Christmas Day Message

Pope Benedict XVI

This humanity of the 21st century appears as a sure and self-sufficient master of its own destiny, the avid proponent of uncontested triumphs.

So it would seem, yet this is not the case. People continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty, in this age of plenty and of unbridled consumerism.

Indeed.

Godfather of Soul

James Brown Dies at 73

ATLANTA -- James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap, died early Christmas morning. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died of conjunctive heart failure around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music.

Two of my favorite James Brown songs, enjoy.

Try Me



Prisoner Of Your Love

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Luther Vandross

It's Only The Help

The Republican Party in the House are not even willing to give the help GOP Congressional staffers severance pay.

As the old Congress wound down in a scramble of post-election activity, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered to pay two months’ severance to staff members working on some committees and in House leadership offices. But her offer was scuttled — by Republican lawmakers, who complained they didn’t have the opportunity to study the proposal and look at costs.

The Senate already provides two months pay for displaced staff members. One of the affected House staffers said his comrades are mystified that a plan that would benefit employees of Republicans would be killed by Republicans: “We hope the Democrats revisit it.”

At the same time, President Bush just gave raise to Vice President Dick Cheney with an executive order. But, I'm really sorry to say that ...

Dick 'Big Time' Cheney and the rest of Congress and most senior federal officials will have to wait to get a 1.7 percent pay increase in till the Democratic controlled Congress approves an increase in the federal minimum wage.

Congress opted to put off its pay increases until Feb. 16, not Jan. 1, on the urging of the incoming Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. They say no pay raise should kick in until Congress approves an increase in the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for the past 10 years.

So, the next time a fool person said, 'the two parties are the same' you can tell them that the Democratic Party looks out for the American workers even for out of work GOP Congressional staffers while members of the Republican Party looks out for themselves. Just remember, according to the Republican Party pay increase for Dick 'Big Time' Cheney is ok, but a severance pay for countless Congressional staffers not ok. It might cost too much.

Sigh.

(Hat Tip to ThinkProgress and Digby)

Most outrageous comments of 2006

Media Matters:

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh, blaming America's "obesity crisis" on "the left," "liberal government," and "food stamps": "Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn't teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn't teach them how to butcher a -- slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter. The real bloat here, as we know, is in -- is in government." [8/29/06]

It's gets better, read the rest.

Toy Soldiers

The men and women of the American military are not toy soldiers. They are real people with real lives and real families. But, to a certain group of people the American military are just toy soldiers on a map easily moved to one corner of the world to an other. One of these people is Robert Pollock of Wall Street Journal's editorial board:

RILEY: Well, I'd like to, personally. I think the president would like to. But I just think that the political reality here would make it very difficult for Bush to do that. Kagan's plan calls for increasing troop levels by some 35,000 over the next two years. In '07? In the run-up to a presidential election? And when congressmen --

POLLOCK: All that means is decreasing -- all that means is decreasing the length of some breaks from tours of duty and increasing the lengths of some tours of duty. That's not a hard thing to do when you've got 1.4 million troops.

For a person unwilling to sacrifice anything to ask men and women of the military to sacrifice even more is disgusting.

Say it Loud: '08 McCain is Wrong

Democratic Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico:

The leading advocate for escalating the war is Senator John McCain. I have served with John in Congress and I respect him. But John McCain is wrong, dead wrong to think that we can solve Iraq’s political crisis through military escalation.

There are no quick or easy answers to the crisis in Iraq. Our choices are between bad options and worse ones. Some prefer military escalation. Some choose staying the course. These options are illusions. The only realistic choice we have is to stand down militarily and let the Iraqis stand up and face the political crisis which only they can resolve.

It's about time leading Democrats take Saint John McCain head on and point out the obvious about the Senator and this disastrous Iraq views. There might have been a time long ago that the Senator actually deserved respect, but not now. John '08 McCain is a proven pander, a man without principles willing to travel any filthy sewer in order to become President.