Three quotes of the day

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“To take a Republican-sponsored healthcare provision that rather innocently and uncontroversially extends insurance coverage to those that want to create their own living wills and turn it into a declaration that the government will decide every five years whether or not you should be euthanized is something out of the Protocols, or out of Saddam’s Iraq, or a mimicry of the worst and most stupid and most absurd of North Korean propaganda towards their own citizens.” —Hunter, via Sully.

“The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. … Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society — whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.” —Steven Pearlstein.

“[T]he world’s most mature democracy, informed by the world’s dominant media system, at a time of perceived economic crisis and under brand new political leadership, [is] getting tied up by manufactured misinformation. No matter what party you belong to, you can’t think this is a sign of health for the Republic.” —James Fallows.

Boulder’s beauty

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The Santa Barbarians were in town this weekend — i.e., Loyette and Loyacita’s uncle, aunt and 3 1/2-year-old cousin — and we took the opportunity to go on a bunch of adventures, including a hike in Boulder on Saturday. We missed the trail we originally intended to take, and ended up hiking an invented loop trail combining portions of the Chautauqua, Bluebell Spur and Bluebell Road. Whatever — it was fun, and the views were fantastic!

For instance: you can see, above, the panorama that’s my latest blog masthead image. Here’s a shot looking in the opposite direction, at the Flatirons:

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Here’s another panorama — like the one above, stiched together with Calico:

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And here’s a rather more “macro” shot, of a butterfly on a thistle:

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Sarah Palin, illiterate idiot or outright liar

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Well, she’s no longer governor but she is doing her best to stay in the spotlight. Sarah Palin is attacking the Obama health-care plan by using her son Trig. This from the same woman who has attacked others for mentioning or attacking her children (which was reasonable for her to do). So she’s a hypocrite, not surprising, but what is worse is that she is either an outright liar or a complete and utter idiot.

Mrs. Palin has taken a portion of the proposed health care bill which directs senior and doctors to discuss a variety of health-care issues, including end-of-life planning, to mean that the government would create a panel to judge the usefulness of the elderly and disabled, and kill them if necessary to save costs. She calls it a “death panel.” Of course, anyone with an IQ higher than that of a rock sees how unlikely this is, but it’s not even a remotely reasonable reading of the bill. End-of-life planning details medical decisions to be made as seniors face their final years, months, and days. There is nothing nefarious or unscrupulous about it.

The only thing nefarious and unscrupulous going on here is Palin and the right wing’s use of scare tactics rather than honest debate to try and derail the health care bill. Either through her repugnant dishonesty or startling lack of intelligence, Sarah Palin demonstrates yet again both her unfitness for leadership and the desperation gripping the current leadership of the Republican Party.

A commenter on this blog recently complained about what he saw as a continued attack on the GOP as “dumb, bad.” Perhaps the GOP should stop doing such dumb and bad things, it would make it much harder to sustain the supposed unfair attack on them otherwise.