Politics Plus

Yesterday I did prep work for today’s and tomorrow’s meetings.  I’m current on replies.  Today is my volunteer day co-facilitating a therapy group for former prisoners.  Color me scarce for the rest of the week, please.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:18 (average 4:26).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Fantasy Football Report:

Here’s the latest from our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

Scores

TomCat Teabag Trashers	Playing without a helmet
98.16	77.90
Progressive Underdogs	hugos renegades
93.24	88.10
Texans Will Rise Again	ManOnDogSantorum
4.00	140.22

Standings

						Points
Rank	Team Name	W-L-T	Pct	Streak	Waiver	For	Against
1 (1)	Progressive Underdogs	6-1-0	.857	W2	6	852.44	756.90
2 (2)	ManOnDogSantorum	5-2-0	.714	W1	5	868.54	715.88
3 (3)	hugos renegades	4-3-0	.571	L1	4	815.68	763.66
4 (4)	TomCat Teabag Trashers	3-4-0	.429	W1	3	845.50	774.82
5 (5)	Playing without a helmet	3-4-0	.429	L1	2	747.68	789.08
6 (6)	Texans Will Rise Again	0-7-0	.000	L7	1	565.02	894.52

I finally won another.

Short Takes:

From MoveOn.Org: Why Occupy Wall Street

Click through to join the mailing list for videos like this.

From Washington Post: The heads of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees say they oppose a sweeping defense bill’s policy on handling terror suspects and are urging the top Senate Democrat to take it out.

In a letter last week, Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy and Dianne Feinstein rejected a provision that would require military custody for terror suspects linked to al-Qaida and involved in an attack on the United States. Leahy and Feinstein said mandatory military custody is “unwise and will harm our national security.”

Eleven Democratic senators joined them in criticizing the provision. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has delayed work on the defense bill because of the provision, which the Obama administration opposes.

Civilians have managed custody of terrorists without incident, so I agree with Leahy, Feinstein and Obama.  I suspect that Leg Hound Harry Reid, who we need to replace as Majority Leader, has been humping Republican legs again.

From Think Progress: Politico’s Pulse flagged this story, from the Indianapolis Business Journal, of WellPoint chief financial officer Wayne DeVeydt complaining that the penalty for not obtaining health care coverage may be set too low in the Affordable Care Act. (Those without coverage pay a tax penalty [PDF]of the greater of $695 per year up to a maximum of three times that amount — $2,085 — per family or 2.5% of household income )

Of course Big Insurance wants it higher, but the penalty is not intended to force people to buy health insurance, as dishonest or misinformed opponents of the ACA claim.  Its purpose is to recover some of the cost of providing emergency care for people who do not provide for their own.  Long term the only real solution is single-payer such as Medicare for all.

Cartoon:

Yesterday, worn out from laundry, I spent the day meditating on the wonders of the Ellipsoid Orb and was blessed.  I’m current on replies.  Today I’ll be doing prep for volunteer work later in the week.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:27 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Religious Ecstasy:

Short Takes:

From The Daily Star: Iowa: Republicans Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann took veiled swipes at surging presidential rival Herman Cain Saturday as six of the party’s White House hopefuls courted social conservatives at an Iowa forum.

Appearing separately before about 1,000 conservative activists, the Republican candidates all pledged to protect the unborn, defend traditional marriage, limit government and bring an end to the presidency of Democrat Barack Obama.

If a Republican wins in 2012, ending Obama’s presidency will be the only promise kept.

From Washington Post: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said if the United States and Pakistan ever went to war, his country would back Islamabad, drawing a sharp rebuke Sunday from Afghan lawmakers who claimed the country’s top officials were adopting hypocritical positions.

Obama needs to realize that Karzai not a friend and not worth the life of a single troop.

From UPI: Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has taken a job as a paid contributor on Fox News, the network has confirmed.

Do you suppose he’ll do a nature series on the beauty of the Appalachian Trail? 😉

Cartoon:

Yesterday I never did get any errands run, because I spent most of the day tinkering and tying up loose ends on the computer.  Windows Update installed  IE9 on my computer.  I still prefer Firefox, but, when I need to copy and paste a table,  IE9 preserves the formatting, but Firefox does not.  I ran several scans with maintenance utilities  I use, and I installed the software for my printer.  I’m current with replies.  Today I have errands to run and one computer task that could be daunting.  I will uninstall Norton and replace it with Ad-Aware.  The last time I uninstalled Norton, I had to hand edit the registry to remove the last traces that interfere with other AV software.  It took hours.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:25 (average 4:59).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Huffington Post: On more than one occasion, the president has cut personal checks to struggling Americans who’ve written to the White House, according to an excerpt from a new book by Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow about the ten letters the president reads every day.

"It’s not something I should advertise, but it has happened," the president told Saslow.

Republican presidents would do the same thing, except only for needy millionaires behind on their yacht payments, and instead of sending their own money, they would raise taxes on the poor to pay for it.

From CBS: President Obama announced Friday that the United States will withdraw nearly all troops from Iraq by the end of the year, effectively bringing the long and polarizing war in Iraq to an end.

"After nearly 9 years, America’s war in Iraq will be over," said Mr. Obama.

At last!  Afghanistan next!

From Boston Globe: Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is losing her New Hampshire staff.

As many as five staffers formally left Bachmann’s campaign this week, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said Friday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal workings of the campaign.

Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart disputed reports of a staff shakeup, saying: "We have a great team in New Hampshire. We haven’t been notified that anyone’s left the campaign."

I’m going to go out on a limb here.  Batshit B is lying. 😯

Cartoon: