Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray in Menotomy (again)

I give the current admin credit, they drop by the Sacred Suburb of Menotomy now and again. I doubt all four of their predecessors could find Menotomy on a map and two of them lived in abutting communities.
And so it came to pass that Tim Murray and seemingly half the God-Damn Cabinet set up shop in the intimate meeting room at Town Hall last night to take on all comers as part of the admin's summer "listening tour".
Tim looks good, still the same Big Shiny Irishman that came around in 2006 looking to move up in the world, yes he is losing his hair but then again he hasn't gained a pound in the interim.
And when you are Tim Murray taking on all comers you answer a lot of questions about jobs, the movement of local public sector unions to the GIC and ghod help us,local trash collection.
All politics is local indeed, good thing Tim started out as Mayor of Worcester, he is used to these thing.
All three topics fairly dominated the proceedings, I have to say, Murray is no great barn burner but he is reasonably well informed and affable after a fashion.
My big complaint about these sorts of Q&A sessions is that most of the questions seem to come from local persons representing organizations with business before the Commonwealth or else they are actively lobbying on behalf of certain legislative outcomes. They gotta right to heard along with everyone else, I just wish the average person would show up in bigger numbers.
Then again, trash collection got into the debate so it's not like the average person got left outside or anything.
I had some thought that maybe this was all some scheme to get Murray re-introduced to the voters prior to a run for the US Senate in 2012. On the basis of what I saw last night I strongly doubt this is the case, Murray is affable, well informed even becomingly modest, but there is nothing of the purple to him. The man is no great pulpit virtuoso and never will be, I have no fear should he have to assume the Governorship, but a run for the US Senate seems like a stretch for Murray.
No the mood in the room was "Gubernatorial" prosaic local concerns and the sort of discussions one aims at a future Governor not a Senator. Which raises a question in my mind, will the admin have a candidate for US Senate next year? Have they got someone warming up in the bullpen?

Sherwood Schwartz R.I.P.

Channel Zero meditates upon the news.

Senator MItch McConnell caves (supposedly)

he wants to grant the President the authority to raise the debt limit more or less unilaterally in return for nothing save an opportunity to stage showy votes on various fiscal issues close to the GOP's "heart".
McConnell of course is a fervent believer in the Republican God of Thunder and Fundraising, so William S. Burroughs famous admonition does apply "When you are doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing, his word isn't worth shit not with the Good Lord telling him how to eff' you on a deal".
Otherwise assuming the Tea Party can be bought to terms on this deal (and I strongly doubt they can), it would seem the GOP is backing off from it's apocalyptic revolutionary agenda even as they plan to run on fiscal issues in 2012.
All I can say is, running on a balanced budget didn't do Walter Mondale a lick of good in 1984, good luck with those power point presentations and pie charts Mitch.

Planned Parenthood in New Hampshire

has been defunded by the state legislature and stripped of it's authority to distribute birth control pills and antibiotics to the uninsured.
Sheer genius. there is nothing quite like a rash of STDs and unplanned pregnancies to stimulate the economy in the Granite State.
I suppose, if possible they'll come a swarming down here to get those prescriptions filled, which is New Hampshire's idea of a multiplier effect.
I mean from the outside it's a bitterly churlish decision designed to bullyrag the poor, but in reality its a clever scheme to jump start the economy by forcing the poverty stricken to stop hoarding their cash and spend money on diapers, full cost antibiotics and baby formula.
Like I said, sheer genius.

The Weekly World News, R.I.P.

Britain's premiere wingnut scandal sheet ceases publication on the revelation that its reporters routinely hacked & casually deleted the email and phonemail of missing children, KIA soldiers, their families and friends.
Sordid isn't the word, rampantly totalitarian is a more fitting phrase.
Of course, this is a Rupert Murdoch publication who else would act so harshly and stupidly in the face of an entirely self generated disaster?
A whole publication terminated hundreds thrown out of work all to save the hide of one Rebekah Brooks, The Weekly World News' former editor, the tolerant author of these horrors and Rupert Murdoch's alleged corporate heiress!
And if the rumors are true, the worst is yet to come, I wonder if any of this terminates in #10 Downing Street?
And as long as I'm idly speculating here, then one wonders about Fox News in the USA, what sort of reportial antics have they been tolerating based on the model set by the late Weekly World News?
Murdoch has brought this down on himself, plain and simple, nothing would please me more than to see him and his humbled, they've been asking for it for decades.

I caught Ann Coulter's act on

"Real Time with Bill Maher" today.

I learned very little other than Ann has a humorless papery overloud cackle and she looks like she was mummified by the Avon Lady.
Moreover she had nothing new to say basically it was all "You're another!" over and over again.
In a larger sense why does Bill Maher persist in interacting with this nasty & repetitive shiksa?
He gave her first big break on ABC and it's been nothing but phat conservative welfare checks for Coulter ever since then.
He owes her nothing and she is preposterously bad television as well, a chimp act would provide better chat show fodder.

Does Dr. Frankenstein need to "Debate" the monster? Even when all his creation can do is grunt and snarl?

Betty Ford R.I.P.

Late word comes to Humble Elias of the death of former first lady, Betty Ford. She wasn't the first controversial first lady, that honor belongs to Edith Galt Wilson, but Betty was perhaps the first FUN first lady.
Yeah she battled breast cancer and addiction as first lady and did them both with a great deal of candor, but you could just tell, behind closed doors she was a real ripsnorter, no boring Thankgivings in the Ford Household not with a former Martha Graham dancer on the watch.
Besides she upheld a sterling US Political Tradition which can be summarized thusly "The husbands a pill, but the wife is a peach".
A lot a mediocrities stay in the game a long time on the strength of their wive's charisma, never forget that.
And she was pro E.R.A. and pro-choice, seems like she was the last woman in the GOP to stick by these positions like I said, a real ripsnorter...delicate ladylike and opinionated.
Like a lot of people, Betty Ford did her best word after she'd escaped the White House, founding the Betty Ford clinic (many many pro athletes and successful vocalists owe their very lives to her) and campaigning hard for addiction awareness, she was indefatigable.
They just don't make em' like Betty Ford anymore...It is like they passed a law against it or something.
Helluva Shame. G'bye Betty show em how it's done in the afterlife willya? Otherwise those stiff will never loosen up.