Where's the Outrage?

More than 300,000 residents in Connecticut are still without power.

Connecticut’s governor calls Ron Paul an idiot. Remember that Ron Paul wants to get rid of FEMA.

Serious delinquencies at Freddie and Fannie are unchanged this month. Wasn’t this supposed to be getting better?

Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC news analyst, has been trying to change his soft and milquetoast image. He’s been trying to be a little bit more forceful. He had a segment the other night where he went after Rudy Giuliani. Now, I have no love for Rudy Giuliani. I think that there are very few people outside of the Bush administration who exploited 9/11 more than “America’s Mayor.” I’m not sure why Lawrence O’Donnell decided that this was a good time to go after Rudy Giuliani since he’s not running for office and we’re still approximately two weeks away from the anniversary of 9/11. Yet, it’s hard to argue with his points.

Representative Allen West considers leaving the Congressional Black Caucus. Really? Who cares?

Three graphs which you should show anyone who tries to tell you that Obama is spending “too much.”

Where were the Tea Party dudes when Bush was spending and spending? One supplemental spending bill after another was passed without much fuss from Republicans.

Although I would be the first to admit that the stimulus did not go far enough and did not help as many people as intended, it is clear that the stimulus stopped our trend of hemorrhaging jobs.

I do not support the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. I cannot remember any merger over the last 10-15 years which has actually benefited the American people. Mergers like these decrease competition and increase the monopolistic tendencies of these huge companies.

A suspicious package was delivered to an Army base. Three people who handled the package developed a mysterious rash. I’m not sure what this is.

Remember all of those secret flights carrying those terrorism suspects to places unknown? It looks like the court has shed some light on this subject.

Please file this under – You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me. The Florida legislature spent time, effort and brainpower passing a bill which bans saggy pants on college campuses. As a matter fact, a Florida legislator stood on one of the Florida campuses and handed out belts to those who “needed it.” Florida’s unemployment rate currently sits at 10.9%. Instead of trying to find jobs the Florida legislature is sitting around passing laws about style. This is so wrong I do not know where to begin.

Tags: Business, Economy, Environment, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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There seems to be some ATF fallout from a operation called Fast and Furious. I’m still not sure of all the details but the US attorney in Phoenix has resigned and the ATF director has been reassigned. There’s something fishy here.

There’s a nice article in the New York Times about how this recovery missed Main Street. I would add that the problem with our economy is that the last 10-15 years of economic growth have been largely been based on credit and the availability of credit. To quote that old Smith Barney commercial, we have to start making money the old-fashioned way – we have to earn it. America is slowly switching over from a credit-based society back to a cash-based society. This is going to take some time. In spite of this, I will stand up and say again that we need jobs and we need jobs NOW.

On Sunday, Colin Powell was on Face the Nation. In a very nice and diplomatic way he told former Vice President Dick Cheney to stuff it.

There have been several occasions in which Ron Paul has stepped out on the limb only to have the limb break and fall off. As everyone knows Ron Paul is an antigovernment crusader. In the wake of the terrible disaster which struck the East Coast and New England, Ron Paul thought it was wise to highlight that there is simply too much dependency on FEMA and the federal government.

Watch the Video:

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Once again, the mainstream media almost missed the story. On Sunday you could feel the mainstream media almost start to cry that Hurricane Irene was not more powerful and more destructive. They wanted to see devastation and suffering. On Sunday and Monday we began to see stories about how New York City was saved. Then, late Monday we began seeing stories of flooding in Connecticut. This was followed by more stories about devastating flooding in Vermont. This was followed by more stories of millions of people without power. All of a sudden, the mainstream media had the disaster that they were looking for. Although it would be easy for me to bash the mainstream media, I would like to focus on the millions of people who need help. This is a time when we need to quit bickering and help our fellow Americans. We need to pretend, at least for a while, that we paid attention in church/synagogue/temple. Currently the death toll sits at 43. Several cities in Vermont are completely cut off from surrounding communities because roads and bridges have washed away. It’s time for us to help these Americans now. We need to figure out how to pay for the help… Later.

Update: Glenn Beck is receiving mediocre ratings with his new network. What do you do if you have mediocre ratings? Instead of trying to be a better reporter/announcer/guru for conservatism just say outlandish stupid stuff.

The state of Nevada goes after Bank of America/Countrywide for deceptive practices and fraudulent loans. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

PG&E gets excoriated for being a large American corporation. Remember, large American corporations care about profits and nothing else. The explosion outside of San Francisco which killed eight people and damaged 38 homes was basically caused by negligence by PG&E. My question is how many more American homes and lives are at risk because of the large corporations have decided to cut costs at our expense?

Finally, over Nine million views of this video reminds me of how crazy we really are. Nine million views of Taylor Swift and her wardrobe “malfunction.”

Tags: Domestic Issues, Economy, Environment, Party Politics, Rachel Maddow Show by ecthompson md
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Several decades ago, conservatives got together and figured that their message was not resonating with Americans. For almost a decade they work hard at honing their message. They decided not to get bogged down in complicated explanations and really streamline their message to only a few pithy statements. The government is too big. Taxes are too high. Military spending is always okay. In a nutshell that has been their mantra. The true genius of the conservative agenda has been the bait and switch. Rick Perry is a master at this. Several years ago he convinced Texans that businesses need to pay more. They need to carry their fair share. We all know that Republicans hate taxes. We all know that Republicans love big business. Therefore, this did not make sense. The devil is in the details.

In Texas there’s no income tax. So, Texans pay extremely high property taxes in order to make up for this deficit. Property owners were screaming for some relief. Rick Perry saw an opportunity. He told property owners that he’s going to give them some relief by enacting a marginal tax on businesses. As it turned out, this tax would not even come close to closing the gap from the reduction in taxes on property. Therefore, a budget crisis is created. Republicans look at budget crises as opportunities to cut government services. This is exactly what Rick Perry did. You can read more about Rick Perry’s despicable bait and switch here.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Over the last 30 years, we’ve been told that we needed to “unleash the beast.” What that was holding back Wall Street were all these regulations. Once we broke down those barriers capital will be free to flow. So we slashed taxes. We cut regulations. We cut import and export taxes. We broke down the barriers between insurance companies and investment companies and banks. We allowed banks to take on more and more leverage. As promised, Wall Street took off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose to heights never dreamed of before. Huge corporations were raking in record profits quarter after quarter, year after year. But there was a price for all of this Wall Street prosperity. The moral contract between American companies and the American worker was broken. American companies used to have some sort of loyalty to the American citizen. Don’t laugh. They did. Frank Abrams,Chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey said in 1951, “The job of management is to maintain an equitable and working balance among the claims of the various directly affected interest groups… Stockholders, employees, customers, and the public at large.” This would lead us believe whatever was good for business was good for America and vice versa.

Over the last 30 years, we’ve noticed that this is no longer the case. Now, because of rules and regulations, companies have incentives to ship jobs overseas. Companies have the ability to make millions of dollars by opening manufacturing plants, not here in the US, but overseas in Malaysia, China or Mexico. Billionaire Ross Perot, while running for president, addressed this topic head-on.

The question is, how do we fix this trend? How do we make the American economy and big business work for the American people again? On one hand, we’ve been told that all the changes that have gone on over the last 30 years have been good, that they simply haven’t gone far enough. We need to lower taxes even more for big business. We need to cut corporate taxes. We need to remove payroll taxes. We need to unleash the beast… even more.

This seems to be completely nonsense. Corporations are sitting on billions of dollars right now. I don’t understand why giving them more money will give them incentive to invest here in the United States. It seems to me that unless we change the rules, giving them more money will encourage them to invest more money overseas. Labor will always be cheaper in Malaysia and other developing countries. Big business has told us that they’re willing to play labor arbitrage with the American workforce. So, giving big business more money will be simply that – giving them more money. More money will not equal better behavior or more American jobs. Until we understand that throwing more money at Wall Street will simply be throwing more money at Wall Street, the American people will not get ahead. We need to train Wall Street. We need to enact rules and regulations that help the American worker.

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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It was six years ago today that Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast. I remember the dire warnings prior to Katrina. I remember the initial news reports suggesting the damage wasn’t as bad as we expected. Six years ago, I had just moved to Asheville, North Carolina. I was sitting in a rental house exchanging e-mails with some friends in a discussion group. This was a medical discussion group which was made up of people throughout the world. There are approximately 1000 people who participate in this discussion group. It was around midnight when someone suggested that the levees had broken. I looked everywhere. I looked at every single website that I could think of but couldn’t find any information about the levees. Even the New Orleans Times Picayune which, as I recall, had moved its headquarters from New Orleans and most of its staff writers were in Lafayette or Baton Rouge, had nothing about the levees breaking. I remember saying something like we need to stick to the facts and we shouldn’t speculate. The member of the discussion group was insistent that his information was correct. I remember having an extremely sick feeling in my stomach. Over the next several days, we saw a city, a region of the country, cry out for help. For five days there was no response.

Over the last six years I’ve written on Katrina many many times (here, here, here and here. This last one is an interview with James Perry who was running for mayor of New Orleans at the time.) I think there are a lot of lessons that can be learned from this disaster. I’ve been to New Orleans twice in the last six years. New Orleans is a city that I truly love. New Orleans is a city that is completely different than any other city in the South. It’s not like Atlanta or Miami or even nearby Houston. The only city in the United States, in my opinion, that comes close to the feeling of pre-Katrina New Orleans would be San Francisco. There was something wonderful about New Orleans. It wasn’t simply a great mecca for music. It wasn’t simply one of the best places in the United States to eat. It wasn’t the unique architecture of the French quarter or even the garden district. It wasn’t brunch at Commander’s Palace or the fabulous art shops where we can buy original paintings from national and internationally known artists at prices the 10th of which you’d find in New York or Chicago. It wasn’t the abject poverty or the wealth of the financial district. It was all of this and more which made New Orleans a great city.

The tragedy of Katrina is that it exposed a dysfunctional political system. New Orleans politics has been famously dysfunctional for decades. Louisiana politics is almost laughable. It was nearly impossible to get anything done in Louisiana unless you “knew somebody.” Then, on top of this dysfunctional system you had the Bush administration. You had an administration that actually hated government. You add all of this together and tens of thousands of people suffered needlessly. My conclusion after reading tons of information on Hurricane Katrina is simply that we need to treat each other better.

I found this article in the New Orleans Times Picayune:

In April 2010, four and a half years into recovery, the Census Bureau found that Katrina cost New Orleans 29 percent of its population; Jefferson, 5 percent; St. Bernard, 47 percent; Plaquemines, 14 percent.

Some of those people settled nearby. St. Tammany’s population grew 22 percent; St. Charles Parish grew 10 percent; St. John the Baptist grew 7 percent.

But census takers counted a net loss of nearly 150,000 people who were driven out of a metropolitan area of what was once 1.3 million.

Allison Plyer of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, a co-author with Elaine Ortiz of “The New Orleans Index at Six,” an annual recovery analysis, said the region has showed unusual resilience in facing not only Katrina, but the 2008 recession and last year’s BP oil spill. (more…)

Update: Melissa Harris-Perry does a great job at summing up the lessons of Katrina.

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Tags: Katrina by ecthompson md
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President Barack Obama has made some thoughtful comments on Hurricane Irene.

Damage from Irene has been massive. Tons of places are flooded. CT is now getting pounded. I know that some people may believe that New York overreacted by shutting down the transportation system. I think that they made the right call, without a doubt.

Local mother is charged with stabbing her daughters to death. Very sad.

Great article on how to fix the terrible political conditions in Afghanistan as we withdraw our troops.

Update: Herman Cain wins a Georgia Straw Poll. Of course, Ga is his home state. In a recent national poll, Cain has only 4% support. I’m not sure if he is done but he is going to have to make a significant move in order to stand out from the crowd. Of course, with Rick Perry entering the race, Herman Cain is going have to think long and hard about something outrageous to say because the Texas governor has said just about everything already.

Medicaid is looked at by insurers as a bonanza. This is the healthcare reform problem in a nutshell.

Investigation into the Wisconsin Supreme Court reveals what we already know, that it is really dysfunctional. It really doesn’t matter who is at fault. The court is not servicing the people of Wisconsin all that well if you have Justices calling each other bitches and choking one another. It is simply wrong. I think Wisconsin needs to throw every one of them out and vote in another group that will work for Wisconsin.

A Dallas constable is told by an emotional, bleeding mother that her boyfriend has kidnapped her two young boys. The constable does nothing. The boys are later killed by the boyfriend. There are lots of things that I don’t understand in this world. I don’t understand how a mother stabs her children (see the story above). I don’t understand how a Constable does nothing. I don’t understand how you don’t pick up the phone and call the police, at the very least. I don’t understand how as a human being, you do nothing.

Tags: Domestic Issues by ecthompson md
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Very sad domestic incident here in Asheville.

Hurricane Irene is dumping tons of rain along the eastern seacoast. New York and New Jersey are completely shut down. Atlantic City has been completely evacuated… Almost.

Another Al Qaeda operative has been killed in Pakistan. I hate to type that he is Al Qaeda’s number two, since we’ve been told that multiple times before only to find out that the guy was some Al Qaeda flunky. There’s not much detail on exactly how this guy was killed.

Germany is looking to shut down all of its nuclear reactors and is looking for alternative energy sources. Greece just so happens to have some expertise in solar power. It appears that some agreement has been reached between Greece and Germany. This could be good for both economies. Now, I wonder if the US could invest billions in solar power and… what am I thinking? Sorry, I forgot about the political environment. We’re not to spend money on anything as a government. It just isn’t going to happen.

There seems to be a new Tea Party bus tour. A chairwoman for the Tea Party Express stated, “We want Washington to live within its means, just like we do.” Let me just take a moment to say there’s almost nothing in this short sentence that is correct. American families have not been living within our means. American families have taken on more and more debt over the last 15 years. Currently, US household debt is a staggering $13.4 trillion. We owe a whopping 116% of disposable income. So, it is a lie to say that we live within our means. Also, this chairwoman is using the same stupid analogy that many conservatives have been using for decades. They’ve been using the analogy that the United States economy works exactly the same as our household budget. Nothing can be further from the truth. I don’t know about your household but I do not have the ability to borrow nearly unlimited sums of money. The US government has that ability. Secondly, as we’ve seen in the last eight recessions since World War II, we have had the ability to spend our way out of the economic doldrums. No household can spend its way out of economic problems. Simply put, spending puts people back to work. More people working equals more tax revenue. More people working equals more people spending money at businesses and this increases business revenue. This also equals more tax revenue. It is the simple concept of putting Americans back to work which seems to elude conservatives.

Rebels in Tripoli have found the charred remains of over 50 bodies.

Gizmodo has put together the most amazing products that Apple has developed under Steve Jobs.

Tags: Al Qaeda, Economy, Environment by ecthompson md
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As everyone is glued to the TV trying to see if there is going to be a ton of badness with Irene or not, I thought that I would serve up a Hurricane update and some Herbert Hoover.

I know that everyone is supposed to be on edge, but it looks like this is going to be a ton of rain and that’s about it. Now, don’t get me wrong. That’s enough. Flooding will be a problem but the winds from this hurricane seem to be dying down.

Herbert Hoover said in 1932, “Nothing is more important than balancing the budget with the least increase in taxes. The Federal Government should be in such position that it will need issue no securities which increase the public debt after the beginning of the next fiscal year, July 1. That is vital to the still further promotion of employment and agriculture. It gives positive assurance to business and industry that the Government will keep out of the money market and allow industry and agriculture to borrow the monies required for the conduct of business. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the able nonpartisan effort being made by the Ways and Means Committee and the Economy Committee of the House whose work are complementary to each other.” (Read more at the American Presidency Project: www.presidency.ucsb.edu http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=23478#ixzz1WCDUZuns)

More in a sec.

Tags: Economy, Environment by ecthompson md
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This is where my father and his family once lived on Potter Street in Providence, Rhode Island.

My father lived 1930-2011.

I took this picture two weeks ago.

My father’s house is now gone and my dad is now dead.

There is now a community garden at this location.

Here is what it says in Isaiah 40:6-8-–

The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

All flesh is grass.

With a garden now where my dad once lived, you can say this is true in both a literal and figurative sense.

The things we most value have a season and they have no season. They are transient and they are eternal. They require a careful tending and they grow wild.

Tags: Domestic Issues by Neil Aquino
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Currently, it appears that Asheville, North Carolina may get some high winds but that’s about it. Of course, this depends upon the hurricane staying on its current course. The following is the latest on hurricane Irene. Please take all of the cautions necessary for you and your family to stay safe.

From the Weather Channel:

• We’ve added an “EXTREME” threat level category from eastern North Carolina to southern New England. According to Hurricane Expert, Dr. Rick Knabb and Sr. Meteorologist, Stu Ostro, “this is a particularly threatening situation and it’s best for people to be on alert.“
• Computer models are currently trending toward a forecast solution of rare potency for portions of the Northeast.
• Irene will be a serious and multi-hazard threat for the major metropolitan areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This includes Norfolk, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford, and Boston. This hurricane has the potential to produce flooding rains, high winds, downed trees (on houses, cars, power lines) and widespread power outages. Significant impacts along the immediate coast include high waves, surge and beach erosion.
• For North Carolina, the main impacts of damaging winds and storm surge flooding will be confined to the far eastern portions of the state. In addition to the Outer Banks, this potentially includes Morehead City and Atlantic Beach.
• Timing: Irene will make its closest approach to North Carolina late Friday night through Saturday. Northeast U.S. impacts would be Saturday night through early Monday.
• We remain a couple of days away from Irene’s direct impacts along the US East Coast andcritical uncertainties related to Irene’s exact track and intensity remain. Stay tuned to The Weather Channel and right here on weather.com for further updates. 

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue:

Tags: Environment by ecthompson md
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• If you read just a little bit about the Great Recession, then you know that whenever one of the big Wall Street firms was in trouble, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and even Morgan Stanley, they all at one time or another called Warren Buffett for an emergency loan. So it is interesting that Bank of America just got an infusion of $5 billion from Warren Buffett. Bank of America is having trouble fending off lawsuits over its Countrywide acquisition. It appears that several parties believe that countrywide acted in a fraudulent manner and continue to sue countrywide for large sums of money, with which Bank of America needs to settle. Warren Buffett’s infusion of cash does help.
• Hispanics are currently the largest minority group in college. They have just recently surpassed Blacks. All I can say is that we need more Americans in college. We need more Americans to graduate college. We need more government loans and grants to help pay for the ever-increasing expense that is college.
• Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chairman, and the rest of the world’s financial gurus are all gathered at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This is the annual Fed meeting. This is the meeting where you would expect a lot of discussion and then finally a brilliant intervention to fix what is ailing our economy. Don’t expect it. With Republicans mired in reactionary policies which are going to hurt the economy and the Democrats mired in indecision, as usual, the Fed is stuck in molasses.
• Pakistan is becoming the new wild wild West.
• The US economy is growing, although it is growing at a very slow pace.
• One of the few programs that the government has instituted to help homeowners was buried in the Trouble Asset Relief Program. Over $45 billion was set aside to help homeowners fend off foreclosure. Only $2 billion of that has been used. Somehow, that money is going to be rolled back into the treasury in order to pay down the deficit.
• The manufacturing sector expanded modestly this month.
• Our own obesity is starting to cost us billions of dollars. Estimates that obesity is going to cost us over $66 billion by the year 2030 are hard to swallow (pun intended). As we struggle with our healthcare costs, we’re going to have to address the obesity crisis in the United States.

Jill St. John as Tiffany Case in the James Bond movie – Diamonds Are Forever

• A new planet has been found in another galaxy. This planet is made entirely of crystallized carbon – it’s a diamond. How cool is that?

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Pakistan, Race, Science by ecthompson md
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• One thing you can say about the media is that they will always find something to go bonkers about. They have completely forgotten about the earthquake in Virginia and are now focused on the hurricane that is projected to hit North Carolina sometime on Friday. They are also in a tizzy over Steve Jobs’ resignation. It is clear that Apple Computers is not to be the same company without Steve Jobs. He was the one that had the drive, the determination and the vision to create the products that we now associate with Apple Computers. In my opinion, his greatness was in creating a user interface that was beautiful to look at and easy to use.

Irene:

• Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill in the Senate to strengthen Social Security. We need more of this.
• One of the things that is great about writing your own memoir is that you can say whatever it is you want to say. I know that everybody’s been on the edge of their seat waiting on former Vice President Dick Cheney to write his memoir. Well, the wait is over. By the way, how is he staying out of jail?
• The CIA is editing and re-editing a new book on 9/11. The FBI’s is written by a former FBI agent, an Arab-speaking counterterrorism agent. Ali Soufan should be a name well known to those who have followed the events of 9/11 very closely. He testified in Congress about the torture techniques that were used by the CIA. He stated, without hesitation, that they were unnecessary and counterproductive. If the CIA does not edit the book to death, I’m looking forward to the publication.
• J.P. Morgan has been fined. They basically broke US sanctions with regards to Iran, Cuba and Sudan. The fine was only $88 million.
• Fox News shuts down Karl Rove when he begins to describe Sarah Palin as thin-skinned.  I wonder what that’s all about.
• Robert Reich is calling for a protest on Labor Day. Marches instead of parades. I’m down with that.
• There’s a growing dissatisfaction against companies who seem to be discriminating against unemployed workers. Please follow the link. This is important.
• The Bush tax cuts are still contributing significantly to our debt. The CBO has the latest numbers.
• Mark Thoma tackles the question concerning why the Fed is hesitant to do more to help our economy.

Tags: Bush Administration, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Senate by ecthompson md
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A friend of mine wrote this after someone asked him about travel music. He mentioned Curtis Mayfield. They had that look which means I have no idea who you are talking about.
(You can use Rhapsody to access these albums.)

The holy trinity of Old School Soul is Curtis Mayfield, Jerry “Iceman” Butler, and Marvin Gaye. Yes, yes – I know about Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, James Carr, Percy Sledge, James Brown, etc. I love and admire them all, but there’s just something special about Curtis, Jerry, and Marvin. In the late 1960s, they ruled the airways. They kept me company on Armed Forces Radio during my stint in Nam.

Jerry Butler – (1967) Mr Dream Merchant
Jerry Butler – (1967) Soul Artistry
Jerry Butler – (1968) The Ice Man Cometh
Jerry Butler – (1968) The Soul Goes On
Jerry Butler – (1969) Ice on Ice
Jerry Butler was the original lead singer of The Impressions, and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He grew up poor, having lived in Chicago’s Cabrini–Green housing complex. Music and the church provided solace from a city that was as segregated as those in the Deep South. He performed in a church choir with Curtis Mayfield and the two were together in a gospel quartet called Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers. Mayfield, a guitar player, became the lone instrumentalist for the six-member Roosters group, which later became The Impressions. Inspired by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, and the Pilgrim Travelers. Butler was dubbed the “Iceman” by Philadelphia disc jockey, Georgie Woods, while performing at the Uptown Theater, just down Broad Street from where I work. With Otis Redding, he co-wrote the classic “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” in 1965. Butler’s solo career had a string of hits, including the Top 10 successes “He Will Break Your Heart”, “Find Another Girl”, “I’m A-Telling You” (all written by fellow Impression Curtis Mayfield and featuring Mayfield as harmony vocal), the million selling “Only the Strong Survive,” “Need To Belong” (recorded with the Impressions after he went solo), “Make It Easy On Yourself,” “Let It Be Me” (with Betty Everett), “Brand New Me,” “Ain’t Understanding Mellow” (with Brenda Lee Eager), “Hey, Western Union Man”, and “Never Give You Up.” Butler is currently a Commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, having first been elected in 1985. As a member of this 17-member county board, he chairs the Health and Hospitals Committee, and serves as Vice Chair of the Construction Committee.

Curtis Mayfield – (1970) Curtis
Curtis Mayfield – (1971) Love
Curtis Mayfield – (1971) Roots
Curtis Mayfield – (1972) Superfly
Curtis Mayfield – (1973) Back to the World
Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. Best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, he was a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums. Curtis was a double inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He taught himself how to play guitar, tuning it to the black keys of the piano, thus giving him an open F-sharp tuning—F#, A#, C#, F#, A#, F#—that he used throughout his career. The Impressions reached the height of their popularity in the mid-to-late-’60s with a string of Mayfield compositions that included “Keep on Pushing,” “People Get Ready”, “It’s All Right”, “Talking about My Baby”, “Woman’s Got Soul”, “Choice of Colors,”, “Fool For You,” “This is My Country” and “Check Out Your Mind.” In 1990, Mayfield was paralyzed from the neck down after stage lighting equipment fell on him at an outdoor concert in New York. He died 9 years later of complications from that injury.

Marvin Gaye – (1966) Moods of Marvin Gaye + (1970) That’s The Way Love Is:
Marvin Gaye – (1971) What’s Going On (Deluxe Edition)
Marvin Gaye – (1972) Let’s Get It On
Marvin Gaye – (1972) Trouble Man + (1969) M.P.G.
Marvin Gaye – (1976) I Want You
Marvin Gaye had a four-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla Records subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label’s top-selling solo artist during the sixties. Because of solo hits such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t That Peculiar”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul.” Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and in 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at number 6 on its list of the Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Tags: Music by ecthompson md
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By now, everybody knows about the earthquake which occurred in Virginia yesterday. I felt it here in Asheville, North Carolina. The news coverage from the mainstream media was over the top to say the least. There appears to been some damage to the National Cathedral. There appears to be only minor damage to the Washington Monument.

The North Anna nuclear power plant, which is located on an earthquake fault line, shut down yesterday as a precautionary measure. At least, that’s what we were told yesterday. Today, we find out that its off-site power supply had been lost. It was basically using diesel generators in order to cool the units. I’m not sure about the wisdom of building a nuclear power plant on a fault line. Also, we found out that this power plant, which is indeed located on a fault line, removed all of its seismic detection equipment because of budget cuts. Finally, the North Anna plant was built to withstand an earthquake of approximately 5.9 in intensity.

Hurricane Irene is now a category three hurricane. Currently, projections have it possibly hitting the South Carolina/North Carolina coast early Saturday morning. It is projected to be a strong category three if and when it hits the coast.

Al Sharpton is getting his own show on MSNBC.

Jamie Leigh Jones, the former KBR employee who stated she’d been drugged and raped in Iraq, is now being sued by the company to recoup their attorneys fees for over $2 million.

I find it kind of funny that Rick Perry’s campaign continues to disavow his book that he only published nine months ago. The communications director actually had the nerve to tell the Wall Street Journal that the book did not reflect the governor’s current views. Although I doubt that Governor Perry actually wrote the book, I do believe that there was a team of consultants who sat down with Rick Perry and went through the book line by line before it was published. The book reflects exactly what he thinks would get him elected. That’s why he wrote it.

Libya is still in turmoil. The party seems to be nonstop in Tripoli. The elusive Colonel appears to be in hiding.

Worst Persons in the World:

Tags: Domestic Issues, Foreign Affairs by ecthompson md
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From PA (I inserted some good stuff, I couldn’t help myself):

• Libya: “Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi remained at large Monday, and loyalist forces still held pockets of the city, stubbornly resisting the rebels’ efforts to establish full control, but there was little doubt that the Libyan leader’s four-decade grip on power was ending.”
• The Gaddafi regime is collapsing sooner than anticipated, forcing Western countries to scramble to put together post-conflict plans for Libya.
• Egyptian/Israeli tensions reach their highest point in three decades: “Diplomats scrambled to avert a crisis in relations between Egypt and Israel on Saturday, and the Israeli government issued a rare statement of regret for the killing of three Egyptian security officers by an Israeli warplane.”
• Iran: “Two American hikers imprisoned in Iran for more than two years have been convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in jail, according to a news reports.”
• The world probably didn’t need an easier way to enrich uranium, but General Electric has developed a successful new laser-enrichment technique.

• President Richard M. Nixon started a radical program to control inflation on this date in 1971. Wage and price freeze. It sort of worked.
• The Keystone XL pipeline, which would “carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast,” is generating controversy.
• Juan Cole has an interesting item noting the “top 10 myths” about the war in Libya.
• A long-awaited memorial honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.opened to the public today, near the Washington Mall.
• Not suspicious at all: “The e-mail accounts of Rick Scott and most of the governor-elect’s transition team were deleted soon after he took office, potentially erasing public records that state law requires be kept.”
• Rick Perry wrote this very extremist book and now people are saying him about it. It seems that he doesn’t like or believe the ideas in the book which he wrote.
• This whole economy has me worried.
• Gas prices look like they are going to fall for the next several months. That’s good news.
• Something’s wrong with this picture: “[T]he total cost of tuition, room, and board at Amherst College, for instance, is $53,370 a year. Even relatively affluent people can’t easily manage to shell out $53,000 at one time. And so Amherst uses a company called Tuition Management Systems to help make tuition payments more affordable. But TMS charges a 2.99 percent fee for every credit charge transaction. That’s $1,595 a year.”

HP just killed the TouchPad and WebOS

• For those who believe that business always gets things right, I present to you HP’s touchpad. HP had the pad market and did little if anything with it for years. They bought Compaq and Palm several years ago and Compaq had those little devices that were almost useful. The iPad comes out of nowhere. Apple kicks everyone’s butt. HP retools. They rework the OS and present a flop. I don’t understand how you spend all of that time and effort and come out with garbage. Engadget said it best, “Oh, happy day, when one first receives a device that’s been eagerly anticipated for months. Sad, sad day when that device fails to live up to one’s expectations. We all wanted the TouchPad to really compete, to give us a compelling third party to join the iOS and Android boxes on the ballot. But, alas, this isn’t quite it.”

Tags: Domestic Issues, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Israel by ecthompson md
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It appears after months of fighting Gaddafi and his government are falling.

Video from Sky

Tripoli is Falling [ 1:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From BBC:

A convoy of Libyan rebels has rolled into central Tripoli past celebrating crowds after a day of heavy fighting in and around the capital.

They appeared to meet little resistance and civilians emerged to cheer them, waving flags and firing celebratory shots as they passed in their pick-ups.

Video from the city apparently shows the rebels celebrating on Green Square.

The rebels reportedly captured Col Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam as the leader himself vowed to fight on.

“I have received confidential information stating he has been arrested,” International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told AFP news agency.

The court has indicted Saif for torturing and killing civilians.

Another of Col Gaddafi’s sons, Muhammad, was also detained, according to rebel sources.

The BBC’s correspondent in Tripoli, Matthew Price, says the rebels appear to be trying to take control of the hotel where he and other journalists have been staying. Gun battles have raged around the Rixos Hotel all day.

Col Gaddafi is believed to still have thousands of armed followers in the capital but other reports suggest a number of them have been surrendering to the rebels.

Tags: Foreign Affairs by ecthompson md
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Rick Perry. What can I say. He has had a busy week.

From PA:

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry wraps up his first week as a Republican presidential candidate, he’s apparently not inclined to back off some of his nuttier comments.

Here he is today on biological science:

Rick Perry continued to voice skepticism about evolution during a campaign stop in South Carolina Friday, telling a supporter “God is how we got here.” […]

When a woman in South Carolina congratulated him for his remarks Friday, Perry replied “Well, God is how we got here. God may have done it in the blink of the eye or he may have done it over this long period of time, I don’t know. But I know how it got started.”

And here he is on climate science:

Of his statement that global warming is essentially a hoax, Perry said: “I just happen to believe the Earth’s temperature has been moving up and down for milleniums now.” He claimed that scientists disagree on the cause and continued, “I happen to be one who is skeptical.”

And here’s Perry on reports that congressional Republicans were concerned about his rhetorical excesses about the Fed:

Perry didn’t back away from his statement that the Fed’s quantitative easing policy was nearly “treasonous,” responding: “I’m passionate about the Obama administration’s monetary policy.” […]

“I’m sorry if I offended a congressman but the fact of the matter is I’m representing the American people out here,” Perry said.

Does Perry realize that Ben Bernanke is a Republican, originally appointed by Bush? And that this isn’t the Obama administration’s monetary policy? More to the point, raise your hand if you think Rick Perry knows what a monetary policy is.

Long story short, I think Bruce Bartlett was onto something.

Now, if recent history is any guide, Perry deciding to double down on, well, everything will lead more reporters to swoon. Chris Cillizza, noting the governor’s argument that the Fed would be acting in a “treasonous” way if it tried to boost the economy, described the governor this week as “brash, bold and unapologetic about being so.”

If political reporters see all of Perry’s reckless and controversial comments through an agreed-upon lens — he’s the Texas Tough Guy Cowboy who doesn’t care about niceties — then every time the candidate says something outrageous, media outlets won’t even bother to take him to task. After all, it’ll just be Perry being Perry.

It’s going to be a long campaign.

Tags: Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent from Vermont, has always been a straight shooter. He speaks plainly and says what’s on his mind. In my opinion, he’s always represented the interests of the middle class. I am joining Bernie Sanders and calling on the president to introduce five new jobs bills. Each jobs bill should add up to approximately $300 billion. The total package should be $1.5 trillion. This is the size package economists say that we need for the size of our economy. It’s time for us to quit dancing around and pretending that we’re going to stimulate the economy. Quit pretending and get it done. The American people need jobs. We do need to rebuild our infrastructure. These jobs bills should not be a bunch of tax cuts and tax breaks. Instead, they should be infrastructure projects rebuilding America. It is time that we invest in our most valuable resource – us.

Tags: Economy by ecthompson md
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Above is a picture of the front page of yasterday’s Houston Chronicle.

I took the picture outside on the hot and parched Texas grass.

It sure is hot.

The newspaper above reports that Texas farmers and ranchers have suffered major losses due to the current drought in Texas, while at the same time Texas Governor and Presidential candidate Rick Perry denies the existence of global warming.

While nobody can be sure that one cause of the terrible weather in Texas for the past few months has been global warming, it is quite possible that this is indeed the case.  However, of course, Rick Perry won’t even consider the very idea that this is possible.

No letup in the Texas drought is predicted in the months to come.

Three other stories in the Houston Chronicle today detail record heat in Houston, mosquitio spraying by Harris County out of concern that tropical West Nile disease may occur in the area, and the facttrees are dying in Houston due to the drought.

Here are facts about West Nile Disease. 

Also, an ozone alert has been declared for yesterday in the Houston area. 

In Texas, the air quality is often so bad that it offends deeply conservative Oklahoma. 

Meanwhile, out on the Presidential campaign trial, the Republican field is bashing the EPA. 

In the end, people are just going to have to decide what kind of future they want. If you want Rick Perry and how he governs Texas for your future, then that is your call to make.

And–since I have you here–please also note that the Texas Miracle Rick Perry has been touting as his economic record, involves one in four Texas children living in poverty and the highest rate of uninsured children in the nation.

Rick Perry has called for prayer to end the drought. His prayers and the prayers of his supporters have not been heard in this regard. Under Governor Perry’s reasoning for why we are being afflicted with terrible weather, maybe the State of Texas is being judged for harsh treatment of the poor and neglect of those in need.

(Below—It is very hot in Houston, Texas. Both photos in this post copyright Neil Aquino 2011.)

Tags: Environment, Party Politics by Neil Aquino
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• Whether you think stocks are overvalued or not, the last several weeks have been downright ugly on Wall Street. Yesterday, Wall Street lost over 400 points. This morning, stocks opened sharply lower in Europe. Personally, I think we need to expect more volatility and a general downward trend on Wall Street until Washington and Europe decide that austerity is not going to get it done. We need to spend money to get out of this disaster. We need to put people to work.
• Inflation indicators are ticking up. But, with gasoline prices falling, inflation should stand check with the rest of the year.
• Another bank failure, this time in Maryland.
• RE/MAX announced a 12.7% drop in home sales for July.
• It appears that the Justice Department is investigating some of the shenanigans that Standard & Poor’s “may have been involved in” in writing those mobile mortgage securities. It appears that there will was some sort of internal debate at Standard & Poor’s. Some analysts wanted to downgrade the ratings. This could get interesting.

• Allen West continues to prove that he may be the most delusional Congressman in Washington.
• Of course, while we’re thinking about delusional, we would be remiss if we did not add Michelle Bachmann to the list. She believes that Americans fear the rise of the Soviet Union.
• Rick Perry continues to position himself further and further to the right. Yesterday, he mentioned that evolution was a “theory that’s out there.” He went on to say, “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our schools. Because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” The stupidity of the statement cannot be underestimated. If you believe that time in the classroom is precious, why would you teach something that you know is wrong? Implicit in Rick Perry’s statement is that it is obvious that one of these “theories” is wrong. Why would you waste time teaching students something that you “know” is wrong?
• Bank of America is cutting 3500 jobs.
• Comparing and contrasting Rick Perry and Mitt Romney with regard to their “jobs plan” seems to be a little like sewing eyelashes together. There doesn’t seem to be much substance there but the Washington Post tries anyway.
• The president is slowly, very slowly putting together a new jobs plan. Personally, I think we made a major stimulus to the economy. I think the president needs to put together not one or two but five different jobs plans. Each plan should total somewhere around $300 billion. The total package should be around $1.5 trillion. This total package equals approximately 12% of our GDP. The whole economy needs to be overhauled. The government needs to support the economy while it’s being overhauled. We need to get rid of the huge backlog of houses. This would stabilize home prices. We need to switch from a credit economy, where everybody spends more than they have based on credit, to a more cash-based economy where we actually have money left over and can save.

What stories are you following today?

Class Warfare. Raising on taxes on the rich is clearly class warfare.

Tags: Domestic Issues, Party Politics, The Daily Show by ecthompson md
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