He was a Pal of mine...

...and later in life a customer. As nice a man as you could want to know, nose or not.

R.I.P., J.P..

From the "Why we can't have nice things" file.

It's why we can't have nice things, and why, like I always say sometimes, that...



Hat tip to Ron Chusid.

From the "Me too" file.

Elias Isquith...

...I think Jonathan Chait was correct in noting that the most likely explanation for Romney’s lousy answers on Bain is the troublesome nonexistence of any good ones.

Me too.

Everything I need to know about Mitt Romney...

...I learned from John McCain.



Hat tip to Fixer.

From the "There oughta be a law" file.

Emilia1956 posits...

New Rule: If Obama Has to Show His Birth Certificate, Then Romney Has to Show His Tax Returns.

Sounds fair enough.

The Queen is dead.

Kitty Well's dresses
Modest and sweet
Gingham and ribbon
Tied up so neat

They weren't made of satin
Or silk from Paris
But everyone knows they were
Robes of the Queen

Kitty Well's dresses
Every girl's dream
From five-and-dime fabric
Robes of the Queen...

R.I.P.

Chart of the day.

(It clicks bigger.)

Hat tip to Blue Texan.

This thing still on?

I'm here, you there?

Still more in begging than blogging mode, I'm afraid, and still a paycheck or so from a new 'puter.

Or not, depending in part on the level of your continued generosity...

I'm outta here...

...for the evening. I expect I'll be able to borrow another machine to check in tomorrow. If the response to the Replace Shaun's Laptop begathon continues apace (and thanks to ya'll early responders!) I could be up and running sooner than I thought.

Again, if you can, the PayPal link is here.

And thanks again, as always...

Map of the day.

Via Juan Cole, who notes the relationship to the strength of Obamacare opposition...




Dylan got it way back when...

...He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

I believe I mentioned the death...

...of a hard drive. At least it won't engage to boot up my trusty T-50. With luck, there are some recoverable files, but the machine needs to be replaced. Sounds like it's time for a begathon.

You know the drill - if you're able and inspired to help a blogger out, you can click here and make a PayPal donation to help me replace my computer and keep Upper Left up and running. I'll find ways to keep in touch in the interim, but left to my own resources, it's likely at least a couple weeks before I can afford anything.

If you're local and have a computer you're looking to unload, let me know that, too. I don't need a Cadillac - pretty clear if you realize how many generations of Think Pads have come and gone since the T-50 was new - just a servicable and fairly sturdy laptop.

As always, thanks for taking the time to be here, and if you can help, thanks for that, too.

Via Think Progress...

Looks like the death....

...of the laptop hard drive, but the Random Ten lives on. This one's drawn from the mp3 player, home to tunes that are or will be in my setlists.

Guy Clark - Stuff That Works
The Jayhawks - Up Above My Head
George Jones - White Lightning
Lyle Lovett - The Truck Song
Donovan - To Sing For You
Randy Newman - Louisiana 1927
The V-Roys - Cold Beer Hello
Christine Kane - She Don't Like Roses
Leroy Van Dyke - The Auctioneer
John Sebastian - Rainbows All Over Your Blues

Don't suppress your own vote!

If you want to participate in the August 7 primary election, the deadline to register is Monday. If you need to register or update your information, you can do it right here.

Question of the day.

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland...

“Oh, what a contrast, my friends, between these two men who would be president! President Obama is betting on America and American workers, and Mitt Romney is betting his resources in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Switzerland and God only knows where else he is putting his resources.”

Signs of the times.

Via Rumproast...

Independence.

Still a revolutionary idea. Still a good one. Happy 4th!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. --And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

It's nice, I suppose...

...that anyone out there notices anything that happens up here at all, and the fundraising value is not to be underrated, but I wonder if Markos' endorsement will bring Darcy Burner a single vote she hasn't already locked down in the newly configured 1st CD.

On the down side, it's fodder for the folks who are pushing the line that Darcy's to far left for the newly configured 1st CD. It's fairly considered a swing district, but that doesn't necessarily equate to a moderate electorate. It's probably as polarized a populace as we've got in the state, with union towns and evangelical farming communities, Tea Partiers and Occupiers, intra-party contests and divisions on both sides of the idealogical fence. The Republican candidate will be definitively partisan and idealogical. There's no reason for the Democratic candidate to be less so.

Darcy's already strong, if not the clear favorite. among rank and file Democratic activists and liberal independents, more because, I think, than despite her willingness to ruffle feathers at the State Party office and identify so strongly with the leftward territory of blogtopia (™ Skippy). In other words, she's been doing just fine with the constituency she shares with Mr. Moulitas, so this looks like an endorsement that's worth exactly what she can raise off of it.

I hope it's a lot. Despite my record of supporting Darcy's previous races, I'm still agnostic on the crowded primary up north. I don't have a vote, so for now I'm mostly holding my voice. Just the same, it's important that the most identifiably liberal voice in the field has the resources to be heard by folks who don't read blogs.

Do I seem to betray a bias there? Hey, I said agnostic, not disinterested...

From the "Grow up and get over it" file.

Hat tip to Fixer.

Sunday Funny.

Via Chipsticks...