The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Glenn Beck=Stupid

So Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA is unpatriotic.  As one poster remarked, Glenn Beck has finally said something so stupid that even stupid people recognize its stupidity.  You would think he had learned something after trying to insinuate that Revolution by The Beatles was a progressive plot to institute Marxism, but you would be wrong.  I wonder if Beck has read the lyrics to John Mellencamp's Little Pink Houses.  On second thought, his head is still attached to his body so I guess not.  Beck needs a serious vacation time at one of those rehab facilities.  Not to fix his stupidity, he's too far gone for that, but to give the rest of us a break.

Because we certainly aren't getting one from our elected "Representatives".  No public option because Pelosi and company have given up.  Their corporate masters are too strong.
If there was any lingering doubt as to whether the public option would survive the final health care motion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ended it on Friday morning.

"We had it. We wanted it," Pelosi told reporters at a press briefing. "It's not in reconciliation... We're talking about something that is not going to be part of the legislation."
Why? Was it late for dinner?  More than a majority of the American people want the public option but they might as well be wishing for Santa Claus to be real.  Or for the Tooth Fairy to leave something under their pillow.

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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Five For Five

The Supreme Court is going to hear the case of of a man who was forced to listen to, read obnoxious phrases on homemade signs, and in general was harassed while he buried his son on what is usually the worst day in any parents life by a group of so-called religious fanatics.  What makes it even worse is that his son was a Marine who died in service to his country.

I am a strong defender of our First Amendment's rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion. but I have to wonder why this is even an issue, much less, has become a case that for the Supreme Court.  It brings to mind the famous phrase "You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?  Have you left no sense of decency?"  As a side note, the McCarthy-Welch exchange was quite insightful and reading it showed me just how far our behavior (and that of a certain South Carolina representative) has fallen from civility.

As the Supreme Court has been exceedingly liberal in its interpretation of the Second Amendment and now considers a corporation an individuals, it shouldn't be that much of a stretch for them to decide that the behavior exhibited by members of the Westboro Baptist "Church" and others like them goes against all decent human behavior and should be called what it is, the equivalent of falsely screaming fire in a crowded theater.

I've never had children, but I have known people who have lost one.  My father's mother had a daughter who died at sixteen and my dad also died before she did.  Her words at his funeral still ring in my mind.  "I never thought I'd outlive him."  She didn't speak much in her remaining seven years and she stared out into space as if she was lost.  She still had her faculties but she wasn't the same woman.

I remember how I felt listening to the proceedings, carrying his casket to his final resting place and watching as the dirt covered him up.  It still affects me the same way nineteen years later and I don't know how gracefully I would have handled the Westboro nuts if they had been picketing my dad's funeral.  Probably not very well.

Since Liz Cheney can't keep her stupid mouth shut over things she knows nothing about, does this mean that John Adams was unpatriotic because he defended the British after the Boston Massacre?  And successfully at that?
Now Cheney's daughter, Liz, has taken up the cudgel by heading what some are describing as a McCarthyite campaign to purge the government of lawyers who dared to defend men, and even a child, accused of terrorism. The lawyers drew particular ire by sometimes defeating in court the Bush administration's attempts to declare itself beyond the law.

Liz Cheney and her organisation, Keep America Safe, have dubbed lawyers who acted on behalf of accused terrorists, and who now work for the department of justice, the "al-Qaida seven". The group has rebranded the justice department the "department of jihad".
President Adams believed that we were a nation of laws, I'm pretty sure he would be appalled at the disrespect the Constitution has been receiving for the last ten years.  You don't pick and choose who gets what rights, they should be apportioned equally and defendants must be treated equally under the law.  It's what separates us from the savages.  Why are she and her father so determined to sink lower than Al-Qaeda and and still act like they're taking the high road as they shred what's left of the Constitution?

Just because it snowed it doesn't mean that global warming isn't occurring.  All it takes is a little common sense.  Is the weather in your area the same as it was ten years ago?  I doubt it.  Places that were hot have not been as warm lately and places that were cold are warmer than they should be.    Change is happening and just because it isn't happening overnight, doesn't mean it isn't occurring.  Considering all the cuts to education that have eliminated critical thinking classes, it is no wonder that nearly half of Americans don't believe in global warming.

The stupid person of the day has to be the woman who crasher her car while she was shaving her pubic area.  Isn't that one of the things you do in the shower at home?

Well of course Pink Floyd music should be sold in album form.  Duh!  All their albums tell a story and other than Money or Another Brick in The Wall, most people can barely name the albums and don't realize what the inspiration for music was.  Most people can't tell you that Dark Side of the Moon is about a plane crash, mainly because they've never listened to the whole album in one sitting and when the songs are sold as singles, the interludes between songs are eliminated and the story is lost.  And yes, playing Dark Side of the Moon while watching the Wizard of Oz Really does work.  Amazingly so, at least until you past Dorothy meeting the Scarecrow. 

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Sunday, March 7, 2010

If These Guys Only Had A Heart

Or a brain.  Tom Delay, and by extension, most Republicans and the media that drools over their every word, believes that people prefer to live on unemployment checks that barely cover their rent and that they enjoy standing in line at food banks instead of getting a job.  Like a true Republican he doesn't let facts get in his way.
"You know," Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that's a hard sell, isn't it?

Delay: it's the truth.

Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?

Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don't have.
Perhaps if you and Bush hadn't given the rich people all those tax breaks or allowed American companies to move their headquarters and manufacturing offshore so they wouldn't have to pay taxes, there might be jobs available. I'm a person in the real world and as I drive around town I see empty buildings where businesses used to be.  Mr. Delay, you aren't just willfully stupid, you are a jackass.

Walt Baker just couldn't keep his stupid under controleither.  He just had to send an email comparing the First Lady with a chimpanzee.  How a state as pretty as Tennessee can produce such backward people does boggle the mind.  I almost feel sorry for its citizens.

And then here comes Texas,it might not be the largest state in the Union, but it is definitely trying to spread its stupid to every impressionable child.  In a few years the United States will be completely out of the running in technology and medicine.  Or hasn't anybody noticed that a good proportion of the doctors don't speak English as their primary language?  And for those of you who believe that evolution is a theory and not true, I would like to remind you that gravity is also a theory and as of today nobody has said it doesn't work.
Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction."
No wonder they don't understand the consequences of inbreeding.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Wednesday Morning Stupid

Today's stupid award goes to Michael Barone and his idiotic column in the Washington Examiner.  Not content with lying about what the American people want, he slanders Europeans by portraying them as helpless victims because two world wars were fought on their ground.  Perhaps it's because almost every family lost at least one male member, and usually more, during those wars that helped them realize that everyone deserves a chance to live a healthy life after they are born whereas those who are against health care for everyone believes that right solely belongs to proto-humans.  Once they are born they are to fend for themselves.

I am perfectly capable of understanding the ins and outs of health insurance, but not everybody has the time or the vocabulary to understand the fine print that prevents them from getting treatment or finding out after the fact that that whatever they needed to get well is not covered.   And the insurance carriers depend on this.

When one is sick, one usually wants to get better or at least know why they don't feel well.  What they don't want to do is fill out endless reams of paperwork, produce identification, pay their copay and then have to justify their problem.  That was supposedly the theory behind HMOs.  Health care without any hassles.  What a concept.

Today has a runner up and surprise, surprise, it is also in the Examiner.  Being a military brat and attending schools either on base or just outside of it, I had to say the Pledge of Allegiance whether I wanted to or not.  I hated it and thought it had very little use except to give the teacher more time to take attendance and assemble the day's lesson.  When you recite it every day of the school year for six or seven years, it ceases to have meaning and becomes a chore.  If you asked most kids to explain every line, they can't do it.  I used to look enviously at the seniors in high school because they were given the option of sitting it out.  When I became a senior, I sat it out.
For two days in late January, a Roberto Clemente Middle School student refused to stand for the pledge and remained silent in her chair, according to details released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and confirmed by a Montgomery schools spokesman.

The teacher first threatened detention and sent her to the counselor's office, according to the ACLU. When the same incident occurred the following day, the teacher called on a school security officer to escort the student to the counselor's office again.

"The law is crystal clear that a public school cannot embarrass or harass a student for maintaining a respectful silence during the Pledge of Allegiance," said Ajmel Quereshi, an ACLU lawyer.

When the student's mother approached school administration for guidance, an assistant principal recommended the student apologize for her "defiance," according to the ACLU.
Saying the pledge doesn't mean a thing since actions speak louder than words and since I joined the Army two days after graduation, I think I'm pretty patriotic.  I was willing to lay down my life to defend American citizens right to freedom of speech, or the right to be quiet.

It baffles me how so many people believe that repetitively saying something shows respect. I wonder how many of the people who believe that the girl should be punished have said the pledge since they graduated. I'll bet it isn't many and that most of them don't remember the words, have never served in the Armed Forces and believe that by wearing a stick pin or have a yellow ribbon on their car that they are patriotic.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sunday Morning Stupid

Today's stupid award goes to those businesses that believe shareholders are more important than their own workers.
“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,” said Allen Sinai, chief global economist at the research firm Decision Economics. “You basically don’t want workers. You hire less, and you try to find capital equipment to replace them.”
One would have to be pretty stupid not to understand the consequences of getting rid of your employees so the shareholders can make few more dollars.  And what would those consequences be?  Uhh, no job translates into no money to buy the products or services of said company.  Company eventually goes bankrupt due to lack of sales and shareholders lose money.  All because of greed and an inability to see the forest for the trees.

Meanwhile, the GOP and the teabaggers babble endlessly about people needing to pull themselves up their bootstraps, learn new skills as education funding is cut to to the bone, stop depending on government "handouts" and get another job.  When even Wal-Mart posts a loss, how many jobs can there be?  Not many and not for a long time. But the bonuses to the executives continue.

Blaming the president and Congress is easy, but they aren't the ones who outsourced jobs overseas and/or are hiring temporary workers for less pay and no benefits so shareholders can get another 50 cents.  Isn't capitalism a great system?

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Also Worthy of The Title Is

Dick (I shoot my friends in the face) Cheney. Actually, he was yesterdays winner.   Mr. Cheney says he is a fan of torture and for some reason that doesn't surprise me.  What does surprise me is that he thinks waterboarding a man who tried to burn his own balls off would be intimidated by water.

Having suffered a third degree burn on my inner thigh, I can promise you that lying is not an option.  The pain is constant and time is one of the few things that makes the pain go away.  Holding burn cream in front of him would be incentive enough.  Inhumane, but effective.  Mr. Cheney is so in love with his versions of "enhanced interrogation" that sometimes his connection to reality is tenuous at best.

Mr. Cheney exhibits sadistic qualities at every opportunity and is regularly rewarded by the media.  If Bush didn't take his advice, why should Obama?

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Today Belongs To

Ann Coulter.  Yup, the she-man opened her mouth and stupidity spurted out as she supported her imaginary lover.  During the reign of error we were constantly told that if we couldn't respect the man, we had to respect the office.  She does neither.

Our current vice president is neither the White House dog, nor is he a "drunken Irishman".  The latest meme from the almost never right is to accuse whoever they disagree with as being drunk.  How original.  Oh well, if you can't refute facts you might as well resort to name calling.

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