Dude, didn't you get the memo?

Easter was last week!

Some quickies:

• A 13 year old girl in Florida injured her knee and her doctor put her in a brace and ordered her to use crutches. The school nurse took away the crutches because she didn't have a note from her doctor. The injury got worse, requiring surgical correction. Yup, there's a lawsuit brewing.

• A guy used a concealed camera to videotape a cheerleading competition in California. Now, he's charged with a felony, "possessing obscene matter depicting sexual conduct of a person under 18." The cheerleaders were fully clothed and it was during a public performance. If everybody's a sex offender and sex offenders aren't allowed to live near schools and parks, before long, cities will be ghost towns.

• Judge sentences 3 to learn English: When I saw the headline, I thought what a bigot, discriminating against imigrants. But the ruling actually makes sense. The three Spanish-speaking men, ages 17-22, can stay on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn GEDs and get jobs. If they accomplish all this within a year, they won't have to serve 2 years in prison.

• It's West Side Story all over again. In a modern day incarnation of Jets vs. Sharks, Mexico and Chile have had recent outbreaks of violence when roving gangs of punk rockers attacked emo fans.

• Cucumbers aren't just for lonely old women anymore. Pepsi is selling cucumber-flavored Pepsi Ice in Japan.

The blonde one

This week, the ladies on The View were discussing Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Sherri Shepherd defended him, saying he's not a racist - you should look at the whole body of his work, not just a few sermons (like the one where he said white people invented HIV to kill black people).

Elisabeth Hasselbeck - the blonde one - responded:

Okay, would you say - and I'm going to go to an extreme now, since we're going there. I'm sure at some point Jeffrey Dahmer ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Does it make the fact that he then ate people less wrong?

Maybe we should get one of those new take-home paternity tests because I just know this chick's related to these two.

Not quite a thong

Zardoz, James Zardoz

for the anonymous guy who requested Sean Connery

I'm holding out for a picture of Laura

The new first lady of France, model Carla Bruni, has posed for a lot of nude photos in her career. The U.S. press is making a big deal out of it but I'm not going to get excited until I see Laura Bush's boobies. Yes, I know there's a pun in there but I resisted.

Some quickies:

• Almost 50% of Americans are in some way mentally ill. The diagnostic rate for bipolar disorder alone has increased by 4000%. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is used by schools, prisons, courts and mental health professionals, has added 170 new mental disorders since 1980.

Hmm. Why would they do that? Because drug companies want to sell drugs. And insurance companies won't pay for them unless the patient has a DSM-IV diagnosis.

• Blind faith kills: Another case of parents praying for their child to get well instead of seeking medical treatment. Eleven year old Madeline Neumann died from diabetes complications.

• You think your job is bad? A 19 year old Bulgarian girl was forced to swim with piranhas and her 16 year old sister was forced to drape snakes around her. The snakes bit her and she had injuries on her stomach where they had wound themselves too tightly around her. The girls and their parents were being held as slaves in an Italian circus.

• Public Service Announcement: If you're going to feed the pigeons while "bonnie" schoolgirls walk by, you should probably wear more than a thong. Or at least don't wear it backwards. Just ask this guy in Scotland.

Turn ons: LOLcats being featured on Jones Soda bottles

Turn offs: Scottish guys in thongs

She means well

My therapist. Aargh.

Today I was trying to talk her about something that's bothering me. Before I could even get halfway through the story, she was trying to fix me. I just shut down and stopped talking. She knew I was really upset but I don't think she has a clue why. It wouldn't do any good to try to explain it to her - I've tried, over and over again. She just can't help herself.

What I was trying to tell her - among other things - is that I'm so frustrated with my life. I want a do-over! If I could go back to when I was in college and start over from there. I had so much potential, I had so many plans.

Then I got sick. I didn't know exactly what was wrong with me but I went for help. The "help" I got did more harm than good and my life has been in a downward spiral ever since. If only I could get the last 20 years back.

I'm too deep in the hole to start over now. I feel completely trapped.

While I was sitting in the therapist's office, I was staring at my hands, making shapes with my fingers - triangles, trapezoids - and remembering my high school math teacher who told me I was brilliant. Math was intuitive for me - I was so far ahead of my classmates. The same thing was true when I got to college. Calculus was easy - it just came to me. All of my friends in the class came to me for help. I had trouble explaining it to them because I just "got" it. It was hard to break it down step by step so they could understand.

I went to the wrong school. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college before and my high school guidance counselor was a joke. When a nearby college offered me a free ride, it was decided. That's where I had to go.

I didn't have the balls to stand up for myself and say no. It's a good school but it wasn't the right school for a math major. I wanted to go to University of Iowa or Iowa State but they didn't offer the financial aid I needed.

So much of my life has been dictated by lack of money. It pisses me off!

If I had stuck with a math major - or gone into computer science, which I was also very good at - and if I hadn't gone crazy, money wouldn't be a problem for me now.

What a lot of people don't understand is that when you're born into a family without money, without resources, you don't have anything to fall back on when you get sick. I know other people that had health problems or other setbacks, but they had families to bail them out. I didn't have that.

The only place I could turn when I got so sick that I couldn't provide for myself was to government programs. And those same programs that helped me when I needed it have me trapped now. They make it so that it's easier to get into the system than it is to get out.

Is that you, grandma?

Granny dresses are back in. They're in all the stores and some of the most stylish women in the world are wearing them.

When I was in grade school, the last time they were in, we called them maxi dresses. I always wanted one, and like most things I wanted, I never got one.

Some quickies:

• Police in Boston came up with a scheme to do warrantless searches of homes in poor, largely minority neighborhoods. They're looking for guns and they're "taken aback" that people object to having cops rifle through their drawers.

• If you're going to rob a store, don't go around wearing pants with the plastic security badges still on them. Just ask these 3 guys in Sweden.

• One more reason I don't want to travel anymore: A Virginia high school coach reached into his suitcase and was bitten by a rattlesnake. His team was returning from a trip to South Carolina. A snake expert thinks it was put in there as a prank.

• What a whiner: A college prof is complaining because his school wouldn't sponsor the forum where he intended to prove that all atheists are like he was: "I rejected Christianity largely because it would not have allowed me to continue getting drunk and high every night while splitting time between four girlfriends."

He says he's being discriminated against because he's a Christian and a Republican. In North Carolina. Puh-leeze.

Turn ons: Granny dresses, because you don't have to shave your legs
Turn offs: Granny dresses, because even Angelina looks stupid wearing one

O Canada

From a Toronto Star column titled, Is Bush the worst U.S. president ever?:

Five years after Bush's ill-starred invasion of Iraq, three years after Hurricane Katrina and seven months into the unravelling of the U.S. financial system, ... the 43rd president of the United States ... is a unique and unmitigated disaster ...

His predecessors at least had the grace to be embarrassed about dabbling on the dark side. By contrast, Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney positively gloat about their attempts to subvert human rights ...

At a very basic level, Bush is incompetent. He likes to play at commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces. But in any other country a commander-in-chief who orchestrated an adventure as disastrous as the Iraq war would be court-martialled ...

But at a deeper level, there seems to be something missing – a neural disconnect in his brain that at crucial moments causes him to be divorced from the constraints of rational thought ...

Among U.S. historians, it has become great sport to rank the country's presidents. Bush vies with many for the title of absolute worst ...

But Grant, Hoover and even Nixon did not do as much damage worldwide. Americans may still be debating Bush's legacy. I suspect the rest of the world has made up its mind.

Even the Easter Bunny doesn't want to hug him

Notice the firm grip he's got on her wrist and the back of her head and the sad, slightly distressed look on her face. Now she knows how Barney feels.

Another day, another sex scandal

There's really nothing new or different about this story. The mayor of Detroit had an affair with his chief of staff, whom he'd known since high school. They were both married at the time. Two cops got fired after they started investigating whether Mayor Kilpatrick was using his security unit to cover up his affair(s). They sued.

Kilpatrick and the chief of staff denied the affair on the witness stand, but somebody got hold of the text messages they'd sent each other. Now they've both been charged with felony perjury and obstruction of justice. The city of Detroit had to pay the fired cops more than $8.5 million in damages.

Like I said, we've seen these stories over and over again. So why am I bothering with it? Because the article mentioned the state attorney general with a rather unfortunate name: Mike Cox.

The docs must be crazy

There's a new home test to find out if you have the genetic markers for bipolar disorder. The problem is that having the gene doesn't automatically mean you'll get the disorder. Plus the gene variations are rare among people who've already been diagnosed bipolar.

So now you can spend $400 to spit in a cup, have your entire genetic history recorded in some company's database, and find out if you might be bipolar. Or you can spit in the toilet and go buy yourself some new shoes. Same result, except you'd have some really nice shoes to wear next time you're manic.

In other mental health news, according to the always reliable NY Post (eye roll), psychiatrists consider sex with patients an "occupational hazard." One example they cited:

Kips Bay psychologist Mary Anastasiow, a 55-year-old married mom, had sex 10 times in her office and minivan with a smitten female patient distraught over her dead cat, Peaches.

Damn. My psychiatrist didn't fuck me when my cat died. Another example:

A Manhattan psychologist in his 70s told The Post he surrendered his license and retired last September after a female patient he had sex with filed a complaint. "My wife doesn't know," he said.

He began the affair because, he said, "it seemed that it wouldn't hurt her. It would add to her life a bit. Her life was quite empty."

He also wanted pleasure for himself. "I was getting old, and I wanted to extend my waning sexuality," he said, admitting he popped Viagra to perform.

Hmm. My psychiatrist was in his 70s when he retired. Wonder who he was doing because, like I said, he sure wasn't doing me.

• Follow up on "The stuff nightmares are made of": The little girl who was disemboweled by the drain in a kiddie pool died this week. She had received a transplant of small intestines, pancreas and liver in Omaha in December.

The evil-doers

Sounds like the title of an Arthur Hailey novel - a big sweeping tale of the evil-doers in the world and the heroic cowboys and handsome aristocrats who hunt them down, only to realize in the end that true evil lies within themselves.

Some European countries are threatening to boycott the summer Olympics because of China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters. The leading state newspaper editorialized:

"We must see through the secessionist forces' evil intentions, uphold the banner of maintaining social stability ... and resolutely crush the 'Tibet independence' forces' conspiracy."

John McCain's response:

"There must be respect for human rights, and I would hope that the Chinese are actively seeking a peaceful resolution to this situation that exists which harms not only the human rights of the people there but also the image of China in the world."

Ah yes. We do know something about how violating human rights hurts a country's image in the world, don't we, John? Your buddy Dubya is an expert at that.

China has also canceled live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square planned for the Olympics. From MSNBC:

The communist government’s resorting to heavy-handed measures runs the risk of undermining Beijing’s pledge to the International Olympic Committee that the games would promote greater openness in what a generation ago was still an isolated China. If still in place by the games, they could alienate the half-million foreigners expected at the games ...

With paramilitary police patrolling Beijing at night and journalists being expelled from Tibetan areas, security measures are on par with those not seen since the government mobilized police to crush the Falun Gong spiritual movement in 1999-2000.

Frontline on PBS has a 2-part documentary coming up on Monday and Tuesday called "Bush's War." It gives a detailed look into how we got into the mess in Iraq.

Am I the only one who sees World War III brewing? What's preventing that right now is that the Europeans won't support our invasion of Iran. But if China gets drawn into the mix, the Europeans will have to join us.

Have you read Cormac McCarthy's The Road?

TMZ doesn't like women

My last two posts took a somewhat scatological turn so I promise there will be no poop in this entry.

Yesterday, TMZ posted a recent picture of Nicole Kidman. She's 5 months pregnant and just starting to show a little. They said:

Either Nicole Kidman's organs are completely squashed by her baby or she's not five months pregnant. The still waif-like actress was out yesterday with husband Keith Urban, looking more like someone who has gas than a woman having a baby.

I was about to go off on them until I saw the comments from other readers. The first one said:

"So you make fun of the pregos who are "big" ... now you're making fun of the pregos who are "small"Are you starting to realize that every woman has a different body shape, espicially when pregnant?Leave pregnant women alone, seriously GUYS. (You are clearly men writing these pregnant celeb articles.)"

Others commented:

"i didn't pop until 7 months. NOBODY could tell i was pregnant and my boss didn't believe me. i gained almost all of my baby weight in the last 2 months. get off her case"

"Oh, give it a rest. She's a tall woman and this is her first pregnancy. There's nothing weird going on. Stop wtih the ridiculous drama, TMZ."

"yall gripe if a woman has flesh on her bones. ya'll gripe if she doesn't. get a grip!! you'd be calling her fat and hyping how she was letting herself go if she was showing any significant weigh change."

There were more than 100 similar responses from women. You go, girls!

The secret to pooping bananas

... is eating them. If you've ever seen Dr. Oz on Oprah, you know that he says your poop should be shaped like a banana. That's a sign that your bowels are healthy. I've discovered the best way to get the right shape is to eat a lot of fruit, esp. bananas.

This is vital info, people! Oprah said so.

There's an interesting history of Chiquita Banana at Wild Realm Reviews. Did you know it was a song and a series of movies before it was an advertising icon?

Remember Woody Allen's Bananas? That was back when I still liked him, before he started screwing his stepdaughter. Some of you would say "Well, he never married Mia Farrow, so technically, Soon-Yi wasn't his stepdaughter." But he was the adoptive and biological father for 3 of her siblings. You don't screw your children's sister. At least, not if you want me as a fan.

That's what happens when I google images - I run across all kinds of interesting tidbits and jog my memory. Trust me, that's the most exercise I'll get today.

In other news, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated more than $8.5 million of their own money to charity in 2006 alone. Their biggest donations went to Doctors Without Borders and the Global AIDS Alliance, but they also gave time and money to the Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans and the U.N.'s refugees commission.

Angelina first became a UN Goodwill ambassador after she made Beyond Borders, which was inspired by Doctors Without Borders. Strangely, when I looked up the movie on IMDb, "bananas" was listed as one of the keywords for the plot. Not sure why.

And the alleged Lindsay Lohan sex tape that popped up on the 'net yesterday - wasn't her. But you gotta know there's one out there somewhere.

The naked pictures I found of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, now those are real. He's the star of New Amsterdam and my latest crush. It's from the Danish version of the movie Nightwatch. If you try to rent it, make sure you get the right one because it's been remade several times.

I think I've covered it all - money, poop, and penises. Yup, that's pretty much everything that matters.

Steamed crap and other delicacies

Yesterday, I posted that a new Reuters/Zogby poll shows that Clinton is ahead of Obama among Democrats. Today, a new Gallup poll shows the same thing.

Some quickies for you:

• Another zero tolerance overreaction? A high school student in Illionois has been suspended for 2 years because he carried a "hit list" with 6 names. He never made a direct threat to anyone and he didn't possess a weapon.

• I'm not that desperate to get my work seen: An Irish writer is staging his latest play in the public restrooms in New York's Central Park. The performances are 3 times a night with the 2 acts running simultaneously - one in the ladies room and one in the men's - and they switch rooms at intermission. Every show is sold out with about 25 people per room.

• The woman stuck to a toilet for 2 years? So long that her skin became attached to the seat? Turns out she was only there for a month - her boyfriend has now been charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult. Because he glued her to the seat.

• Drumthwacket. That's the name of New Jersey's governor's mansion. Where Jim McGreevey allegedly thwacked it with his boyfriend.

• Mouse droppings, maggots, deer carcasses, dried blood, deer hair and lead. Those are some of the ingredients in the sausage and jerky an Omaha man processed in his 3-car garage. Authorities estimate he produced about 10,000 pounds of deer meat every year, which he sold by word of mouth. Hunters brought him their poached deer and he sometimes shot deer from his bathroom window - he baited them with corn and used a spotlight to paralyze them.

• Follow up on last year's post, Don't Make Skies Fall Down: Beijing officials are still trying to correct English language signs that are poorly translated from Chinese in preparation for the Olympics. One example is restaurants that advertise "Steamed Crap." That should be "Steamed Crab."

The state news agency says: "These translations ... may cause misunderstanding on China's diet habits."

Father knows best

These mugshots are from Smoking Gun. The tattoo on Dad's forehead says "Git-R-Done" and he has one on the back of his head that says "Got-R-Did." His son "Psycho" has his eyelids tattooed "Fuck" and "You."

A couple of quickies:

• If two kids start having sex when they're 14 and eventually, the girl has a baby when she's 16, should the now 17 year old boy be arrested? The charge is "repeated sexual assault on a child" and carries a possible 25 year sentence. Happened in Wisconsin.

• An actual headline from KNBC.com:

Judge Wants Proper Service In Actor's Penis, Mousetrap Lawsuit

From the story:

Perry Caravello filed the $10.5 million lawsuit May 31 in Los Angeles Superior Court, asserting he was injured when tricked into putting his penis in a mousetrap on Sept. 27, 2006.

That's gotta hurt.

Two of my favorite people in the world

Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt in New Orleans, at a ground-breaking ceremony for Brad's "Make It Right" foundation, that builds houses for Katrina victims.

Not a real flattering picture of either one of them but it'd be hard to find two guys who ooze more charm than they do. Or who'd have an easier time getting a BJ.

Come on, girls, admit it. You'd do 'em.

The Obamessiah

From an AP op/ed piece about Obama:

He's bordering on arrogance ... Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good ... But both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.

... if the young senator wins the nomination, even the smallest trace of arrogance will be an issue with voters who still consider him a blank slate.

Although he usually acts like he's kidding, here are some of the comments he's made:

[People will vote for him because] "to know me is to love me."

"Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."

[He predicted that by the time he finished a speech] "a light will shine down from somewhere ... It will light upon you ... You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it."

From the column:

Privately, aides and associates of Obama tell stories about a boss who can be aloof and ungracious. He holds firmly to views and doesn't like to be challenged ...

Hmm. Who does that remind you of? President-I'm-right-because-God-told-me. Do we really need another one of those?

I agree with most of what this column says but I'm disturbed because it was packaged to look like a news story. There are way too many people out there who don't distinguish between the two, and it looks like Yahoo News, which is where I found it, doesn't distinguish either.

In other news, the latest Reuters/Zogby poll shows that Obama's lead over Clinton is down to 3% (47 to 44), less than the margin of error. He was leading by 14 points in February.

Turn ons: people who tell the truth even if it hurts the wannabe messiah
Turn offs: Opinions posing as news

He's still a Dick

What he said today during his visit to Iraq:

"This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 . That day we clearly saw that dangers can gather far from our own shores and find us right there at home ...

"So the United States made a decision: to hunt down the evil of terrorism and kill it where it grows, to hold the supporters of terror to account and to confront regimes that harbor terrorists and threaten the peace ... Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans."

Give it up already. Nobody's buying that crap anymore, except the fundies who are sitting around waiting for the rapture.

Today's post brought to you by the word "drunkorexia"

Fark.com sums up the economy:

Federal Reserve cuts Fed funds to 2.25%. which means they're paying last month's Visa bill by taking a cash advance on their Amex. Next month they'll take a cash advance on their Mastercard to pay off Amex. Rinse, repeat, recession

Some quickies:

• Imagine this: You have kidney cancer and undergo surgery to remove the affected kidney. And they take out the wrong one. It happened in Minnesota and it gets worse: a history of cancer could make someone ineligible for a transplant.

• Spitzer's gone but the new governor of New York just admitted that he cheated on his wife too. With several different women.

• McGreevey is even scummier than we thought. The former New Jersey governor and "gay American" claims he had threesomes with his wife and his former driver. What an ass. Even if it's true, hadn't he already humiliated her enough?

• Speaking of scum, a woman in Texas is suing American Airlines because the guy sitting next to her on one of their flights masturbated. She woke up with his stuff in her hair. She says AA employees refused to help her when she reported it to them.

• "A penis on the roof. I was like huh? Are you serious?" That's what the guy in Arizona said when he found out his neighbor had a giant sex organ painted on his roof. The owner of the 'artwork' didn't know his buddies had put it there during his bachelor party.

• Drunkorexia: the practice of dieters using their daily calorie allotment for booze instead of food

And they say Hillary is divisive

From John Dickerson on slate.com:

Obama supporters are using this threat of an explosion as leverage with the superdelegates, who have the power to avert the nightmare scenario—or give birth to it. "If the superdelegates intervene and get in the way and say, 'Oh no, we are going to determine what's best,' there will be chaos at the convention," said Obama supporter and Richmond, Va., Mayor Douglas Wilder ... "If you think 1968 was bad, you watch 2008. It will be worse."

When fear of chaos hasn't worked, threats of specific retaliation have been issued. On Meet the Press, Obama supporter Bill Bradley said superdelegates who hold public office will face primary challenges the next time around if they don't follow the expressed will of their constituents.

To balance out the pitch, Obama will use the threat of a party crackup in a softer way, using the recent rounds of shoving between the campaigns as a frame for a speech in which he will pitch himself as a conciliator ...

Obama benefits from the prospect of chaos ...

The good news (for me anyway):

In a recent Pew Research poll, 25 percent of Hillary's supporters said they would consider voting for McCain, whereas only 10 percent of Obama's supporters said they would consider doing so. Now, this plays in her favor as a competing argument she can make to the supers.

For a good run down of attacks Obama has made against Hillary, check this out.

He's with stupid

Overheard at my county's Democratic convention:

"Where there's a will, there's a won't." ~ Iowa State Senator Steve Warnstadt, referring to his Republican colleagues

"They think it stands for Sorry Children Haliburton Is Priority." ~ Warnstadt on Republicans who opposed SCHIP

There was also a lot of talk about the embarrassment known as Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King. His latest moronic proclamation is that al Qaeda will be dancing in the streets if we elect a president whose middle name is Hussein.

According to kingwatch.org, in 2006:

... he compared illegal immigrants to stray cats that wind up on people's porches. King said at first stray cats help by chasing mice, so people feed them. King added that the stray cats then have kittens, which are liked for their cuteness, but eventually the strays, fed by the people, end up getting lazy, just like illegal immigrants.

A few weeks ago, I received an automated phone call that invited me to join a telephone town hall meeting with King. I stayed on the line and listened for about 1/2 an hour. All King wanted to talk about was building a fence along the Mexican border and passing Iowa's "defending the family" act to outlaw gay marriage.

Seriously. There's a war going on in Iraq that is killing thousands of Americans and Iraqi civilians, our country is headed for a deep recession, and all our Congressman wants to talk about is gay marriage and the Republican version of the Berlin Wall.

The pictures above? You all recognize the monkey king. The guy on the right is Steve King. Also known as Dumb and Dumberer.

Why Hillary is losing

Today, I attended my county's Democratic convention. Hillary came away with several fewer delegates than she earned at the January caucus.

The reason? More than 50 delegates didn't show up.

Part of the problem was clerical errors by the county Democrats. Anybody who reads my blog knows I'm a conspiracy nut but I want to believe the mistakes were unintentional, in spite of the fact that most of the county leadership are Obama supporters. Their list of delegates was incomplete - names that should have been on there were missing. And of those who were on the list, many, like me, never received the informational packet we were supposed to receive 1-2 weeks before the convention. Until Thursday, I didn't even know it was this weekend - or that I was supposed to attend, since I originally signed up as an alternate and was told I would be contacted if I was needed.

But a friend called to ask if I wanted a ride. Otherwise I wouldn't have been there either.

On Thursday and Friday, I tried to contact the party leaders to see about getting a packet and to see if I was even on the list to attend. Unlike the county Republicans, the Dems don't have a number listed in the phone book. I googled and found the county Dems' website. There wasn't a single phone number listed on their website either.

So I sent an email to an address provided on the website. Three days later, I still haven't received a response. I also called my friend to get a phone number to call - I left a message at that number on Thursday. Haven't received an answer to that either.

I showed up at the convention fully expecting to be sent home but I was seated as a delegate for my precinct and got counted for Hillary. At the convention, every single one of Obama's delegates or alternates showed up, while significant numbers of Edwards' and Clinton's were missing.

The end result after voting was Clinton had 72 delegates, Edwards 50, Obama 124, and 2 were uncommitted. After they did the math, Obama has 34 Woodbury county delegates going to the district convention while Clinton only has 20.

If all of Hillary's people had been there, the delegate numbers would've been a tie or she would've been slightly ahead.

But I can't blame that on the party. The real problem was a total lack of organization by Hillary's campaign - the same problem we saw at the January caucus. Obama's delegates all got phone calls and info about the convention from the Obama campaign. Hillary's campaign didn't do that.

They had the names and contact info for dozens of volunteers like me who would have been happy to make the calls or send out mailings - if we'd only known. I'm an amateur - I've never attended a convention before so I had no idea what to expect or what kind of organization was needed.

Hillary's staff is paid to know that information and pass it on to their volunteers and delegates. They failed to do so.

If the news reports are to be believed, this isn't happening only in Iowa. The press has been very critical of her campaign's poor organization at the ground level everywhere.

Hillary isn't losing because she's a woman, or because people don't like her, or because of her message. She's losing because her paid professional staff screwed up.

Quote of the Day

Of my two “handicaps” being female put more obstacles in my path than being black.

~ Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress, the first major party African American to run for president

I be concubining

That's what the guy in Cincinnati said when the judge asked him to explain why he was expecting 6 children with 6 different women.

Some quickies for you:

• A 44 year old teacher in Florida told a 13 year old student that she had "nice, perky tits." Yeah, he's in trouble now.

• Last week, singer Bjork did a concert in Shanghai. At the end of her performance, she shouted "Tibet!" Chinese authorities say they're going to be stricter on foreign performers now because she "broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings."

• Follow up on the woman who sat on a toilet for 2 years: Her boyfriend says she had a phobia and stayed in the bathroom because she felt like it was a safe place. At first, she moved around in the bathroom, bathed, changed clothes, and they had normal conversations. He blames her phobia on beatings she received as a child.

I've known for a long time that if I had someone to enable me - bring me groceries, take the garbage out, etc. - my agoraphobia would be much worse. I could easily see myself becoming housebound.

• Popping the question: A guy in England put a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. He planned to give his girlfriend a pin so he could "literally pop the question." A gust of wind blew the balloon out of his hand. A meteorologist says the balloon is probably over the North Sea by now.

• Continuing on the theme fools and their money: A guy in Ethiopia hid his $12,000 life savings in a straw pile. Three weeks later, he discovered that rats had eaten a third of it.

• Fools and our money: Notice the ticker on the right. So far, the war in Iraq has cost more than $502 BILLION.

I like this judge

From an actual judge's ruling in a Texas personal injury case:

... the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact — complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words — to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed. Whatever actually occurred, the Court is now faced with the daunting task of deciphering their submissions.

With Big Chief tablet readied, thick black pencil in hand, and a devil-may-care laugh in the face of death, life on the razor's edge sense of exhilaration, the Court begins.

After a thorough analysis of the case and scolding of the attorneys, the judge tells the plaintiff's attorney to sharpen his crayons before his next legal filing, then concludes:

... the Court cautions Plaintiff's counsel not to run with a sharpened writing utensil in hand — he could put his eye out.

Race, age, gender

Washington Post writer Charles Krauthammer says elections are about policy, personality or identity. Since Clinton and Obama's policies are so similar, the contest was about personality and identity. According to Krauthammer:

Not advantageous ground for Hillary. In a personality contest with the charismatic young phenom, she loses in a landslide.

So Hillary had to go after Obama's personality and:

These attacks have a cumulative effect. Obama mania is beginning to wear off. Charisma is intrinsically transient. But Hillary's attacks have succeeded in hastening its dissipation.

So the campaign is about identity: race, age and gender. Just like I've been saying all along. (See "Why is the black guy allowed to talk about race ...")

Also at WaPo, Michael Gerson points out:

When Obama announced his presidential candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, he stated, "I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008." Then in May and again in November, he voted against funding American forces in Iraq ...

And Obama will find -- as John Kerry found in 2004 -- that Americans are suspicious of a prospective commander in chief who votes against funding U.S. troops in the field.

Obama's positions might be winning with the Democratic primary voters, but Hillary's positions are the ones that will win in the fall. That's where age and the experience that comes with it pays off - she's been down this road before. She knows how she will be attacked by the Republicans and she's prepared to fight back.

That's why the superdelegates should vote for her.

There's always room for Jello

Last night, the entire House of Representatives voted to go into secret session to discuss immunity for the telecom companies. It was at the request of the minority whip who claimed he had info the members should know that couldn't be revealed in public.

Dennis Kucinich was one of the few who spoke out against it: "There are some of us here who feel that this country has drifted toward a version of a national security state."

But the Dems went along with the secrecy! As Dem caucus chair Rahm Emanuel explained, " "My view is just act like Jell-o."

Yes, Rahm, and that's the problem. You've all been acting like jello for too goddamn long.

I can has stabbing?

Of all the horrifying stories I've read about child abuse and violence within a family, this one really got to me.

A man was jailed Thursday on charges he forced his 7-year-old daughter to kill the family cat by holding a knife in her hand and making her stab the pet.

Danield J. Collins, 39, told his children during a visit to his home on Sunday that he wanted them to "learn how to kill" and gave his 11-year-old son a knife to do it, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

The boy tried to save the cat by hiding it under a sofa bed and putting ketchup on a knife when Collins went to the bathroom. But when the father realized the cat was not dead, he forced his daughter to hold the knife and then held her hand tightly as he drove the knife into the animal ...

(The pic is from I Can Has Cheezburger.)

Ellen's response to Sally

Oklahoma state rep. Sally Kerns made some ignorant and deluded comments about homosexuality. You can hear her - as well as Ellen DeGeneres' response - on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBzTWcTwJJM

I want to get on Oprah

That's what a 50 year old building contractor said. He dresses in a bunny suit and wanders around the streets in Coconut Grove, FL.

Some quickies:

• If I believe everything I read, I am petty and naive and also a terrorist for supporting Hillary. Now, according to the Prime Minister of Poland, as an Internet user I'm part of "the easiest group to manipulate, to suggest who to vote for."

• Headline from Fark: Vandals break into Alabama movie theatre, slash five screens. Yeah, "10,000 B.C." was that bad.

• Mom on trial: She left her sleeping 2 year old strapped into her car seat in front of Walmart while she walked her 2 older children to the Salvation Army bucket to toss in some coins. She was only 10 yards away from the car and had it in full view, doors locked, alarm set. The most surprising thing to me? She's white and middle class. They usually save this treatment for working class minorities.

• Teen in jail: An 17 year old from Maine will be serving 2 years for writing a song called "Shotgun Killing Spree," for his band. The song describes a school shooting. The charge was "terrorizing." That whole free speech thing? So passé.

• Riviera Beach, FL, has outlawed the wearing of baggy pants. Yeah, free speech, see you around.

• Anyone? Anyone? Ben Stein, the actor who played Ferris Bueller's teacher, would allow schools in Florida to teach alternate theories to evolution along with the required evolution curriculum. He also made a documentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed."

• Honor killing: An Arab Israeli shot his 19 year old sister twice in the head and kicked her after she fell. Family members knew what he was going to do and praised him afterwards. The girl survived by playing dead.

• We use fresh hamburger, never frozen: A woman in Colorado was arrested at Wendy's, when she was found carrying her dead dog in a duffel bag. She believed the dog would come back to live in 13 days.

• Not to be outdone by: The woman who was detained by airport authorities in Germany while trying to carry her brother's skeleton onto a plane. She was fulfilling his wish to be taken home to Italy.

• Cave man: A guy in Turkey retired and went back to live in the cave where he was born. The cave has electricity and satellite TV.

• The Typo Eradication Advancement League: Armed with magic markers, chalk and adhesive letters, four guys are traveling around the U.S. to correct the misspellings and punctuation erros on signs. Check out their blog.

Turn ons: Easter bunnies
Turns offs: Ophra, Orpah, & Oprah

Clients 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, & 8 are sweating

Perez captioned the picture "Separated at Birth."

In the court documents on the prostitution scandal, Eliot Spitzer is identified as "Client 9." Now, Client 6 has also been outed - it's the Duke of Westminster, the richest man in England, the 46th richest man in the world. He's also one of Prince Charles' best friends.

Being identified as a guy who uses high-end call girls might be a touch embarrassing but I have a feeling nobody in his social circle will be shocked. The guy's not likely to be shunned. He might, however, be embarrassed by what one of his hookers said:

"I thought his conversation was quite boring."

He's also a cheapskate - he haggled with one of the girl over her price.

Why do these guys hire pros? One guy explained himself in the NY Daily News:

"... it's fun knowing when someone knocks on your door that they are going to be hot and want to have sex with you and then they'll leave."

Another says:

"... you aren't going to ask the mother of your children to spank you or even to talk dirty to you."

Sad, scary and bizarre

Sad and scary: Four Americans and one Aussie who were kidnapped in Iraq have been held hostage for more than a year. Now, five severed fingers have been delivered to American authorities in Baghdad. DNA and fingerprints confirmed that the fingers belong to the hostages.

Can you imagine what it's like for their families?

Bizarre: A 35 year old woman in Kansas sat on a toilet for 2 years - her skin grew around the seat so that she was attached to it. Her boyfriend brought her food and water. When he would ask her to come out of the bathroom, she'd say "Maybe tomorrow." This week, he finally called the police for help. When they arrived, she said she'd didn't want to leave. She's in the hospital now.

Ding dong, the fox is dead

Admiral William Fallon resigned yesterday. Yeah, I've never heard of him either, until yesterday. He was the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. From Esquire online, published just a few days ago:

If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him "Fox," which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago ...

[While] George W. Bush regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century's Hitler ... it's left to Fallon--and apparently Fallon alone--to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions."

... If [Fallon is relieved of his command], it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don't want a commander standing in their way.

According to the article, Defense Secretary Robert Gates chose Fallon for the command "so that he could, among other things, provide a check on the eager-to-please General David Petraeus in Iraq." Petraeus is playing the Cheney line, suggesting that we have to go into Iran to win Iraq.

Bush will bomb Iran before the election unless Congress - and Robert Gates - grow some balls.

Meanwhile, Dubya dances on the graves of all the Americans who died in the "War or Terror."

Quote of the Day

"Driven by hubris, we become blind to our own fallibility and make terrible mistakes."

-- soon-to-be former NY governor Eliot Spitzer,
in an August, 2007, speech titled,
"The Need for Both Passion and Humility in Politics"

Justin Timberlake on Madonna

No, he wasn't "on" her. This is what he said about her at her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction:

People always ask if she is the control freak people say she is. Hell yeah! We had a recording session in London and I wasn't feeling well. She said: 'Would you like a B12 shot?' She reached into her handbag, pulled a ziplock bag of B12 syringes and says: 'Drop 'em.' I don't know what you say to that, so I dropped my pants. She gave me the shot in my ass. It was one of the greatest days of my life. That is what Madonna will always be to us. The shot in the ass when we really need it.

Turn ons: Madonna before she got all British and Botoxed
Turn offs: Justin Timberlake kicking Britney when she's down

Nip slip

I just peeled an orange and got the skin to come off in one piece. Not a bad accomplishment for a Monday.

This weekend, I saw a commercial for a local assisted living facility for seniors. The ad said, "They give us far more than we can ever give them."

I found that ironic. Just last week, some friends and I had a discussion about nursing home neglect. One friend mentioned how patients are left sitting in their wheelchairs in the hall, too far apart to talk to each other, instead of being taken to the center's beautiful day room where they could look out the windows and interact with each other. Another friend recently lost her father, due, at least in part, to medical negligence.

Some quickies for you:

• Marketing at its best: The Oregon Urology Institute is running a March Madness promotion - get your vasectomy the day before the NCAA tournament starts and you'll have an excuse to sit in front of the TV all week. The ads promise to send patients sports magazines, free pizza delivery and a bag of frozen peas. Dude, don't eat the peas - they're for the swelling in your balls.

• Want to own a piece of Leona Helmsley? Her wardrobe is going up for auction. Included: 250 pairs of Ferragamo shoes.

• Not how it happens in the movies: An Illinois man has spent 26 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Two attorneys knew he was innocent because another man, their client, confessed to them. But legal ethics meant they couldn't tell. Their client gave them permission to tell the truth after he died, so they finally came forward. The innocent guy is still in prison, waiting for the legal process to move forward.

In the movies, you know the lawyers would've found a way to help the guy out.

• In the Navy: Meet this fine, upstanding young recruit - David Wrigley, also known as the "Sayville Cat Killer." He flung 2 of his girlfriend's cats across the room, killing one and seriously injuring the other. The prosecutor agreed to accept a plead the case down to a misdemeanor because the Navy won't take felons.

• Horton hears a WTF. Anti-abortion protesters stood up and started chanting after the premiere of Horton Hears a Who. They decided to coopt the movie's motto: "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small."

• I bet these brides won't hyphenate their names. A California TV station has a feature on funny names in wedding announcements. A few of my faves: "Best-Lay," "Busch-Rash," "Wang-Holder," and "Butts-McCracken."

• Best pickup line ever? New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin called himself "a vagina friendly mayor." He was introducting Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues.

• And finally, the sexy beast in the picture? One of the stars of this week's mug shot collection on The Smoking Gun.

Charlton Heston in Egyptian drag

As requested by my friend in Seattle. I threw in a gratuitous Planet of the Apes shot because I know you like big guns. You might enjoy this blog where I found the shirtless pic: Charlton Heston Turned Me Gay.

Picture source.

Hillary's a monster?

Tonight on Countdown, Keith O and his guests went on and on about how negative Hillary's campaign is being towards Obama and how she's destroying the Democrats' chance at winning the White House. My eyes are about to roll right out of my head.

Funny how they made very little mention of the negativity in Obama's campaign - and no mention at all of the following. These are direct quotes from one of Obama's top advisers:

She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything ... Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her ...

But the truth is she has proved herself really willing to stoop ... it looks like desperation ...

This chick has a hard time believing that anybody might actually love Hillary. It reflects the lack of respect I've always seen from Obama toward Hillary.

I hope she keeps putting pressure on Obama. The more pressure he's under, the more we'll see what's really in his heart. I've had it with the empty promises about "change" and "hope." How much credit can you give a guy who steals his campaign slogan from Bob the Builder?

If you were a fashion designer

... is this the guy you'd hire to represent your line? Keith Richards is the new face of Louis Vuitton.

Mandatory sentencing is insane

Did you know 1 out of 100 Americans is currently in prison? That includes 1 in 30 men age 20 to 34; and 1 in 9 African American men in that age group. The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country, including China. We're also one of the world leaders in executions.

WTF are we thinking?

Some quickies:

• A head for a head. After a family dispute, a guy in a supermarket in Syria chopped off the head of his 15 year old nephew while the boy's mother watched. If convicted, he'll also get beheaded.

• A guy in Minnesota attacked 2 people at a bus stop then ran away. The police caught him because he dropped a folder which contained - drum roll - the homework from his anger management class.

• You don't want to end up in this nursing home: A nurse's aide in Michigan urinated on a patient's hair.

• You don't want to live in Queensland, where the 16 foot pythons will crawl into your house. One Aussie who lost his guinea pig, cat, and most recently a dog said: "All I could see were the back legs and tail sticking out from the snake's mouth."

• One more reason not to buy gift cards: The Sharper Image is going bankrupt and gift cards bought from them are now worthless. More and more retailers may be headed down the same road.

• When the county tax assessor wants to buy your property, you'd better sell. Otherwise, he'll raise your taxes 1,000%. That's what happened to a guy in WV.

• If you paint a smiley face on a vacuum cleaner, you have to expect that someone's going to try to have sex with it. Er, I mean, "clean his underpants," as the Polish guy told the security guard who caught him in the act.

• Get your own porn, dammit. A woman in Canada woke up at 4 a.m. to find a stranger sitting at her computer looking at porn.

• Lock the door, dammit. Teens in an Australian juvie detention center had their own little Valentine's Day orgy when the staff forgot to lock the doors between the boys' and girls' section.

• It's shrinkage, I tell ya. A British actor might sue The Royal Opera House because they altered a promotional photo that's used on billboards and buses. They airbrushed it to make his penis look smaller.

Turn ons: Hillary won Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island
Turn offs: All the MSNBC talking heads want to talk about is how "gracious" Obama was

Being fat might not kill you

Some health researchers are saying that the "obesity epidemic" might be exaggerated:

... obesity contrarians say that there's no data proving why being fat - in itself - would be dangerous. "There's no good causal connection," said Eric Oliver, author of Fat Politics and a political science professor at the University of Chicago.

Blaming obesity for diabetes and heart attacks, Oliver says, is like blaming lung cancer on bad breath rather than on smoking. Excess weight may actually be a red herring, Oliver says, since other factors like exercise, diet or genetic predispositions towards diseases are harder to measure than weight.

I really don't think that's going to get my doctor off my back but oh well.

Quality health care? It's like winning the lottery. Literally. In Oregon, they're holding a lottery to see who gets health insurance. The 'contestants' are too poor to afford private insurance but have too much money to qualify for Medicaid. More than 80,000 people signed up but only a few thousand will get insurance.

One 61 year old diabetic woman who signed up hasn't been able to afford insulin for the last 6 months. She said: "I'm worried about it. I know it's a death sentence."

Muskrat Love

The picture is Adam Levine from Maroon 5 having a guitargasm.

Some quickies for you:

• The US will dramatically reduce the amount of food aid sent to poor countries because of soaring prices for wheat, corn, rice and other grains.

• As if the police don't have enough to do, the chief of police in the U.K. ordered his staffers to check his Wikipedia entry on a regular basis to edit comments like he's a "greedy, vain moron." Now, other users say the Wiki entry is nothing but a "PR piece written by the chief."

• All those naughty nurse fantasies you've had? Turns out, it's not as far-fetched as you might think. One in six nurses in the U.K. know of a colleague who had sex with one of their patients.

Let's put Glenn Beck on the case. Maybe this explains why the nurses were too busy to take care of him when he had surgery on his ass.

• Golden Hill, MD. A boy in the audience said, "Oh my god!" An old woman said, "She's good." What were they watching? A teenage contestant skinning a muskrat during the talent portion of last week's Miss Outdoors beauty pageant.

The missing grape

On Wednesday, I was putting together a fruit basket for a friend. In the process, I dropped a grape on the floor. I looked everywhere but couldn't find it.

Today when I was getting dressed, the missing grape fell out of the cuff of my jeans. Same jeans I wore on Wednesday.

That's about as exciting as my life gets these days.