Want some Astroturf with your healthcare reform?

Just received a handy email from my health insurace provider at work. They've encouraged me to join their Facebook group and register with their creepy Astroturf website, where they ask for all my details - and provide none of their own!

So in the spirit of ACTUAL grassroots action, I've begun my own Facebook group, with an open discussion wall and upfront documentation of the healthcare industries dirty secrets. Why don't you visit it and join up?

Join the group today!

7.5 gallons in 45 years... American efficiency at it's finest

I'm sure most anyone with a brain can tell that increasing automobile efficiency by 7.5 gallons in 45 years is perhaps the absolute least our Congress could ever achieve. Does it mark a change in perspective amongst our congressional leadership? Or does it just serve to highlight industry control over the public debate? No rational person could imagine these small steps as real change...

Washington (TGW) – A bill that would end billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry and raise mileage standards hit a roadblock in the Senate today.

The bill failed on a procedural vote 7 votes short of the needed 60 majority, 53-42.

The law would require car manufacturers to raise their mileage standards up to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The current standard, 27.5 mpg was passed in 1975.

Senators said the vote did not mean the bill was done for.

"This doesn't mark the end of this bill," said Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "It means we have to go to work to fix some of the problems that the House bill has generated for us."

Absolutely outrageous.

the Redundancy Movement

Finished... Done... In one short week I've blown through every single Hitchhiker's Guide story. The culmination of years of work by one charmingly witty Brit has passed through my brain. I never understood the whole concept back when I originally read the first in the series (I was maybe... 11 at the time). But now, with years of cynicism and knowledge under my belt, Galactic Understanding is mine.

And it tells me this: Everyone is, inherently, an asshole. So I should approach those whom I don't already have a good grasp on with the same caution I'd use facing a rabid Black Bear wrapped in explosives and muttering something about abortion clinics. Of course, I've never been one for caution - and assholes are important,,, I mean - how would we get rid of all our shit without 'em? So my initial lesson learned needs to be applied in a different way.

That's why I propose the REDUNDANCY movement. It's tenets, which came to me in a dream as I was driving in the countryside yesterday, are these;

1. In accordance with the second law of thermodynamics - everything will turn to shit anyhow.

B. The fact that everyone is, inherently, an asshole.

And C. Whatever you will do, have done, or have never considered doing, will be canceled out by someone not doing, doing better or being on the opposite side of the planet from you.


This is truly a call to apathy. From apathy arises... nothing. And nothing is something that's been known to move mountains (figuratively speaking, you know). Of course, people will wonder how the REDUNDANCY movement will ever make it's mark. Perhaps we'll be that final, unavoidable brown stain on the tight conservative briefs of America. The marked path to a turbulent washing-machine of revolution (not THE washing-machine revolution, which is another group entirely). The mark that shows how deeply this nation has fallen from it's roots of freedom into the hands of a rabid and heartless consumer drive.

WHO'S WITH ME!?