April 23, 2008 archive

White House and GOP Leadership in House sabotage verifiable voting, again!

Common Cause released a press release a few days ago (April 15, 2008) showing how the GOP Leadership in the House, at the instigation of the White House, derailed the “Emergency Assistance for Secure elections Act of 2008” which had been under consideration and being honed for a year.

After a year of consideration, the House today unexpectedly failed to pass in a streamlined process a bill that would have authorized funding for states to replace paperless electronic voting machines in time for the presidential election in November.

…snip…

At stake is the Emergency Assistance for Secure elections Act of 2008.  The bill had been placed on the House “suspension” calendar, meaning it needed two-thirds support to pass.  Democrats and Republicans last week had reached agreement and passage was expected today {4/15/08}.

Then the White House at the eleventh hour issued a statement urging the House to vote against the bill.  And, in an unexpected move, Rep Vern Ehlers (R-MI), the ranking memeber of the House Administration Committee, and Rep Roy Blunt (R-MO), the minority whip, also came out against the bill.

Another Repug coup to insure that they can again steal the next election, the 2008 election.  I am afraid because if we don’t take this country back soon, there will be no country to take back.  It will be like what any aware Germans were up against in 1939.

I am horrified.  Stop this madness.  Into the Streets.  General Strike.  Refuse to go along.

I’m mad as Hell and I not going to take this anymore.

Into the Streets for the General Strike on May Day, and stay there.  Do not be complicit.

Iglesia………………………………………Episode 50 (!)

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous episode

But when she said “shit,” something clicked inside her. And when a split second later a crumpet hit Abe square in the side of the head….triggering all of his impossible to ignore, highly trained warrior instincts, (since his instincts just perceived an attack, and not the fact that it was by a harmless breakfast pastry) the spell was broken. His instincts forced him to look at Rogers, who was now hefting a rather large rock.

And triggered by a treasured memory of a similar moment at a poignant time in the courtship with her husband, (stubbing her toe on the bed and saying ‘shit’ on their first night together, which had broken the tension between them then too, not the crumpet thing) she had thought of Paul.

Before they could lock gazes again, Rogers hurriedly spoke. “May I inform you that we did not go to the very considerable trouble of bringing you both here across and beyond the bounds of time and space to form a lonely hearts club, but indeed to fight the Forces Of Evil with the future of humanity in the balance? Now that we have eluded the opposition and have a small period of opportunity to address the necessity of briefing you thoroughly, I certainly hope it would not be asking too much for you two to put aside your quaint carnal instincts for a few moments to actually attend to the business at hand?

Your Caption Here

No deal.

Pony Parthian

Tonight’s Party is brought to you by Unitary Moonbat, who came up with this pun:

where tonight we’ll take a last look – a Parthian shot, if you will – at the recent history of Iran.  

https://www.docudharma.com/show…

So, in honor of the Unitary Moonbat a little look back at a lesser known singer.

I first heard of Ella Mae Morse when I was getting into Boogie Woogie Piano and listened to some Freddie Slack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E…

by the way, the EMM  entry mentions Nick Tosches.  Amazing stuff. Highly recommended  The fiction book In the Hand of Dante is kinda pedantic, well no, it’s EXTREMELY pedantic, but amazing nonetheless.  My favorite is probably Where Dead Voices Gather

http://www.exitwounds.com/Tosc…

A tribute to Ella Mae

http://www.prescottlink.com/mo…

Cow Cow Boogie was her first big hit, but I don’t care for it, so I’m not going to link to it.  It may have been named for Cow Cow Davenport   http://www.redhotjazz.com/cowc…

who could really bang the ivories, and his Cow Cow Blues  has nothing to do with cows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

His other classic is State Street Jive

Also, ya gotta love this:

Davenport learned to play piano and organ in his father’s church from his mother who was the organist and it looked like he was going to follow in the family footsteps until he was expelled from the Alabama Theological Seminary in 1911 for playing Ragtime at a church function.

Back to Ella Mae

I like this one.  Can’t really say why, it’s kinda schlocky too.  Oh well.

House of Blue Lights w/jive

You may tip Ella Mae, but do not recommend this Pony Party.

There are many excellent Earth Day Essays, along with other great work on the Front Page, read one or two if you haven’t already, then feel free to come back and boogie.

On a side note, I was given  the secret Turing Test code, but ya’know, fuck it, who cares.

Not A Solution

In Meteor Blades’s post, Denis Hayes explained why nuclear power is no answer to global warming and climate change. Here’s some more…

The nuclear power industry and its astroturf supporters have been attempting to co-opt the discussion about global warming and climate change, and use it to rationalize nuclear’s continued existence. And the industry has powerful friends in Congress. As the New York Times reported, last summer:

A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees….

The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industry’s strongest supporters in Congress….

Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.

Which is curious. Because if the industry has such promise, you would think it wouldn’t need the government to assume the entirety of its financial risks. The problem, however, is that nuclear power still has the same problems it’s always had, which is why Wall Street won’t back it. And part of the reason it’s not worth backing is that the latest excuse for its existence is a sham. As Reuters explained:

Nuclear power would only curb climate change by expanding worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its busiest decade, and keep up that rate for half a century, a report said on Thursday.

Specifically, that would require adding on average 14 plants each year for the next 50 years, all the while building an average of 7.4 plants to replace those that will be retired, the report by environmental leaders, industry executives and academics said.

If that sounds like an impossibly enormous amount of plants to build, that’s because it is. But the story gets worse.

Load more