Winners and losers

Agencies whose funding will increase in the proposed 2007 budget:

Defense
Energy
Homeland Security
State and Other International Programs
Treasury
Veterans Affairs
Judicial Branch
Legislative Branch
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Science Foundation
Social Security Administration
Other Agencies

Agencies whose funding will decrease in the proposed 2007 budget:

Agriculture
Commerce
Education
Health and Human Services
Housing and Urban Development
Interior
Justice
Labor
Transportation
Corps of Engineers
Environmental Protection Agency
Executive Office of the President

Does anyone know where I can find a list of the 91 (yes, 91) programs that are on the chopping block to be eliminated?

Goebbels goes digital

Part of the sell job on why we need to eliminate 91 programs to support our unwinnable war against terror is a new federal government website that lists programs that are performing well and poorly. It's completely fucking sinister.

Head start? HUD assistance to poor people? Perkins loans? Amtrak assistance? Healthy community access program? All ineffective.

Defense research? Nuclear physics programs? Terrorist interdiction program? Secret Service protective intelligence? All performing effectively.

You get the idea.

The budget makes me want to set myself on fire. It really does. I'm just going to sit here in my office listening to Killing Joke full blast on my headphones until we get a new administration.

Quote of the day

From the CSM article noted below on the "Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005":

"There's a fairness issue here," says Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economics at the Brookings Institution. "We're basically cutting programs that serve low-income families and the middle class in order to pay for tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to the very wealthy. Even some Republicans have been uncomfortable with that."

Wow. Even some Republicans.

Humpday outrage round up

It's another busy day here at work. No time for much articulate analysis, but here's a brief summary of excerpts from today's news articles:

From the NYT (thank you Will):

George C. Deutsch, the young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said.

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted.

From WaPo:

Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

From AP:

Five months after Katrina plunged New Orleans into darkness, roughly 124,000 homes and businesses--or more than 66 percent of the city's structures--still have no electricity, according to the utility, Entergy New Orleans.

And from The CS Monitor:

With President Bush's signature Wednesday, Medicaid recipients can expect higher copayments and deductibles. College students may face higher interest rates on student loans, as lenders are squeezed. Work requirements for women on welfare are likely to be tightened. Federal aid to states for child-support enforcement will be curtailed.

I'll say more, particularly on this last item, if I have time today. For now, I'll just say, there aren't enough hours in the day for the outrage. If you're not angry, you really aren't paying attention.

Rejected

Fantastic.

And on that note

CNN is reporting on the eviction of thousands of Katrina victims from hotel rooms in Texas:

In Houston, where 4,000 evacuees were staying in hotels, around 80 percent had received permission to extend their stays until at least next Monday. The remaining 20 percent either failed to contact FEMA or made other housing arrangements, said Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White.

"People need to begin to take responsibility for themselves," Michel said.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco complained that FEMA was pulling the plug on the hotel program before securing other housing.

Taking responsibility for themselves? The article quotes FEMA as complaining that they went door-to-door to find people and some of them avoided talking to FEMA workers, even going so far as to run away. Fancy that. This apparently, is the "not taking responsibility" part--these victims didn't engage in whatever Kafka-esque process they needed to engage in to get awarded six more days or so before becoming homeless.

Fucking pathetic

The mayor of New Orleans is looking to France and Jordan (among other countries perhaps) for aid to rebuild the city. It may well be a (smart) publicity stunt on his part, but hey, I'll take the bait and just add to the chorus of WTF is wrong with our government?? Reuters reports:

French Transport Minister Dominique Perben, leading the French delegation to a city that was founded by France in 1718, said, "This catastrophe has deeply upset the French people and the French government."

France, Perben said through a translator, "wants to be a long-term partner for Louisiana and New Orleans."

It's absolutely ridiculous that it should come to this for N.O. We're returning to colonization as a method for domestic recovery. But now we have Ebay! Maybe we can auction off the French Quarter or something. Sick.

How the west was won

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain last night. I was really blown away by it. I think it surpasses Me, You and Everyone We Know as my favorite film of the year. It was lyrical in the way that Raymond Carver can be at his best--saying so much with so few words--giving voice to the mute repression in rural and working America. J, P, and I bawled like little babies in the movie theater and I cried again today thinking about that conversation between Jack's wife and Ennis--when she purses her lips and her eyes well up a little or that scene between Jack and Ennis when Ennis says, "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it."

Heartbreaking.

The book!

Had I known, my Hannukah shopping would have been sewed up. Bar Mitzvah Disco, the book, is out. We have blogged about the site before and, with the publication of the book, the site is only a shadow of its former self now. Nonetheless, I did laugh out loud yet again.

Being a vegetarian in Kalamazoo

Yesterday we ordered lunch from the conference hotel in the interests of saving time. Mark and I ordered personal pan pizzas.

Waitress: Are any of these your pizzas?
Me and Marc: Well, that depends what's on them.
Waitress: What did you order?
Me: Olives, mushrooms, and pepperoni.
Marc: Olives, onions, and bell peppers.
Waitress: Hmm. I'm not sure what's on these.

She disappears with the pizzas.
10 minutes passes.

Waitress: Okay, what about these--are these two yours?
Me: Well, that depends what's on them.
Waitress: I'm not sure what's on them.
Me: Well, I ordered olives, mushrooms, and pepperoni.
Marc: I ordered olives, onions, and bell peppers, but I'll eat anything that doesn't have meat on it.
Waitress: Let me see. Let me find out what's on these.

10 minutes passes.

Waitress, returning with two pizzas: This one has pepperoni and something...
Me: I'll take that one.
Waitress: And this one has ham...
Marc: That's not mine.
Me: He'll take anything as long as it doesn't have meat on it.

10 minutes passes.

Waitress, returning with a pizza: This one has pepperoni...
Marc: No, I ordered one with no meat.
Waitress: So this one isn't yours.
Marc: No. I don't eat meat.

10 minutes passes.

Waitress: This one has olives and pepperoni.
Marc: No. I don't eat meat.
Long pause
Waitress: We may just have to make you a vegetarian one.
Marc: That would be fine.

It could be worse--it could be raining

Oh. It is raining. Right.

I made it to Kalamazoo. My luggage, however, loved Chi-town so much it decided to spend the night in O'Hare. And I got my period on the plane. The materials for the all day workshop that begins at 9:00am tomorrow (as well as my tampons) are in my Chicago-dwelling bag.

And there are two large busloads of church youth group creatures staying at this hotel.

Really though, it really could be worse. Why, not too long ago on a work trip my "little visitor" came in the middle of my facilitating a session, an event for which I was completely unprepared, which meant I had to find a sympathetic woman attendee and send her on a mission of mercy to the pharmacy.

You see--we really shouldn't be president--we women. (Joking!!)

And one more thing--You know you're back in the midwest when grownups are ordering milk during beverage service on the plane. (The airline guy said "you betcha!" to me tonight.)

Okay, I have to be up early tomorrow to facilitate a meeting all day with mms (mid-menstrual syndrome) and no materials. Have a great weekend all.

(P.S. Blogger's spell check doesn't recognize "tampons." Um--hel-lo? What's up with that?)

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars...

On a completely random note, Venus goes out of retrograde tomorrow, and I for one, am relieved. According to my stars, it seems next month is just going to be fan-fucking-tastic for me. And I say--Bring it!

As Venus is moving out of retrograde, I will be on the move to Kalamazoo for the weekend. And any city that sounds so much like a Dr. Suess invention can't be all bad. I'll be traveling all day tomorrow and in a conference room the day after that. If I can, I'll blog something from the heartland--a limerick or something.

Meet the new boss...

So the new House majority leader is more of the same. AP reports that he refused to return 30,000 in donations from American Indian tribes Abramoff represented. He's accepted all kinds of money and goodies from Sallie Mae while they were lobbying the committee he chairs (the House Education and the Workforce Committee) and so on.

But we here in the blogosphere are just a mite tired of outrage today. Are we protesting? No--we're giggling.


Because really, how can you not have a Beavis and Butthead moment when you're reading an article titled "Boehner Is Old Hand in House Battles" that has lines like "Last month, Boehner--pronounced BAY'-nur--refused to return some $30,000..."

Baynur. Hee hee. They said Baynur.

One more from the voice

Best albums of 2005--The Voice's Pazz&Jop Critics' Poll. An interesting selection to be sure. I just bought tickets to see Art Brut (#23) next month. When we saw them last month at the Echo, I said to Portia, this is one of those bands that you think to yourself someday you might say, "Gosh I saw them at this little club with not such a big crowd when they were still unknown." (As an aside, we also tried to get tickets for the Arctic Monkeys, but because KROQ has picked up one of their singles, the show was, in fact, sold out. As much as I think Art Brut deserves to be recognized, I do hope that KROQ doesn't ruin them. I hate to go to a show populated by drunk frat boys and bleached blondes with Hello Kitty gear on.)

I love these

The next time I am in New York, I am absolutely going to Fabulous Fanny's. What a great idea. Of course my vintage frames cost $3.00 at St. Vinny's but (as I'm fond of saying lately) that's just because I'm really punk rock.

Halliburton

Reading James Ridgeway's piece today on why the government won't release the Katrina documents, I started to rethink the whole notion that this is a government run by crooks and liars. Ridgeway argues that the papers will reveal what everyone knows (I mean really knows, not tinfoil hat "knows"), that the feds knew Katrina was coming but didn't want to interrupt their golf games to do anything about it. Halliburton; Kellogg, Brown & Root; and Fluor, all big contributors to The Party are profiting handsomely:

The long and the short of it is that Katrina, like Iraq, has been a cash cow for Bush's entrepreneur buddies. Congress has approved $62.3 billion for Katrina relief efforts so far. And that's only the beginning.

And this is where I had the realization that Bush's whole strategy seems to be to welcome or cause chaos--start a war, don't do anything about an impending natural disaster, and so on--and then divvy up the mop-up spoils. It's like a weird chaos-induced WPA for people who are already stinking rich. Which brings me to my epiphany: This is not a government by thieves and liars; it's a government by janitors.

It's official

Punk is dead.

W's legacy

Those of us who hate him may find it easy to look past his contributions, but Bush has made inroads few other presidents would have been capable of. Thanks to E and S for the reminder.

More on the movies

Tom Cruise has finally been nominated for an award he deserves.

For those whose constitution was too weak to watch

Democrappy, one of the more intelligent, well written blogs out there, has a readable and reasonable recap of the SOTU address, including gems like this:

On the ticklish question of Hamas, he stated, "The Palestinian people have voted," and now Hamas must renounce violence, affirm Israel's right to exist, disarm, and cease terrorist activities. In other words, it was good that the Palestinians voted, and we respect that they voted for Hamas instead of Fatah--the only thing we require is that Hamas immediately and unilaterally transform itself into Fatah.

I really would rather read Matt's analysis than suffer through it myself; though I admit I'm sorry I missed the Dems' standing ovation in response to W's social security lead in, "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security..."