BRRRRRRRRRRR!

I'm sitting on a train in Florida while they change the engine, we've been here about an hour.

I'm watching as an elderly man with a yellow dog walks by in the field outside. He's sweating, and he stops every fifteen yards or so to mop his brow and fan himself. It's about 95 degrees outside.

I am shivering, trapped inside, wrapped in a blanket and still freezing!

Have you noticed how often in this country public spaces are refrigerated to an absurd level?

I live in Los Angeles, and too often I have to bring sweatshirts to public places; not because it is cold out, but because it is cold in. The last few times I have checked into a hotel, the room's thermostat was set all the way down, at 60 or in one case 50 degrees.

Could we consider cooling rooms to a comfortable 76 degrees? How much electricity would we save annually if we moderated this wretched excess?

Mellencamp song about 'Jena Six' upsets mayor - CNN.com

Mellencamp song about 'Jena Six' upsets mayor - CNN.com

In response to a new video by John Mellencamp decrying the racist incidents in Jena, the town's mayor Murphy R. McMillin was recently quoted by CNN as saying -

"To put the incident in Jena in the same league as those who were murdered in the 1960s cheapens their sacrifice and insults their memory."

So how does the hanging of nooses on a tree called "The White Tree" to keep black students away not put it in the same league? It is clearly meant to invoke the horrific history of lynching, and is a terrorist act. The kids responsible for hanging the nooses should be prosecuted under federal anti - terrorism statutes.

Perhaps if the mayor spoke out against the teenage thugs who hug the nooses rather than those criticizing it we'd have reason to believe him?

"Land o' Goshen Clarabelle, that shore is a purdy frock..."

On the chain of woman's clothing stores called "Dress Barn" the thought strikes me -

Have you ever seen anything as disastrously branded as 'Dress Barn Woman"?

The brand simultaneously evokes the phrases - "big as a barn", "raised in a pigsty", "she's a hefir" , "what a cow", "Soooooeee!" and so many more...

Maybe they were going for a sensible folksy rusticity, but c'mon!

"Land o' Goshen Clarabelle, that shore is a purdy frock..."

I'm just sayin'...

Bush hints at spending more on children's health bill - CNN.com

Bush hints at spending more on children's health bill - CNN.com

Once again the Bush administration is grossly distorting the truth for political gain. According to CNN -

Bush used his radio address to once again make the case that he believes the spending increase sought primarily by Democrats is a step "toward their goal of government-run health care for every American."

"Government-run health care would deprive Americans of the choice and competition that comes from the private market," he said. "It would cause huge increases in government spending."

Not one of the Democratic frontrunners has proposed a plan that would create anything like "government-run health care." All of the leading candidates have proposed plans that leave health care to private practice, but offer a government administered insurance pool for those who choose to use it or cannot obtain or afford private coverage.

You will be free to keep the private coverage you have now. The quality of care we receive will not change, and can be delivered at less cost because private insurers will not be milking the system for their personal profit.

(They will still be free to milk those who choose to stay with for-profit insurers.)

What is really going on here is the sheer panic in the Republican ranks that the tide is turning, that people in the US are sick and tired (literally) of being forced to patronize for profit insurers. That insurance industry is a huge cash cow for Republicans, donating literally billions to them to maintain the seriously broken status quo.