Walking that walk

From Kevin Drum at Mother Jones we learn that those deficit-cutting, spending-slashing, earmarks-killing Tea Bagger types aren’t quite up to snuff when it comes to acting instead of merely acting out.

Big-mouthed, small-minded “rebels” like Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Lynn Westmoreland have all turned down seats on the House Appropriations Committee, which is where the fiscal rubber is going to be meeting a very rough road come the next Congress.

Yet rather than put their mouths where our money is, they prefer to sit on the fence, where they can continue to screech like retarded crows without consequence. Imagine my surprise.

Meanwhile, what has to be one of my favorite stories of the year comes from Steve Benen at Political Animal. Seems newly elected far-right Maryland congressman Andy Harris — an anesthesiologist who railed against taxpayer-subsidized health care to get elected — wants his taxpayer-subsidized health care right fucking now, and with a public option, thank you very much.

When Harris and his fellow congressional newcomers were told that their health coverage would take effect on Feb. 1, Harris suggested that’s not soon enough and asked if he could buy insurance from the government to cover the gap.

“This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told Politico.

Well, maybe an anesthesiologist gets health care from day one, I don’t know. I can tell you for sure than free-lance cycling journalists get jack shit, but at least it starts immediately.

Steve adds:

Harris wants to know “what he would do without 28 days of health care”? I don’t know, Andy, what have tens of millions of Americans, including millions of children, done without access to quality health care for years? Why are you entitled to government-subsidized health care, but they’re not? What will those families do after you repeal the Affordable Care Act? Wait for tort reform to magically cover everyone?

It’s not class warfare we need to fear. It’s no-class warfare, and this numbnuts is out there in the trenches, pretending to lead.

Mmm, beer

Ivywild School
Ah, remember those glorious fall school days, when Teach' would pour you a nice pint of porter before getting down to the Three Rs. ...

Here’s something you don’t see every day: The fine folks at Bristol Brewing and the Blue Star want to turn a shuttered school into a brew house, bakery and community center.

I got wind of this a while ago and my only complaint is that this project isn’t happening in my neighborhood. We got schools out the wazoo around here — surely we can afford to shut at least one of them down, make a happenin’ hangout out of it. One is an easy two-block stagger along a bike path from Chez Dog.

God knows what passes for education in this country these days lacks a certain value. We might as well get drunk and enjoy the decline and fall.

Meanwhile, early returns indicate that this WordPress blog is at least acceptable to the literati (which is to say that while it remains largely content-free, at least it will load on both Macs and Windoze boxes). More as it develops. Any Linux weenies out there? Leave your thoughts in comments, please.

A house-wetting party

Welcome to the new DogHaus. Please park your fleas at the door and pee only in the designated corner. No, not that one.

I got the Hostcentric weenies to cut my monthly fee in half for the digital injuries I’ve suffered while tap-dancing through their virtual minefields, but they still piss me off. So I’m gonna try playing in this virtual sandbox for a while, maybe test-drive a few features WordPress 2.6 doesn’t have while I try to drag maddogmedia.com/wordpress into the 21st century.

Until then, please leave your critiques in comments. And seriously, not that corner. Christ, where’d I leave the mop?

Don’t touch that dial … unless

OK, boys and girls, we’re gonna try a software update bright and early tomorrow morning, see if we can flush a few of the gremlins out of this here WordPress blog, which lately seems to demand optimization and/or repair of its tables on a disturbingly regular basis.

If worse comes to worst, you can get a terminal dose of profanity sometime tomorrow at the backup DogS(h)ite, maddogmedia.wordpress.com. The original site, maddogmedia.com, will be unaffected as well. Bookmark both those bad boys. My faith in the upgrade process is matched only by my respect for the Democratic Party.

Farking iceholes

Yay! We’ve had our first multivehicle pileup of the winter driving season.

It wasn’t especially massive — only 34 vehicles, including four semis, and 12 people hospitalized, just two of them in serious condition. Still, way to go, guys. Keep speeding and hugging that bumper in front of you, regardless of road and weather conditions. Hell ain’t half full.

Monday is ordinarily one of Herself’s days in the Denver office, so I had to ring her up to make sure she wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Happily, she wasn’t. It took me 36 years to get her installed, and I’m not looking forward to auditioning any replacements.