A different kind of credit card fraud

Here's a screen shot of an email that I received yesterday from HSBC (minus my account info, of course), the financial institution through which I have a credit card:

In case the print's not legible, here's what the email says:

"You asked... We listened." says the big red header.

"Now make online payments to your HSBC Credit Card on weekends and holidays at no cost, plus no same day payment fees when you use Online Bill Pay!"

At first glance, this sounds like confirmation that HSBC is in the business of putting its customers first.  We the customers asked for better online payment methods and HSBC, being the practically-home-town-Main-Street lenders that they are, have gone the extra mile for us, because they value our business.  Right?

No.  The changes in bill payment, as much as HSBC wants to pretend otherwise, are actually due to the implementation of the Credit CARD Act of 2009, a bill signed into law last May, and which took effect February 22.  One of the provisions of the new law?  No more bullshit fees tied in to making a payment, and no more bullshit late fees (which were previously subject to double-cycle intrest) tacked on if the payment's made during an undesignated window of time.  This is just one of many changes the bill introduces, introduced to prevent credit card companies from screwing customers out of every cent they have.  It should be noted that credit card companies fought the passage of  this bill tooth and nail.  It passed right through the U.S. House with 357-70 support (69 of the nays were Republicans) and in the Senate, 90-5 (4 nays from Republicans).  President Obama signed it into law May 22, 2009.  Since passage, credit card companies have scrambled to jack up rates and generally put the screws to their customers while they were still legally allowed to.

Don't let the ads fool you.  Credit card companies don't like you.  They don't want to help you out.  They want to make as much money off of you as they possibly can.  Since the president and Congress took away some of their ability to screw us over, they've settled with rewriting history a little, to make it seem like they're really the good guys, going the extra mile for the customer.  But really, they're the soulless exploitive fucks they've always been.

On Pots Claiming Tea Kettles are Black

Here’s a fun little political story from my neck of the woods. People for Progressive Transportation (PPT) have filed a lawsuit against Whatcom Transit Authority, challenging the language used in the framing of an upcoming ballot measure. The full text of the measure reads thusly:

“Shall public transportation services in Whatcom County be maintained and improved by authorizing the Whatcom Transportation Authority to impose an additional two-tenths of one percent (0.2%) sales and use tax effective October 1, 2010?”

Now before I get into what the PPT find so irksome about the wording of the question, let me give you a little background info. Bellingham and a good chunk of Whatcom County have a great public transportation bus system. Buses start early in the morning and run until around 10 pm seven days a week. They’re used by a plethora of residents, including students, low-income workers, bicyclists (there are bike racks on the front of all buses, many cyclists will hop a bus to avoid the really steep hills), and people who just don’t feel like trying to find a parking spot or feed the meter downtown. Being at the mercy of a temperamental pickup, Kristen and I have become old hands when it comes to buses. And while, like everything else, there are downsides to public transportation (the weird, the loud, the stinky, etc.), we both agree that a dependable bus line is pretty fucking great.

And with the economy the way it is, public transit has become more popular than ever. Buses are a great way to save if you’re strapped for cash. Paying $30 a month for unlimited bus rides is a solid alternative to throwing down hundreds for car payments, insurance and gas each month just to get around. Sure, it’s nice to go where you want when you want, but it’s also nice to pay the rent on time.

Thing is, even with the surge of riders over the past couple of years, the WTA is in a major funding crisis. If I recall correctly, funding for the WTA used to come primarily from a vehicle-related tax. When motorists complained that they shouldn’t have to pay for non-drivers to get around, too, the funding was changed to be reliant on fare charges and a pittance from sales tax (I read this somewhere but I’m too lazy at the moment to dig up the article and cite my sources, so if you locals notice I have my facts wrong, please let me know). Initially the WTA just tightened its belt and got by. But when the recession really started getting nasty, revenue generated by sales tax took a tailspin. As did programs which rely on sales tax, like public transit. In an effort to make up for the nasty budget deficits, WTA raised fare rates from $.75 per ride with a free transfer to $1. They hoped that with the dramatic uptick in riders, an extra quarter per fare would help get the red out. But even with ridership at an all-time high, WTA budget shortfalls are still huge. So WTA’s been forced to do one of two things to balance their budget; either they cut out a good chunk of county routes and all Sunday service, or they go to the taxpayers and ask for a 2/10th of a percent sales tax increase.

So that’s why the proposition will be on Whatcom County ballots in April. Asking for a tax-increase is never an easy thing, especially not in a recession. But the WTA has taken an admirable position; they’ve laid everything on the table. They’re essentially saying that hey, taxes suck, and they really suck right now. But if you the taxpayer want to keep this branch of public service viable and able to meet the demands of increased ridership, you’re gonna have to pony up. The alternative is a loss of service.

Getting back to PPT, the group is upset because of two words within the ballot question: “maintain” and “improve.” According to the PPT lawsuit, “[t]he public will be easily be misled by the ballot title into believing that this tax increase will improve services…”

Basically the PPT is alleging that even though the WTA is planning to use the money (if the measure even passes) to maintain and improve bus service, the question on the ballot shouldn’t say that the money will go toward maintaining and improving bus service, because then voters might get the idea that using tax money on maintenance and improvement toward bus service would be a good thing, and the idea of using tax dollars on good things could sway their vote.

Yeah.

The idiocy of this suit pretty much speaks for itself, I won’t waste time dissecting it in detail. But since the PPT has started the whole “misleading titles” argument, let’s look at one more. Remember, the PPT actually stands for People for Progressive Transportation. Progressive Transportation. Progressive. This is a group of rightwing anti-tax Teabaggers calling themselves People for PROGRESSIVE Transportation in an area whose political leanings are collectively, solidly and consistently left of center. And they’re the ones complaining about misleading titles? Give me a fucking break.

Maybe blatant hypocrisy is just the new calling card for the Right now? That could be why pretty much all of the GOP is up in arms against a healthcare bill that’s pretty much exactly what they wanted to push during the Clinton era and pretty much exactly like the public health bill 2008 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney authored and oversaw into legislation while he was the governor of Massachusetts. And maybe that’s why Neocon icon Sarah Palin can call for Rahm Emanuel to resign when he calls a group “fucking retards,” and then excuse fellow rightwinger Rush Limbaugh for saying the exact same thing to the exact same group because he was being “satirical.” Or why GOP Congressmen denounce the Democrats’ stimulus bill as Socialist legislation one day, then take credit for bringing funds to their constituents the next.

Maybe they should just change their motto to “GOP: The Party of No… Wait.”

[Photo 1 via localism.com, phot 2 via the Bellingham Herald]

Remember Bill Watterson?

It's hard to believe that this month marks the 15th anniversary of the final "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip. In 1995, Creator Bill Watterson abruptly retired his beloved series at the height of popularity, citing his reasons for doing so being "the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels," according to an article in the Plains Dealer. And that was it. No comeback a year or two later, no animated series, no new Watterson projects. Just some ludicrous copyright infringement cases in the form of window stickers of a Calvin-esque figure taking a piss on a truck emblem or praying at Calgary.

Even as a kid I can remember thinking that Watterson wasn’t like the other syndicated comics artists. Whenever I read anything about the guy it was generally something about how he was convinced that newspaper syndicates were attempting to steal his creation, or how his threats of pulling Calvin & Hobbes out of syndication were used as leverage to get him more panel space in Sunday comics than any other comic strip artist. He had a good thing going and he knew it.

That’s why it was such a surprise to see him suddenly walk away from his ten-year run. My preteen self took the news pretty hard, as I recall. I spend most of 1995 mournfully reading and rereading worn-out collected editions and trying to figure out the actual logistics of Calvinball with my friend Chad.

While it was a tough time to be an adolescent fan during Watterson’s last hurrah, I think I can kind of understand why he left when he did. Calvin and Hobbes were the undisputed kings of the Sunday funny pages. Watterson’s stuff was leaps and bounds above his contemporaries, in terms of quality, content and layout. And after ten years of blood, sweat and ink, instead of compromising his work to syndication demands or anything else, Watterson asserted his total control over his creation and wrapped his work up his own way.

While I understand his motive and respect and applaud his decision, I can’t help but wonder what another ten years worth of “Calvin and Hobbes” would have looked like.  More snow monsters, more G.R.O.S.S. (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS), more Revenge of the Babysat and transmogrification rays.

Fifteen years after the last “Calvin and Hobbes” strips hit the funny pages, Watterson granted an interview with the Plain Dealer’s John Campanelli. Aside from the anniversary, the interview’s also a pretty big deal considering it’s apparently the first one the reclusive Watterson has taken part in since 1989. Here’s the text of the interview from the Plains Dealer's page. Campanelli’s questions are in bold. Campanelli also wrote and interesting article about Calvin and Hobbes' 15th anniversary, which I linked to earlier.

With almost 15 years of separation and reflection, what do you think it was about "Calvin and Hobbes" that went beyond just capturing readers' attention, but their hearts as well?

The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts.

I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.

What are your thoughts about the legacy of your strip?

Well, it's not a subject that keeps me up at night. Readers will always decide if the work is meaningful and relevant to them, and I can live with whatever conclusion they come to. Again, my part in all this largely ended as the ink dried.

Readers became friends with your characters, so understandably, they grieved -- and are still grieving -- when the strip ended. What would you like to tell them?

This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say.

It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them.

I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it.

I've never regretted stopping when I did.

Because your work touched so many people, fans feel a connection to you, like they know you. They want more of your work, more Calvin, another strip, anything. It really is a sort of rock star/fan relationship. Because of your aversion to attention, how do you deal with that even today? And how do you deal with knowing that it's going to follow you for the rest of your days?

Ah, the life of a newspaper cartoonist -- how I miss the groupies, drugs and trashed hotel rooms!

But since my "rock star" days, the public attention has faded a lot. In Pop Culture Time, the 1990s were eons ago. There are occasional flare-ups of weirdness, but mostly I just go about my quiet life and do my best to ignore the rest. I'm proud of the strip, enormously grateful for its success, and truly flattered that people still read it, but I wrote "Calvin and Hobbes" in my 30s, and I'm many miles from there.

An artwork can stay frozen in time, but I stumble through the years like everyone else. I think the deeper fans understand that, and are willing to give me some room to go on with my life.

How soon after the U.S. Postal Service issues the Calvin stamp will you send a letter with one on the envelope?

Immediately. I'm going to get in my horse and buggy and snail-mail a check for my newspaper subscription.

How do you want people to remember that 6-year-old and his tiger?

I vote for "Calvin and Hobbes, Eighth Wonder of the World."

Konami!

This one's for all you comic book fans.

1.  Go to Marvel's Web site.
2.  Once the page has fully loaded and you're browsing it, hit the following keys:
     Up
     Up
     Down
     Down
     Left
     Right
     Left
     Right
     B
     A
     Then hit enter.

Nothing bad happens, I swear.  It's just a little easter egg Marvel planted on the site, in line with most of the variants covers the company has been shipping lately.

Still not sure who I'm talking about?  Then ask yourself, which fan favorite Marvel sociopath suddenly has something like five titles coming out this month, a movie in the works, and a sidekick named Bob?  Yeah.  You know who.

Marvel even used the old Konami classic code! If you were even a casual videogamer throughout the eighties and nineties, you've probably had to memorize this code at some point. (I didn't discover this myself, in case you're wondering.  I read about it on Bleeding Cool.)

J.D. Salinger, 1919-2010

Two in one day.  Christ.  Don't even want to think about the old "comes in threes" adage.

From the New York Times:

J. D. Salinger, Literary Recluse, Dies at 91

J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died on Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.

Mr. Salinger’s literary representative, Harold Ober Associates, announced the death, saying it was of natural causes. “Despite having broken his hip in May,” the agency said, “his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year. He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death.”

Mr. Salinger’s literary reputation rests on a slender but enormously influential body of published work: the novel “The Catcher in the Rye,” the collection “Nine Stories” and two compilations, each with two long stories about the fictional Glass family: “Franny and Zooey” and “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.”

“Catcher” was published in 1951, and its very first sentence, distantly echoing Mark Twain, struck a brash new note in American literature: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Though not everyone, teachers and librarians especially, was sure what to make of it, “Catcher” became an almost immediate best seller, and its narrator and main character, Holden Caulfield, a teenager newly expelled from prep school, became America’s best-known literary truant since Huckleberry Finn.

With its cynical, slangy vernacular voice (Holden’s two favorite expressions are “phony” and “goddam”), its sympathetic understanding of adolescence and its fierce if alienated sense of morality and distrust of the adult world, the novel struck a nerve in cold war America and quickly attained cult status, especially among the young. Reading “Catcher” used to be an essential rite of passage, almost as important as getting your learner’s permit.

The novel’s allure persists to this day, even if some of Holden’s preoccupations now seem a bit dated, and it continues to sell more than 250,000 copies a year in paperback. Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon in 1980, even said the explanation for his act could be found in the pages of “The Catcher in the Rye.” In 1974 Philip Roth wrote, “The response of college students to the work of J. D. Salinger indicates that he, more than anyone else, has not turned his back on the times but, instead, has managed to put his finger on whatever struggle of significance is going on today between self and culture.”

Many critics were more admiring of “Nine Stories,” which came out in 1953 and helped shape writers like Mr. Roth, John Updike and Harold Brodkey. The stories were remarkable for their sharp social observation, their pitch-perfect dialogue (Mr. Salinger, who used italics almost as a form of musical notation, was a master not of literary speech but of speech as people actually spoke it) and the way they demolished whatever was left of the traditional architecture of the short story — the old structure of beginning, middle, end — for an architecture of emotion, in which a story could turn on a tiny alteration of mood or irony. Mr. Updike said he admired “that open-ended Zen quality they have, the way they don’t snap shut.”

He also perfected the great trick of literary irony — of validating what you mean by saying less than, or even the opposite of, what you intend. Orville Prescott wrote in The New York Times in 1963, “Rarely if ever in literary history has a handful of stories aroused so much discussion, controversy, praise, denunciation, mystification and interpretation.”

Here's a link to the rest of the article.

Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

Via Huffpost

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist "A People's History of the United States" became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, Calif., daughter Myla Kabat-Zinn said. The historian was a resident of Auburndale, Mass.

Published in 1980 with little promotion and a first printing of 5,000, "A People's History" was – fittingly – a people's best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003. Although Zinn was writing for a general readership, his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country, and numerous companion editions were published, including "Voices of a People's History," a volume for young people and a graphic novel.

"I can't think of anyone who had such a powerful and benign influence," said the linguist and fellow activist Noam Chomsky, a close friend of Zinn's. "His historical work changed the way millions of people saw the past."

At a time when few politicians dared even call themselves liberal, "A People's History" told an openly left-wing story. Zinn charged Christopher Columbus and other explorers with genocide, picked apart presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt and celebrated workers, feminists and war resisters.

Even liberal historians were uneasy with Zinn. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once said: "I know he regards me as a dangerous reactionary. And I don't take him very seriously. He's a polemicist, not a historian."

In a 1998 interview with The Associated Press, Zinn acknowledged he was not trying to write an objective history, or a complete one. He called his book a response to traditional works, the first chapter – not the last – of a new kind of history.

"There's no such thing as a whole story; every story is incomplete," Zinn said. "My idea was the orthodox viewpoint has already been done a thousand times."

Here's a link to the rest.

Differing opinions

One of my resolutions this year was to avoid getting into long, drawn-out fights in the comments section of my friends' Facebook pages.  I'll admit, I can get a bit carried away now and again and before I know it I've maxxed out two responses and am well on my way to filling up a third.  It's a bad habit, one I've addressed before, and one I'm always mere diatribes away from falling back into.

So tonight, instead of filling my poor friend's comment section up with my ranting and ravings, I thought I'd transfer the conversation over to my blog, where I can stretch my feet out a little, so to speak.

To catch you up, here's been the conversation so far, from my friend B's page (all of my responses are in bold and i've also added some ongoing comments to the conversation in [brackets]):

B:  I got an email today saying that in an effort to show Obama that the people of the US are tired of his shoving things down our throats we should all boycott the State of the Union address tomorrow night... food for thought...

From someone on the other side of the political fence, I'm curious as to what things you're referring to. Personally, I'm dissapointed in the president's first year in office too, but it stems from his office's abandonment of what little there was of the progressive stance he took on some issues during the election. What do you think he's shoved down your throat?

(Not trying to pick a fight here or anything, just genuinely curious.)

(new poster) A: i can't listen to Obama he makes me want to vomit!! PS can you say health care, socialism! They don't care that the American People don't want it. They are trying to further their socialist agenda and they don't what America stands for.

(new poster) C: I always boycott the state of the union address....

Three things, A
a. Define "socialist agenda"
b. What's left in the healthcare bill that resembles socialism? The public option's out. Expanding medicare and medicaid's out. Redundant anti-abortion and anti-immigrant coverage is in. What's left to call socialist? (For the record, i'm not fond of what's left of the bill either.)
c. Which American people are you talking about? Obama ran on a univeral-healthcare ticket and the majority of American people voted for him. Gallup still polls a majority of Americans want their legislators to support the healthcare bill.

B:  Judd ~ I won't even pretend to be mildly informed about this... I was simply repeating what was told to me. I don't care for Obama, at all, that I will state, simply because I can't see where the changes he is trying to make are for the greater good... This country is not headed up, I feel. I knew this would stir someone up, but posted it anyhow... See More, and deeply wish I could fire back with some sort of highly informed info, but cannot. serves me right for sticking my neck out without backup! I seldom watch the news even, so that is that! But I still don't agree with Obama. Call me stubborn republican!

[I really wasn't trying to pick a fight at this point.  I was just mildly curious to hear how B would back up her intitial post.  So I wrote the following in response]

no worries. i'm not stirred up, i was just curious. it's one thing to to hear people arguing on tv or the internet, but i also like to hear contradictory opinions from people i know and respect.

[then A showed up again]

A:  a)They are advocates for socialsim. This is when you possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. They want a system where they take from the American people who work hard and give to those who don't. This presidence is all about making people rely on the government for everything. They need to make people stand on their own to feet and support themselves. They have created a welfair state. California is a great example of what is going to happen to the whole country if we continue down this road. They are going to break this country and we are all going be be screwed. If they don't turn things around it will happen.


b)It is a good thing all of those things are out because they will break this country!! If it wasn't for Scott Brown they would still be trying to pass this through. The people of Massachusets has state run health care so if that doesn't say something i don't know what does. The demacates know they don't have the votes and that is why the want to back off. It is a little disterbing that they had to bribe Senator to vote for it. They were willing to jam a half ass bill through so they could have a place to start. There is nothing about the bill that is good when they started or when they finisher. They need to reform health care not re-shape it. They need to get a handle on insurance companies and bring cost down. People need to make there own way and support themselves. I don't expect anyone to pay for anything that i consume. People should work hard and live with in their means.

c)Obama ran on a Hope and Change ticket. He made the American people think he was going to change goverment and he hasn't. He promised to make things more transparent and clearly that isn't happening. You as a Obama supporter are clearly not happy with what you voted for. Im not sure on those Gallup polls, that isn't what i have heard. I think the wide spread outspokeness of the American people at massive tea parties and town hall meets paints a clear picture of what the America people think. You are right I think a lot of people believed in Obama and the plat form he ran on but he hasn't done a thing he said he was going. He has done nothing positive or productive in his time in office. He is the worst president in the history of this country!!!

[at this point, I'm dying to jump in here.  Alas, resolution.  So I copied and pasted A's reply into a word file, and inserted my own steely logic directly into her arguements, and resolved to dirty up my own webspace instead of poor B's]

a)They are advocates for socialsim. I’m sure they, the democratic members of Congress (which is what I’m assuming you’re talking about), would have a different theory about this. Most would say (maybe not the blue dogs) that they’re advocates of social contract; that is, ‘an agreement among the members of an organized society or between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each.’ Call it socialism, communism, or whatever other scary buzzword Glenn Beck is using this week, pitching in and being an active part of your government isn’t sinister. In my mind it’s the responsibility of all citizens to do their part.

This is when you possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. In a totalitarianistic sense that’s true. But that’s socialism on a Police State level, not on, say, as single-payer healthcare level.  Socialism is already an intrinsic part of our society, whether you like it or not.  Public roads, parks, emergency services, Social Security, the FDA; they're all varying degrees of socialism.

They want a system where they take from the American people who work hard and give to those who don't. Here I’m assuming you’re talking about the president and Congress’ plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire. So when you say ‘American people that work hard,’ you’re talking about individuals who clear over $250,000 a year (also known as the wealthiest 5 percent in the nation). And when you say ‘give it to those who don’t,’ you’re then referring to working-class people; those who make at or near minimum wage. Those who can’t get on full-time with their employers because it would make them eligible for health insurance, so they work two or three part time jobs to get by. Work ethic can’t be measured by income or by need. That’s a route the greedy take to justify their avarice.

This presidence is all about making people rely on the government for everything. I disagree. If I can’t afford health insurance, or if I need food stamps to get by while I’m looking for a better job, then I’ll take the help. Consequently, when I’m in a position later in life to help others who can’t afford health insurance or need food stamps to get by while THEY look for a better job, I’m not going to begrudge them. It’s people relying on people.

They need to make people stand on their own to feet and support themselves. Which is the goal of most welfare programs, actually; to help people get on their feet and provide them with the skills to fend for themselves.

They have created a welfair state. No offense, I don’t know your personal situation, but this sounds like it comes from someone who’s never had to choose between paying the electricity bill or eating lunch for the week. It’s nowhere near as black and white as you make it out to be. Sure, there are some abusers within the system. But they’re the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of people who have to accept some type of charity make it a point not to make it a habit.

California is a great example of what is going to happen to the whole country if we continue down this road. I disagree (big surprise, right). California’s in a tough spot, that’s true. But it doesn’t have anything to do with some phantom socialist menace. They took a tremendous blow when the housing bubble popped. And thanks to a lack of solid progressive tax structure, the knockout punch came in the form of a drastic dropoff on income and especially sales tax (the state’s primary income base). Socialism and welfare doesn’t have anything to do with how that cookie’s crumbling.

They are going to break this country and we are all going be be screwed. If they don't turn things around it will happen. Again, I think you’re taking an overly pessimistic, doomsday stance on this. They’re in a pickle, that’s true. It’s gonna suck getting out of it. I’m guessing the solution will have a good deal to do with tax reform and (hopefully) the tax revenue generated off of legalized marijuana. But I don’t think they’ll be dragging the rest of the country down into some debtor’s hell. That’s Glenn Beck logic.

b)It is a good thing all of those things are out because they will break this country!! So at this point, what’s the harm to you? Are you worried that forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions and allowing policies to be carried over from one job to the next will be the end of the American way of life? I don’t see the connection.

If it wasn't for Scott Brown (who I promise you, will be referred to as a RINO by the end of the year) they would still be trying to pass this through. Oh, they still are. There’s always reconciliation. That’s how Bush got his upper-class tax cuts passed when he came in to office.

The people of Massachusets has state run health care (which, ironically, was the brainchild of then GOP Governor Mitt Romney) so if that doesn't say something i don't know what does. Oh, it says something, but not what you think. It says the progressive stronghold of voters that is Massachusetts felt that Congress had shunned them by watering the bill down into a chopped up piece of crap, so they decided to take their ball and go home, so to speak. It’s not that the GOP has had some kind of sudden influx of people coming around to their way of thinking. It’s that Democrats and progressive independents are feeling disillusioned by the democratically controlled Congress and White House’s inability to get stuff done.

The demacates know they don't have the votes and that is why the want to back off. Like I said, reconciliation. The only reason they haven’t yet is because the president is still pandering to the Right, for some reason.

It is a little disterbing that they had to bribe Senator to vote for it. I agree with you here. The Ben Nelson Nebraska exemption thing was shitty. But for the record, he later came to his senses on the issue and amended the bill so that Nebraska’s no longer exempt from paying their way.

They were willing to jam a half ass bill through so they could have a place to start. See, I don’t buy this conspiracy theory crap. The bill is what it is. It’s not a foot in the door for a socialist takeover, it’s an attempt to wrest healthcare away from insurance companies who are currently making a fortune off of our health and wellbeing (how effective the bill will actually be is debatable, but the intention is clear). There’s not some secret clause that will grandfather in a KGB when we’re not looking.

There is nothing about the bill that is good when they started or when they finisher. Good before: public option, universal coverage, lowered medical costs, no denial of healthcare due to pre-existing conditions. Good after: universal coverage, no denial of healthcare due to pre-existing conditions.  Obviously the bill was a hell of a lot better before than after, but there are still good bits in it.

They need to reform health care not re-shape it. The literal definition of reform is to change the shape. The changes need to be massive. Tort reform and out-of-state buying won’t cut it. They need to get a handle on insurance companies and bring cost down. Agreed. People need to make there own way and support themselves. I don't expect anyone to pay for anything that i consume. People should work hard and live with in their means. See section A for what I have to say about this.

c)Obama ran on a Hope and Change ticket. Yeah. There was a hell of a lot more to it than that.

He made the American people think he was going to change goverment and he hasn't. I see your point, but I’m on the fence on this one. On one hand, he’s kept a lot of the policy of his predecessor. Which sucks. On the other, his administration and his worldview rhetoric (if maybe not yet his policy) has done wonders to improve our international image. We’re no longer the paranoid French-hating imperialists that we were for most of W.’s reign of terror. On the other, we’ve still got W.’s war policy to contend with. It’s an inherited mess, that’s true, but I would have rather the president take things in a direction other than perpetual sustainment.

He promised to make things more transparent and clearly that isn't happening. I’d say that his Open Government Directive is still a work in progress, but thus far you’re right. Hopefully with this new hardline stance on the financial sector we’ll see more transparency and accountability.

You as a Obama supporter are clearly not happy with what you voted for. Yeah, but for totally different reasons than yours. Don't get me wrong, he's a million times better than the alternative.  But he’s not liberal enough, in my opinion. Let’s see a withdrawal from Afghanistan, legalized gay marriage, a national cutback in fossil fuels and carbon emmisions of at least 25 percent, union support in non-union friendly states and single-payer healthcare for starters. Of course, I knew that wasn’t going to happen when I voted for him in November, the President’s a Centrist, not a liberal. But a guy can dream, right?

Im not sure on those Gallup polls, that isn't what i have heard. Here’s the link, read ‘em for yourself.

I think the wide spread outspokeness of the American people at massive tea parties and town hall meets paints a clear picture of what the America people think. Thank you, Fox News. This is the conservative base you’re talking about, in all it screaming, hyperbolic glory. They’re certainly out there. But they’re still only a fraction of the nation, as much as Fox News doctors footage to pretend otherwise.

You are right I think a lot of people believed in Obama and the plat form he ran on (still do. It’s only been a year, for god's sake), but he hasn't done a thing he said he was going. You’ve kind of got me here. He’s had several stalls some of his major initiatives, like closing Guantanamo, getting a healthcare bill through, and getting to work on climate control. But is that his fault, or the fault of the political opposition, which has literally kicked and screamed and held its breath in a temper-tantrum since he’s taken the oath of office? I suspect the latter.

He has done nothing positive or productive in his time in office. That really depends on where you look. For starters, he scrapped the F-22 program, he improved our country’s global image, he got China to commit to some respectable (but not great) environmental accommodations, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, introduced and implemented the stimulus package, and he’s just lately overseen a massive aid endeavor to Haiti. There are plenty more I could list, but this reply’s beginning to get a bit long. One question you should ask yourself is, has he done nothing positive or productive, or has he just done nothing that benefits me personally.

He is the worst president in the history of this country!!! Really? Because I can think of a pretty horrible one without even trying. The one I’m thinking of ignored FBI warnings which resulted in the worst attack on American Soil since Pearl Harbor, then after invading one country he cut-and-ran to invade another country that had nothing to do with the attack in the first place. He justified it by lying and saying this other country had weapons of mass destruction, and that they were a heartbeat away from destroying us and our freedoms. After that he sat on his hands while a whole city drowned in a hurricane. He did it again when the free-market cronyism market that he helped to establish and maintain fell apart right when he was leaving office.

Guess who I’m thinking of?

[I have, of course, invited A to continue this conversation in the comments section if she so chooses.  Which, hopefully she will.  So stay tuned.]