Proper Manners Around The President

Republicans seem to have forgotten that there are protocols when you deal with the President, such as respect.  They demanded it for the Chimp, they can offer the same respect for the current President.  It has always been considered rude to interrupt the President of the United States, just like it is considered rude to interrupt the Queen.
I am so tired of all the crap.

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The Stupid, It Burns

I actually started writing this post a few days ago and then several personal issues came up.  My disgust with politics, what passes for news (it used to be called gossip), the lack of intelligence and the stunning erosion of critical thinking of the average American has prevented me from caring as much as I used to about the future of America.

And then, sure enough, another act of stupidity wasted no time raising my blood pressure to the boiling point.  Banning the Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary from the Menifee Union School District because a student found the definition of oral sex in a dictionary. Menifee may be located in California, but it is definitely behind the Orange Curtain.

The Golden State's Menifee Union School District has yanked all copies of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary from its shelves and is investigating the classic American text for containing "age-inappropriate" words.
snip
Menifee, which is composed of 9,000 students between kindergarten and 8th grade, is forming a committee of principals, teachers and parents to pore over the book and determine whether it's fit for young eyes. It could take a while: the unabridged edition available online contains over 470,000 entries.

Cheese and rice, these people are just plain stupid, there is no other way to put it.  In the mid nineties "oral sex" was all over the news, now it can't be in a dictionary because kids might find the correct definition instead of what they hear on the playground.

Up until this morning my, and most other liberals, definition of "f*cking retarded" was when you screw over 88 percent of the people who approve of most of what you're doing AND WHO GOT YOU ELECTED in the first place in order to please the same 22 percent who still thinks Bush and Cheney walk on water that isn't frozen and who wouldn't approve of anything the Obama did if God himself came down from on high and anointed Obama as his son by a different mother.  Now it seems to encompass everything in politics.

Of course there is going to be political pain on the democratic side, what did they expect?  Flowers thrown in the street for not doing the job that the American people elected them to do?  For saving Wall Street instead of Main Street and then letting Wall Street enjoy bonuses completely out of proportion to the crappy job they performed?  After suffering through eight years of the the Bush maladministration, the last thing that the democratic base wanted was to be ground under the jackbooted heel of the same people who caused the country to head into the crapper in the first place.  Sure, you can blame it on the economy, and you would be right.  It's too bad that what passes for leadership these days only cares about the economy of the working people when it's time for them to get reelected.

Living in an unequal society creates shorter lifespans.  That would be for the poor and the middle class, the rich have all their needs met.  Even when they contribute nothing to society except to increase the inequality.  Welcome to America, land of the free, home of the brave.  If you have lots of money .

Over 200 studies since the early 1980s have now documented that people living in societies where wealth has concentrated at the top of the economic ladder live significantly shorter, less healthy lives than people who live in societies that spread their wealth more evenly.

And we’re not talking just poor folks here. All people in unequal societies do worse. Middle-income people in the United States, the world’s most unequal developed nation, have shorter lifespans than middle-income people in Japan, Sweden and a host of other more equal nations.

So, my newest iWant is called iPad?  What the hell was Apple thinking?  Aren't there any females in their advertising department?  It reminds of some comedian in the nineties who made fun of sanitary pads.  As he said, why not call them what they are instead of some gussied up name that has no relation to its purpose.    He used the example of Always and thought a better name would be cranky hanky.  I realize that the iPod saved Apple's bacon, but there were a slew of better names than iPad.  Duh!

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Friday Afternoon Rants

The FDA is still trying to intimidate doctors into not prescribing strong pain medication for their patients by having drugmakers create risk management plans.  Since I'm allergic to all of the drugs mentioned in the article I won't be affected, but many people who are in chronic pain will.  I know what it's like to be in constant pain with no relief in sight and it isn't pretty.  Too bad the FDA wasn't interfering when Rush Limbaugh was scoring oxycontin with his secretary's help.  It might have saved him a few brain cells and then he wouldn't run around making stupid statements like the poor have no right to health care because they can't afford it.

We don't want them either.

I was thinking the same thing.  It was okay for them to sleep with a married man, accept his gifts and travel on his dime but now they want money to keep quiet.  Prostitutes have more class.

Oreo.  He certainly made sure bankers can afford to live on their segregated estates while the help live under the bridge.

Aetna only made a 7% profit this year so they are going to raise their rates and eliminate about 600,000 people from their health insurance plans.  What will it take for teabaggers to wake up and realize that the only death panels are located in insurance companies and while teabaggers are purportedly worrying about single payer health care killing grandma that corporations have been robbing the taxpayers blind? Or as commenter Chernynkaya so artfully put it:

I am so s!ck of hearing from the Right how we liberals are always looking for a government “handout.” Here’s what the government has the money to do for CORPORATIONS:
-- subsidies and other direct grants;

-- tax breaks, reductions, deductions, exclusions, write-offs, exemptions, credits, loopholes, shelters, and rebates even for profitable companies;

-- letting corporations be headquartered off-shore and pay no federal income taxes;

-- large government contracts of every imaginable kind; some on a cost-plus basis with every incentive to cheat and get more;

-- discounted user fees or subsidized use of public resources (land, water, airwaves,e­¬tc.);

-- free government-funded R & D;

-- every program from the Department of Commerce, Agriculture and others underwrites it; the FDA for Big Pharma; the FCC for media and telecommunications firms; the FAA for the airlines, the Treasury and Fed for Wall Street;

-- individual tax breaks for the rich; billions offshored to tax havens; allowing corporate fraud and abuse

-- privatizing more - schools, highways, bridges, airports, prisons, public lands, utilities, parts of the military, mercenaries, and thus far a failed attempt to privatise the most important program for seniors and the disabled - Social Security;

But nothing for the basic right of LIFE (unless you haven’t yet had the nerve to be born).

Let the good times roll.

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Sunday Morning Threesome

The Frisco Kid was always a favorite movie.  Harrison Ford and Gene Wilder were great together and it isn't every day a movie comes along with Yiddish humor.  Oy gevalt!  That being said, it seems that Yiddish have a few pithy sayings and truisms that weren't discussed in polite company and now they are about to be printed.  Again.  "Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You".  I'll bet she didn't.

Der pelts unter dem vaybershn boykh iz dos tayerste futerl.

The pelt under a woman's belly is the world's most expensive furpiece.

Who knew?

The only thing I'm going to say about China's attitude toward black people is this.  I got more respect in Alabama in the seventies.  When I was in acupuncture school I asked one of my Chinese teachers a question and his response was this, "I'm not going to explain it to you, you wouldn't understand."  Not one of those (I can do it to!) teachers gave me anything higher than a B- despite being one of only seven people to pass the intern exams and finishing my patient requirements in six clinic shifts instead of the nine it took most people.  Patients and clinic staff loved me, my Chinese teachers not so much.  I especially liked the way they held their breath when I walked by.  Some of my teachers wanted me to file a complaint but you know what they call the guy who graduates last in medical school?  Doctor.  My 3.69 was good enough for me.

Do you read the People of WalMart?  I have it on the reader and sometimes the pictures make me close my eyes in embarrassment.  For the people in the pictures. And sometimes I just laugh.

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Can't They Find Anything Else To Obsess On?

Heaven forbid an American president should show some respect for other cultures and customs instead of arrogantly expecting the world to bow to him.  When in Rome and all that.  The almost never right wing are losing their lunch over Obama bowing to the emperor of Japan.  Interesting how they conveniently forget a former president puking on the Prime Minister during a state dinner. No bad judgment there.  But they'll keep worrying about the bowing, that way they won't have to contribute anything constructive to the conversation.

When most people have an upset tummy they have the sense not to go out in public and they certainly don't eat anything they can't see through.


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Wednesday Morning Musings

The judge is crazier than the defendant.  Wondering whether the cow was confused because the defendant's penis didn't produce milk is inexcusable.  The defendant is a deviant and should be forced to get professional help.  And the judge shouldn't anthropomorphize.

If I was Michael Steele I would be careful about calling anyone a nutjob and most certainly not when they are speaking the truth.  While I wanted Bush tried for his crimes against humanity it never would have occurred to me to advocate his death, something that cannot be said of those on the right when they talk about Obama or Clinton.  Or did he miss the now famous Facebook poll asking if Obama should be killed or John L. Perry's article (now removed) stating that a "bloodless military coup" might be necessary to restore the Constitution.  That wouldn't be the same Constitution that Bush regarded as just a piece of paper is it?  And my mind is not tiny.  Because Mr. Perry once worked for Jimmy Carter doesn't make him any less of  a conservative.  Or has everyone forgotten that Dick Morris used to work for Bill Clinton?

Are some personality traits present at birth?  I used to worry a lot, mainly about aches and pains and an irrational fear of the dark, but I grew out of it in my twenties.  According to mom, and she should know, even though I was sickly (asthma), I wasn't a fussy baby.  She says I used to sit in a corner and watch people while laughing to myself.  And I'm not that much different now according to a former classmate.  I've always been an observer.  I used to wonder about it as a child, why didn't I like to participate?  I don't mind speaking in front of lots of people but I enjoy being alone even more, especially after being surrounded by excess stimulation.  When I was in high school I was known as the girl with the book because I always had one with me and would read it in a crowd of people while peeping over the top.  As an adult I prefer my iPod because most people won't bother me when I have the headphones on and I can watch them in peace.  Very weird.

Speaking of reading books, the banned book list is out.  I've read two of the Philip Pullman novels but I got bored and didn't even start the third.  I hated Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer for the same reasons.  As a child I was allowed to read anything I wanted, I read On The Beach and A Summer Place in the fifth grade and Playboy for most of my adolescence and the only influence they had was to was to increase my reading skills and to keep an open mind.  Trying to pull books from the library in an effort to protect kids from something you don't approve of is likely to lead to children who don't read at all and automatically distrust anything new to their existence.  Sort of like their parents.



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Mindboggling Anger

Wow, just wow.  As much as I disliked Bush and am not that fond of his replacement, it would never have occurred to me to call either of them a"lying, mealy mouthed pimp" as commenter #13 did.  A liar (isn't that one of the requirements to be a successful politician?), yes.  But mealy mouthed pimp?  What a racist statement.  Minds like that are closed and padlocked with emotions that logic will never penetrate and with attitudes and thought processes like the above you are fooling yourself if you think they aren't going to get more vocal or violent.  Obama and his mouthpiece Robert Gibbs may believe that people are angry over Lehman Brothers but if you read the signs and listen to what the teabaggers are saying you can see that the anger has become extremely personal and doesn't have a whole lot to do with politics.

Representative Joe Wilson made a mistake and knew he was making a mistake when he accused the president of lying during his speech.  The first thing they teach you in the military is to respect the Commander in Chief and if you can't do that then you should remember to respect the office.  I attended basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC which is part of Mr. Wilson's district so I know that concept is not foreign to him.  Mr. Wilson needs to understand that while he may have apologized to the President's chief of staff, he has not apologized to his fellow Congress critters and he should be a gentleman first and a politician second.  But I won't hold my breath.

I'm sorry that people are so angry over something they can't control. The world is becoming more homogenized and nothing is going to stop it at this point.  Unfortunately too many people didn't pay attention in biology and they definitely didn't pay attention to Gregor Mendel and his theory of genetics.  Probably because they got stuck on Darwin but whatever the reason, the United States will continue to become less melanin impaired as the younger generation starts reproducing.  Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond (another Wilson foot in mouth moment) are good examples of why even with the worst best intentions you can't keep people from mingling with someone they are attracted to.  Even if it goes against everything they were taught or believe in.

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Please Clarify

Why do Republicans feel that our current so-called liberal President should only appoint conservatives to posts while a conservative president does not need to appoint any liberals while in office.  Why is their point of view so much more important than mine?  I'm an American citizen and I deserve representation also.  Why does it always have to be a one way street with these guys?

Stand and deliver?  From the Democrats?  Have you started inhaling?  I love ya Bill, but the spineless toads we have as representatives are more like run and hide.  The Republicans may be the party of no, but the Democrats have become the party of no balls.  Except for that Barney Frank guy.

And while I am also loathe to have a discussion with a dining room table, to Saxby Chambliss I say "Fuck you!"  I hardly ever cuss on my blog and I'm not an Obama supporter per se, but Mr. Chambliss really has gone one step over the line.  Whether you like it or not, Obama is the president and deserves the respect due that office.  The President doesn't have to express humility any more than Mr. Chambliss has to express intelligence.  And since Chambliss hasn't expressed any intelligence (but his racist freak flag is flying), I hope Obama doesn't express any humility during his speech to those who are supposedly our elected representatives but in actuality are highly paid goons sponsored by so many lobbyists and special interest groups that they have become the death panels that some nitwitted politician has so helpfully brought to our attention.

The American people have become expendable and it is the corporations über alles.  The minute healthcare reform became about health insurance reform the battle was lost.  Debtor's prisons are going to have to be built for the people who won't be able to pay for the mandates or the thirty five percent of their medical costs that won't be covered because they can't afford the top tier plan.  I want Medicare and I don't want to wait until I'm sixty five.  Medical care is a right, not a privilege.  The emergency room isn't treatment, it's a fall back position.  Oh yeah, when people can't afford car insurance or a car, they take public transportation.

Farrah Fawcett dies and Schwarzenegger cuts spending for victims of domestic violence.  The two probably have nothing to do with each other but the timing worked so I threw it in there.  Whatever the reason, domestic violence shelters are beginning to close their doors  during an economic downturn when violence typically increases.  It takes real arrogance for an overbuilt man to think that women and children who are beaten and abused will be able to change their situation without help and a safe place to stay.  Even in this day and age the police are not always willing to help victims of domestic violence, otherwise they would enforce protective orders a little more vigilantly.

It's interesting how the right wing thinks that every life is sacred.  At least until it's born, then it's every man for themselves.  Women are only supposed to do what they're told and have lots of babies that neither they or the planet can afford.  And if kids reach eighteen in one piece the right wing is all too willing to send them off to war or put them to death for an increasing number of crimes.  Education, housing, food, economic security and health care are for the peasants to provide for themselves.  If the kids do make it to old age the right wing is suddenly interested in them all over again to ensure that the elderly suffer until their last painful breath because nobody should interfere with God's will.  The right wing call themselves Christians because they say they believe in Jesus but they want the world to operate by way of the Old Testament.  What's up with that?

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No Child Left Behind

Some people in this country have lost their feeble minds.  One speech is not an indoctrination and if someone besides the parent or siblings can influence a child as much as these people fear, then the parents haven't done a very good job at raising them. The contrived brouhaha over the president giving a speech to school kids is so insane, not to mention disrespectful, that I can't believe it's happening in America.  Some backwards country on the other side of the globe, but not in America.

I am 53 and out of the eleven presidents in my lifetime, six have been Republicans who served for a total of 33 of those years and I remember all of them except Eisenhower.  My interest in politics started Halloween night 1964 when I overheard two parents vehemently discussing the difference between Goldwater and Johnson.  In 1968 we students held a school wide mock election at Vandenberg Junior High.  We had the same choices the adults had and even though I voted for Pat Paulsen (his campaign slogan was "I've upped my standards. Now, up yours."), Nixon won.  It was the first of many political disappointments for me. I survived.

The school is still located across the road from the front gate of Vandenberg AFB.  Back in the sixties and seventies it was a high security base, now you can walk on anytime you like.  I attended base schools until we moved to California and then I attended schools that were technically public but three fourths of the students were military brats.  As you can imagine, all of the schools were pretty conservative.  Never would one of them ever have considered blocking a president's speech to the students.  That was then.

Forty years have passed and the nation that eagerly looked forward to the future has become one believing in a history that doesn't exist.  Four years ago if you criticized the president you were branded a traitor by the right wing and now it is the patriotic thing to do at every opportunity, no matter how ridiculous.  For the previous eight years students were taught that they should listen respectfully to their president, now a few lunatics have determined that no children should listen to the president.  Why is that?

I am not a fan of President Obama, he's lived down to my expectations, but he is still the President.  As we were taught in the military, if you can't respect the man you can still respect the office.  School districts deciding that students don't need to hear what the President wishes to express to them because a few people object is not in the best interests of the students.  They go to school to learn and the only way they can do that is to be exposed to different points of view (who would have thought?).  After the speech they should be able to ask, and have their questions answered, by their teachers and their parents.  That is how you raise good citizens.  Now if the end goal is to produce mindless drones instead, then we are well on our way to being a nation of uninformed, unquestioning dummies.  And we will all be left behind.

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Stating The Obvious

And this is a surprise?  To whom?  The political landscape has become a pressure cooker with no release valve and some nut will take the opportunity to do what the voices tell him to do.  Unfortunately those voices belong to pundits and preachers who influence millions of people and that makes it increasingly likely that more than one person will decided to take matters into their own hands.  When you talk about someone as if they aren't human, as if they are the devil in disguise, the hate factor is ratcheted up into the stratosphere and logical thought flies out the window.  It won't occur to the perpetrators that they have lost the moral high ground, listening to the right justify killing someone at church is proof of that, and that the repercussions of their actions will bring about almost everything they fear.  Martial law, restrictions on what few civil liberties we have left and confiscation of as many weapons as possible.  But that won't stop them because their hatred knows no bounds.

My issue is with the Secret Service and the cavalier way they seem to be doing their job.  There is never, and I mean never, a good reason for people without a badge to have weapons around the President.  It has been almost 46 years since the last successful attempt to take the life of a President and there have been unsuccessful attempts since then.  Squeaky Fromme, Sara Jane Moore and John Hinckley spring to mind and you would think that the Secret Service would do everything in their power to prevent another attempt.  Especially since they were so good at making sure that people who were wearing tee shirts protesting the war or the administration and who were exercising the right of free speech, weren't allowed into events where Bush and Cheney were speaking.  Why does the Secret Service hold the Second Amendment in higher regard than the First?  But then I remember, the Secret Service has members that are comfortable hanging ropes that look like nooses in training facilities.

In October 2000 there was a television show named Freedom whose premise was a coup that started with the killing of the President by flying a plane into the White House.  It wasn't on long but as I think back it doesn't seem to be that far fetched.  No matter how many times the previous administration and their cheerleaders repeat the opposite, somebody did foresee using an airplane to attack the United States and it isn't that far of a stretch to think that someone will use the diatribes of Cheney and the encouragement of "pastors" to set the country back on the "right" course.

To the detriment of us all.

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Monday Morning WTFs

It isn't the President who termed it "torture", it was society.  And the law.  Many years before the Bush administration started using it on people they deemed less than human we had prosecuted and executed people for using those same procedures.

Panetta was reportedly upset over plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of allegations that CIA officers broke the law in carrying out certain interrogation techniques that President Obama has termed "torture."

Oh good grief!  No wonder America is becoming dumber by the minute.  Name a holiday that isn't about selling or buying.  If it isn't sheets, furniture or clothes, it's candy and/or diamonds.  While Roman holidays seemed to be about debauchery, American holidays are about money and shopping.  December 7th is barely remembered and April 19th quickly became a mote in the dustbin of history so why should September 11th be any different?

As most sane people know, a good majority of Freepers are off their rocker.  Well, the Freepers are not only rocking to a different beat, they are rocking on a whole different planet.  The "birther" fringe is now preoccupied with whether or not Obama has been circumcised.  The General found this so you don't have to.

hoosiermama:
The only other thing that hit me was that Sinclair said BO was not circumcised. When my son was born in a hospital that was done as a matter of routine without even consulting us. Would the same be for Hawaii? OTOH People born at home or in some other cultures are not circumcised.

Okay, they aren't on another planet, they are occupying a whole different universe. Bizarroland.

I accidentally got bit a few years ago when Shai was playing with another pug.  They were between the couch and the coffee table and got under my legs while they were play nipping at each other and Jack caught me in the back of the knee.  He didn't break the skin but I had a four inch wide bruise for more than two weeks.  And it hurt.

The CDC says adults with two or more dogs at home are five times more likely to get bitten than people with dog-free households.

Please tell me that they didn't spend money to figure that out.

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A Conspiracy For Dummies

After the 2000 election I thought the United States intellectual capital had reached bottom, but I was wrong.  The aftermath of 9/11 and the furious attempt to make someone, anyone pay for the tragedy proved that.  First it was innocent civilians in the country that harbored the soon to be forgotten Osama bin Laden.  But that wasn't enough to soothe the national psyche and so the military and the press were mobilized to attack and invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, that had no weapons of mass destruction (but did turn out to be the weapon of mass distraction) and no need for us to disrupt the fragile balance of power that was preventing internecine warfare.  And more innocent civilians paid the price.  To the average American with their yellow bumper sticker that was acceptable for more years than it should have been.

During the Clinton years what passed for public discourse took a serious right turn.  Into the gutter.  With the help of Fox News and a rotund drug addled pundit we were well on our way to becoming a hate nation.  Getting a blowjob from a consenting woman who isn't your wife is front page news for months.  Fraternizing with underage pages of the same sex, consorting with prostitutes while wearing a diaper, carrying on an affair in another country or while living in a Christian enclave, and soliciting other men in bathroom stalls while claiming to have the moral high ground is nothing to be ashamed of or investigated with the same zeal.  As long as you are a Republican.    Unfortunately for the GOP, one Republican did lose his political career over his sexual antics and is indirectly responsible for the president we now have in office. Very few people remember Jack Ryan (not the Tom Clancy guy) and his wishes to have sex with his now ex-wife Jeri Ryan in a public venue.

Having read all of the aforementioned Tom Clancy novels I can say I love a good conspiracy.  I still think there is more to the Kennedy assassination and while I don't believe that George Bush was behind 9/11, I do believe that the arrogance of the crew without a clue contributed to the success.  Underestimating your enemy is a good way for them to succeed.  So does ignoring presidential memos titled "Bin Laden determined to attack in US".  But this latest conspiracy is one I can't even entertain without a grimace and wondering how gullible and desperate some people can be.

 

Joe Heller

When I was in the Army I went to see a JAG lawyer about my citizenship.  I was born in England in a USAF base hospital as it states on the birth certificate I can no longer find but my passport states that I am and American citizen.  My mother was not a citizen at the time (she became one two years later) and I was concerned.  The lawyer assured me that I was a natural born citizen and could run for president if I wanted because my father was a citizen and I was born on American soil even if it was located in England. 

Obama's mother was a US citizen and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  The State of Hawaii has certified his birth and explained why they release the documents they do and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  There were birth notices in two Hawaii newspapers two weeks after his birth forty years ago and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  Obama has traveled on a US passport in and out of the country several times before becoming president and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  Hilary Clinton didn't find anything and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the lawsuit and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.  Numerous newspapers and fact finding organizations have found the birther questions to be without merit and that should be the end of the matter.  But it isn't.

No matter what documents get produced, no matter if someone comes forward that attended his birth and attests to his being born in Hawaii, no matter what information is released, there will be no satisfying those people who rabidly believe that Obama was born in Kenya.  Because in the back of their minds there is no way America could produce a black man who could grow up to be president.  They are supposed to be singing, dancing, acting or in jail.  And that's it.  Anything more and they must be one of them foreigners.

We are on our way to becoming a nation of whiners, crying for do overs.  Don't like the governor of California?  Spend millions of dollars the state doesn't have and recall him.  Don't like the current President of the United States?  Make up spurious claims in the hope that he resigns in disgrace, gets impeached with evidence that isn't there (instead of impeaching the previous occupant with evidence that did and still does exist), or hope that someone you don't know enacts the Tiller solution.  Anything but face the truth.  A majority of Americans elected Obama as the lesser of two evils.

Those of us who had to suffer through eight years of a presidency that we thought was stolen know how you feel and you are going to have to do just what we did.  Wait for election day.  November 6, 2012 is your next opportunity to set things "right".  Until then, quit demeaning yourselves by ranting and raving about an issue that has no merit.  And no proof.

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We Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Bitch, bitch, bitch.  Geez, we can't make anybody happy and truthfully, it isn't our job.  We elected Obama President of the United States and I'm sorry that he isn't the world leader you wanted.  He isn't the world leader I wanted but I've learned to deal and so will you.  He's better than his predecessor but that is only because the bar was set so low.  Be grateful he isn't worse.

Can I have what Horowitz has been smoking?  Exactly how are the Iraqis better off now than eight years ago?  Their cities and infrastructure are in ruins, hospitals are without doctors, women have lost most of their rights, electricity and running water are scarce, their economy is in shambles, tens of thousands of men, women and children are dead and we're leaving them to hold the bag.  This is improvement?  I'd hate to see what bad looks like.

Speaking of bad places to live, I'm headed off to California for the day.  I need to go to the DMV to get another title to my car, I lost the one I had.  Being a prudent person I called to make sure they were open and found out that it will take them six to eight weeks to process the paperwork.  I need the title ASAP because I need to get a title loan, not the smartest financial move but this is an emergency.  I cracked a molar right off the filling and every time I move my tongue the sharp point that is left scrapes the side of my tongue.  To say nothing of the constant metallic taste in my mouth.  On the bright side I've lost a few pounds this week because nothing tastes good.  And it hurts to chew.

Grasshopper, we hardly knew ye, maybe the KY Jelly would have been a better choice.  Rest in peace Kwai Chang Caine,

Stoking The Wingnut Ire And Other Interests

Yippee!  Greasemonkey has finally been updated to work with FF 3.5b4 and a few other extensions I like to use have been updated as well.  I really missed Colorful List View for Google Reader, it makes it much easier on the eyes when you have a 166 feeds.  And now that Google Reader Subscriber Count is working again, I find that I have more readers than a few months ago.  Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.  I may not be one of the big boys in the blogging world but at least I don't feel like I'm yelling into a void.

Folk hero? Umm, no.  He's a cold blooded murderer.  I think I'm safe when a guy is lying on the ground bleeding from a bullet wound to the head.  I wouldn't find it necessary to get another gun a minute or two later and fire five more bullets into him.  But then, I don't scare easily.  And since it's Oklahoma if it had been a black guy who shot and deliberately killed a white thief, he would be in jail and no anonymous donor would have posted bail, as if bail would have been an option.

Box said that another person might have reacted differently, but he asked: "When do you turn off that adrenaline switch? When do you think you're safe? I think that's going to be the ultimate issue."

As much as I dislike the man this is ridiculous.  Obama has a date night on Broadway with the wife and the GOP goes nuts (rapidly becoming their default state) because the country is in economic freefall and Le Prez shouldn't be relaxing.  Meanwhile Bush spent 487 days at Camp David and 490 day in Crawford, several of them while the Gulf Coast was drowning during Katrina, and not a peep was heard.  Two and a half years on vacation in an eight year term is okay but a night on the town is a no no.  And let's not forget that Condi was buying shoes and enjoying a Broadway show while a major city was underwater and the GOP said...nothing.  IOKIYAR applies to more than sex crimes, wow what a concept.

If you are homeless you shouldn't have computer access because you should be focused on getting a job according to a good proportion of the commenters at the WSJ.  Totally missing from these holier than thou people is the fact that most jobs are posted online and that if you submit an application for a job and don't have a home address or phone number that if you have an email address you can be reached for a job interview.  And that out of a 24 hour day only eight to ten hours are good for job hunting and the weekends are useless.  But they must suffer because they are homeless, they shouldn't be watching movies or enjoying music.  Personally, if I was an employer (not that there are many nowadays) I would look for enterprising people like these who are determined to stay connected and have figured out a way to do it without a permanent roof over their heads or a reliable source of electricity.

Since arriving in Reno I sneeze every day, at least twenty times and usually more.  When I first got here I had to take Benadryl constantly but the last week has been a little better.  I'm still sniffly and my eyes itch but my asthma is back under control and I can breathe through my nose most of the time.  Although I'm not the only one suffering I wish I knew what it was I'm allergic to.  Or it could be that my body is reacting to breathing air instead of San Jose smog.  Whatever it is I hope it goes away soon, I've blown thru several boxes of Kleenex  and I haven't had an uninterrupted nights sleep in a long time.  Supposedly the pollen count is on its way down.

The suffering, the trauma. It seems that the Chosen don't like it when they don't get everything they want and the world doesn't bow to their wishes.  Their idea of construction is we take what you had, you go live in a ghetto that we won't let you leave so we can bomb you at will.  When I was growing up I was told you could catch more bees with honey than you could with vinegar, nowadays it's all about killing the bees instead.  And as we are now finding out bees are important to survival, maybe the Palestinians are too.

The Fourth Estate Continues To Fail

There isn't a doubt in my mind that the national press are incompetent at best and bordering on treasonous at worst.  An independent Fourth Estate they most definitely are not.  For the last fifteen years they have persisted in reporting one side of the story, the GOP side, no matter what the circumstances and no matter what the story.  Fair, balanced and objective no longer seem to be the operating requirements for "journalists".  In depth reporting has gone the way of the dinosaur and bloggers have had to take up the slack.

The press, along with what passes for Congress for that matter, breathlessly reports in glowing terms or jumps to do the bidding of anything that the GOP wants.  Virtually without exception and definitely without question.  There have been a few that haven't followed the party line but it's more like throwing a few slices of bread to the masses and then they "see the light" and fall back into line.

I've watched in amazement and with quite a bit of disgust as they hang on to every word that anyone named Cheney utters, determined to anoint them as the second coming of the GOP.  Torture? Not a problem for anyone except what they term the liberal left or foreigners that don't know what they are talking about because they didn't suffer through 9/11 and therefore don't know anything about the effects of terrorism.  Heaven forbid that they should accurately report what torture is or that it is against the law in the United States and around the world and that it doesn't make us safer but it does make us less trusted.

If the press had done their job objectively before the 2000 election the outcome would have been much different.  If they had done their job after 9/11 the United States would not have been hoodwinked into invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 (I'm sorry but I can't use 9/11 twenty five times in one article), had no weapons of mass destruction and wasn't a threat to the United States.  But they didn't and as a result hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children either died or are suffering miserably.  And that includes citizens and taxpayers of the United States.

If the press were doing their job objectively today, Cheney and his family would not receive the exposure they are getting and it most certainly wouldn't be as positive.  Last week there were not dueling speeches between the President and a former Vice President, there was a Presidential speech (that I didn't bother listening to because it wasn't necessary) and a rant from an angry, fearful coward who knows he broke the law and doesn't want to go to jail.  But not to the press, not even remotely.  Cheney is being held up as the man who has our national security interests at heart and Obama doesn't.

When I was a young girl in the sixties, the New York Times was the paper of record and in the seventies the Washington Post was the leader in exposing the Watergate scandal.  Today neither one can be depended upon for objective reporting and then they wonder why newspapers are folding for lack of readership.  They can blame it on Craigslist or Twitter but the truth of the matter is that the press doesn't do their job of reporting the news, they are too busy trying to make the news into something that pleases their masters.   Which amounts to inane babble that informs no one and prevents the truth from being revealed.

The press spends their time carrying water for people who only care about themselves and their so-called legacy and refuse to see that they are repeating the mistakes that got us into the Iraq debacle in the first place.  Once again while the US is preoccupied with straw men, North Korea is not only rattling it's saber, it's testing nuclear weapons and threatening its neighbors.  And the press?  They are concerned with how wonderful Cheney is and why the Obama administration relies on background briefings instead of giving them every name, rank and serial number of their sources.  As if the Bush administration was as open as possible.  Is Jennifer Loven serious?  I don't remember any complaints when Bush and Cheney quoted unnamed sources stating that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or when Jeff Gannon was masquerading as a reporter.  If I was President Obama I would start calling on the smaller news outlets exclusively and ignore the hypocritical Cheney ass kissers such as the AP, NY Times and the Washington Post.  And that isn't arrogance, it's common sense since the press is going to make up the story they want anyway.  Just like they have done for the last fifteen years.

BBB

Spin, Baby Spin

Why don't they ever ask me?  While I believe in the right to bear arms, I don't believe in the right to own assault weapons and I also believe that gun owners should have background checks and a psychological evaluation.  Guns don't kill people, people do and guns make it easier.  Or has everyone missed all the multiple shootings lately?  How many people need to be outfitted like Michael Gross and Reba McIntyre in Tremors?

You know what's impractical?  Having health insurance when one doesn't have a job and it doesn't look like one will be appearing any time in the near future.  I just love how the powers that be in Washington think that a single payer system isn't viable while they benefit from having government paid healthcare.  That we the taxpayers provide.

Four months into his presidency and Obama is revealing his true colors, pretty much like I warned before he was elected.  Like every other career politician all he's interested in is protecting the status quo, in other words he got elected and is now reneging on almost every campaign promise lie.  Guantanamo is still open and doesn't look like it is going to close anytime soon, afraid to release the torture photos that everyone including the terrorists knows exist, not willing to investigate or prosecute anyone involved in authorizing or committing torture, caving on health care, etc.  He's Bush 2.0, the dark version.

I made a comment last week on Big Brass Blog that one of the upsides of being financially destitute was that I no longer received credit card offers.  And ever since I've been receiving at least two a day through email.  First Premier sent me one a few minutes ago titled "Giving me a second chance at the credit card I've been waiting for."  I'm not waiting for a credit card, I'm looking for a job.  One that will let me pay my bills, such as the cell phone that is temporarily disconnected.  Which is making it really hard to find a job since I can only be reached by email.  Now I have to hope that I don't need to call an ambulance for mom.

I don't believe Pelosi any more than I do Cheney.  These guys really do believe that Americans are stupid and will say anything to stay in power.  Anything.  Spin, baby spin.

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Sunday Morning Diversions

Well, the WaPo is at it again, trying to create a crisis where none exists.  Yes the H1N1 flu virus has made people sick, the flu usually does that but it is not a pandemic and it is already dying down.  But did that stop the intrepid reporters from the Post?  No way Jose.  A two page article in the Sunday edition, still calling it swine flu and a whole section devoted to stoking the fire.  Approximately 36,000 people a year die from the flu and that number could be overstated but the news ignores that and hypes the death toll from this new version as a coming pandemic.  Since when are 19 deaths in a poor country a pandemic?  If they had paid this much attention to SARS when it first started it might not have spread as much as it did.  One thing the flu did accomplish, it knocked torture right off the front page.  How convenient.

The number of confirmed dead in Mexico stood at 19 on Saturday, unchanged from the day before, Córdova said at a news conference in Mexico City. Confirmed swine flu cases, including the deaths, rose from 397 to 473.

Why is it that people are willing to risk serious injury or death to lose weight but they aren't willing to cut calories and get exercise?  The only way to successfully lose weight and to keep it off are to change bad eating and exercise habits.  That's it, there is no other way.  No matter what diet you are on if you don't change your approach towards food on a permanent basis then you will put the weight back on.  It may take a few months or it may take a couple of years but most likely at the end of five years you will be back to your original weight, plus a few extra pounds. Park at the rear of the lot, take the stairs, cut back on the sodas and alcohol, eat more colors (otherwise known as vegetables) and not only will you lose weight you will feel better and your cholesterol will decrease.  Now that is a win, win.

I deeply resent it when people assume that because someone is liberal they want revenge on the Bush administration for authorizing torture and that those who are conservative approve or condone torture and believe that we should let bygones be bygones.  Neither of those assumptions is completely true and only serve to continue to polarize the country.  Do I believe that torture is wrong?  Yes.  Do I believe that those who authorized it should be punished?  Yes.  Does it matter that it was the Bush administration?  No.  I would feel the same way if it had happened under Carter, Clinton or the current fox guarding the henhouse, Obama.  Torture is wrong, it will always be wrong, nothing is going to change that and the perpetrators should be punished.  Not even a ticking clock is a valid excuse.  Better to die with my head held high than to live under a cloud of shame and hypocrisy.  Most Americans used to feel the same way before they were fed the pablum that passes as news.

Given a choice between putting convicted criminals to death or finding the criminals who committed murders and haven't been found, I opt to find the criminals running free.  Hopefully Colorado will decide that the money used to try and kill those already convicted will be better used to hunt down and prosecute those who think they have gotten away with murder.  Not all cases will be solved but there are many parents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands and children who would like to know who killed their loved ones.

Dipshit.  I'm sorry I ever believed in you.

A little humor to lighten the morning.  These classifieds actually ran in newspapers - a smile for your day.

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8-years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!

FREE PUPPIES:
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbor's dog.

FREE PUPPIES..
Mother, AKC German Shepherd.
Father, Super Dog...able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

FOUND DIRTY WHITE DOG.
Looks like a rat. Been out a while. Better be a big reward.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

NORDIC TRACK
$300 Hardly used, call Chubby.

GEORGIA PEACHES
California grown - 89 cents/lb.

JOINING NUDIST COLONY!
Must sell washer and dryer $300.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE.
Worn once by mistake. Call Stephanie.

And the best one?:

FOR SALE BY OWNER:
Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, 45 volumes Excellent condition.
$1,000 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last month. Wife knows everything.

Big Brass Blog

Do Unto Others

Yesterday the FX channel showed A Few Good Men and while everyone remembers "you can't handle the truth" very few people remember the pressure exerted on Marines to follow orders no matter what or the ending and the judgment rendered against the two Marines.  It seems that back in 1992 following an illegal order was enough to have you kicked out of the military with a dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming a Marine.  Just like it was when I joined the Army in 1974.  It's almost funny that the crime took place at Gitmo.

On the charge of Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

It's hard to resist the temptation to scream and shout, but they do.

RANDOLPH
(continuing; reading)
On the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Murder, the Members find the defendants Not Guilty.

RANDOLPH looks up. Then reads from the last slip of paper.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
On the charge of Conduct Unbecoming a United States Marine, the members find the defendants Guilty as Charged.

A little of the energy drains out of the room.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
The defendants are hereby sentenced by this court to time already served, and are ordered...

RANDOLPH clears his throat.

RANDOLPH
(continuing)
... And are ordered to be dishonorably discharged from the marine corps.
(pause) This Court-Martial is adjourned.

RANDOLPH raps his gavel.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
Ten hut.

All rise.

RANDOLPH's gone.

SERGEANT AT ARMS
(continuing)
Dismissed.

The M.P.'s move to DAWSON and DOWNEY to unlock their handcuffs. KAFFEE is packing up his things, just another day at the office.

DAWSON
Why?

KAFFEE
Harold, I'm sorry.

DAWSON
Why?!

DOWNEY
I don't understand. Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red.

JO
I know, but--
 
DOWNEY
Colonel Jessep said he ordered the Code Red, what did we do wrong?

JO
It's not as simple as--

DOWNEY
What did we do wrong?

DAWSON
We did nothing wrong.

If it wasn't a viable excuse in 1992, it's even less of an excuse when you have a college degree (required to join the CIA) or a medical degree and are supervising torture. Waterboarding two men 266 times and receiving the same answers shows that torture doesn't work.  Common sense dictates that if they haven't given any more information after the first or second time, they aren't going to cough up anything useful on the hundredth time.  By then they know they aren't going to die from simulated drowning and that their captors are depraved idiots following illegal orders.

Why is it considered torture when our troops are subjected to water-boarding but not when we do it to other people?

Interestingly, we weren't nearly as blithe about waterboarding when it happened to our own guys during World War II. Then, we considered it a war crime and a form of torture.

In "Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts," Judge Evan Wallach of the U.S. Court of International Trade has documented the trials in which the United States used evidence of water-boarding as a basis for prosecutions. The article, still in draft form, will be published soon by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Among the numerous examples, Wallach cites one involving four Japanese defendants who were tried before a U.S. military commission at Yokohama, Japan, in 1947 for their treatment of American and Allied prisoners. Wallach writes, in the case of United States of America vs. Hideji Nakamura, Yukio Asano, Seitara Hata and Takeo Kita, "water torture was among the acts alleged in the specifications ... and it loomed large in the evidence presented against them."

Hata, the camp doctor, was charged with war crimes stemming from the brutal mistreatment and torture of Morris Killough "by beating and kicking him (and) by fastening him on a stretcher and pouring water up his nostrils." Other American prisoners, including Thomas Armitage, received similar treatment, according to the allegations.

Armitage described his ordeal: "They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about 2 gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness."

Hata was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, and the other defendants were convicted and given long stints at hard labor as well.

Wallach also found a 1983 case out of San Jacinto County, Texas, in which James Parker, the county sheriff, and three deputies were criminally charged for handcuffing suspects to chairs, draping towels over their faces and pouring water over the towel until a confession was elicited. One victim described the experience this way: "I thought I was going to be strangled to death. ... I couldn't breath."

The sheriff pleaded guilty and his deputies went to trial where they were convicted of civil rights violations. All received long prison sentences. U.S. District Judge James DeAnda told the former sheriff at sentencing, "The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country."

Hmm, so we have prosecuted our own law enforcement agencies for performing water torture but the CIA. the doctors and everyone else involved in these heinous acts against people in their custody are not to be punished?  Right now President Obama is no better than President Nixon was when he had Lt. Calley removed from the stockade after a single weekend after being sentenced to hard labor for the rest of his life for killing innocent women and children at My Lai 4.

I love this country but I am not immune to its faults and lately they have been obvious to everyone but us.  Whenever we feel threatened we feel we can use any means necessary to accomplish our goals but we want others to be punished (Mr. President, I'm sure you saw those documents as you studied for that law degree, they were in your college library) for using those same means.  I guess this means that our motto is no longer "Land of the free, home of the brave" it's more along the line of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but do it first."

As John Adams said many years ago, we are a nation of laws.  Mr. Obama it is your job to enforce them.  Otherwise you, and by definition America, are nothing more than an empty suit.

BBB

Abusing The Country

This is the opposition?  They sound like they've been listening to too many "experts"and it certainly sounds like Gregg has turned off his brain as if it was a light switch.  Anyway you look at it tomorrow's generation is going to have to pay for the sins of the Bush administration and to say that President Obama's budget is irresponsible after eight years of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the almost continuous war on the poor, is a little too much like downing bottles of champagne and then trying to convince the police officer that you aren't drunk, you still have the judgment to drive and the alcohol on your breath is from a mint.

Gregg repeated what has become an opposition mantra, saying the president's plan "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much."

As opposed to the billions lost to graft and greed in the last eight years which will never to be accounted for, corporations getting ridiculous tax breaks and then moving their operations to a different country so they can avoid any taxes or paying workers a living wage, stealing the youth of today to fight wars whose only accomplishments were to kill innocent civilians, a couple of politicians in a sovereign state that had nothing to do with terrorist acts perpetrated on the United States yet lets Osama bin Laden wander free to continue creating havoc and leaves the veterans to suffer neglect and abuse after serving their country honorably?

Republicans need to get a grip on reality and realize that the country is in a hole that they dug and learn to support their president.  Or at least that's what they've been telling the rest of us for the last eight years while they destroyed the Constitution and rammed disaster after disaster down our throats while threatening us with treason for speaking out about being treated like an abused wife.  The country divorced you and it didn't ask for alimony or child support, it just wants you to go away while it tries to rebuild itself.

And like true abusers, Republicans keep believing that more abuse will make us see it their way.  Until they get therapy and realize that not only are they part of the problem but that they created the situation, the country is not going to listen to much of what they say.

BBB

Class Warfare Continues

While Wall Street companies who receive taxpayer's money and then spend it frivolously on planes, parties and bonuses, the people who were put out of work by the aforementioned's poor fiscal policies are now in eight states facing some type of legislated drug testing in order to collect benefits.  In Tennessee if you are unfortunate enough to be born into poverty and are forced to either use welfare to survive or die, there is a bill proposing that if you win the lottery you only receive $600 of it.  So, if a poor person won a million dollars they could have $600 and still live in the ghetto.  Besides the fact that it is poor financial planning to hope that the lottery will end your poverty, this bill is more about punishing people for being poor than it is about helping them get out of poverty.

Drug testing is not the only restriction envisioned for people receiving public assistance: a bill in the Tennessee Legislature would cap lottery winnings for recipients at $600.

And the commenters.  Well, it's more than obvious that they still have jobs and money in the bank.  I have never agreed with random drug testing for any reason.  I understand that pilots, truckers and other moving vehicle operators need to be tested as an issue of public safety, but why should a person who wants to be a dog sitter at Petsmart or a person unfortunate enough to need to apply for food stamps be tested?  The tests aren't cheap, sometimes they aren't even accurate and the sheer number of people being tested to qualify for state or federal programs will set up another bureaucracy at a time when state budgets are already past their limits.

This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to kick people when they are down and to increase the amount of governmental control over individual lives.  It's interesting how Gingrich and the rest of the Republicans can babble on and on about Obama instituting a dictatorship when what Republicans are really trying to do is control your "life" from conception until death.

And since when did unemployment become welfare?  Just by definition it says that you were working and money was paid into the system on your behalf.  And while you were working they took money out of your check for Federal, State, sometimes Local and here in California, Disability taxes.  Grrr.

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