We have the greatest health care system in the world

Anthem Blue Cross apparently isn't taking any chances. The company recently informed many of the approximately 800,000 Californians who buy its individual policies that premiums will rise sharply March 1. Although Anthem provided no details, insurance brokers say they're already seeing increases of up to 39%.

This is fucking insane

To boss: I demand a carpet square and chocolate milk daily at 2pm.

"But many people, and experts, praise the benefits of a siesta or a power snooze. Confessed nappers include Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison and Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton...

Napping, writes James B. Maas, a Cornell University sleep expert, “should have the status of daily exercise.”"

Times story.

menamona

My bro told me to like this band months ago, so i didnt listen to him. But somebody else thats cooler sent me this, really sweet.

Lewis has the goods

"From the moment I left Yale and started working for Goldman Sachs, I’ve felt uneasy interacting with those who don’t. "

Bloomberg story

War on Christmas

Jesus and Old Saint Nick enjoying a Saturday afternoon at Rockefeller Center.

American Presidents are Lousy With Their Tongues

Bush Kisses Big Oil, Carter Made Out With the Red Army, The Gay Agenda Ruins the World:

Yes, because Carter was a lousy president," McCain quipped. "This is the same guy who kissed Brezhnev."

Timahoe Endorses Chambers For President

Timahoe advocates its own write in candidate King Cobra himself, Ernie Chambers.

George Bush's America clearly needs a man like this:

Liked or not, Mr. Chambers, a black, divorced, agnostic former barber from Omaha with posters of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass decorating his office, managed to rise to an ultimate level of power in a mostly rural, white conservative state on little more than sheer determination to do so.

NYT link

Oh Snap!

College educated white young men of America declare: "I am a bigger misogynist than a racist, so obama is my man."

A NYT Editorial Declares:

"The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

"It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

Coal Companies Give Mother Nature a Roofie, Has Its Way With Her

"They don't realize that that's where they get their electricity from," the driver said over the radio. "God gave us coal to mine, then, didn't He?"




Washington Post celebrates Earth Day by depressing the shit out of me:

"There's one big reason you mountaintop mine. That's where the good Lord put the coal," said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. He said that about 70 percent of the coal from surface mines in this part of Appalachia originates at mountaintop mines.

. . .

"Any coal coming from central Appalachian strip mines is almost certainly coming from mountaintop-removal-type mines . . . that bury streams and that permanently destroy, you know, many, many miles of forest," said Joe Lovett, executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, an environmental group in West Virginia.

The story of mountaintop mining here begins with the mountains themselves: They have been carved over 140 million years, making them older than the Himalayas but only a fraction of their size. Inside, there are shiny, uneven layers of bituminous coal, like icing in a layer cake somebody dropped.

Happy Easter! And the Jews said, "Let Them Eat Ham!"

From Wiki:

'DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE SUPERMAN TO LIVE.'
—trans. Thomas Common, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Section XXII,3

It's 3AM

It's 3AM. The phone is ringing. You are the only one able to answer.

It's a pizza delivery-man. Your friend in Boston had a pizza delivered to your doorstep on an early Tuesday morning.

Who do you want to answer that call?

Post Texas/Ohio Morning Glory Holes

Jimmy cracked corn, and I dont care. What if Mccain gets Alzheimer's and bombs Constantinople or Saigon? What if Hillary menstruates on the constitution? How is Barack gonna have time to run the country when he is constantly praying to mecca?

Vote Nader, make toast in the tub.

Astros Owner: Of all the perjurers in Washington, this one has to throw batting practice?

Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane artfully states the obvious about Roger Clemens participating in the club's minor league camp.

McLane also wondered whether Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, was the best person to be pitching to the players. Clemens threw batting practice for more than an hour Thursday, cajoling the players as they swung. Often, the swings were futile.

“Or what about having someone of Roger’s ability pitching to them?” McLane added. “Would it be better for them to face pitching of people that are of their age level and their skill level and their development level?”

Link

No word on whether McLane gets vitamin injections in his rear or if his wife takes HGH to look good in a bikini.

My Father Was in Prison With You

Johnny Cash used to tell stories about people coming up to him and saying, "my father was in prison with you." Johnny never was in prison. He just sang cool tunes about inmates looking out the window and imagining smoking fine cigars and having fancy dinners. But if Johnny were alive today, he would have a 1 in 106 chance of going to prison. If Johnny were black and between the ages of 20-34, he would have a 1 in 9 chance of being sent behind bars.

Our country, according to the Pew Center for the States, has increased spending by 127% (inflation adjusted) for prison in the last 20 years. The spending increase for higher education during that same time period was 21%.

Booze, Bibles, Bars.

See Al Jazeera's coverage of this story here.

The hearty amongst us might read the full report here.

Fidel would be proud.

60 minutes ran the story about former Democratic, Alabama Governor Don Siegleman, who now passes time mopping floors in the federal penitentiary. (Cliff Notes: he was convicted of taking a bribe and is serving eight years.) At least one former Republican political operative says Karl Rove took an active interest in taking down Siegleman. Another former Republican state Attorney General says the charges are trumped up. The lead attorney for the prosecution was married to the campaign manager of Siegleman's chief political rival. Freedom.

A backwater Alabama TV station even accidentally dropped the CBS feed and didn't show the Siegleman segment. See the NYT's coverage (which you should never take at face value) and the video here.

Further north, in a state that's vying for Alabama in terms of poverty and futility, federal prosecutors have set their sights on another Democrat, noted Michigan defense attorney Geoffery Fieger. The Feds have indicted Fieger on charges of illegal bundling of campaign contributions to John Edwards in 2004. Serious business there. Sending too much money to a son of a mill worker - juggernaut that won two primaries in five years of constant campaigning. Let's clean up politics starting there.

Fieger, meanwhile, has never taken anything sitting down. He's running TV ads comparing the government's interest in him to that of Nazi Germany's attack on the legal profession. See story here.

Fieger made his name defending Dr. Death.

Warhol on Politics

NYT has a nice rundown of notable campaign posters over the years.

Happy VD day! Jesus hates myspace, dry humping! <3 <3 <3

From this super hot myspace page.

"We recommend that you do not click through anywhere on myspace.com pages except from this preview section. There are many unpure pages and advertisements that you can reach from myspace.com. Go to www.DayOfPurity.org for the best web site about how to live a life of purity. The annual "Day of Purity" is observed on February 14.

"The Day of Purity is a day when this nation's youth can make a public demonstration of their commitment to remain sexually pure in mind and actions. In today's culture, students are bombarded with the message that they should become sexually active at a young age and to experiment with their sexual preferences. The Day of Purity offers those who strive for sexual purity an opportunity to stand in opposition to a culture of moral decline.

When the youth stand up for sexual purity they send a message to parents, churches, communities, legislators, and the media that they want a different America. Now is the time to let your voices be heard. Be a part of the "counter-culture" -- be politically incorrect."

Running for a Better Job

Maureen Dowd highlights the main problem for women, or those who would like to see a woman as president, Hillary Clinton isn't the person for the job. She has Bill baggage. So much that it's awfully hard for people to forget: I didn't inhale, Gennifer Flowers, health care, Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, and the abhorrent punchline that she insists on repeating - the Republican Attack Machine.

But Hillary is not the best test case for women. We’ll never know how much of the backlash is because she’s a woman or because she’s this woman or because of the ick factor of returning to the old Clinton dysfunction. Full Article

Let's hope Hillary can shake this in the years to come, provided she's not the next president. Maybe she can adopt health care as her issue and travel the world promoting it. Grow a beard. Win an Oscar. Get the Noble Prize. She can be the great liberal knight, off the stage, 'replenishing the ole coffers', and be an endearing image for generations to come. It sounds better than being president.

A Very Special Dreamisode

On Friday night I had a dream in which I found out Daniel Day Lewis played the dad on the hit television show Blossom. This really blew my mind, a eureeka moment, where I couldn't believe I had never realized that before. This was an equivilent experience to when I found out pickles came from cucumbers.

I was at the grocery store the next morning (actual reality) talking to somebody telling them that I was gonna see the There Will Be Blood that afternoon, and I thought it would be a great little tidbit of tv trivia to share. As I was telling them about Blossoms Dad, I caught myself mid-sentence realizing my dream was not reality and that Nick Russo was played by a guy named Ted Wass and was nothing like ol'Danny Day.

I just stopped and didn't say anything for an awkwardly long time, becuase I was sorting out my realities in my head.

It was the best thing that has happened to me in a long time, and nobody seems to care.

"I dreamed I was flying"

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
--Paul Simon - American Tune

If you look closely, Lady Liberty has tears in her eyes. She's audacious and hoping but seasoned and wise. Let's sell her for oil.