The last thing I needed on the hottest day of the year was a power failure that knocked out my little AC and fans for over four hours during the heat of the day. Needless to say, I’m wilted and non-functioning. Back in a day, I hope. Thanks.
Yesterday the heat here was worse than the day before. Near dawn, when it is cooler outside the walls of the building still radiate heat from the day before. I’m current with comments on yesterday’s articles. Tomorrow the heat is forecast to be worse, and it’s a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:08 (average 4:45). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Common Dreams: A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit that sought government information about the reported use of unmanned drones to kill suspected terrorists.
The CIA turned down a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union. The spy agency refused to admit or deny that it had any relevant records and said that merely confirming the existence of material would reveal classified information.
This is not the transparency Obama promised. It’s not as though this is secret. Hell, it’s on the nightly news.
From Huffington Post: This week, 9/11 firefighters and police chiefs rallied to demand changes to the rules governing compensation for health problems tied to poisonous air and debris at ground zero. They want federal funds to support treatment for cancer, which is currently omitted from the primary legislation covering ground zero-related medical needs. For years, researchers have been uncovering fresh evidence of widespread and devastating illnesses afflicting a large portion of people exposed to the aftermath; ongoing health issues range from crippling lung and breathing problems to post-traumatic stress disorder. But adequate funding for 9/11 workers has often been ensnared in political gridlock.
These are the most deserving of the 9/11 victims. The people in the towers just happened to be there, but these people knowingly put themselves in harm’s way. Political gridlock means Republican obstruction. What hypocrites, because they pseudo=patriotically capitalize on 9/11, every chance they get.
From Raw Story: Skeptics of climate change will have to deal with more evidence contrasting their disbelief.
The U.S. has experienced its hottest summer in 75 years, according to USA Today and the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. This latest summer season, with an average temperature of 74.5 degrees, has also been recorded as the second hottest ever. Only the Dust Bowl year of 1936, at 74.6 degrees, was warmer.
And you folks back East are about to get what I’ve been getting. God help you!
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Yesterday the heat wave continued, but seven degrees hotter than forecast. I got a few hours sleep in the early AM when the inside temp dropped to the low 80s. Running continuously, my little AC kept it out of the 90s all day, but just barely. I’m still heat exhausted. I’m current on replies to yesterday’s articles only. Tomorrow it should be even hotter.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:20 (average 5:30). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Op Ed News: President-Elect Obama’s advisers feared in 2008 that authorities would oust him in a coup and that Republicans would block his policy agenda if he prosecuted Bush-era war crimes, according to a law school dean who served as one of Obama’s top transition advisers.
Given the level of hatred Republicans have expressed against Obama, and given the high number of activist Republican political appointees that burrowed into “nonpartisan” permanent positions at DoD, DOJ and the CIA, the fear was justified. This is the first explanation I have heard that makes sense.
From The Examiner: In a move that might cause some conservatives to think the law of gravity was just repealed, Current TV’s Keith Olbermann called for a boycott of Starvingeyes Advergaming over their new online video game "Tea Party Zombies Must Die!"
The game is a first person shooter where one enters a post-apocalyptic Fox News and kills various Fox News personalities like Brit Hume and Bill O’Reilly and characters recognized as Tea Party leaders. A Glenn Beck zombie is included, as well as Sean Hannity, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.
I looked at this game earlier today, and I agree completely with Keith. To play at killing Republicans is hateful behavior. The way to oppose Republicans is NOT to imitate them. I urge you to boycott this game.
From Think Progress: Republican leadership has continually blocked efforts by Obama and Congressional Democrats to invest in infrastructure improvements, and as a result, bridges and roadways in their states are crumbling. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 12 percent of the nation’s bridges are considered “structurally deficient,” the same rating given to the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people.
There is no reason to expect that it will be any different now.
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Yesterday the heat was oppressive. A new fire inspector has ordered that all the doors between hallways be kept closed. That leaves nowhere to get cool air or for the heat to escape at night. Even with my little AC going constantly, it only cooled to 91° Sunday night and is now 97°. This heat wave is forecast to continue until Wednesday, so my contributions will be limited. I have not answered replies, and am mot up to doing so. There is only one short take. Today, I expect more of the same.
Jig Zone Puzzles:
Yesterday it took me 4:14 (average 4:55). To do it, click here, and today it took me 4:01 (average 4:32). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Take:
From The Cap Times: An internal memo from a top [Wisconsin] Department of Transportation official instructs workers at Division of Motor Vehicles service centers not to tell members of the public that they can obtain voter identification cards free of charge — unless they know to ask for it.
The memo, recently obtained by The Capital Times, was written by Steve Krieser and sent to all state Department of Transportation and Department of Motor Vehicles employees on July 1, the same day employees were to begin issuing photo IDs in accordance with a controversial new Voter Photo ID law adopted earlier in the year.
As laid out in the memo, failure to check a box when applying for photo ID with the Division of Motor Vehicles will result in the payment of $28.
Fitzwalkerstan Koch suckers, rich enough to be well informed, get a free voter ID. The rest pay. I understand that Walker had the employee that leaked the memo fired.
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I’m afraid I need to take a day off. Yesterday I had two medical appointments, not one, and I had to get up even earlier. I was gone several hours with my apartment closed up on the hottest day of the year. When I returned, hot and tired, the temperature at my desk was 121°. My little AC has put a dent in it, but started too far behind. It’s still 96° at my desk. I have had no sleep. To make matters worse, I feel quite nauseous. That’s either an adverse reaction to a flu vaccine or to watching the Republican debate. It’s hard to tell which, but my money is on the latter.
The key point of difference is that Rick Perry wants to do away with Social Security by privatizing it, and Mitt Romney wants to save Social Security by privatizing it. Those two mattered most. The rest mattered much less, except Ron Paul, who has never mattered at all, and never will.
Summary:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Corrections:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
There were far more lies than those.
In my opinion, Romney won.
I hope to be back in the saddle tomorrow.
Yesterday I started out tired, for I did laundry as I was writing Monday Night. I slept late, filled out the paperwork for a routine medical test (took three hours), and ran errands. It was extremely hot, and today will be hotter. I’m current with replies, but had to be brief. Today I’ll be out for that appointment and have to get up early.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:15 (average 5:24). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Countdown: Worst Persons in the World
Weren’t they all most deserving?
From Common Dreams: Egypt lobbied the more than 100 members of the Non-Aligned Movement on Tuesday to support Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this month, and said it believed a majority would do so after a two-day meeting of the group in Serbia.
Goof for Egypt!
From MSNBC: Ed Schulz covers Charles Koch at their secret donors’ retreat.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Isn’t that the most ludicrous excuse? The original Iraq War, indeed!
Cartoon:
Yesterday was a lazy day. I was so tired out, I slept until noon and remained groggy for the rest of the day. It was a very slow day for news. I still HATE laundry. I’m current on replies. Tomorrow I have to write a book. I see a doctor for the first time about some routine testing on Wednesday, and the packet of paperwork is an inch thick.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:06 (average 4:42). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From TPM: Teamsters union president James Hoffa would say it all again if he could, he told TPM Monday.
Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing [Lies delinked] Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress "sons of bitches" and said union workers are ready to "go to war" with the tea party next year and "take out" Republicans at the ballot box.
Hoffa said he’d say the exact same words all over again.
When Faux Noise covered this, they edited out the part about the ballot box to make it seem like Hoffa was fomenting hate, like Republicans do.
From Boston Globe: Elizabeth Warren has yet to declare officially that she is running for US Senate, but the former presidential aide took another step today toward fortifying her position as the choice of the Democratic establishment, something that is beginning to wear on the Democrats who have already entered the race.
Introducing Warren at the annual Labor Day breakfast this morning, the president of the Greater Boston Labor Council compared her to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, while the state’s top union and Democratic political leaders stood and applauded her fiery keynote address at the event.
We desperately need her clear voice of truth in the Senate.
From Washington Post: Democrats are preparing to wage a major Capitol Hill battle over highway funding this week — a fight that even they admit might not be necessary.
They launched a series of preemptive strikes last week intended to deter House Republicans from the same sort of political maneuvering that resulted in a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration last month.
Highway funding has been bipartisan and non-controversial, since Eisenhower. I would not be at all surprised to see Republicans make it the next target for their terrorism of blackmail.
Cartoon:
Yesterday was a lazy day, except for a quick trip out for staples. It was very hot, as it will be all week, but my little AC unit kept it below 85. It was still too hot to sleep much so I’m dragging by butt. I’m current on replies. Today will be more of the same.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 4:36 (average 5:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Washington Post: Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t president, but Dick Cheney says that if she were in the White House rather than Barack Obama, then things might be different today in the country.
Cheney isn’t getting into specifics, but he does think that “perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with.”
This couldn’t be about policy, because Obama took on Clinton’s advisers, and they are already taking the lead in policy decisions. Cheney must mean that it’s because she’s white.
From Common Dreams: At least one in seven Afghan soldiers walked off the job during the first six months of this year, according to statistics compiled by NATO that show an increase in desertion.
Between January and June, more than 24,000 soldiers walked off the job, more than twice as many as in the same period last year, according to the NATO statistics. In June alone, more than 5,000 soldiers deserted, nearly 3 percent of the 170,000-strong force.
Those Afghans are leaving for a reason. They know a losing proposition, when they see it. It’s long past the time for the US recognize this and leave.
From KATU: As he [Brad Avarkian] courts Democratic primary voters to help win the Nov. 8 special election, Avakian is trumpeting solidly liberal positions on a number of issues — ideas that could play well in the Democrat-dominated Northwest Oregon district, even if they’re less popular in a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. Avakian wants, for instance, to immediately end the war in Afghanistan and use the money to hire many of the 14 million out-of-work Americans to build new bridges, and upgrade airports and railways.
Brad is one of the Democrats running for David Wu’s seat in Oregon’s 1st Congressional District. The more I learn, the better I like him.
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