Go figure:

Ticker: Jenna Jameson, Heidi Fleiss back Clinton

This looks like a great idea for a TV reality show:

Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto has selected the first four of eight Native Hawaiian families that will each rent one of his multimillion-dollar homes in the exclusive oceanside Kahala area for $150 a month.

The low-income families could move into the furnished Kahala Avenue homes, purchased in 2005 for $2 million to $3.4 million each, as soon as this weekend.

"They will be living in heaven now," said Kawamoto, a 75-year-old real estate tycoon.

I would bet dollars to donuts that Kawamoto ends up with ramshackled houses at the end of all this. Apparently it happened before when he did this, but he blamed the property manager.

At best, this is a poor use of resources. Kawamoto has spent millions to help EIGHT low-income families. With that kind of cash he could have purchased modest homes and helped many more. Better yet, give that money to local shelters and charities to use effectively and help hundreds of families instead of just a few.

The Seattle City Council is trying to deprive nice young women of using their um.. assets to earn the best living they can. They want to pass stricter stripper control laws that will prohibit adults from touching other adults and exchanging currency directly.

The City Council votes Friday on a proposal that would ban lap dancing. Earlier this week, more than 100 strippers descended on City Hall to voice their opposition to the new regulations.

The regulations would also bar dancers from touching customers and the customers would not be allowed to tip the strippers directly.

One dancer, Suzanne Snow, says her income would take a nosedive if the anti-lap dancing rules go into effect. She says makes 50 grand a year working part-time so she can take care of her 5-year-old son.

The vote has been delayed until next month, but it is expected to pass. So much for a Constitutional right to privacy.

Seattle has already banned additional strip clubs, now it hopes to drive the existing ones out of business. While I don't frequent such establishments myself, I don't see the harm in consenting adults exercising in free enterprise.

I'm sure that with enough tax dollars, we could probably prevent this giant asteroid from destroying the Earth. That is, if we can repeal the Bush tax give-aways in time. Otherwise, we might as well give up recycling and saving the whales because we're all dead in 11 years any way. (Smoke 'em if you got 'em, kids.)

The good news is that if the Dark Sky morons are successful, we should have a good view of it.

Joe Conason points out a quote from George Bush that the rest of the liberal press missed yesterday:

"We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

I can see how this would cause some to question the veracity of the President's statements. I can even see how some folks would become a little scared what with the President not being aware of the events leading to his preemptive invasion of Iraq.

My personal feeling is that Bush is setting up the Reagan Defense as used in the Arms For Hostages scandal - Pretend You Don't Have Any Idea What Was Going On. I could take the easy shot here and say that shouldn't be hard but I won't. Oh well, I just did.

Now, for those of you that don't trust a steenkin' liberal Clinton flack like Joe Conason, go watch the video for yourselves. It's the video link titled "President Reaffirms Strong Position on Liberia".

On the way home from work today, I passed a truck with this bumper sticker:

"There are Americans ... And there are Liberals"

At first I was pissed off. (I hate Super Patriots who question everyone else's patriotism, especially the Chicken Hawk crowd). I rolled down my window with the intention of saying something at the next light. But at the next light before we got side by side, he rolled down his own window and poured out his drink on the road. Then he flipped his cigarette out the window. Upon seeing this, I had to smile. Ever heard the quote "Consider the source?" We need more folks like this questioning other folk's patriotism.

Kinda reminds me of Ann Coulter and Mike Savage hyper-defining Conservatism to an all-new level of hysteria and silliness. These folks, of course, will be the undoing of the modern neo-con movement. Just give 'em more rope - (and make sure there are no lynchin' trees nearby.. !)

What I fear with the modern neo-con movement is that dissent will be silenced. This is one reason I've proudly self-identified as a liberal. Just for fun sometime, listen to Rush or Boortz or Coulter and everytime you hear the word "liberal", substitute it mentally with "Jew" or "Christian" or "Negro". Pick your favorites race, religion, or creed. Scary, huh? We need folks like Coulter and Savage and this litter pig giving the whole shooting match a black eye.

Generally speaking, we self-identify as conservative or liberal. Doug Newman points out that no matter how we self-identify, our actions speak louder than our feelings. In We Are All Liberals Now, he makes an excellent sports analogy about the current state of politics:

"Recently, I said that politics should resemble football, with one team moving the ball toward one end zone, and the other team moving the ball toward the opposite end zone. Someone e-mailed me back saying that contemporary politics is more like baseball, with both teams working to advance across the same plate, but just earlier and more often."

If you like this quote, you'll love the full essay.

Greetings Stevelings !

Ravnwood asked me to help out for a few days and I have graciously agreed to do so. I understand its hard to get good Bloghelp these days. Hell, its harder to get good Blog, but no one complains about that, right? *cough*

It's been a hectic last coupla weeks for this old friend of Ravnwood's. We moved into the city. As part of my evolution into a full-fledged organic farming and Mother Jones liberal, we made the reverse journey from the suburbs to the city. The savings in commute time should allow us two hours a day more with our children. That leaves 15 minutes a day for you, dear readers. Maybe later I'll post something provocative but right now I need to go turn the steaks on the grill.

-Lope

Today, a large part of my posts have been attributed to my 'Democrat for a Day' experiment. I tried to switch off my brain for a day and look at issues from the liberal democrat point of view. I would appreciate any feedback on how the experiment went. Was I successfully able to portray the liberal argument? I tried to genuinely present issues from the liberal point of view without coming off as sarcastic. I think I did a decent job.

Who knows, perhaps other webloggers will try this. Perhaps one day, we'll have a great big 'Democrat for a Day' weblog holiday, with hundreds of weblogs participating.

For your easy reference, the 'liberal' articles are all filed under the 'Liberal for a Day' category on the left. (Too many 'D' categories already) Any future 'Liberal for a Day' posts will be filed there as well. I don't foresee doing any more 'liberal' posts today, but who knows. The day isn't over yet.

After seizing control of the Senate in a coup d'etat last November, Bush seems to be emboldened to try to push his conservative agenda. First there are the reckless and irresponsible tax cuts. Next, he re-nominated controversial judges such as Charles Pickering that have already been rejected by the Senate judiciary. I wonder if he will try to push through his plan for school vouchers.

The vouchers are sure to drain our schools of much needed funds, and leave poor, underprivileged children behind; especially those in inner cities. Vouchers will also largely be used in schools with religious indoctrination. They may seem benign on the surface, but there are real Constitutional issues of separation of church and state.

During a time when education funding should be increasing, will Bush propose to decrease the resources that are available for our nation's children? Probably. After all, this is the same party that classified ketchup as a vegetable.

Washington State's tax system relies heavily on dollars from the poor. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports:

The study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy -- which is affiliated with the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice -- found that the poorest 20 percent of Washingtonians pay 17.5 percent of their income in taxes each year, while the top 1 percent pay just 3.3 percent.

This is radically different than in other states, because Washington has no income tax. Most state revenues come from sales taxes, which affect the poor the most.

Sales taxes are considered regressive because they fall more heavily on poor people, who typically spend nearly all their money on everyday necessities.

Adding to the burden are so-called "sin taxes" on tobacco and alcohol, which also fall heavily on the poor. Washington has one of the highest cigarette taxes of any state.

Clearly, a state income tax is needed, so that the rich will start paying their fair share. Why should the poor pay 17.5% when the rich pay only 3.3%.

USA Today reports that health spending increased 8.7% in 2001. That is the biggest jump since the previous Bush administration.

Most notably, private sector HMOs have failed to keep health care prices in check. Prescription drug costs are up, hospital costs are up, and of course health care insurance premiums are up. This is proof positive that price controls are needed.

Insurance premiums should be frozen at their 2001 or 2000 levels. If we cannot keep insurers from cashing in on our aging seniors, than the federal government needs to step up and do something.

Price controls are only the beginning. They should also do something for the millions of people that cannot afford insurance. Studies show that poor people are more likely to be sick. Being poor, they often don't have any health insurance, and are faced with some tough decisions. Since getting medical care is expensive and could take food out of their mouths, most simply ignore their ailments. Seniors who rely heavily on expensive prescription drugs are often faced with similar decisions.

A nationalized system would provide health care for all persons, regardless of their ability to pay. When people arrive at the hospital, they will no longer have to fill out lengthy credit checks, proving that they can cough up big bucks before being treated.

There are some sad statistics:

A large percentage of the US population goes without insurance because of the need for profits. US Census Bureau statistics show that 24.3% of people with incomes less than $25,000 went without insurance during some portion of 1996. 15.4% of the total US population went without insurance for all of 1995. Millions of people are unable to get medical care unless they pay out-of-pocket, again leading to poverty.

Health care is a basic human right, and big drug companies, hospitals, and insurers cashing in on the downtrodden is unconscionable.

The wonderful Arianna Huffington is taking a brave new stand against the SUV:

"This is George," a girl's voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The screen then shows a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V."

Her advertisements are provocative and will hopefully make people think before they spend money on these SUV monstrosities.

Buying oil is a sad fact of life, but SUV owners seem to do it in spades. They use more than their fair share of our natural resources, pollute twice as much, and hog the road with these intimidating, unsafe vehicles.

You don't have to look very far back into history to remember when SUV roll-overs were the news topic of the day. Unfortunately, the media is in league with the auto industry and no longer features such stories. Even Huffington is having trouble purchasing air time for her commercials from an uncooperative, right-wing media.

Yesterday, President Bush announced a $674 Billion tax cut that is essentially a reward to his rich cronies for coming through during the November elections late last year. Today, USA Today hits the nail on the head about the Bush tax cut:

The risk is that his program of income-tax reductions, new unemployment benefits and the elimination of individual taxes on stock dividends would produce little short-term growth but leave gaping long-term deficits.

The Bush tax give-aways do nothing to stimulate the economy. It certainly doesn't help working families and average Joes like you and me.

Downturns often hurt lower-income families the most. Yet Bush reserves most of his breaks for the affluent. Accelerating the rate reductions scheduled to take effect in 2004 and 2006 would mainly benefit fewer than a third of taxpayers - those in the highest tax brackets. Only about 26% of tax filers would get the dividend tax break.

Despite being right on about the particulars of the Bush cut, USA Today fails to see the bigger Republican agenda. Bush is hoping to take domestic issues off the table so that he can continue his global conquest. Passage of his so called 'stimulus' will enable them to get back to bullying Iraq, North Korea, and anyone else that doesn't toe the line for Bush.

Here are the Coming Attractions for tomorrow. I'm gonna try playing a Democrat for a Day. Rather than take my logical, libertarian approach for everything, I'm going to unscrew my brain and try to speak 'from the heart' on everything.

We'll see how it goes. I know it's going to be excruciating, and hopefully I'll make it through the entire day. Personally, I think it'll be a cakewalk. All I need to do is blame conservatives for everything, resort to name calling and demagoguing, and talk about 'needs' and 'feelings'.

The real challenge will be trying to leave logic behind, and keeping any of my conservatism from slipping through.