Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

Month: July 2009 Page 2 of 3

Virginia Republicans – All Whack Jobs, Or

just this one?

(And to my Republican friends, I’ll point out that you seem to have a lot of problems with the whole violent rhetoric thing.  Have you ever wondered why?  Oh, that’s right.  It’s a party that thrives on that.  Maybe you should do something about it.)

Huh

That’s three video posts in a row.  I know that I’ve been neglecting this space, but I never intended that.  Let’s see if I can’t address that.

Weekend Music: The Contract Edition

Teagan and Sara – Walking With a Ghost

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtCGODjuRq0[/youtube]

Placebo – Running Up That Hill

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5wota5vQCU[/youtube]

Al Green – You Ought to Be With Me

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouiU_vUenzc[/youtube]

Weekend Music: Master at Work

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgVmq4UBJs4[/youtube]

Fabian Cancellara adds to his legend.

Weekend Music: SOUR’s ‘日々の音色 (Hibi no neiro)’

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfBlUQguvyw[/youtube]

Hit HQ.  And then go fullscreen.

Yay, DC!

As of the midnight that just passed, DC recognizes the equality of all marriages performed outside of DC (still working on those performed inside).

$14 Million/A Collective Denial

Two quotes.  From this article.  Which you absolutely should read.

Fourteen million dollars.

That is what [Goldman Sachs] paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion – yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.

And:

It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.

But this is it. This is the world we live in now.

You might not be able to change it, but you should know it.  And it should inform all of your civic choices and votes.  I understand how we ended up here.  And step by step?  It doesn’t seem so ridiculous.  But stepping back?  Fundamentally fucked up.

The 2009 Tour de France Starts NOW

Find out where to watch it, and get some great previews, at Steephill.tv.  If you live in the US and have access to Versus, it’s available in HD this year.

Come on by and talk about it during and after each stage at PodiumCafe.com

Welcome to the rest of my July.

Stewart on the Real Obscenity on Television

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Osama bin Laden Needs to Attack America
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Reason #431 You’ll Not Get Useful Health Care Policy News from WaPo

Nice:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

Your free press hard at work. Meanwhile, Dana Milbank is still whining about the Internets asking questions.

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