Nevada public employees had better get their umbrellas out, it was only a matter of time before the nastiness in Wisconsin slopped over into Nevada. Click on the image below, and you’ll be reading the pdf of S.B. 41 - the Sandoval Ghost Bill - in seconds.
And stay tuned, since the timing of this bill is leaving bloggers and others scratching their heads. Gov. Sandoval told the media he didn’t have such a bill as this. Yet … yet, it seemed to have been there all the while. Gosh, maybe it got lost in all the giddyness of being the new governor.
“You have to wonder why our press corps intentionally led the public to believe our governor was staying away from the collective bargaining fight while at the same time that same governor had requested a bill that would essentially do away with with those bargaining rights.
Maybe if SB41 included something about prostitutes they would have noticed”
This should be an interesting week, what with the State of the State by newly minted Nevada governor, Brian Sandoval this evening, and the State of the Union, tomorrow night by newly minted centrist president, Barack Obama. The casual observer might walk away with the notion that half-measures, baby steps, middle of the road, lukewarm is what will save the day. We wouldn’t want bold, decisive, “I said it, and I own it” action. Nosirree.
Keep cutting, gutting and slashing essential services like education and Medicaid - often referred to as ‘greater efficiencies’. As though that’s ever worked in the past. This is the oldest trick in the bureaucratic books. Make the little guy squeak, then he’ll be happy to have his taxes raised to get the local roads plowed - while the untouchable defense budget and the military-industrial complex goes right along fat and happy.
There are some that ‘get it’ however. PLAN (Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada), with their director, Bob Fulkerson leads the way, bearing the flag of reality. Watch and remember during tonight’s State of the State:
“No new taxes, means no solutions”. Never a truer word was uttered, Bob. As Fulkerson points out, slashing programs and budgets to reduce the states’ budget deficit, unfairly places a disproportionate share of the burden on those who can least bear it.
And this same logic extends from the local and state level to the federal and national level.
On Sunday mornings, Mr. Maven and I enjoy our coffee while watching CBS’ ‘Sunday Morning’ - and have done so since the days of it’s original host, the late Charles Kuralt. Yesterday, I thought “Oh, great. Let’s suffer through another annoying commentary by Ben Stein…”. Normally, this is where I’d go refreshen the coffee.
This cut a bit too close to the bone. When the ever-monotone, to the right of Atilla the Hun, Ben Stein thinks Obama might just be the choice of a revitalized GOP, I know we’re in trouble.
Saturday evening was interesting. We attended a MeetUp of the Reno Skeptical Society, Skeptics in the Pub. The venue has got to change - the Sierra Gold was far too noisy and, once we moved to the patio, too frigid. However, this looks to be a good group with a positive agenda - to promote the use of critical thinking/reason in our culture and community. We had 21 attendees, and were we not shivering too hard to think clearly, it would’ve been a neat opportunity for discussion, observation and discovery. I was a little ‘skeptical’ of the youthful tilt of the group, but found them to be warm and welcoming.
To this end, I’ll be posting more content related to skepticism on this blog (see the Baloney Alert category ). I hope you will consider attending with us next month. Until their website is up, you’ll have to follow them on MeetUp.
I want to let you know about a couple of upcoming events, which I plan to attend:
On Thursday, February 3, 7:00 p.m. Director of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil deGrasse Tyson, author, skeptic and astronomer, will speak at the Redfield Auditorium in the Davidson Mathematics and Science Center. His topic: “The World as Seen Through the Lens of a Scientist”
deGrasse Tyson follows in the footsteps of his mentor, the late Carl Sagan, making science accessible, and encouraging critical reasoning skills. He has appeared many times on PBS’ NOVA, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show and more.
In February, date and location to be announced, the Reno Skeptics plan a showing of the BBC documentary, ‘Creation’, about the extraordinary life and times of Charles Darwin. Stay tuned.
Later tonight, we plan to watch what may become a favorite tee-vee program - and successor to ‘Boston Legal’ - Harry’s Law with Kathy Bates. We saw the series premier last week, and though the premise is a real stretch of the imagination (poverty law office and shoe store ) it’s great fun to watch Bates and her cohorts romp through it. File under: ‘improbable but entertaining’.
Also new, I’m looking forward to seeing Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais’ ‘An Idiot Abroad’. File this under ‘cruel but potentially gut-wrenchingly funny’, as they send round-headed naif Karl Pilkington (gotta love the name) to the ends of the earth- just to see what happens when Karl ‘encounters’ stuff.
On Tuesday, February 1, the Urban Institute is offering a really timely webcast:”What Policymakers, the Public, the Press, and Parents Need to Know about Economics … in 90 minutes or less”. Should be great. You can sign up at the Urban Institutes’ website, or just watch the video afterward. I’ll try and post it here. Why watch this, you ask. Because economics in the driving force behind it all, dearie. Everything that keeps you awake at night, has economics at the root. Well, most of it. Economics didn’t have anything to do with why you drank that late cuppa joe. Hmmm. Or maybe it did … while you were getting the tax receipts out of the shoe boxes.
Ladybird Kat has taken over the house, as undisputed queen, now that poor little Asta is gone. This isn’t bad except that I have to wash and change the sheets and pillow cases more often. Sneeze. This cat has the most eerie resemblance to Alfred E. “What me worry?” Newman.
Finally, I’ll be posting some yummy recipes and foodie ideas today and tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. And I’ve posted a few of my backyard birding photos to the gallery in addition to Facebook. Enjoy.
The knee is about ready to test on the slopes. Too bad there ain’t any new snow. I’m waiting for some new, as the frozen corduroy won’t be the best thing to test it out on.
Gawd, there’s another week down. Monday started out with about two hours of awesome skiing and Thursday offered high winds that nearly took me off the top of Mt. Rose. It was a dark and stormy morning, that could only result in tucking tail - literally - and sliding my wimpy butt off the mountain to get my blue, shivering little hands wrapped around some hot coffee.
Perhaps that’s one reason a wholesome and heartfelt Hanukkah dinner tasted oh, so good. Suggie may not be able to make gravy, but her matzo ball soup, latkes and salmon are to die for. My gallbladder even chose to ignore the schmaltz in the chicken soup and sour cream on the latkes. Hanukkah isn’t really a huge religious holiday - more a commemoration of a battle long ago and the rededication of the temple. In America, it’s proximity to the pagan holiday of Christmas - co-opted by christians - is coincidental. But I’ll take it all the same.
I’ve been fighting the epic annual battle of the allergy season. First came the itching. Then the sneezing. My nasal passages are welded as tightly shut as a schoolgirl’s knees. Neti pot and all can’t budge it open. Only drugs, my friends, can do the trick.
So - standing as brave and tall as 5 foot 3 inches gets you - drugs it is.
Talking about standing tall, this monster (shown at left) is from a friends garden, and I think it’s on the menu for Sunday night.
I’m hoping it comes with a hollandaise sauce rather than batteries. Right, Dossie?
I wish there’d been more in the way of pharmacoepia around here last night. Neither of us was sleeping. With Mr. Maven thrasing about with the pain in his shoulder - now the medical community has decided it’s a pinched nerve between C6 and C7 - I gave up to wide open eyes as well. He sat in the recliner reading whilst I played computer solitare from oh, 0230 to about 0430 hours.
Swell. Oh, to be young again, and able to sleep blissfully through anybody else’s pain.
Have you ever wondered why it’s so easy to sleep right through the deliciously sinful hours of 0700 and 0800 hours?
Did you see the headline in the Reno Gazette-Journal on Thursday morning? $8.3 billion requested by state agencies minus $5.3 billion of projected state revenue over two years … what’s $3 billion between friends, eh? That’s the supposed shortfall that the State of Dismay, aka Nevada, faces. Or as state Assemblywoman, Debbie Smith, so eloquently put it “That’s a pretty big hole”. Yup.
How, I ask you, will incoming Guv, Brian Sandoval tackle this challenge? New taxes, perhaps? Noooooooo! The so-called experts are now telling us that we need to diversify the Nevada economy beyond the unholy siamese twins of mining and gaming. Whoa. Who woulda thunk it? And just how fast do you think that magical diversification will happen?
Here’s what really scares the living daylights out of me - what’s going on here, is happening in Washington D. C. on a much larger scale.
I don’t think Brian Sandoval is a complete nimrod - especially when compared to the outgoing idiotic oozing pustule of a governor - but the true test of Sandoval’s mettle will be whether or not he tries to take any more out of the hide of education and sorely needed social services. It’s called punishing the victims. Not like we could ask gaming to step up.
Las Vegas, riding high back in the day, has fallen. Not quite as far as Dublin, Ireland or Thessaloniki, Greece mind you, but you can practically hear Oscar Goodman claiming permanent neck and back injuries and interviewing personal injury attorneys. What we didn’t hear him clamoring for was economic diversification. Nor were any other of the civic wheeler-dealers around the state. They were so comfy, doing what they’d always done, and getting the payoffs they’d always gotten.
Look outside, folks. That’s the cold, cruel light of day.
Continuing to push the TeaNut dope that it’s all Obama/Reid/Pelosi’s fault might soothe some, but all the rest of us are going to somehow have to come to grips with reality - Nevada knew exactly what a flimsy house of cards they had built, and didn’t fucking care as long as the money kept rolling in.
Earth calling Nevada - Hey, kids are Mommy or Daddy at home?
If you think education is the only thing sucking fumes here in the Silver State, then you haven’t had cancer.
I had lunch today with a woman who has Stage IV breast cancer, and after hearing her story, I came away emotionally shell-shocked. The so-called ‘system’ in Nevada has done it again. As in completely failed to provide a reasonable continuum of care and treatment. And if you think she is some under-educated ne’er do well, think again. She’s a retired Registered Nurse. And she is probably facing a recurrence.
But she doesn’t really know for sure yet, since she can’t get answers out of her oncologist. The guy is an arrogant prick who probably needs to be brought up on charges by his peers. Not content to simply be an ego who doesn’t want to be bothered by the silly ideas of women worried about their boobs, but one who seems to bring “creepy” to his doctor-patient interactions. She’s not the first one to tell me this.
I guess the most important thing we talked about today was the need to be her own advocate. To rattle the cage. Insist that phone calls be returned. To get another oncologist if need be. And maybe to go out of the area to a multi-disciplinary cancer center.
She needs help. I wish I could drop everything as I have in the past and give it - beyond names, websites, phone numbers, suggestions. That could’ve been me eight years ago, but for a couple of very fortunate phone calls and a loving, dedicated husband to stand by me. I was able to get ‘out of Dodge’ and go where my life could be saved.
I’ll go to bed tonight wondering how some people can still think the United States is the center of the best of everything when good people can’t get good medical care. Illegals didn’t cause this problem. Neither did Obama, or Liberals, or any of the other bogeymen that TeaNuts like to blame.
A seriously broken for-profit centered healthcare delivery system is what caused it. Oh, and the political gutlessness to change it once and for all. If you don’t realize that congressional ‘gridlock’ has real life consequences, think again.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 22:14 
