Antitrust suits are BACK in Fashion, Thank you Pres. Obama

During the last "regime", antitrust suits were just this side of extinct. Bush & Co. felt that monopolies were good for the consumer, business would never ever ever do anything that was bad for the country....look at Enron--it was a good thing. Well, we now have a democratic President and a return to the laws of the country. President Obama’s top antitrust official, Christine Varney, along with some Democratic leaders, are beginning to reduce a number of industries, including airline and railroad giants.
The New York Times reported that Antitrust suits might be back in fashion. Ms. Varney is the antitrust chief at the Justice Department, and began inspecting complaints by Verizon and AT&T that their competitors, major cable operators, are blocking their ability to purchase sports shows and other programs that the companies produce, although I find it kind of ironic that AT&T is filing anti-trust suits. She is also examining how large agribusiness is restraining small farms from being able to compete in the market, partially due to Senator Bernie Sanders bringing this problem into the view of the justice department.
Ms. Varney is also taking on drug companies that have inside agreements between companies not to market more generic drugs. Both the FTC and consumer groups have wanted these agreements examined under anti-trust laws. Although Ms. Varney is supported by the White House and some democratic legislatures, others are not as pleased with her.
Repbulicans have always voted in the favor of business...and that means more money for those campaign war chests. Democrats have spent a lot of time and effort to get some of those campaign funds for themselves, only to worry that these policy changes of an aggressive antitrust enforcement, could hurt their chances at the corporate money changers.
But, also, some of the administration officials see this as coming at a bad time due to the economic climate. Others actually agree with Bush & Co. and think that larger companies provide consumer benefits and healthier, leaner companies.
The White House also discussed an effort to overhaul financial regulation, but at this time, have decided against using antitrust legislation to reduce the size of corporations that are "too big to fail".
“The struggles between the expert agencies and the Justice Department get to the heart and soul of exactly what the competition policy of the Obama administration will be,” said Mark Cooper, an antitrust expert and director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group.
He added: “Now you have an antitrust division that cares about competition, and it is running up against the expert agencies that haven’t changed their attitudes yet.”
Ms. Varney was in private practice for over 10 years, but was tapped to be on President Obama's transition team. Her background is in internet law. Varney was a Cabinet Secretary under President Clinton and he later appointed her to the Federal Trade Commission where she served for 3 years. She left the FTC and started an internet law division at a Washington, D.C. firm, Hogan and Harston.
She has pushed for regulations to protect consumer privacy over the internet and argued against legislation that would have made it more difficult for companies to go to arbitration with consumers. She was a registered lobbyist for the Online Privacy Alliance until 2006.
Another area that the division is opening inquiries into are the wireless phone industries; deciding wherther or not it is legal for phone makers to offer a specific model to only one carrier(such as the iPhone or Palm Pre). It is exploring the rapid increase in text-messaging rates at several phone companies and also investigating obstacles imposed by the phone companies on low-price rivals like Skype.
I think its about damn time that our government gets back to governing for the "natural" citizen instead of the artificial person of the corporations. As these corporations became "more efficient" by outsourcing American jobs, moving the proverbial mail box to the Camen Islands( or UAE for Haliburton) to sleaze out of paying taxes for the use of our commons, finding ways out of paying for polluting the environment and trying to destroy the Amercian middle class, its about time we start reining these criminals in!
Good Luck and Good Hunting Christine Varney!

Creating Still Life and a birthday treat

Last year, I decided to take an art class and really enjoyed it...so now I wanna be the next O'Keefe or Cassatt. Or maybe just have a hobby that people can ooh and ahh at.

July 10th was my birthday and the Art Expo was in town. So since I'm now this budding artist, I thought, "Let's Go!"

The Learning and Product Art Expo is sponsored by Dick Blick, Artists Journal, Pastel Journal and Water Color Artist. Its held in Pasadena CA and Lisle IL. Lisle is just a couple of miles from my house so I decided to take a class and check out the expo.

The Expo is held over a weekend with a meet and greet the teachers on the Thursday evening before the start of the Expo. There is a $10 charge, but its only $5 if you're taking a class. Of course the classes range in price from $60-140, with the mode being $75.

On Thursday I went to the meet and greet and it was enjoyable...and expensive since I just HAD to buy some stuff...so I bought some CD's on how to make your art pop...oh and how to do pet portraits.....

On Friday, my class was at 1p.m. and I got to the Expo about 11---to no parking and rain! I finally cheated and parked in the motorcycle parking...I figured that since it was pouring down rain, there would be very few, if any, motorcycles. I run in and find where I'm supposed to sign in and do that and get my goodie bag. Its very nice, a large reuseable bag that's really roomy. Inside was some ink, a copy of Artist's magazine, paper samples, linseed oil and a paint brush....plus my favorite--coupons!

So I walk through the vendors. First these were absolutely GREAT prices -- most things were 50% off and some up to 70%! I picked up some sketch pads, pan pastels, a book and another video...and then my bag was heavy. And it was getting close to the time for my class. I meandered through the hotel/conference center looking for the room. I finally found it(after going to 203S instead of 203W) and met the teacher.

Pan pastels act more like thick watercolors, rather than just pastels. Or so I've been told. Although I did pick up a 10 pack, I haven't used them yet. They do work well from the little bit of scribbling I did at the vendor. Although most vendors sell colors up to 48 or 76 colors/shades/tints, many artists, specially if they do landscape, limit themselves to 10-12 core colors and then mix them to get the right effect.

When I registered, I signed up for a class called "Loosen Up!" which was facillitated byStephanie Birdsall.

The class was in how to "loosen up" when applying, working in soft pastels. During my class last semester, I really enjoyed working in pastel, so I thought why not? I find the room and meet the teacher. She's an elegant whisp of a woman, casual clothes. On her website, she tells us, is an interview that she did with PBS...kinda cool.

After we all introduce ourselves(there's 9 of us, all women, ranging from 30-ish to 60's more of us older than younger), we begin our class. Stephanie has picked out pastel board for us and pastels--she has her own "line" with one of the pastel manufacturers -- its her favorite 10 colors, the ones that are the most diverse and the samples that we have are basically that line. She had the hotel bring up fruit and proceeded to set up 5 or 6 still lifes around the room, making it much easier for us to concentrate on something closer to us, rather than all of us trying to work up the same still life.

The first thing we are to do is decide on where our horizon will be on the board and then to roughly draw in the fruit with the golden ochre color. Pastels are for layering...you work dark to light. We then used a wash for the background, at least the bottom half and went to work.

To work with pastels, again, you work more from dark to light and you must take care of what type of paper you are using. The paper must have some "teeth" to it, some texture and thickness, to hold the pastel with becoming muddy.

This is the finished product. All of the fruit began with the brown color of the background. The green apples were brown, then a darker green, yellow green, some red and then a very light yellow for highlights...oh and more brown for the stem and some top shadows.

The shadows have some gray, black, blue and purple--yes purple!

I was really amazed as I saw my little project developing--at first all it was was shapes and blobs....a bunch of rough circles on a sea of brown...and then...slowly, but surely, it began to look like a 3-d representation of fruit! Without and real lines, the apples and stawberries began to look like apples and strawberries(ok, so at least one strawberry is a bit too heart shaped, but you know its a strawberry!). The class lasted about 3 hours and it was well worth the $70-80 I spent on it!

So I went home a happy, but broke, artist....as you can see, my bag was pretty full and this doesn't even count the book that I bought!

Just Say No doesn't work for sex either.

During our dark ages, aka Geedubya term, teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseasess increased dramatically under Bush's evangically motivated education policy according to the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control released a report, stating that after years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under the Bush I, Clinton administrations was reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older that had been decllining since 1991 have jumped sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that syphilis has increased by nearly 50% in teenage females after a significant decrease and a 20 year fall in the gonorrhea infection rate has also risen. Aids cases in teen boys has nearly doubled.

The CDC also shows that southern states, where the emphasis on abstinence and religion is much greater, also have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs. In addition, the younger group (10 - 14 year olds) reported about 16,000 pregnancies in 2004 and a corresponding number of young people in this age group reported an STD; again with a much higher degree in the southern states.

OK, so what does this mean? The supporters of abstinence-based sex ed(just say no to sex) have decided that even tho the states with more evangelical leaning have a much higher level of teen pregnancies, even tho the schools that only teach abstinence-based have the higher level of teen STDs, even tho all research has shown that teens that know about birth control and STDs and have an easier access to birth control have higher sense of control over their bodies and actually have less sex, what do these ABS supporters say? Its the evil libruls:

Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, which describes itself as a supporter of traditional marriage and "against liberal education and cultural forces", said the abstinence message is overwhelmed by a culture obsessed with sex.

"It is ridiculous to say that a program we nominally invest in has failed when it fails to overcome the most sexualised culture in world history. Education that emphasises abstinence as the best option for teens makes up a minuscule part of overall sex education in the United States," she said.

Only problem with Ms. Hamrick's alleged reasoning? Europe has a much lower teen pregnancy rate--and they also have a much lower evangelical takeover of the schools. In most schools in Europe, Canada, teens do not get pregnant at the rate of American teens...and they live their life without evangelical mythology....seems like a plan to me, realistic, intelligent learning, rathen than God is gonna punish you!

Obama and Dems tackle health care, Republicants tackle human-animal hybrids...

Senator Brownback is worried about human-animal hybrids and has entered a bill in the United States Senate. What is really amazing is this has 20 co-sponsors, including one democrat--Mary Landrieu(Jindahl just got this same type of bill into law in the good state of Lousiana).

Ya know, out of all the problems that I can come up with, this is not even in my top 100 of problems or even issues facing the American Public!

Some of the other co-sponsors? Senator Ensign and Coburn, McCain, L. Graham.

Senator Brownback stated on FB:

“Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice.”

"The Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act would ban the creation of human-animal hybrids. Human-animal hybrids are defined as those part-human, part-animal creatures, which are created in laboratories, and blur the line between species. The bill is modest in scope and only affects efforts to blur the genetic lines between animals and humans. It does not preclude the use of animals or humans in legitimate research or health care where genetic material is not passed on to future generations, such as the use of a porcine heart valve in a human patient or the use of a lab rat with human diseases to develop treatments."

Brownback continued, “This legislation is both philosophical and practical as it has a direct bearing upon the very essence of what it means to be human, and it draws a bright line with respect to how far we can go in attempting to create new creatures made with genes from both humans and animals.

I guess you gotta have goals, but Mr. Brownback, I think its too late, considering it looks like you and 19 of your peers have made jack asses out of themselves with this bill!

Also, this isn't the first time a bill of this sorts was entered. The last one didn't make it out of committee.

The definition of "elitist" in Con-speak(republicant english, I suppose)

I get told I'm one of those liberal elitists.....so, what does that mean?

I believe in helping others that are less fortunate than me

I believe that government, done rightly, is a good thing--of for and by the people, not of for and by the corporations

I believe in universal health care for all, traditional not for profit insurance agents(like what we had before Reagan tore off the reigns of regulations and released the beast that we now know as "health insurance")

I believe that teaching all children in a productive and responsible way--that means not only teaching them "reading, riting, rithmatic" but how to debate, how to play, to draw, and different kinds of music-from Mozart to Lady GaGa and a little bit of Bach just to spice things up, ways to express themselves in a postive manner, just like I was able to do in the 60's.

I believe in making college and/or technical schools affordable for all.

I believe in supporting American companies and bringing back manufacturing jobs. To invest in our future through public monies and jobs. I believe that the working class and middle class(what's left of us) are the ones that need the stimulus to get this economy back in line, not banks and insurance companies.

I believe in have government agencies staffed and paid decently to watch over our water and food, among other things.

I believe in supporting our troops by keeping them out of unjust occupations of other countries.

I believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to run my country, not someone's religious rules...those are for church or personal life, not to run ramshod over other people.

I worked for almost 30 years in a male maximum security working my way up from clerical to a correctional counselor--very elitist job, had cockroaches that were huge in my office and dealth with inmates who murdered/raped/robbed people...very elitist, cushy career.

I worked my way through college--just like so many other liberal elitists, people who are now teachers, social workers, lawyers, doctors. We have infiltrated most areas and are taking over. Hopefully, but we liberal elite haven't infiltrated The financial market yet...you can tell that by the horrid way THAT market is going.

So, yes, I am a liberal and proud of it. Yes I have a college education which I worked my ass off to get. If that makes me an elitist, so be it....just remember, I'm a bleeding heart liberal...and I shoot straight.

Pruning tomatoes

I do some gardening on the side, at this time I have 13 tomato plants(2 of which grew on their own from last year's crops). I've always had different information on pruning tomato plants, but I think I've finally gotten it done right, this time! I usually buy indeterminate plants, these are the plants that keep on growing all season long. If you are using containers, etc., you should get determinate--these plants stop at a pre-determined(by genetics) height and usually have a set amount of branches, etc.

Our garden is done in raised beds with drip irrigation. When I plant the tomatos, I also use the plastic red mulch to keep down the weeds. There are many different types of mulch you can buy, black plastic is probably the best known and I don't know if there is actually any difference, except that we still have the red left from a couple of years ago, so why buy new?

Tomato plants are actually vines and, left to their own devices, would grow more like squash... milling around the ground. Works ok with squash, pumpkins, etc., but tomatoes don't have the fruit for it, know what I mean? Tomato plants have to be staked to be able to give us the fruit that we so covet.

Also, tomato plants are turbo-charged sugar machines. For the first month or so, all of the sugar that's produced goes toward new leave growth. During this month, tomato plants double their size ever 2 weeks or so. Eventually the plants make more sugar than it can use and then branches begin to grow and to flower. At this time, it is very important to stake/support the plant or it begins to lay on the ground, which, in turn increases the tendency to branch. If the plant is an indeterminate, it can easily cover a 4 X 4 foot area and just a big mess!
To assist with the photosynthesis and lessen the risk of disease, plants need plenty of room and keep off the ground. When the plant is on the ground or its growth is extremely dense, there is too much shade on the leaves and this greatly reduces the production of sugar. These shaded leaves will use the sugar that is produced to try to stay healthy (which usually just prolongs the inevitable and it will yellow and fall off) instead of using the sugar to produce fruit. A plant that is properly staked and pruned will produce larger fruit as much as 2-3 weeks earlier than a plant left to its own devices.

So....how do we "properly" prune a tomato plant?
First, remove all of the stems and suckers below the first flower cluster. Yes all of them! Anything that is lower than that first flower is not assisting with the flower/fruit production and is wasting the energy needed for the fruit. Also, these leaves are usually the ones that do not get enough sun and then use the energy for their own propagation.

You also have to make a decision. Do you want to only allow one stem or do you want some branches? I haven't been able to get rid of all of the branches...yet...but I've gotten a bit better at getting rid of much of the extra foilage. The best tomato growth is off of one stem--the original one and this will result in large fruits that are produced until frost.
Pruning also assists plant health. The leaves of a pruned and supported plant dry off faster, so bacterial and fungal yucky stuff have less of a chance to spread. Soil is less liable to splash up onto staked plants and this also makes it harder for bacteria or fungul stuff to get on the higher leaves.


1. Suckers

As the plant grows, side shoots, or suckers, form between the leaves and the main stem. If left alone, these suckers will grow just like the main stem, producing flowers and fruit.
Suckers begin to appear from the bottom of the plant up. For a multi-stemmed plant, try have all stems about the same size, although the main stem should always be stronger, because it has to feed the entire plant for the next five or six months.
There are different ways to deal with a sucker; easiest being to just pinch it off, preferably in the morning. The best time to do this is when the sucker is still small, just one or a couple of leaves. Grab the base of it between your thumb and index finger and bend it back and forth or just pinch it off. It should just snap off.

Most gardeners avoid cutting the sucker with a knife or scissors, because of the possiblity of infection. If the sucker is larger and becomes too tough to snap off, however, you'll have to use a blade.

2. Vines and leaves
Keep tomatoes free of side stems below the first fruit cluster. After the fruit begins to develop, these bottom vines are just feeding off energy that the fruit needs. Also, since they are low, its easier for diseases to get splashed on the leaves and cause you problems!
This is the first year that I feel I've somewhat mastered the puning of tomatoes and I'm hoping these guidelines help you and me! Good gardening!