The Dusty Dog

Keeping Up, or not, In the Blogosphere

I have taken another hiatus from blogging, not because I'm injured or sick, but just because I've not spent a whole lot of time on my computer. This past week, I've been working hard, coming home, and vegetating in front of he TV, usually watching dumbing-down things, like reruns of CSI or Animal Planet. Don't get me wrong. I love CSI, the original series. It's sharp, the characters are great, and the writing is superb. Not true, however, for the spin-offs, in my opinion. CSI Miami is dumb, boring, and the lead, David Caruso, makes me sick, as he plays this arrogant, holier-than-thou cop. I cannot watch the show. CSI New York isn't as bad, but I guess I just always prefered Law and Order in that time slot.

As for Animal Planet, I really get sucked in to the stories about saving desperately abused animals, Jeff Corwin's experiences (damn, he's good), and a few others. Nothing that will change the world, but my mind just needed some down time. Down time is good. It's regenerative, I believe. I sure hope so, because I've been completely uninspired in the blogging universe.

I think I've been lacking inspiration because there is just so much out there. So goddamm much shit hitting the fan these days, so many people dying for nothing more than a corporate war, vast amounts of money being sucked from social programs to both support this corporate war, otherwise known as the Iraq Debaucle, in a manner that not only will not cost the corporate interests any money, but instead allow them to profit beyond a normal person's comprehension. If you don't believe me, check out the Haliburton war profits.

Money has been siphoned away from social programs to pad the obscene profits of the pharaceutical industries, thank you very much, dubya and your fucking cronies. Interesting that as soon as the Medicare changes went into effect, making it illegal for the government to negotiate prices with pharmas over drug costs, those same drug costs skyrocketed. Our neocon repukes paved the way for that financial scam.

Mr. Schondelmeyer said one clear indication of the inflation's impact could be seen among the six million low-income elderly and disabled people who previously received drug coverage through Medicaid but were automatically switched to the Part D program when it began in January.

That shift was a windfall for drug makers, he said. "Medicaid would have paid 25 to 30 percent less under the old system, including rebates from the manufacturers, than the new Medicare Part D program is paying."

One story that really caught my attention this morning is the piece about the neocon cockroach proposal to develop a Sunset Commission. Their assault on this country, the United States, is so patently appalling, and there is no ability by the democrats to fight it, if voted along party lines, that it really does signal the unraveling of our environmental and social protections that were adopted by previous administrations. Very scary stuff.

Apparently rushing to lock in a long-sought goal before the fall elections, GOP congressional leaders may bring to a vote within weeks a proposal that could literally wipe out any federal program that protects public health or the environment--or for that matter civil rights, poverty programs, auto safety, education, affordable housing, Head Start, workplace safety or any other activity targeted by anti-regulatory forces.

....snip.....

If such a bill should become law, the sunset commission could be packed with industry lobbyists and representatives from industry-funded think tanks, and could conduct its business in secrecy. Two of the sunset proposals under consideration would mandate that programs die after they are reviewed, unless Congress takes action to save them.

This last paragraph means that if the commission decides to "review" an existing program, all they really have to do is say they are reviewing the program. Period. It would now have entered the commission's system. Unless affirmative actions are taken to maintain this particular program, the program could conceiveably die a quiet death. Corporate interests would laugh their obscenely greedy asses all the way to their banks. I'm really heartsick over this proposal. I really am. This from the Rolling Stone:

In practice, however, the commission would enable the Bush administration to achieve what Ronald Reagan only dreamed of: the end of government regulation as we know it. With a simple vote of five commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight -- the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission.

With such corporate interests running our government policies, and the sanctimonious Religious Right advancing the Christainization of our country, coupled with neocons demanding that the press be jailed for publishing stories that they don't want the public to know (i.e., Cheney Assails Press on Report on Bank Data), we are truly headed towards becoming a fascist country.

Yes, boys and girls, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.

posted by Dusty Dog at 6/25/2006