Bill Maher

I think Bill Maher was disappointed when no one laughed Friday). 

 

I think it’s because it’s the best thing he has ever written, and like the Gettysburg Address, it was just too good to respond

 

September 26, 2009, Bill Maher, Real Time, HBO-New Rules:

“….And finally, New Rule: If American can't get off its back and get something done, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can't get up. [YouTube video of puppy that can't get up shown] It's delightful. As long as we're pathetic, we might as well act like it's cute.

And I'm sorry, but, you know what? We are pathetic, inert and lethargic, unable to end bad things like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction; 60,000 troops are still in Germany; the drug war, useless weapons programs. And unable to initiate anything good.

And even when we do address a problem, the plan is always half-assed. It can never start until years later. Like the climate change bill in Congress now. It mandates a whopping 17% cut in the greenhouse gases that are killing us, by 2020. Who's in charge of this program? FEMA?

No, really, fellows, don't rush. Only the whole western half of the United States has been on fire for a month. I know, let's get to Mexicans using the hospital first.

We might pass new mileage standards, but even if we do, they wouldn't start until 2016. In that year, our cars of the future will glide along while achieving a breathtaking 35 miles per gallon. My goodness, is that even humanly possible? You socialist dreamer you!

"What do we want?!" "A small improvement!" "When do we want it?!" "2016!"

Come on! You know, when it's something for us personally, like a laxative, it has to start working NOW! My TV remote has a button on it now called "On Demand." "You get your ass on my TV screen right now SpongeBob and make me laugh! NOW!"

But, with the big important things, we're that puppy. The president has said about healthcare, "If we were starting from scratch, then a single-payer system would probably make sense." So let's start from scratch.

Instead we have a crappy, lobbyist-written "bl*wjob to corporate America" bill, and even if that passes, it doesn't kick in until 2013! During which time, close to 200,000 people will die because they're not covered and 3,000,000 will go bankrupt from hospital bills.

You know, I have a pretty good idea of the Republican plan for the next three years: don't let Obama do anything. What kills me is, apparently that's the Democrats' plan, too.

You know, we weren't always like this. In 1965, Johnson signed Medicare into law. Eleven months later, seniors were receiving benefits. In World War II, FDR converted car companies to making tanks and planes virtually overnight. In one eight-year period, America went from JFK's ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon...to landing a man on the moon.

This generation has had eight years just to build something at Ground Zero: an office building, a museum, a Pinkberry, I don't care anymore!

America: Home of the Freedom Pit. Which, ironically, is spitting distance from Wall Street, where they knock down buildings a different way: through foreclosure. And that's the ultimate sign of our lethargy. Millions thrown out of their homes, tossed out of work, lost their life savings, and they just take it.

Thirty percent interest on credit cards? Are you kidding me? It's a good thing for the banks the Supreme Court legalized sodomy.

You know, I still like the president. I can't help but like the president. He's my favorite TV character. And I root for him like I root for Jon Cryer to get laid.

But, what happened to change? And when did the fierce urgency of "Now" become, "Your call is important to us, please continue to hold"?

September 26, 2009, Bill Maher, Real Time, HBO-New Rules

 

From george

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
  - Abraham Lincoln

 

FW: Age of Stupid

Take a look at http://www.ageofstupid.net/

 

 

 

From: George Martin
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 4:53 PM
To: 'Sarah Martin'
Subject: RE: Age of Stupid

 

I thought it was great, and the people who did it are great, because they pulled it off.  Faye and Rick went too and wanted to thank you for alerting us to it.  Faye’s comment was “that woman has real balls!” 

 

I think it’s amazing they pulled it off, and I was thinking about it, and maybe technology is really going to help us.  I bet it just doesn’t cost that much to rent an HD  transponder  from dishnetwork for 3 hours, which gets you most of this hemisphere. 

 

Did you see their faceplate thingy?  I became a fan. 

 

So, I think this country is as stupid as it gets in the age of stupid, that’s the problem.  If B.O.  goes for Copenhagen, then that may be it for him.  But that’s okay, I just don’t know if he will do it. 

 

Here’s a comment about it from the whitehouse faceplate page from someone: “ I saw "The Age of Stupid" in the theatre last night and I am ready to do what is needed to get the heat turned down in the US. If we don't get serious about redesigning our energy use NOW, it will not be possible later. The window is extremely small. I hope President Obama understands the urgency and moves our country, the biggest per capita contributor to global warming, to a sustainable place. “

6:32am

 

So, it is working.  But the power of chevron and their brothers is so huge.  They own all the media with their BS about how they are studying algae every fifteen minutes, on every channel, all day and all night.  George Orwell!!!  Even the newshour didn’t say a word yesterday about climate and the UN, only Iran and Afghanistan.  I would bet the oiligarchy’s combined investment on good stuff is .001% of their revenues, while they continue to wreck havoc locally and globally.  So that’s the danger. 

 

That was a really really good event they pulled off. 

 

Thanks again, I didn’t have a clue. 

 

Over,

 

Bro

 

 

We are Mental:

Death Row gets a $356 million re-model:

http://news.lavenderliberal.com/2009/07/30/people-are-going-to-die-now-schwarzenegger-slashes-aids-medi-cal-children-senior-care-funding-and-builds-a-new-death-row/

While colleges are cut to the bone, and people can't get in--De Anza Community College can't accommodate 8438 students, on 9-21-2009:

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13389554?source=most_viewed

Like they say, follow the money??

Re.         Meg Whitman on Environmental Regulation, Thursday September 17

                & Thomas Friedman, Applied Builds Solar Overseas

 

It’s too bad Meg Whitman didn’t read Tom Friedman’s column before she wrote hers.  Of course I’m making the assumption that she is not a pure dogmatist, even though a lot of her column did sound like the old republican cry “if we just leave business alone, the market will fix everything”. 

 

Whether she is a purveyor of that dogma or not, the stark contrast between these two columns was remarkable.  She argued that because of onerous environmental regulation, jobs were being lost.  Tom Friedman reported on his visit to Applied Materials, the worlds’ largest supplier of semiconductor equipment. 

 

Applied Materials has recently sold equipment for 14 new solar panel factories, none in the U.S. 

 

I think it’s time to move on from the old, worn out ‘small government’ chant.  Government is supposed to be our collective representative of the will of the people, and those solar factories providing jobs and cutting Co2 in all those other countries are there because their citizens made choices.  That’s not government regulation stifling jobs, it’s just smart decision making.

 

George Martin

 

 

From george

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
  - Abraham Lincoln

 

Quote of the Year:

 

“The new plaza (the now pedestrian only Broadway/Times Square), in the past few months has been a hot, smelly enclosure, filled with people sitting under patio umbrellas comparing their cell-phone screens, which is what humans do instead of picking ticks out of one another’s fur.”

 

From Lauren Collins, The New Yorker,  THE TALK OF THE TOWN,                September 14, 2009

 

 

 

FW: Don't Let rehetoric cloud scientific evidence on BPA-

From: George [mailto:gmorgjr@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 11:51 AM
To: 'letters@mercurynews.com'
Subject: Don't Let rehetoric cloud scientific evidence on BPA-

Yes on SB797

Re: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_13301791?nclick_check=1

I appreciated Mr. Shestek’s thoughtful and researched response to the pending legislation on bisphenol A-BPA (Merc News, Opinion, Sept. 10. I agree with his conclusion that the expert panels, and government watchdogs make a compelling case that California could be over-reacting to the risks posed by BPA. That is a very robust and substantial list of expert opinion cited in this article.

But I think there is another side to the scientific debate, which is that BPA mimics a very potent human hormone. Science does not yet know how potent, because, as Mr. Shestek points out, there is little hard cause and effect evidence to link illness or human and/or animal reaction specifically to BPA.

Well, back in the 50’s, the same thing could be said for the risks of above ground nuclear testing. The downwind deaths of livestock and high exposure rates were not a goal of those tests, but were certainly a result.

Likewise, in the 70’s and 80’s here in Silicon Valley, we had restrictions, but not the right ones, on the heavy metals and complex solvents that were released into the environment as we developed the semiconductor technology we all appreciate today.

Now today, we see transexed fish in areas near run off from urban water treatment plants, and we don’t know how these anomalies are happening, but BPA is a likely suspect. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501384.html

So I think another very reasonable scientific argument , and a common sense one, is that as we continue to produce the large amounts of plastics we depend on, let’s avoid complicated molecules that resemble powerful human and animal hormones. This is the same logic that pharmaceutical companies must follow to introduce a new drug…they have to spend years proving there are no side effects, because, there is no evidence that this new compound is safe until proven otherwise. BPA is an unfortunate and risky choice for plastic compounding and processing. Let’s slow down on introducing more risks into the environment that we all live in. SB797 is a good start, and will help drive the market place to find less risky alternatives.

George Martin