It is a peculiar word: Compromise. Webster's dictionary provides essentially three definitions. The first two are really close to each other, and represent what most of us think of when told that our Congressional representatives have again compromised with Republicans. That would likely be taken as "settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions." The second, somewhat equivalent "something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things" seems to provide the meaning from another perspective. We all feel good about compromises. They are those solutions we come up with through the process of negotiation where everybody sort of gets something and everybody gives something. Nobody gets everything they want, but then everybody gets something.

Apparently they have let us in on this little tidbit as part of the clickity-tickity campaign. For years, many people believed that cops wrote tickets to create revenue for the cities and other governments they work for. Some have noted that basic scheduling and other variables involved in ticketing behavior support that idea. But now, that theory has been blown out of the passenger seat, so to speak. The whole point of stopping a vehicle to write a seatbelt ticket is to save lives. Who’d a thunk it? I know it gives me a much better understanding of the system, now. All is not well, though.

There is a small but growing interest in re-examining the use of opioid pain medicines. The movement is not as popular and widespread as the medical marijuana movement, but nonetheless very important. Opioid pain medications are the only option available for many perfectly normal and law-abiding citizens to live a normal life. The issue of "addiction" in pain treatment, as it is known in popular circles, has been pretty much deconstructed. Research has demonstrated that even continuous large doses of pain medication do not lead to large addiction rates in chronic pain patients. Even if it did, the drugs are the only way for many people to escape physical agony on a daily basis.

We have heard a lot about the looming financial crisis. We have heard that all the signs of crisis are on the horizon. We are told the dollar is worth its weight in warm snot. The Fed keeps doing something with interest rates that draws media attention, as if they are fine tuning the vital signs on a dying patient. We are told that the finance professionals just one level above us are shaking in their boots and sounding alarms. Even in the face of all this, for most of us, it is dinner and movie again this weekend. Maybe not so much longer. I had a fairly stable professional level job which I was driven out of five weeks ago. Within two weeks after that, a close relative lost his six-figure position. My best friend bought it by phone from headquarters on Friday, and we learned today that a mutual friend went down yesterday. My question is, is this the beginning?

Markos is reporting that he is ill. His condition is painful, and the physicians are diagnosing him. We all wish him a quick and complete recovery, but we should remember that a quick and complete recovery is not always the outcome with health problems. At the risk of using Markos's condition as a political soapbox, it may be a good time to try to get an important message out again. While marijuana legalization has received a lot of attention on this site, diaries about the opioid pain crisis just don't seem to make much of a splash. If you have a little time, I would surely appreciate you granting this issue a short hearing.

Here we go again. It has been fairly well established that the Grand Old Party is going to default to its tried and true campaign message to distract and promote more insanity in the upcoming election cycle. They are going to ask us to forget all this nonsense politickin' and vote for the only thing any red-blooded American should be worrying about: GETTING TUFF ON CRIME.

Of course, the liberals can talk about gettin' tuff all they want, but anyone knows the real Wyatt Earp's of our times are Rethugs. Democratic candidates can never carry as much weight with the hang 'm high crowd that a good church-going, pistol-packing, capital R incumbent can carry. No amount of tuff talk out of a Democrat can ever hold a candle to the shocking revolution in criminal justice brought to us at the hands of the GOP. When it comes to rolling over individual constitutional rights and handing arbitrary power to authority -- they will always make us look like beginners.

Over the next week, there will be widespread viewing of SiCKO. The film has been promoted as an indictment of the health care industry, but it goes far beyond that. In fact, the health care fraud is the least of what it exposes. I caught the film at a preview screening at my local cinema last night. I would describe it more as an indictment of the idealized (commercial) notion of the American Dream.

Kill ten boys a day.
I'll vote for you.
Let's just keep going the way we are.
Security. Security. Security.
I'm not going to let any of this anti-war stuff phase me.
You are right.
Keep going until you win, just like you promised.
Throw more money and more lives.
Anything is worth this precious cause we stand for.
And, never, never, never, back down.
You say there is not enough money to pay Haliburton?
That's O.K.
Just use eminent domain. Force them to serve and produce.
You say there is no more money for Blackwater?
Draft them.
You say the treasury is empty?
Print money.
Don't give us any excuses.
Do what you promised.

Win.

And when you decide to quit because

all the money for the contractors is gone,

don't blame me for "losing" your war.

Do what you promised, and leave me alone!

n/t

Certainly, nobody has basked in schadenfreude over the Foley GOP meltdown more than myself. At first, it was like a shot of laughing gas. Then, as the euphoria began to wear off, I realized that we've been fooled again. After every notable event, I try go back to George Lakoff's ideas and do an objective frame analysis. It seems that we still don't get it with frames. My initial high was guarded and suspicious from the start. FDR told us that nothing in politics happens by accident. I somehow knew this was all too perfectly timed to be a real blessing. Something stunk. Something really subtle and foul. Find my opinion below the fold...