Friday, finally, and Day Two of the Great NY State Fair. Today’s free entertainment includes Grand Funk Railroad. I think only Don Brewer and Mel Schacher are left from the original group that I went to see back around ’74 or ’76 or so, smuggling pints of Mad Dog or Boone’s Farm into the War Memorial (I remember getting dropped off by my dad, and picked up by my buddy Warren’s – whose dad was the SU basketball coach at the time – mom). Not that I’ll be attending. Going to the Fair was fun when I was a kid (back then they had moon rocks on display (under military guard), and a guy flying around in a very cool (and very noisy; sounded like a steam line ruptured) jet pack (that I was certain we’d all have by this time in “the future”).

As I moved along to my juvenile delinquency phase, my friends and I would wander around the midway getting hammered on beer from plastic cups, and checking out the crowd (mostly the girls, of course, who were no doubt very impressed with us as we stumbled past). When I got older and was running movies for a living, we’d close the bars after work, and then head out to the fairgrounds. The Fair was technically closed at that time, but a couple of the food places would stay open to feed the people who worked there, and we’d hang out with the carny people (nothing like a greasy sausage sandwich after a few pitchers of beer). Some very interesting folks.

Now, though, I’m old, and the thought of being packed in with thousands of people doesn’t really do it for me. Plus, I’ve been there, done that; it really hasn’t changed in the past 40+ years (I mean, you see one butter sculpture, you’ve seen ’em all). My gut doesn’t have what it takes to ride the rides anymore (never mind the sausage sandwiches, which are best avoided when only public rest rooms are available), and, while I like cows (the first time I saw a calf being born, I had no idea they came out in a big bag of pink taffy) and horses and chickens and rabbits and whatnot, I don’t like them enough to go walk around looking at them (I mean, it’s not like cows are an exotic find up here in the Great White North), and the “big name” concerts these days tend to be either country music rednecks (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or people I’ve never heard of (but am sure are quite popular).

Otherwise, out there in the real world, this tiresome health care “debate” goes on. Democrats bought off by the insurance companies pretend to disapprove of the “public option” on fiscal grounds (DINO Mary Landrieu says “no” (probably) to a “public option, and of course Connecticut’s favorite son, Joe Lieberfuck is already on the “no” side), while those who represent the ignorant, batshit-crazy racists don’t need to invent any rationalizations, ‘cuz they can just say they don’t wanna kill grandma.

Speaking of ignorant, batshit-crazy racists, a Republican wingnut from Idaho says he’d be up it if they were to sell licenses to hunt the President of the United States (but that people should just lighten up about it, ‘cuz it’s only a joke). Imagine the hilarity that would have ensued, had someone suggested hunting Dubya (something tells me they’d have gotten an insider’s look at the marvelous health care provided for detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base).

Speaking of superior foreign healthcare, if you’d like to hear an interesting interview, check out TR Reid on Fresh Air. Reid toured hospitals and doctors’ offices around the world in order to find out how how every other industrialized country seems to be able to provide affordable, effective universal health care. He’s also got a nice piece at the WaPost, debunking the “5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.”

Not that anybody here remains unconvinced, of course. Hell, most of us geezers are in the same boat as the original members of Grand Funk, eagerly awaiting our appearance before the Obama death panels.

Freshman arrived on campus yesterday (life becomes a major pain the ass for those who have to work in the area – which fortunately doesn’t include me anymore – from now until winter break), the NY State Fair opens in less than two hours (it’s Governor’s Day, which means throngs of people will no doubt be heading to the fairgrounds to catch a glimpse of our beloved governor; yes, the Gov came in to town last night, and we are tainted – which is kinda like being t-bagged – by his presence), and the SU football season begins a week from Saturday (great anticipation over that, though, in reality, it figures to be another long depressing season, where “success” will be measured more in terms of progress and competitiveness than in actual wins; still, as of today, we haven’t lost any games yet). In other words, the summer of 2009 is pretty much history.

Rush Limbaugh is proud of himself for predicting that Teddy Kennedy would be dead before health care reform was passed. Yeah, you’re a regular Nostrafuckindamus, Rush. Why don’t you go ahead and shove a couple KFC “Double Down” sandwiches down your throat, you loudmouthed piece of crap?

Speaking of pieces of crap, Kansas Congresscritter Lynn Jenkins says that Republicans are looking for the “great white hope.” Of course, she certainly didn’t mean that in a “racial” sorta way. Where’s Gerry Cooney these days?

It really pisses me off to read Harry Reid praising Ted Kennedy, because Reid is such a spineless fuck. Words are great, Harry, but how about you honor Teddy by standing up to the corrupt, insurance-industry funded “blue dogs” and the obstructionist Republicans, and ram real reform though the Senate?

Well, I guess it’s time to quit lying in repose on the futon, and get ready to seize the day. Or at least get it the hell over with.

Not a whole lot to say about Teddy. We all knew it was coming, but it’s still sad. It’d be nice if this triggered the passage of a universal health care bill, the way JFK’s assassination led the way for the Civil Rights Act. But I don’t hold out much hope for that. Funny, back in ’64, LBJ managed to shove that legislation through Congress (after 54 days of filibuster – six days a week – and you needed 67 votes back then; the last Senator to speak against the Act before the Democratic Whip at the time – Hubert Humphrey – decided he had enough votes to end debate was WV’s Robert Byrd, who had spoken for over 14 hours), despite the nation being truly polarized over segregation and equal rights for black folks. Today, the vast majority of the population want at least the choice of a public health care plan, and the Democrats have flopped and foundered under feckless leadership. Not a fit legacy for a lion. I only hope I can manage to avoid reading the venomous hatred that’s sure to spew from all the usual wingnut sources over the next week or so.

In brighter news, Floyd Little is a finalist for the NFL Hall of Fame. I know what you’re thinking: why the hell wasn’t he inducted 25 years ago? Either that, or you’re thinking, “Floyd who?” But Little (whose #44 was retired by both the Broncos and the college team he played for – whose name escapes me at the moment) played for Denver when they were pretty shitty, so he was mostly overlooked. Now, it looks like he’s a shoe in, with his induction being voted on by a 44-member Board of Selectors on the day before Super Bowl 44. So, good luck Floyd.

Oh well, off to work.

While Governor Blinky tries to hide his inept stewardship of our state by complaining that nobody likes him because he’s black, Judi Ruliani seems poised to make a run at the job himself. This is very bad news, since nobody much likes Blinky, and Rudy – in Superman-like fashion – personally rid NYC of all crime, and then pulled the survivors out of the rubble of the World Trade Center with his bare hands. Blinky doesn’t stand a chance against a great American hero like that. Hell, Rudy’ll go kick that goddamn Pedro Estrada in the nuts and clean up the NY State Legislature. Hopefully Paterson will spare himself the embarrassment, and not run. If that happens, the best we can hope for is a primary fight with Andy Cuomo, and we don’t need that. I’m not sure I’m set on Andy, but I liked his old man, whom I admired for repeatedly vetoing the death penalty. I just hope Andy’s been staying away from the hookers (but he’s a nice Catholic boy – like Rudy – so I’m sure he’d never do anything like that).

The outrage continues over the release of the Lockerbie bomber, and now a new website is urging a boycott of Scotland (they have a gmail address, so they must be pretty serious). Yes, a Scotland boycott. No more haggis for you, Joe Sixpack. And throw that “Highlander” DVD in the trash (or maybe jump up and down on it while more copies are burned in a barrel behind you, ala the big “Beatles are more popular than Jesus” kerfuffle of 1966). I personally plan on supporting the boycott by not wearing a skirt, and I’ll try and cut back on “tossing my caber” (so to speak), too.

A new report says 120 – 160 million Americans might get infected with Swine Flu, a couple million hospitalized, and 90,000 might die. Or not.

…the authors of the report released by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said this was one of the possibilities and not a prediction.

Oh. Another possibility is that nobody will get Swine Flue, because an asteroid will hit the planet, obliterating all life. The main thing is that it sounds really scary, and we should all be clamoring over this untested vaccine they’re rushing to market. Since the last Swine Flu vaccine killed more people than the flu did, and this new one is apparently responsible for at least 25 deaths, it’s a good thing that the drug companies have protection from liability. I’d hate to see the drug companies held responsible for anything.

Oh well, it’s getting late, and I have to go throw out all my rolls of Scotch Tape.

Just saw some shocking news: the NY State Fair starts Thursday. Who cares? Well, I don’t, really, but around here, “Fair Week” (which is actually more like 12 days, and ends on Labor Day) signals the end of summer, shorter days, cool nights (which can’t start soon enough for me), and – most importantly, football. Before you know it, leaves will be dropping, and the snow will be flying. Fall is my favorite time of year (except for those short days), but somehow this always sneaks up on me (probably not as much as it sneaks up on Sue, though; unlike me, she’s gotta go back to school). Mondays have a tendency to sneak up on me, too. So I guess I better get ready for work.

On Press the Meat, Gilligan Gregory has Orrin Hatch and Chick Schumer, on to tell us why we can’t have health care reform, plus we’ll hear how things are going in Afghanistan (hint: it’s going great) with Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Faze the Nation has two assholes and a good guy (you decide who is which): Chuck Grassley, Kent Conrad, and Howard Dean.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace takes us beyond Death Panels, and “uncovers” the Dept of Veterans’ Affairs Death Book, with Jim Towey, former director of White House Faith Based Initiatives. Plus, health care: communism or just socialism? A “fair and balanced” debate with “Democrat” Sen. Arlen Specter and Republican Congressman Paul Ryan. Plus, a whole bunch of fuxheads.

Over at the Goebbels network, is a special “Grand Canyon” edition, live with John McCain (and, no, it most certainly is not appropriate for St. John to wear shorts). Plus a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, David Frum (I need to find a sphincter smiley for him), Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich.

Over at CNN, it’s a rerun of Fareed Zakaria’s interview with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, plus Malcolm Gladwell tells us how to get to Carnegie Hall.

Have a good Sunday.

Heard a lot of outrage the past couple days over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. As I mentioned the other day, I can certainly understand where the family members are coming from, and no doubt would feel the same way were I in the same position. A lot of the outrage comes from self-identified Christians (our President, for one – but I forget, he’s an undercover Muslim), and I can’t help but wonder what Jesus would think about it. I have to wonder because, since I don’t pretend to be a Christian, I can’t speak with Jesus and/or his dad directly, the way, say, dubya can.

On the one hand, there’s the Jesus I remember hearing about before I became a Catholic dropout, and I seem to recall he was all about mercy and compassion and whatnot. So I think he might be down with showing the dude a bit of end-of-life compassion, and letting him die at home. Then there’s the Fred Phelps Jesus (or his god, at any rate), who is apparently full of hate and into killing and death and whatnot. Although, al-Magrahi isn’t (as far as I know) gay, so Phelps’ god might not be all that pissed at him (then again, al-Magrahi’s not white or Christian, so I’m sure that Jesus does want him dead after all).

To me, it just seems that all this death, hatred, and destruction has to stop somewhere, and maybe an act of compassion is a good place to start. We all know that blowing up an airplane full of people isn’t a good thing, but it also isn’t something that just happened out of nowhere, either. In fact, one could make a case that the sainted Ronald Reagan was the man who set into motion the chain of events that led to the bombing of Pam Am Flight 103.

Back in 1980s Libya claimed the entire Gulf of Sidra as its territorial waters (which, if you look at a map, doesn’t seem all that outrageous), which didn’t sit too well with the US of A. The US Navy began “exercises” in the area to keep tabs on (and, in general, annoy) Libya – a presence that was intensified by St. Ronald when he became President. On August 19, 1981, two US F-14s shot down two Libyan attack aircraft (our story is that the Libyans fired a missile – which missed – at our aircraft first).

Tensions remained high over the next few years as the Libyans played cat and mouse games with the US Navy, which wasn’t really a good idea on their part, as we sunk a couple of their radio ships, and in March of 1986, we sunk a Libyan Navy patrol boat and another Libyan vessel. In retaliation for this (and realizing he couldn’t compete with the US Navy), Muammar al-Gaddafi purportedly ordered the April 5, 1986 bombing of a West Berlin (that was before St. Ronnie torn down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands) nightclub, known to be frequented by U.S. soldiers, killing three people and injuring more than 200.

The CIA claimed to have intercepted a message from Libya to its East Berlin embassy, proving Libya’s involvement in the bombing and providing Reagan with the justification to launch an airstrike (the first US military action launched from British bases since WWII, which is why Gaddafi doesn’t exactly love the British, either) on Tripoli and Benghazi. Among the Libyan casualties was Hanna Gaddafi – Muammar’s adopted baby daughter. It was to avenge his daughter’s death that Gaddafi allegedly sponsored both the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986, and the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.

Now, I know, it’s different when we kill somebody’s kids in Libya or Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever we feel justified in doing it, because we didn’t mean to kill them; it’s just a regrettable mistake. Deliberately killing civilians in Berlin or the Twin Towers or a marketplace in Baghdad or wherever the “terrorists” feel it’s justified, well, that’s a different story. But, either way, those kids are dead, and all this killing and hatred and justification for killing and hatred really needs to stop – on all sides.

I’m not naive enough to think that a Scottish Court releasing a terminally ill convicted mass murderer on compassionate grounds will put an end to it. But maybe it’s at least a start.

And wouldn’t that be a more suitable legacy for the victims?

Nancy Pelosi says no way a health care reform bill gets through the House w/o a public option. I guess that’s the best we can hope for at this point, though I still have real doubts – especially about the Senate. If the Senate passes a bill with no public component, the House version can be stripped in the conference committee. Hopefully the Progressive caucus will keep that from happening. Assuming some version of a public plan makes it to Obama’s desk, the big issue will be what this “public option” looks like.

Combined with a mandate to purchase insurance, a crappy public component will provide no competition to the insurance industry vultures, and no incentive to lower costs and improve care. But, we’ll see. Even though more than 3/4 of “We the People” are in favor of having the choice of a public option, there’s still an awful lot of stupid to overcome. For instance, Michelle Bachmann wants Obama to keep his hands off her body (Michelle, honey – he’s just not that in to you). And the President doesn’t seem to realize that his attempts to compromise with people who will never do more than stab you in the back at the end of the day is only making us less confident in his ability to get things done.

That’s been the big surprise for me. Not that I thought he was a bleeding heart liberal, but that his well-oiled political machine has been so stunningly incompetent when it comes to health care reform. He set himself up to fail right at the start, and it only got worse from there.

The Obama administration should have been pushing for single payer. If you want to fall back on “public option” later, well, OK, that’s how the sausages are made. But when you that off the table from the start, you screw yourself. And us.

Let’s hope the House progressives can shame him into doing what’s right.

We had a brief respite from the horribly hot and humid weather yesterday (still too hot for me, though certainly better than it’s been), but we’re supposed to back up near 90 again today. :hot: Not 110, I know, but we spend years developing our winter skin up this way, and it’s not something you can shed in a day. So 90 here is probably the equivalent of 120 to all you warm weather people. I only wish I could spend the day at the beach checking out the bikinis without looking like a old, fat, and very, very white pervert. :hubba: Sucks to get old.

I need to take the car in today, ‘cuz it sounds like it’s got a bad wheel bearing. I was gonna do it myself, but was talking to somebody who’s a much better mechanic than I am who said he had all kinds of problems with doing the bearings on a car of the same year, make, and model and wound up taking the thing in to a repair shop in the end. So, screw it. I’ll let somebody with a lift and all the right tools do it. It’s only money, right? Besides, did I mention it’s too damn hot? I just wish there was a single payer extended warranty plan.

Speaking of single payer (or not), the Senate appears to be on the verge of splitting their version of health care reform and passing the “public option” stuff on reconciliation. Unfortunately, they currently only have 46 votes in favor of a public option, so they still have some work to do, even on that front. Harry Reid (he of the stainless steel spine) says they’re “…determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary.” Which, if you’re Jake “the mens’ room” Tapper, warrants a comparison to Malcolm X. Yeah, when I think of Harry Reid, the first person that comes to mind is Malolm X (well, actually I think of Denzel Washington, ‘cuz I was only about 4 when Malcolm was assassinated, but I really liked the movie).

Rush Limbaugh made a gay joke about Barney Frank (one that we thought was pretty darn funny back in fourth grade or so, except it wasn’t about gay people, ‘cuz we didn’t know about that kinda thing; our version had something to do with comparing Klingons to dingle berries). I’ll bet Barney, at least, doesn’t need Viagra (though, I hasten to add, I have no personal knowledge in that regard).

Gotta go bring the car in now, so will somebody please let me know when the big news breaks on the Today Show? You know, the results of the poll as to whether or not it was appropriate for Michelle Obama to wear shorts while on vacation. 🙄 These people are really friggin’ nuts, you know it?

Feels like it ought to be Friday, today, doesn’t it?