Sasha's Cloud, Today Only

State of the Union, In Brief



Don't worry,
be happy.

Some Democrats With Cojones
no matter how small.

Bayh, Evan (D-IN)
Biden, Joseph R., Jr. (D-DE)
Boxer, Barbara (D-CA)
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (D-NY)
Dayton, Mark (D-MN)
Dodd, Christopher J. (D-CT)
Durbin, Richard (D-IL)
Feingold, Russell D. (D-WI)
Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA)
Jeffords, James M. (I-VT)
Kennedy, Edward M. (D-MA)
Kerry, John F. (D-MA)
Lautenberg, Frank R. (D-NJ)
Leahy, Patrick J. (D-VT)
Levin, Carl (D-MI)
Menendez, Robert (D-NJ)
Mikulski, Barbara A. (D-MD)
Murray, Patty (D-WA)
Obama, Barack (D-IL)
Reed, Jack (D-RI)
Reid, Harry (D-NV)
Sarbanes, Paul S. (D-MD)
Schumer, Charles E. (D-NY)
Stabenow, Debbie (D-MI)
Wyden, Ron (D-OR)

and

Howard Dean

(edited for civility instead of speed)

Where's Sasha?

This has not been much of a personal blog, but it has been a busy month and we know one another well enough to tolerate a few personal details. My 16 year old dog had emergency surgery. She is well, thank you very much. Sasha has been sick sick sick. She is recovering thank you very much.

And. I have made my first ever New Year's Resolution. I resolve to be lazier. I am working on it, semi-successfully. (I slipped and watched the Alito hearings and got consistently livid, as I knew I would. Hope springs eternal.)

It turns out that one of the many ways I pass the time has been recognized by the New York Times. Too bad because I hate being trendy. Now I shall go watch the political yak shows while spinning some lovely cashmere on a wheel that looks just like the one on the right.

Don't go too far away. I'll be back.

It's good to have the illusion of starting over. The best to all of you.

It Is Amazing How Much Blatant Sexism Pisses Me Off

Here we have The Prez destroying the Constitution, instituting the total imperial presidency, the absolute annihilation of a democratic form of government. And I can deal.

But these pigs ...

Yeah, more women than men go to college. One might think that it is positive that some measure of equality has been achieved. But nooooo. Let's see how we can cast this as a horror of the third order. Oh, I know. They'll have trouble getting dates. And we all know that getting dates is the woman's raison d'etre.

I'm not just making this up. Some collaborator named Melana Zyla Vickers at The Weekly Standard tells us

At colleges across the country, 58 women will enroll as freshmen for every 42 men. And as the class of 2010 proceeds toward graduation, the male numbers will dwindle. Because more men than women drop out, the ratio after four years will be 60--40, according to projections by the Department of Education.

The problem isn't new-women bachelor's degree--earners first outstripped men in 1982. But the gap, which remained modest for some time, is widening. More and more girls are graduating from high school and following through on their college ambitions, while boys are failing to keep pace and, by some measures, losing ground.

...

Today's shortage of men, by contrast, is largely ignored, denied, or covered up. Talk to university administrators, and few will admit that the imbalance is a problem, let alone that they're addressing it.

Suddenly the reactionary right favors affirmative action. I can't stand it.

I Got To Vote! I Got To Vote!


Yes, he got to break a tie and vote against poor folks, the elderly, and children. See how happy he is?

And a huge thanks to Princess Sparkle Pony for the pic.

Those Pesky Interlibrary Loans

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."
Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.
... The eavesdropping was apparently done without warrants.

My Own Personal Hell

PETA Members, The Dallas Cowgirls
Circle I Limbo

xenophobes
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

George Bush
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Peter Angelos
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

People who talk on cell phones in public
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Scientologists
Circle VII Burning Sands

radical Christians
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Karl Rove
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Eugene McCarthy
who served his nation long and well, an honorable man who contributed greatly to ending the war in Vietnam, died yesterday at the age of 89. The Times explains thusly:

Mr. McCarthy, a man of needling wit, triggered one of the most tumultuous years in American political history. With the war taking scores of thousands of American and Vietnamese lives, he rallied throngs against this "costly exercise in futility" and stoked a fiery national debate over the World War II model of an all-powerful presidency. He challenged Johnson in a primary, and the president, facing almost certain defeat, ended up withdrawing from the race.