some sort of mysterious, Rubik’s Cube-like oracle that requires you to read each step (while moving your lips) before proceeding. Seriously, it isn’t that hard. You’ve seen the mouth-breathing 17 year old from down the street who can’t make change w/o a computer do basically the same thing a million times before. If they can do it, so can you. And you know what? If the damn thing won’t swipe, you don’t need it; just leave it there and move on. Don’t make the pimple-faced kid with the retainer and the special key code have to come over. She’s busy trying to get the “#1 in Shrinkage Reduction” button pinned to her crappy red vest.

Look, if the self-checkout is too difficult or intimidating for you, just go to a human. You might have to wait in line a little longer, but guess what? It’ll give you time to get your credit card ready, plus you’ll be saving somebody’s job, and clearing the way for those of us who aren’t idiots to get out of the store in under four hours. Oh, and if you’re buying fifty 2×4’s at Home Depot, guess what? The self-checkout is not for you. By the way, I know it says “Contractor Checkout,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t go to it. They don’t ask for your official “Contractor ID Card.”

Yes, that white stuff falling from the sky is snow. It does that here, and you’ll be seeing it for the next six months or so – except, instead of making the street a little wet, it’ll start sticking. You need to get used to it (just like last year, and the year before that, and…). And all those cop cars and flashing lights? That’s an accident. You really don’t need to slow down and take a look at it. If it was gruesome enough, you can see it on the news, otherwise it really isn’t interesting enough to keep the rest of us from getting home at a decent time.

As for you spambots out there, would you please stop registering as users for this blog. It’s really obvious you’re not real people, and I’m getting tired of deleting your lame-ass attempts. Even if you manage to sneak a link to your pecker pills past my eagle eyes, you’re really not reaching the right audience. Try the freepers, tea baggers, and Rush Limbaugh listeners – they’re the ones that can’t get it up unless they’re tapping their toes in a public mens room someplace.

We don’t need Viagara – we’re Liberals.

House Republicans have introduced their version of health care reform (good job staying ahead of the curve there). According to the CBO, it will cover about 3 million people who are currently not covered – by 2019 – reduce premiums for those who are covered by a whopping 0 – 3% (locally, Excellus just announced they were increasing premiums by 8.8% in January), and would reduce the budget deficit by $68 billion. In comparison, the House Democrats’ version of reform would cover 36 million people w/o health insurance, would reduce the deficit by $104 billion, and would be paid for by taxes and spending cuts. The Republican bill, however, would cost a mere $61 billion compared to $1.1 trillion for the Democrats’ bill. So, that’s either a savings of $966 billion (figuring in the deficit reduction), or a waste of $61 billion (seeing as it doesn’t really seem to do a goddamn thing). Good plan, Republicans. It makes the Democrats’ shitty bill look great in comparison.

Speaking of the evils of health care reform, Michelle “Soron” Bachmann has summoned her teabag zombie army to DC today, to make “one last stand” against reform. There may be upwards of 1,000 mouth-breathing orcs, trolls, and other mindless morons hitting the Capital today, demanding that the government stay away from Medicare and Michelle Bachmann’s government-provided health insurance, so that they can keep paying higher and higher insurance premiums in order for insurance executives to continue getting hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.

So, apparently this Joy Behar person has a show on CNN or something, and she’s interviewed a Playboy Playmate – Nicole Narain – who’s a recovering sex addict, who says being a sex addict is – not surprisingly – “exhausting.”

You know what, I really try hard not to think about masturbating too much. I had a moment there where I really did, I could not get out of bed one day because I was just, it was a constant thing. That was an exhausting day. It was like, I didn’t even want to eat food because that was my food for the day. It was exhausting and it was scary because it consumed my entire day and I try very hard not to have any triggers around me where I would feel like I need to masturbate today.

I don’t know about you, but I think that would make for an incredible documentary.

A cat in Iowa got the Swine Flu. That would be a good Rapture Watch item, I think. Speaking of the Rapture and evil and whatnot, the Yankees won their 27th World Series last night. As much as everyone hates the Yankees, if there are any fans less sympathetic than Yankees fans, it would have to be Phillies fans. Or at least fans in Philly – especially Eagles fans.

The “Parents Television Council” (PTC) has its collective panties in a bunch over an upcoming episode of a teevee show that I’ve never heard of – “Gossip Girl” – on a network that I don’t think I’ve ever watched – the “CW.” Apparently there’s a coming (so to speak) episode that includes a teenage threesome. Hmm. Maybe I should start recording that show. I wonder if they can get Nicole Narain to guest star?

First off, sorry to hear the Parkside Democrats were shut out last night. If it’s any consolation, SU managed to lose to its Division II neighbor LeMoyne last night. Truly shameful. Nice going guys – way to waste my Three Philosophers buzz. Praise Allah it was just an exhibition game. In other news, a huge loss for the Teabag crowd, as Bill Owens took down the asshole Doug Hoffman by about 4%. A wingut with a truckload of wingnut money couldn’t win in a solidly Republican district. Good deal. Syracuse elected its first-ever female mayor last night, as Stephanie Miner won handily. Though turnout was less than 30%. WTF is up with people? The news was not so bright in NJ and VA, unfortunately, as Republicans took both statehouses. Despite the fact that these are just state races, and, in the one national race, a district that’s been Republican since, like, the 1800’s, this is being hailed as a “big night” for the GOP and a referendum on Obama by the traditional media.

You gotta believe all the corruption and arrests of public officials in NJ earlier this year led to a pretty big anti-incumbent mood there, and was at least partly responsible for Corzine’s loss. As for VA? Well, there’s a reason Richmond (and then Danville) was the capital of the Confederacy. Other state’s Governors don’t really affect my life, anyway, and I had no plans to visit either NJ or VA.

In my Town races…. It appears they lost the votes, ‘cuz I can’t find any results whatsofrickinever. Must be those damn lever machines.

For the first time in MS blog history, we are officially endorsing a candidate for office. Actually, we’re gonna go ahead and endorse an entire slate – the Parkside Democrats. Mostly, though, we’re endorsing Andy, who had the guts and gumption to get out there and do more than sign an online petition or march around carrying a cute sign, hootin’ and hollerin’. He’s running for a public office – Borough Council – where he can actually accomplish something. That’s a lot more than I can say for myself (not that I set the bar very high). Good luck, Andy, and no matter what the results are at the end of the day, just making the effort makes you a winner.

It’s funny, these “off year” elections don’t usually have any “big” races, so a lot of people don’t bother to vote. Imagine that – elections for offices that probably have the most direct affect on your life, and where your vote is huge (instead of one in millions, it’s one in thousands – even hundreds in some cases), and you don’t bother to vote. And odds are you know less about the candidates and where they pretend to stand than you do about those big national ones.

So, anyhow, get out there and vote. And then send your condolences to the residents of NY’s 23rd District, who are probably gonna elect a major asshole as their “representative,” whose qualifications seem to be that he hates gay people, wants to privatize Social Security, opposes “government run health care” and the “death tax,” is endorsed by the likes of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, and considers Glenn Beck his “mentor.”

In the City of Syracuse (where I don’t vote), they’re electing a new mayor. The choices are a woman, an old white guy, and the rather oxymoronic (and, from the sound of him, you can drop the “oxy”) “black conservative.” I heard a bit of a three-way debate, and the woman – Stephanie Miner, a long time City Councilor – is by far the smartest person in the race. The old white man seem to be running on the “I’m a businessman, so I know what’s best” line. And he’s got a really bad set of fake teeth. I don’t know if the Conservative guy is actually brain damaged, but he certainly sounds like it.

In the “big name” races today, there’s a good chance that the NJ statehouse will turn red, as Jon Corzine is in a tight race against Chris Christie. It’s a similar situation in VA, where Creigh Deeds is battling against Bob McDonnell to replace Tim Kaine. The traditional media is calling these races (and the NY 23rd) a “referendum” on Barack Obama. Which I suppose it is, but not in the way they’re painting it. They seem to think “We the People” don’t like all this wild-eyed socialism that they keep telling us about (and which I, for the life of me, just don’t see). If anything, it’s out of disgust for his timid (dare I say feckless?) first ten months in office.

Oh well, time to get going. I reckon I’ll head out to the polls before work this morning. I don’t think there’ll be much of a line.

Those of you who don’t live in my television market should consider yourselves very lucky. These campaign ads are getting really unbearable, and it appears that the people who are bankrolling creepy Doug Hoffman have a lot of money left to spend. In 45 minutes of watching the morning news, I’ve now seen about 20 Hoffman ads – to maybe 8 for Owens. And Hoffman’s are the really nasty annoying kind, too. There’s also one still running about Dede Scozzafava. It’s one of those interesting ones, saying that Dede is the choice for “true progressives,” because she favors abortion and gay marriage. Of course, in the teeny-tiny print, you see it was sponsored by “Common Sense America,” whose board chairman happens to also be the Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage (an anti-gay group that featured Dougie-boy on its website). It also appears that CSA paid NOM $166,000 for some unspecified reason. But then it looks like the CSA ad was actually paid for by a donor for the Club for Growth, which is another right-wing group (one that wants to privatize Social Security – ‘cuz the stock market is so great, I guess – among other things) that’s running anti-Owens ads, too. At any rate, I’ll be glad when this is all over, though if this weekend poll is accurate (or even close), things don’t look good for Owens.

Otherwise, I’m up early this morning, thanks to the fact that I’ve been unable to explain to the dogs that we set the clocks back the other night. Once they get me out of bed, go outside, and get their breakfast cookies, they seem content to sleep on the couch next to me. It’s time for my annual plea for Congress to enact what I call the “Daylight Preservation Act.”

Now, I know that some people seem to like daylight in the morning and during working hours, and for some reason prefer it to having daylight when it counts – after I get out of work. As misguided as I believe these people are, I acknowledge their right to be wrong. So, in the spirit of compromise, here’s my solution. Every morning at 2 AM, we turn the clocks back an hour (or two; I’m flexible. In fact, I’d be willing to support a plan that adjusts clocks by one hour during the spring and summer months, and by two hours in the fall and winter). This will give us extra daylight in the morning, and make the kids safe at the bus stop and whatnot. Then, at 2PM, we set the clocks ahead again. This would give us some extra daylight in the evening.

Everybody wins.

Sometimes the simple solutions are the most elegant.

On Press the Meat today, it’s Tim Geithner and David Plouffe, plus a roundtable with author Jon Krakauer, Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell.

Faze the Nation has David Axelrod and scumbag, traitor, asswipe, and lying whore Joe Lieberman.

At Fair and Balanced Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace devote the entire show to one guest: radio “giant” Rush Limbaugh.

Over on the Goebbels network George Snufalufagus has Valerie Jarrett, plus a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Dee Dee Myers, Ed Gillespie, Ron Brownstein of the National Journal and Al Sharpton.

At CNN, Fareed Zakaria has Matthew Hoh, the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Robert Schiller, who predicted the financial crisis and the stock market collapse of 2000.

Hope you remembered to set your clocks back. It’s gonna be dark awful goddamn early tonight.