Dave Barry:
It was a year of Hope — at first in the sense of ”I feel hopeful!” and later in the sense of ”I hope this year ends soon!”
It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting ”business as usual,” finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it…
[L]et’s swallow our anti-nausea medication and take one last look back, starting with. . . .
JANUARY
. . . during which history is made in Washington, D.C., where a crowd estimated by the Congressional Estimating Office at 217 billion people gathers to watch Barack Obama be inaugurated as the first American president ever to come after George W. Bush… President Obama then delivers an upbeat inaugural address, ushering in a new era of cooperation, civility and bipartisanship in a galaxy far, far away. Here on Earth everything stays much the same.
Click through for more.
Ways to get motivated in 2010
Exaggerating a Threat to Weight Goals May Help Self-Control
5 tips for better eating in 2010
Champagne Is Good for Your Heart, Study Suggests But Only in Moderation
Plus lots more.
By Brent Budowsky
The lost decade that will thankfully come to an end began with a huge bubble of shameless greed and wanton wealth that was labeled the Nasdaq bubble, which ended in a collapse accompanied by huge paydays, mammoth bonuses and lucrative stock option deals for those who caused it.
The lost decade now ends with a huge bubble of shameless greed and wanton wealth that was labelled the greatest crash since the Great Depression, and was accompanied by huge paydays, mammoth bonuses, and lucrative stock option deals for those who caused it, while working stiffs paid for this largesse with giant bailouts and suffered from this greed with 17% real jobless.
(more…)
Take a personal inventory Jan. 1
Winter Exercise Can Lift Your Spirits
Energy Gap Useful Tool For Successful Weight Loss Maintenance Strategy
Acupuncture Reduces Hot Flashes, Improves Sex Drive for Breast Cancer Patients
Plus lots more.
The Plum Line:
There’s a meme circulating among some Democrats that Republican attacks on Obama’s terrorism policy in the wake of the thwarted Detroit bombing will just go away if they are ignored.
The Republicans have been perfecting these techniques for more than 20 years, and have shown how successful they are.
Meanwhile, top Democrats and blogoluminaries continue to think that these successful tactics will someday no longer be successful if they just hold their breath until they are blue.
Howard Dean:
Health-care bill wouldn’t bring real reform
If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these…
I have worked for health-care reform all my political life. In my home state of Vermont, we have accomplished universal health care for children younger than 18 and real insurance reform — which not only bans discrimination against preexisting conditions but also prevents insurers from charging outrageous sums for policies as a way of keeping out high-risk people. I know health reform when I see it, and there isn’t much left in the Senate bill. I reluctantly conclude that, as it stands, this bill would do more harm than good to the future of America.
When people find out that they’re being forced to pay an exorbitant amount for crappy insurance, they’re not going to be happy with the party that put that monkey on their backs.
Maybe that will be the impetus to finally start a viable third party that actually stands for the 99.9% of us who get no break at all from the existing two parties
Paul Starr:
Liberals in Congress should also recognize that with either a 2013 or 2014 date for implementation, there will be time enough to revise the program before it goes into effect (indeed, time enough for the opponents to roll it back). Many of the specifics, such as the level of subsidies, almost certainly will be changed in the intervening years. And many of those specifics can be changed through budget reconciliation, which requires only 51 votes to pass the Senate. [Emphasis added.]
If this is so, why are the Democrats not shouting it from mountain tops?
CNN:
Mary Matalin: I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.
Krugman reminds us who was president on 9/11/01 and when the recession that Bush “inherited” actually started.
Jay Rosen:
A suggestion for the Sunday morning talk shows: Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday. Now I don’t contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, but whoever was bullshitting us more could expect to hear about it from Meet the Press staff on Wednesday.
And then, when any pontificator has been shown to be a liar more than, oh, say, a hundred times, or so, BAN THAT PERSON FROM THE PROGRAM.
Mary Matalin long ago exceeded that limit, and should be banned forthwith.
Politico:
A new poll of avid news watchers shows that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a much higher approval rating than the man she once campaigned against and now works for, President Barack Obama.
Cinie:
Could it be that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not only the smartest person in the room?… Did she presciently foresee the current implosion of the Obotocratic party long in advance and cleverly maneuver herself into a public safe place of hiding?…
[L]ooks like she taw early on that curiously, she was the designated puddytat on the wall with a big, red, “X” stamped on it, and wisely got herself the hell out of dodge, took the cream, and the canary found a comfortable perch in the catbird seat to innocently await the inevitable 3 a.m. call…
All over the PUMAsphere, bloggers are angrily penning “we tolda so, suckers!” pieces in response to those Obot For America suckophants who so eagerly tortured anybody who tried to warn them of the inevitability of their coming disappointment in the entire Obministration once the KoolAid wore off, and now, are littering the internet with hilariously gut-wrenching first-hand accounts of being tortured themselves upon awakening with the debilitating pain of withdrawal.
Max Blumenthal:
[F]ormer Obama fanatics experiencing a crisis in faith should look in the mirror. They demanded a secular salvation fantasy and participated in the messianization of the candidate who delivered it to them. They now know that Obama is just a politician. What they have refused to acknowledge is that he would not have fallen so hard had they not lifted him so high.
Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque:
A lone man on an airliner makes a badly botched attempt to ignite what appears to be some kind of hastily cobbled-together device that might or might not have caused some kind of unspecified but apparently non-crippling damage to the plane. The plane lands safely; no one is killed.
Yet the reverberations from this half-baked enterprise quickly roiled the entire world. Within hours, a whole range of new, even more intrusive and draconian security procedures were imposed on travelers across the globe…
The new CW now being assembled before our eyes is a “rejuvenation” of one of the ruling tropes of the 21st century: “Liberty bad, security good.”
Michael J. Smith at Stop Me Before I Vote Again:
Let’s face it, the terr’rists have won. They’ve made us so crazy we’re looking at electronic strip searches, nothing in your lap on the airplane, frisking babies, probing adults’ crotches with a determined groping inquisitive hand. And then of course there’s the dire peril of that handy receptacle, the rectum — what the media have been coyly referring to as “inside the body”. Though come to think of it, I guess you could swallow a device too. What’s the next step — emetics and enemas at the security gate? Passengers handcuffed naked to their seats during flight, taken in cohorts to the crapper, and monitored to make sure they actually do some harmless business there? No pee, no fly!…
So: if you really want to confound the terr’rists, ground the civil aviation fleet.
USA Today:
Psychologists: Those in power more apt to ‘moral hypocrisy’
In [a] new study, researchers conducted five experiments with about 350 subjects. They found that giving people power makes them feel entitled and causes a disconnect in their judgment. Those in high-power positions tend to judge morality of others while not practicing what they preach, [Adam Galinsky, a behavioral psychologist ] says. “If they want to impose strict standards on others while violating those standards themselves, that’s when they become a hypocrite,” he says.
But, but, but it’s the POOR who feel entitled. I know because Rush Limbaugh told me so.
New Year’s Dishes for Prosperity and Longevity
The mystery of Taco Bell’s Drive-Thru Diet
Why Some Continue to Eat When Full: Researchers Find Clues
Study Debunks Notion of ‘Healthy Obese’ Man
Plus lots more.
The Plum Line:
Tea Partiers To Republicans: You Better Call For Full Repeal of Reform, Or Else
By insisting on ideological purity and making a bet that the bill will be universally unpopular, conservatives are leaving Republican candidates with no room for flexibility.
On the left, however, we ask nicely for our elected officials to implement the policies we, along with 60 to 70% of Americans, want, and they call us names.
Dissenting Justice:
Just a Little Note: People Closer to Obama — Not the Clintons — Are Calling Liberals “Insane” and “Irrational”
Although President Obama chose a lot of people from the Clinton administration to fill his Cabinet and staff positions, these individuals have not paraded around calling liberals “insane” and “irrational.” Before his election, many liberals incorrectly believed that Obama, not Clinton, was a liberal dream-come-true. But during the first epic battle of his presidency, some of his closest allies, including David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Rahm Emanuel, have ridiculed liberals who oppose the pseudo-reform bill that passed in the Senate.
Uncritical belief in a politician never pays off.
And we give up. We’re told by the blogoluminaries that we must be practical, we must give in, we just want too much.
Don’t believe medical advice from Internet, celebs when …
Scientists Changing the Definition of ‘Old’
The Fruit That Fights Metabolic Syndrome
Resolution: Get a Deal on a Gym Membership
Plus lots more.
Health tips for older adults
Ways to get healthier for free
Motivation tips offered to achieve fitness
Skin Needs Protection From Winter Weather
Plus lots more.
