RIP Shuggie Bear

Fine this morning, gone tonight. She was always the sickly little sister of indomitable will. Bye-bye, Shug.

It's Pat. Again.

Pat Buchanan was explaining to Chris Matthews that if he had his way, Roe v. Wade would be repealed and abortion would be considered as murder. Chris asked Pat if that meant that women who had abortions should be prosecuted, to which Pat explained that women weren't the killers, because it was the "doctor who did it." So, if a woman goes to a doctor who performs an abortion for her, she has no part in the murder because it wasn't actually done by her hand. Now, following Pat's logic, that means that anyone who orders a hit isn't guilty of a crime, it's only the hit man who actually does the killing.

Hey, I got sixteen bucks, a half-bottle of Crown Royal, and a couple of Lortabs I'll put on the line in return for anyone who will do a Jimmy Hoffa on Pat. Send your resume and qualifications to milo@bustacapinpatbuchanansass.corn if you're interested. Just remember, I'll be innocent so you're on your own if you fuck it up.

know your enemy - and laugh at him

"Everything rolls downhill and he's (President Obama's) the one at the top."

- Phil Wolf, birther billboard douchebag on "The Ed Show" explaining why the the Ft. Hood shootings are the president's fault

we are screwed

After a segment on Doctor Nancy whoever-the-fuck-she-is's MSNBC show discussing the use of medical marijuana by teenagers, which made the unsupported assertion that it was too dangerous to even test the deadly plant to determine if it actually did have beneficial effects for some conditions, the show broke for commercial with teaser for the next segment asking "do copper bracelets cure arthritis?"

You know, the simple fact that they ask this imbecilic question to an American audience shows just how well the Luddite religious right has destroyed objective fact in this country. That enough people don't know the answer to that question that they choose to insert it in a news program shows that we are a nation dominated by superstitious rubes who deny objective evidence developed by rigorous observation and testing. That our government-protected free press caters to this willful ignorance demonstrates a callous disregard for truth on the part of the very media that is supposed to safeguard it on behalf of the populace.

It only took forty years to make the most scientifically advanced nation in the world into a place where the average person can't spell or do simple mathematics and thinks that scientific evidence is just a matter of opinion.

We should be very ashamed.

Oh, and the answer is "NO." Magic doesn't cure arthritis.

November 22, 1963

It was an ordinary day in Mrs. Hasner's classroom in Florida. The first announcement came after lunch, during math. It seemed only moments later that the second announcement came and we all went home in stunned silence. The weekend was gray fog, the television blaring until the test pattern came on. Jackie's stalwart strength, Caroline's brave smile, John-John's salute, the caissons, the horses, the guns firing, the glare-splashed shooting in the underground garage, the most horrific events in the history of the country played out before our bleary eyes. The shiny future of Moon landings, abundant energy for all, a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage, everyone can own a home if they just work steadily, all of those things simply evaporated. The world of today is not the world I was promised. It was stolen from me. From all of us.

I sure hope we the people manage to seize the controls away from the Goldman-Sachses, the teabaggers, the war profiteers, the theocratic moles in our government, and all of the other parties bent on silently taking over this country and sucking it dry.

I sure hope we don't see the events of forty-six years ago repeated by the swarms of lunatics bent on self-aggrandization at the price of our Constitution.


I'm almost glad I'm as old as I am. I'm not optimistic about the future of the world.

in remembrance

Fifty years ago today, the Clutter family experienced the worst that human beings can do.

I do not think that word means...

Main Entry: in·ap·pro·pri·ate
Pronunciation: \ˌi-nə-ˈprō-prē-ət\
Function: adjective

Definition: behavior by another that exposes one's own hypocrisy

You're Going to Love This!

(cross-posted from Ronni's Rants)

Ronni Bennett posted an entry yesterday entitled, Religion's Intrusion into Health Care Reform. From the article:

Last week, I was surprised, shocked even, to discover that two of the three bills that will be merged into one in the Senate would raise faith healing to the level of clinical medicine.

The provision would prohibit discrimination against “religious and spiritual health care” and would require insurers to consider covering such non-medical procedures as prayer treatments such as those used in the Christian Science Church.

Can you believe this crap? I thought restricting coverage for abortion was bad...but this is outrageous!

She goes on:

To my further surprise, there is additional precedent for government sanction of prayer as medical treatment. According to the same Los Angeles Times story:

”The Internal Revenue Service allows the cost of the prayer sessions to be counted among itemized medical expenses for income tax purposes - one of the only (sic) religious treatments explicitly identified as deductible by the IRS. Some federal medical insurance programs, including those for military families, also reimburse for prayer treatment.”

In other words, you and I and all taxpayers are being forced to make donations with our tax dollars to support religious organizations with which we have no affiliation to practice woo-woo medicine.

People should do all the praying they want, but not paid for with federal money. If this provision is allowed to stand in the health care reform bill that eventually emerges from Congress, what can stop anyone from declaring their religious practice to be on a par with science-based health care and demanding reimbursement?

This is pure craziness! Our taxes are paying for prayers, disguised as medical treatment! And now they want to allow medical insurance to cover prayers, as well.

I am way beyond the nails and rust thing...I am sputtering!

What's next? Prescriptions for Holy Water?

ETA: A thought: As laughter is acknowledged to be the best medicine, perhaps medical insurance could cover tickets to see Larry the Cable Guy?

Passing Hot Air

In response to an Email from Tim Kaine, head of the DNC, congratulating the Dems over the House bill, and noting (DUH) that there's a bigger fight ahead:

Why do you, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi continue to pat yourselves on the back, as if you have actually accomplished something? As a
lifelong Democrat, my disappointment in your ability to really get something done continues. You have passed a watered-down bill, with unnecessary anti-abortion provisions, that has no chance of passing in the Senate.

WOW, are you great or what! It would be like me celebrating that I
just bought a lottery ticket, now all I have to do is win. When the
Democratic party is split over something as fundamentally moral and
important as this, I blame you as the party head, and President Obama.
You have control of the Presidency, the House and the Senate, yet you
are still miles away from your goal. George Bush was in the same
situation and what did he do? He invaded a country without cause, he
implemented an irresponsible tax break for the rich, he pushed
through a Medicare prescription plan that was a gift to the drug industry, and he decimated our environmental laws. Bush and the Republicans banded
together for these and countless other destructive actions, yet the
Democrats cannot unite for one of the most important issues of our
time.

Shame on you. If you and President Obama were in charge years ago, we
would not have Social Security or Medicare. Call me back when you
have actually passed a real bill with real impact.

if the truth was a snake

It's delicious, in an ironically tragic way, to watch a jowly, sixty-something republican congresstoad dandling a baby on his shoulder, as he speaks for the infant in a creepy, Gacy-esque baby-talk voice and says "don't make me pay more taxes when I grow up just so that you can have healthcare now" without taking the next logical step and understanding that the odds increase dramatically every year that the very child he is using as a political prop will likely face a health crisis that she will not be able to pay for and she might die from it unless healthcare for all passes and is signed into law.

There are times that I wish these fuckwads really would revolt against the United States. It probably wouldn't turn out as good for them this time and we could finally move forward out of the Nineteenth Century.

a disturbance in the force

Word in the music industry is that Steven Tyler has departed from the band Aerosmith. I'm thinking the past shows us how this is going to turn out...




"Hagarsmith."

every cloud...

If there is any kind of silver lining to today's tragic shooting incident at Fort Hood, it's that Michelle Bachmann's Crazyganza got completely upstaged. We have enough problems without a nut like that getting any more air time than she already has.

And by the way, isn't today proof enough that it's time for the United States to quit invading and bombing countries that didn't do anything to us?

there's the guy

Bob McDonnell, the new governor of Virginia, is going to be the 2012 presidential candidate that will go up against Obama. They will dangle Daisy Mae Palin and some of the other suspects, but McDonnell has that Reagan populist sheen without the magic underwear stuff of the Mittster and the sheer nutballery of the rest of the herd.

thanks for the shout-out, Stewart!

I grew up in Plattsburgh!