This Blog is on Hiatus

Sadly, I do not have time to pull off all the things I want to do with my life and write this blog. I've missed only a handful of days over the last three and a half years and I need an extended break to work on some other projects that I've been neglecting. I hope to resume late this year or early next year.

I will continue to post music and musings rather frequently at The Walrus Speaks. I will post periodically at Les Enragés.org, The Unconventional Conventionist and at Tommy Christopher's Daily Dose.

I want to thank everyone who has read, written for, or commented on this blog over the last three and a half years. You guys rock. Thanks for everything. See you around.

Get Out The Cans!

Station Nation, the Million Can March is in full swing. Bring a bag of nonperishable food by your local pantry or send them a donation. When you're done with that, jump on over to this post on Les Enragés.org and let the RevPhat know what you gave and where you gave it.

I live in the Baltimore area, so I went on the website of our local St. Vincent DePaul. They run a Beans and Bread program that feeds approximately 300 people per day. I sent them a $10 donation. Not sure what that breaks down to in cans, but hopefully it'll help someone out.

This is a picture of the place.

Kennedy-Dodd Health Care Plan Cheaper, Covers More People

So we're going to go with the cheaper, more effective health care plan? That's just crazy enough to work.

Fester at Newshoggers explains why the Congressional Budget Office's new score of this version of the bill is going to be very helpful politically:

The real value of this CBO score with the complete HELP framework including the public option and the employer mandate is that it is a cudgel against the 'centrist' Democrats who don't want the public option overtly because it is 'too expensive' and potentially because it is a threat to major local employers and campaign contributors of regionally dominant health insurance providers. The public option is the best means of cost control and doing without it means a weaker bill for significantly more cost.

According to an AP report--and I do not trust the AP one little bit--this plan will fine people who do not get coverage.

Limbaugh: Obama Eyes Third Term, Made Jacko Die

I’ve never been that interested in Rush Limbaugh as a source of my political angst. People with actual power were always way better at getting me fired up. With the last vestige of the Bush administration, the android Dick Cheney, slowly fading from public view, I can’t help but notice that Limbaugh has been really trying lately....

Read More at Daily Dose

Waxman Recovering

Several news outlets are reporting that Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman has been hospitalized. The most recent reports say that Waxman is feeling better. He's one of the few in Congress who has helped keep America standing over the last eight years. Since getting subpoena power in 2006, Waxman has investigated every kind of corruption virtually nonstop. With no one willing to bring consequential prosecutions against truly powerful Americans, all of this good work is simply for the record, but without Waxman and a few others in Congress we would not even have that.

Get well soon, Congressman.

Get Your Marx On

Marxism 2009, a festival of living and breathing people who want better conditions for the world's working class, starts tomorrow in London and runs through Monday.

The website Resistance MP3 has recordings of American historian Howard Zinn, Black Panther Party's David Hilliard, prominent historian, novelist, journalist and filmmaker Tariq Ali, Former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and dozens of other speakers from Marxism 2008 and all previous Marxisms going back to 2002. I do not consider myself a pure Marxist, but over the last several years I have listened to dozens of events podcast from the festival and a lot of the ideas are quite worthwhile. One of these years I'll even attend the thing in person.

Also, the Communist Manifesto is really worth rereading. The recent global economic collapse has Karl Marx looking like a prophet.

John Cornyn Rewrites the History of 2009

Republican Senator John Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC, had this to say in the wake of Al Franken's victory today (ht: Kurtz):

The implications of this Senate race are particularly significant because the Democrats will now have 60 votes in the Senate. With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over. With just 59 votes, Senate Democrats in recent months have passed trillion-dollar spending bills, driven up America's debt, made every American taxpayer a shareholder in the auto industry and now want Washington to takeover America's health care system. It's troubling to think about what they might now accomplish with 60 votes.

Just five months ago when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama and his horde of 58 Democratic Senators climbed out of the mouth of hell and came into a land called America. In this utopia that was January 2009 America, the auto industry was thriving, there was no national debt and no one had ever seen a budget defecit. The land was at peace and everyone who needed health care was quickly attended to without fear of massive personal debt.

Look what they've done.

And now they have a comedy writer with them. The horror.

Global Defense Spending Reaches Record High

In case you weren't depressed today, know this: worldwide defense spending hit $1.46 trillion in 2008, a new record. Since 1999, total spending is up 45 percent.

Check out how American defense spending compares to the rest of the top ten:

1. USA $607bn
2. China $84.9bn
3. France $65.74bn
4. UK $65.35bn
5. Russia $58.6bn
6. Germany $46.87bn
7. Japan $46.38bn
8. Italy $40.69bn
9. Saudi Arabia $38.2bn
10. India $30.0bn

We outspend the other nine countries on that list by $130 billion.

Insurgency Expert David Kilcullen on the Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert recently spoke to military adviser David Kilcullen about Iraq.