Headline Crawl 2

As seems to be the case every day lately, the comic opportunites presented by the NY Times are overwhelming my limited time - and I'm retired with nothing else to do. All we can squeeze in is a quick run through of page A1, with one extra item that was too good to miss:

Harvard Student is Given Extra Exam Time to Pump Breast Milk - Since when has Harvard offered a course in breast milk pumping? When is it taught, is it co-ed, can non-enrolled students audit and attend the final exam?

Blackwater Logs Most Shootings of Firms in Iraq - The other contractors are doing their best, just give them time to get up to speed. Only Blackwater has reached the point where it is taking out entire firms instead of just isolated private citizens. (note - this flaw was repaired in the title for the linked e-story, quoted title is from the hard copy Times).

GM-Union Deal Could End Business As Usual In Detroit - Business as usual ended for Detroit in the late 1960s. Try visiting downtown after dark. As for the auto industry, defeasing health care obligations to a funded trust was a win-win idea. GM gets a load off its financial statements, UAW members get to look to a funded trust for future benefits instead of a shrinking payor that might fail someday. The mini-strike was probably needed to give the plan credibility with UAW members, but it was no sell out, just Union leadership with vision.

Myanmar Attacks Protesters, Arresting Monks - OK, so Doc Gurby of Turkmenistan is crazy but Myanmar is just conducting business as usual when it attacks arresting monks? Why were these monks so arresting anyway? Yes, that Britney Spear, Sinead O'Connor shaved head look can be a real head turner. (e-headline changed to "Raids Monasteries"- curse you Time's editors - why do you fix these mistakes before I'm finished making fun of them.) Myanmar sounds like a chocolate coated, marshmallow filled treat sold only in Summer. Besides getting some leadership that's not a military junta with a stone-age mindset, this country needs a branding makeover, starting with a new name. Burma has a nice ring to it.

Time. Pencils down. Stop. This means you Mr. Borrok. Stop or I'll be forced to report you. I don't care who your father is, you must stop writing immediately.

SF Golden Gaters 1- Santa Monica Reds 0

state funded universal health care- the graveyard of Hillary Clinton - 1st Lady - Beta Version; something corporate America, especially industrial America, suddenly wants as a competitive edge. S[s]tate provided health care for every uninsured adult is the subject of an experiment in San Francisco. Many, including As Good As News, thought this had to be addressed on a national basis. Any state or city that offered free health care would be overwhelmed. Every employer would cancel it's medical benefits on a local basis, leaving the unlucky leader in the move to state sponsored care to pick up the tab, as care for the uninsured quickly became care for everyone. San Francisco thinks it has an answer. The city's health care is not portable. You need to be an SF resident seeking treatment in SF, or you are not covered. So, if Cisco does not cover its San Francisco based employees in an effort to shift costs to the city, then the employees better stay healthy on their wine country tour. SF thinks this will deter the Cisco's of the world from dropping coverage. What if Cisco provides back-up or wrap-around care that applies only when the SF resident/employee is outside SF? We will see. In the meantime, that's what Federalism is all about. And in the newly created As Good As News Emma Goldman Cup (modeled after the Fed Ex Cup in golf - its got a point system that is way too complicated to explain but the best city will surely win) - San Francisco grabs the first round lead while the People's Republic of Santa Monica can only gasp in awe at another city grabbing the starring role in the national debate on universal health care.

Alan Greenspan is barely scratching the surface with his query on how W can be a Republican and still be Mr. Big spender, Big government. Teddy Roosevelt would lead the charge against W's last gasp wave of regulation designed to exploit Federally owned natural resources. Barry Goldwater would ask what happened to individual rights when W let Darth "anything goes" Cheney gut the constitution. AuH2o would be confused by the whole social conservative movement that Karl Rove turned into the basis for the Republican base- Barry might not favor gay marriage - but he would say it was none of the Federal government's business. Notice how Barry's picture refused instructions to go left at the top of today's post. Ike would be astonished by the Federal budget and budget deficit. This guy won two wars for less than W's annual budget shortfall and knew the military - industrial complex required a wary eye. Ike also passed the first modern civil rights bill and nominated Earl Warren as Chief Justice. W prints money to fund Iraq and gets his advice from the military-industrial complex. W's own father was a sophisticated internationalist and a realist who understood that the dream of democracy wouldn't justify sending American men and women to die in Iraq so that an Iraqi civil war could be initiated (with Saddam's overthrow) and then contained (through continued coalition presence) with no net long term accomplishment. W campaigned on including minorities in the Republican party and he has succeeded. The minority who believe public schools should teach evolution as science, the minority who believe in faith based snap decisions that ignore history and the facts, these minorities are solidly in the Republican camp.

Who hijacked the Republican Party? Newt Gingrich was driving when the bus made a hard left toward tax cuts uber alles with no concern for deficit spending. The religious right jumped on to sign the Contract for America, then Karl Rove called shotgun and navigated the 2000 campaign "won" on issues like gay marriage, school prayer and abortion, issues that had little to do with the President's duties. Darth Cheney saw a chance to revisit Iraq (he left some laundry in Baghdad in the 90's) and pulled the cord for an emergency stop just as the bus was on track for success in Afghanistan. Darth put W on his lap, grabbed the wheel, and took charge, steering the bus to a secret and very dark underground cell as John Yoo kept whispering everything was OK. Now a swarm of GOP candidates is struggling to rediscover where, and what, the party really is in time for the 2008 election.