June 2, 2009: Douchebag o’ the Day

On a related note, an openly gay legislator in Oklahoma (who is also a friend of mine) has issued a thoughtful response to Sally Kern’s hateful proclamation and called for an apology. I thought it was well written, although I was disappointed that he spelled publicly “publically”. Still, there are far worse typos one can make with that word.

Note to Grannie Dragon:

The Financial industry, GM and Chrysler didn’t need any help from Obama to destroy themselves.

As for US America healthcare? Do you really want to protect the Health Insurance industry?

This is a comment that I have written out several times and never posted. However, serolfd has now pushed me over the edge and I will write now what must never be written.

What this country needs is to be invaded. And have its cities reduced to rubble. Like Europe. And to be on food rationing for 15 or so years. And then rebuild itself brick by brick. Like Europe. Then tell me about ’socialism’.

And these fools.

@Benedick: What makes you think it hasn’t? Have you taken a close look at Bachmann? Newt? Do they really need to gush green oatmeal out of their faces for you understand that America is in the grip of a monstrous alien culture already?

I note that the Women’s Club website has a statement that they had no knowledge of the letter. No apology, no resignation. Just a “we regret that this got so much play” sort of statement.

@Mistress Cynica: He also wrote “principal” when he meant “principle.” Aside from that, nice statement.

The internets are fast.

I’d say this Missouri state representative is a runner-up for DOTD, for saying the summer school lunch program should be ended because hunger is a “motivator.”

Glad to see the Republican ladies can represent. Wouldn’t want Bachman to be the sole GOP crazee lady.

More about the Busby Fundraiser saga:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/07/berserk.php?ref=fpblg

Apparently convinced he was in some sort of imminent danger from the group middle-aged, mainly female Democratic activists, Abbott proceeded to call in back up, which lead to eight more deputies, a helicopter and a canine unit being dispatched to the scene.

Well, the use of the ALL CAPS in a string of crazy is deftly done by this clown. Credit where due.

Benedick: Trouble is, we have been reduced to rubble, several times. Around here, we call it the West Side. Or Harvey. Or Gary.

@FlyingChainSaw: You’re confusing the seeming with the real.

@chicago bureau: I remember miles of abandoned houses in London. Acres bombed flat. And bomb shelters. And I’m talking about the late 50s. I remember food rationing. Do not confuse the ignorance of the right in this country with genuine hardship.

@Benedick: Oh, I know. Friend, researcher in a related field, moved there 7 years ago and learned of those era’s struggles from the old timers at work. I was kidding about the psychopathic right but not much. The hardship in the states is spread around in mostly invisible ways. For most of the country incredible, unshakable debt and no sense that a family could survive a major illness without losing a home or a place to live is normal now. Huge numbers of people live in grinding poverty without any hope of seeing a doctor in dying cities that are even losing bus service. Those 40 million without insurance? I’d bet most of them don’t live in cities with populations greater than 1 million. The people living in tents in the states now may be able to buy a pallet load of mac and cheese for $20 but it doesn’t mean they feel no stress. And there is certainly no counter-veiling sense of community in common challenges in the states. There is silence and furtive glances from neighbors as the parents confront the constable with the foreclosure and eviction notice. A report a few days later in the local paper notes the wife blowing her brains out. Neighbors watch the truck cart the repo’ed furniture away and they run back into their homes and stare at the floor and wonder when it will be over for them.

@Benedick: @FlyingChainSaw: I’d take misery in solidarity (post-WWII Europe) over misery in isolation (FCS’s evocative scenarios) any day.

@FlyingChainSaw: Gotcha. That’s an original and poetic view of this dying empire. What we never hear about is the 2 trillion cost of the Iraq invasion and the 51% spending on weapons. Which is what will bring us down.

@flippin eck: What’s weird about the states is there is no sense of common interest or experience at all. Everyone knew the banks and the federal reserve were boiling us all alive in this freakish financial doomsday machine. Foreclosures happening everywhere, all over, and millions living in cars or recouches and no sense of shared rage. The banks are on TV shouting how they’ve been victimized and deserve more deregulation, bigger bonuses and the right to shoot, kill and eat every homeowner, eat baby harp seals on their private jets, etc. Yet to be a protest yet of any size against gangsta banking.

@Benedick: Not original. I read about that case in an online edition of a small-town publication some months back. I am sure it’s not that novel – just that the wife blew herself away on the very day of the foreclosure eviction instead of waiting until she was watching her kids trying to make crystal meth to make the rent on the trailer.

“the 2 trillion cost of the Iraq invasion and the 51% spending on weapons. Which is what will bring us down.” Always the way of empire. Demented over reach. Eisenhower at least had the guts to tell the country the cost of civilization may be confiscatory taxes. No one has the guts to put the bill on the table and start calculating the costs of amortizing it in a less than geologic-scale timetable.

@FlyingChainSaw: As did Carter. The last moral man in the white house.

TJ from Law.Stinque.Com: Northern District of California Judge Vaughn Walker denies request for preliminary injunction to suspend Prop. 8, but tells the parties that he wants this on the fast track and he wants expansive briefings filed because “what happens here is only a prelude to what is going to happen later.”

Papers due August 7

And yes, this legal update was sourced solely by out-of-town papers, because my local fishwrap has fired so many reporters that they can no longer cover breaking news such as this, or last weekend’s destruction of the pride triangle. Instead, it now features Twitter feeds, links to local tee vee stations, and blogs by trustafarian offspring of J.P. Getty and front page articles about the Jonas Brothers.

@Benedick: What this country needs is to be invaded. And have its cities reduced to rubble.

What does it say about our country that this is precisely what the Glenn Beck wingers are calling for, in order to mobilize their catatonic base? I think it may mean we are without any sense of single purpose, Beyond Melting Pot. The Great Extruder, maybe.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: I mean that there is no sense of reality, no sense of shared misfortune. Only scorn of those who have suffered real loss. I think of the Iraqi woman who went to a makeshift morgue to try to piece together the corpse of her son.

And I think of the outrage that we might have to stop taxing the Madoffs of this world.

I’ve never seen Glen Beck and I mean to keep it that way. If only I had never heard of Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich.

@SanFranLefty: There is no need to abandon the city streets. Even papers had multiple steps to page production newspapers had plenty of guys who never saw the inside of a newsroom and filed by telephone. And that stuff had to be dictated to a rewrite desk, then edited and then sent to typesetting. There is no reason not to have people with cheap, durable digital cameras zapping stuff in netbooks riding local Wifi through open loops or subscriber hotspots, many of which will give access to multiple subscription services. Given the connectivity available today there is no need for reporters to be anywhere a news room. If the Chronicle cared about its own survival, they’d turn the building downtown into a massage parlor, keep a couple of servers in the basement with a few offices for the editors and bid out the printing.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: Melting pot? Is that why all these people are running the border spraying the shrubs with machine gun fire?

@Benedick: Some idiot in the Orygun legislature is on a flat-tax-rate kick, and Mr Cyn and I were just talking about how the people who will be most in favor of that are no doubt the ones who would be most hurt by it. Poor and working class people prefer to identify with millionaires and support policies that benefit the rich rather than admit they will never be rich themselves. I don’t know how we got here, but I think the isolating and voyeuristic constant TV-watching has something to do with it. No one knows, or wants to know, their neighbors. They want to watch the flat screen they bought with plastic and dream of the day they strike it rich.

Is there an ideal revenge scenario for Jenny? Pestoking Duke’s LaCrosse team, swim team and football team and posting a video on YouTube giggling that she’s never seen a real penis before?

@FlyingChainSaw: That’s why we’re “beyond” melting pot. Now we’re just a nation of shouters, picking sides in a battle that just gets endlessly more idiotic but always louder.

@Benedick: I agree completely. This nation comes together for the death of a pop star or the birth of the next set of octuplets, nothing more/less. If we can put it on a magnet and slap it on our cars, fine. Dashboard Jesus, mudflap Mary.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: We came to together to elect Obama. That was no small achievement.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: Superbowl Sunday, our greatest holiday celebrating sloth and materialism.

@Mistress Cynica:

Washington (State) faced a $9 Billion deficit and our super-majority Dem legislature and Dem governor put together an all-cuts budget that’s absolutely devastated services for children, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and our last-resort state healthcare program.

Forcing our society’s most vulnerable groups to bear the brunt of the economic collapse is just amoral and evil. And I’m not talking about the phony morality espoused by America’s professional Pharisees.

One of my buddies went to a town hall meeting sponsored by his state rep which focused on trying to get an income tax (which WA doesn’t have) in place on people making over $250K per year. One of the loudest anti-tax voices was from an older, greasy, banged up gent in a wheelchair who looked like he depended on the state for all kinds of aid. Every time the rep tried to explain that there has to be some kind of relief for the imminent collapse of education and already bare-bones social services–which this guy would obviously benefit from–his reply was the same: “NO INCOME TAX!!”

I should add that independent experts from all over the country have examined Washington State’s government and found that we have one of the most efficiently run, least wasteful in the nation, # 3 out of 50 according to one study, so it’s not like we’re crazy-pissing money away. We also have billionaires out the yin-yang.

In short, our state’s nihilistic citizens apparently have decided they would rather see the state collapse than pay for it. The End.

@Original Andrew: It’s the American way! Not rich? In trouble? Borrow a buddy’s overunder, squeeze and suck hard, fucker! Fucking die knowing that you will never, ever upset a Boeing exec’s ability to eat a fifth baby harp seal on his private jet while watching a midget fucking-and-snuffing show. Once the roads are filled with encampments of homeless people, the Bill Gateses of the world can drive around and buy entire families for all manner of twisted entertainments, laughing uproariously while holding out a potato in exchange for a father to eat his own foot in front of his family! Yes, that is the America we all pray for! Finally, justice for all!

@Original Andrew: My talking point w/r/t income taxes is that they are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. And if US ‘Merikens are not willing to pay those dues, then we will continue to slide to a horribly unequal society. I wish people like that guy and the smug rich anti-taxers could be forced to spend a week in Calcutta (or fuck, watch Slumdog Millionaire) or walk around the homeless encampments in Fresno and Bakersfield and then be asked if they want to have L.A. or Seattle or Kansas City look like Calcutta. The dumbasses most in favor of the flat taxes or tea-bagging will not be behind the smoked windows of the chauffer-driven SUV in ‘Merika’s Calcutta.

/end rant

@Original Andrew:
I got annoyed because I had to write a check to the gubbiment of Canada City, but I still sent it in. I’m also in a higher income bracket (for now).

Typical of most guys who freak out about income taxes even in Canada City. Most of them don’t and won’t ever make the thresholds. It’s one thing to be a pathological asshole, but it’s a double hell to be stupid as well.

I gots a great one: Director of a “CHRISTIAN MILITARY ACADEMY” down my way arrested for child pron. Be back with link.

@FlyingChainSaw: 30 plus years of Republican politics, create support through enflaming, inciting, setting the fires, of division and hate. Thats why America has no sense of common cause, common identity.

Now this is gonna hurt, just take your medicine, liberals do it, too, with less hate, with the identity politics and special interest politics. Yes, we do. It should stop, on our side, too.

“Christian Military Academy,” I love that, I bet they eat lots of Jumbo Shrimp. http://www.app.com/article/20090701/NEWS/90701084/-1/FRONTTABS01/Military+academy+head+faces+child+porn+charges

By the way, the smoker worked, great, great response, profitable day.

@Promnight: Do what? The snakehandlers know they deserve to have their eyes pulled out with cork screws and to be Skull Fucked to death. It is God’s Fucking Will! DIE YOU FUCKS, DUCKING FIE!

Everybody loves slow smoked ribs, and the chicken is even better, hey, at least we have that in common.

I have to add this one, this was a story worthy of note, my paper carried an AP story today, which said that Farah Fawcett’s death is raising awareness about anal cancer, and further, went on to note, that anal cancer is usually associated with HPV infections of the anus, and that, now get this, its associated with teh buttseks.

Yes, it almost right out said, Farah got the anal cancer from teh buttseks.

Damn, now teh wimminz have an almost airtight grounds for refusal.

@Promnight: Build 1o of them and take them to office parks and enslave the workers.

@Promnight: Wow, brings whole new meaning to the phrase fucked to death.

Here it is, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gpv9jjk7ecelsk69ckiNZDbPz6RgD995VKI81

Farah Fawcett, the ultimate poster girl, to be the poster child for sexually transmitted anal cancer, oy, I am reeling.

I didn’t even know enough to fantasize about THAT back when I had her poster on my wall, damn.

I also read that she avoided any chemo that would make her hair fall out until too late. Ooops.

@Promnight: HPV is also responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancers (women who don’t have sex with men very rarely get that form of cancer). So basically, girls, having sex with men (esp. uncut men, BTW) can give you cancer.

Death, destruction and strife throughout the world and the local weekly and a local tv station ran a story tonight on a squabble among a dozen people in my ‘hood over some peacocks.

Cuz it’s not like Arizona is in the middle of a budget crisis or anything.

@ManchuCandidate:

But you arguably get huge benefits for your Canada City bux. As Benedick mentioned above, half of our tax dollars go to support our worldwide Military Industrial Death Machine. One wonders how much longer that can continue.

Mr. OA and I are going to Vancouver, BC, July 24th-27th, and we need to start practicing our “oh, ah-boot thats,” and “ehs,” lest we be surrounded by anti-AmuriKKKan Canucks yelling “those Yanks are trying to enjoy our liberalism for free–let’s get ‘em!!!”

@Jamie Sommers:

Yeah, here’s one of the top stories from my local nooz:

Sparks fly over Nearly Naked Fireworks

PUYALLUP, Wash. — If the signs for Nearly Naked Fireworks don’t stop traffic, the women waving them most likely will.

The bikini-clad women stand roadside in an attempt to lure customers. But the high heels that lead to the racks of rockets are drawing red glares and a lot of stares from the neighbors.

“I have a family, and we think it’s immoral,” said Stephen Adams, another resident.

Yes, this is a society that has all of its priorities straight.

@blogenfreude: “Froomkin No Longer Available”

Missed everything. Went fishing with the boy, had True Adventure in the mountains. He may be hooked. Had to tie more flies tonight.

@Mistress Cynica: The current sec of health for my fair state, in one of his first senior staff meetings upon taking office, was being briefed by a very prim and proper deputy for infectious diseases. When they got to HPV statistics, one of his aides mentioned that she was scheduling for her 12 y.o. to get the vaccine; the secretary, with a teen of his own, blurted “well then, you’re going to have a sexually promiscuous daughter on your hands, aren’t you?”

Otherwise he’s a pretty smart guy.

ADD: @redmanlaw: we’re off in mere minutes. Don’t know if there will be a Jam this weekend, but look for new pix from Cafe Prom after Monday, either here or in the sandbox.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: That attitude always causes severe head-slapping around here. Looking forward to a full report from Cafe Prom.

@Original Andrew: You’re not going to… tie the knot while there, are you??

@Benedick:

No, but we may request asylum at the border.

@Benedick:

WA now has a Domestic Partnership registry that offers 100% of the rights and obligations of marriage, so we’re already as hitched as two dudes can get here*.

*Pending potential repeal by voters if Referendum 71 qualifies for the November, 2009, ballot.

Uh-oh. I just peeked at the National Debt Clock.

It’s increasing at a rate of about $100,000 per second. Kuleefurnya is a glimpse at the future. More vodka, please.

Am I the only one at work today? I can hear the crickets chirping in my building.

@Original Andrew: I am working today and tomorrow. But hey – OT is OT.

@Original Andrew: But Kuleefurnya can’t print money.

Oh, wait — yes it can.

@Original Andrew: I’m at work, which is a good thing, as it’s supposed to hit 95F today and my office has AC but home does not.

@Original Andrew: Freelance means every day’s a holiday, and every day’s a work day.

@nojo:

So how are things looking for that CA Constitutional Convention?

@nojo: Yep. Engraving of Arnold in his Speedo on the obverse, the San Andreas Fault on the reverse.

@Original Andrew: Personally, I’m afraid of allowing the drooling pigfuckers out of their cages.

@Dodgerblue:

You mean your legislators?

And is that a direct quote from The Governator?

@Original Andrew: I mean the portion of the Cal electorate that doesn’t live near the coast or in Palm Springs, home for many well-tanned GLBT folks.

@Nabisco checks his feet for horseshoes: I think the Jam’s gonna take a nap for awhile. Maybe a deep sleep, now that we have an alternative.

@Original Andrew: I’m at work. And for the next few days.

Oh. And it’s raining again.

@Benedick: But you are doing creative work, yes? Art.

@Benedick:

I’m just the designated warm body at the office to answer client service calls and e-mails today, of which there’ve been a total of two. Yah think traffic’s died down? Yah may hear my tires squealing in the parking lot at 4:58.

Hi, everybody! Did I miss anything? BTW, Vicodin = awesome.

@Dodgerblue: I’m doing something incredibly laborious which has been making me nuts for several months. I am, however, beginning to see daylight. And who knows, perhaps it’ll work out well in the end.

@rptrcub: Vicodin is awesome. Hope you’re feeling better. We’re commiserating with OA who seems to be the company patsy doing splendid work when everyone else has gone home.

@rptrcub:

Are you done with classes? I hope we’ll be seeing your handsome mug more often around here ; )

@Original Andrew: Classes aren’t over inasmuch as I’m not in so much pain after the Wed. surgery, though I still hurt. I hope you get out of work soon.

@Benedick: I just hope the FDA doesn’t follow through with the recommendation to take it away.

@rptrcub: FDA is only looking at getting rid of it because of the acetaminophen it contains, which can cause severe liver damage. There will still be a version with the narcotic plus ibuprofen. I checked. Glad to see you conscious and online. Hope all went well with the surgery.

@Mistress Cynica: Thx… it was a success according to the doc; it will just take a bit before I feel the full benefits. My problem with getting rid of the acetaminophen laden version is that in my case, NSAIDs can cause blood to thin, creating a dangerous situation if you’re expected to bleed profusely after surgery.

This 4th of July, give me Percocet, Lorcet, Valium, Vicodin, Lorazepam, Meprozine, Demerol and liquid Morphine, or give me death.

@rptrcub:

OK, just got caught up on your blog. Feel better soon! (cyber-hug!)

@Benedick: Yes, vicodin is awesome, and the FDA just decided to ramp down the tylenol component, on account tylenol destroys yer liver. So, soon, it will be possible to safely take more vocodin than you should, without winding up with 4,000 mg of tylenol destroying yer liver. Happy days.