Gingrich, Perry disqualified from Va. primary ballot. The Rs, as a party, just aren't running serious candidates.

Aluminium Festivus Allium
Festivus pole

Flight Facilities - Foreign Language feat. Jess by flightfacilities

USA Today

WASHINGTON – More than 2.5 million voters have left the Democratic and Republican parties since the 2008 elections, while the number of independent voters continues to grow

The reporter, Richard Wolf, confuses independent with unaffiliated, but it is a good report. However, it would have been even better had he examined trends in emergent parties, Independent, Greens, Libertarian, etc.

I'm sure everyone here has heard all of the arguments for why we shouldn't vote for a third party candidate. I never seriously considered voting third party until being betrayed by Obama, though there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the betrayal is my own fault. But I have plenty of company there - there are lots of liberals and progressives who fell for Obama's rhetoric, too. All I can do is say, "mea culpa" and promise to do better.

Cotoneaster

A member of the rose family, cotoneaster grows all over here in Zone 10, sprouting out of rocky canyon walls and other inhospitable places. As it turns out, these plants actually like terrible conditions. According to the Sunset Western Garden Book:

There is no question that the Teabagged Republicans are intransigent assholes, but I cannot get my head around Democrats, Liberals and Progressives rallying around the de-funding of Social Security with this Payroll Tax Holiday.

Attaching it to the very needed Unemployment Insurance extension, and Medicare re-imbursement authorization was a recipe for disaster in the first place, with this gaggle of evil clowns controlling the House.

Here is the actual House Bill: via House.gov

You'll have one hell of a time finding half of the provisions discussed anywhere in the Media or the Blogosphere. What the House Teabaggers are all het up about is the stripping out of several of their most odious demands for all of two months.

1. They inserted a proviso that greatly weakens the Affordable Care Act: CPBB, which would throw nearly 200,000 out of coverage.

The provision in question would substantially increase the repayment charges imposed at tax time on many people who, under the health reform law, will receive subsidies to help them afford coverage during months of the year when their incomes are low but whose incomes increase later in the year because they have found a job, gotten a promotion, gotten married, or for another such reason.

2. They demanded circumvention, or neutering of EPA regulations that greatly reduce emmissions, and put strict controls on mining company effluents-- specifically Mercury and Arsenic. Of course, they cynically called this, "EPA Regulatory Relief." Fortunately, the EPA just rolled those regulations out, thus making this point nearly moot. But, of course, it only made the Teabagged House all the more adamant to get their way, today: Susie Madrak has more on this.

3. The Teabaggers also were demanding drug-testing for Unemployment Insurance applicants/recipients, which is utterly ridiculous.

Ashley F. Miller has eloquently pointed out why one should not vote for Ron Paul. She gets bonus points from me for not shilling for Obama in the process. Here are some snippets deconstructing the myth of the libertarian hero, exposing him as a dangerous hypocrite:

Ron Paul is Anti-Free Market

So, bureaucracy is good when it keeps the brown people out? Taxing the insanely rich is slavery! Letting foreign people work in America should be illegal!

Nurses' fight is to ensure quality health care
.

Despite the pull of the holiday season, we are fighting for health care -- both protecting the health of our patients by holding the line on patient-care protections Sutter wants to eradicate and stopping unwarranted cuts to health care coverage for our families.

It is not just me: Upping the ante — Recipe for a Revolution

A linky good post.

Agave americana

Century plant

Happy Winter Solstice! For some reason, this image says "first day of winter" to me -- maybe because I shot it around 4:30 one afternoon when it was already starting to get dark! Fortunately, now the days will be getting longer. Just a few more months of this cold/dark baloney. Hibernation gets more attractive every year.

(Author’s Note: This post updates Part Three of a series reviewing Warren Mosler’s book: The 7 Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy. The updating is prompted by a post by Hannah at DailyKos offering a “… a Review Sort of” of Warren’s book.

I don't know that signing statements makes a whole lot of difference, but if you are into that kind of thing, you might want to go the First Amendment Pledge site and sign up. David Swanson, Margaret Flowers, and Kevin Zeese are among the signers, so you'd be in good company.

The Border Patrol uses them on the Mexican border. I suppose up here in the great state of Maine we'll be getting them soon, since we have a border with Canada.

Commenter Jill at NC:

Obama said the decision about the pipeline was his to make and he would make it. He said this about two months ago. In the meantime I can tell you Marathon has been quietly buying out an entire neighborhood in Detroit to expand facilities for the oil from the pipeline. In other words, this decision has been made and Obama needs cover for it.

Cover which the Rs are a happily providing. It's their function!

Someone asked me back at the end of 2008, shortly after the meltdown, what I would do to address the current economic crisis. Since then I have put out a list once or twice a year on the subject. Here are some of the gifts I would like to see under our national Christmas tree, gift wrapping optional.

Force banks to prove they are financially sound and not bankrupt.

1. Evaluate assets and solvency on mark to market basis
2. Remove discredited executive leadership
3. Enforce Prompt Corrective Action to place financial institutions into bankruptcy or receivership regardless of size
4. Initiate forensic audits of financial institutions, investigate and prosecute fraud at all levels (both fraud in lending and control fraud); RICO malefactors

I went out of town on vacation in early November and when I returned, I decided to go hang out on Alternet for awhile. I had been told that it was a "center-right" site, but I didn't believe it. Well, I'm here to report that it is, indeed, a center-right site and might even qualify as a right-wing site, since there are so many Paul-, Rand-, and Obama-bots over there. I canceled my subscription to Alternet this morning, after posting a farewell message to one of the posters. I'm sure I won't be missed - a few will be shouting, "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out", no doubt.

The following dialog occurs in an FDL thread:

How to identify if you’re stuck inside a veal pen
.
.
.
MSPB Watch: Question for FDL: how do you help others in the pen open their eyes?

homeroid: I think it will become self evident as they push their shopping cart full of all worldly possessions down the sidewalk. Call it an AHA moment.

Accumulation through dispossession has its upside, if only in the form of hard-won knowledge.

La Grande Observer:

Oregon may be the next state to pass legislation providing universal health care to all its residents.

That is the belief of civil rights attorney Mary Gerish of Bennington, Vt. Gerish helped lead a grassroots movement in Vermont that resulted in the state’s legislature passing a landmark universal health care law earlier this year. ...

Gerish is part of a group traveling around Oregon telling Vermont’s health care bill story. Gerish is confident that Oregon will successfully follow Vermont’s lead. She senses a groundswell of support among Oregonians for a universal health care bill.