A glass house, a tornado, an explosion and starving hamsters

What do these things have in common? They were all images in my dream this morning.

My parents and brothers and I were living in a house where the living room had a rounded glass ceiling and a huge window. I could see a tornado on the horizon but no one would listen to me - they just stayed in the living room watching TV.

I went back and hid in a bedroom. There was a a small cage in the bedroom with 2 hamsters in it and they were almost dead from starvation because I forgot to feed them. When I moved the cage so I could clean it and feed the hamsters, all these spiders came crawling out from underneath it.

Then I went outside to check the storm and a tornado hit the airport in the distance, across a highway from where I was. There was a huge explosion and 2 huge jets took off really fast to avoid getting blown up.

Then there was this woman running down the highway and a little 2 year old girl behind her. A line of traffic was coming and couldn't see the girl, then the girl fell and at the last minute, the first car slammed on the brakes and swerved to avoid her. All the other cars swerved too and there was a huge pile up, then one of the cars flipped on its side and fell on top the girl. The woman who'd been running, her mother, came back and saw what happened. I walked passed her and said sarcastically, "It's called neglect."

Interpretation: Ever since I was a little girl, I've had bad dreams about tornadoes. For me, they represent anxiety mixed with fear and anger related to my mother. The glass living room was kind of like a cage, and my family was living in it and seemed trapped but I was free to come and go. I have lots of dreams about pets that are suffering from extreme neglect - most of the time it represents anxiety, and also my writing and other projects. Things I should be working on but neglect. The spiders were there because the room was dirty but they also represent anxiety for me.

Explosions represent anger and my fear that I'm going to blow up and go crazy. The airplanes were very phallic in this dream and they buzzed right over my head. The little girl and the mother - the mother running from something, completely unaware the girl was behind her - mother issues for me. "It's called neglect."

Which is how my mother was when I was little. She was so wrapped up in her own problems, it was like she forgot I was there. And if I happened to get noticed, she'd be mad at me about something and fly into a rage. I'd hide from her in a closet or under the bed or I'd go outside.

A lot of images from the dream reminded me of my childhood. We lived on a road that led to the airport, there were always tornado warnings, no one would listen to me, and I always felt separated from the rest of my family.

Thanksgiving. One holiday down and one to go.

Can you handle more Tom?

This one's not a turkey. Eye candy for the weekend: Tom Jones.

Barbarella

That's an old publicity photo of Jane Fonda as Barbarella. Her eyes have that vacant look you sometimes see in women in porn when they don't really want to be there. In her autobiography, she said that her husband Roger Vadim, who directed the movie, talked her into having threesomes with other women when she really didn't want to.

Jane also said she fell in love with Robert Redford when they made 3 movies together:

"There's something about Bob that's impossible not to fall in love with. [my note: No kidding!] I was smitten. [Me too. I still am.] I couldn't wait to get to work, wouldn't even get mad when he was his habitual one or two hours late. [Good things are worth the wait.] He never knew it, of course. Nothing ever happened between us except that we always had a good time together."

The last movie they did together, Electric Horseman, is one of my comfort movies. It's silly and sexy and it cheers me up every time I see it.

I have a crush on Carter

That's Carter Oosterhouse. He used to be one of the carpenters on Trading Spaces but now he has his own show on HGTV.

You'd better believe I'd say "oo" if he came to my house. Ooh, yes baby, anything you want.

How the bailout works

The only thing missing from the picture are the executives jumping out the windows with their golden parachutes.

Two in the pink, one in the stink

That's a recent pic of Dubya and the Arizona State men's and women's track teams. They look awfully proud of themselves, don't they?

If you don't know what the title of the post refers to, it refers to the obscene gesture they're making with their hands. It's also known as The Shocker. Several years ago, a bunch of high school students got in trouble because they used that gesture in their yearbook photos. They had to reshoot the photos.

Yet, our president and his minions see fit to give us all The Shocker. Wonder whose idea that was? Cheney's?

And no, it's not a photoshop. The gesture also represents the ASU trident for their mascot, the Sun Devil.

That's right. Dubya is an obscenely gesturing devil worshipper. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

Turkey time

Everyone who cares to has probably seen the video of Sarah Palin doing an interview while turkeys are slaughtered in the background. It's hard to miss if you watch Keith Olbermann, since they've played it about 3 times now. I'm a dedicated carnivore and I've lived in farm country all my life, but it seemed like there must be a more humane way to kill a turkey. In the good old days, they just chopped their heads off. Just like that, it's over with.

Although, I remember reading a book once that said when people are decapitated, their brains live for another 10 seconds or so. Back in the days of the guillotine and the axe, when the heads were on the ground the eyes would blink and sometimes they'd move their lips like they were trying to talk.

Did you shudder just now?

Anyway, the point of all this is I cooked a turkey last night. Partly because they're really cheap right now, and partly because I'm going to my brother's for Thanksgiving and I heard a rumor we'll be having ham instead of turkey. I've been craving turkey all month.

But I got kind of creeped out when I pulled the neck out of the body cavity. It was longer than they usually are and I pictured Sarah Palin's turkeys upside down with their necks in the wringer. I feel a little guilty but it's already dead so I might as well eat it.

Yesterday I posted about the city turning our water off. It was off all morning, came back on for about an hour around lunchtime, then was off again. Apparently, they were doing some repairs in the morning but when they turned it back on, it blew a bunch of valves. I didn't have water again until about 9:00 last night.

Which meant I couldn't soak the turkey in water to thaw it, or rinse out the inside before I cooked it. The inside was still a little bit frozen when I put it in the oven, and as a result, the top part of the turkey was overcooked and the bottom part is still a little pink. I only ate from the part that was overcooked. When I cut it up, I'll cut the bottom part off and cook it a little longer. I'll freeze it all in single serving portions for quick and easy meals.

Note to self: Get some bottled water and keep it in the house for when they nuke us.

Turn ons: turkey and Stove Top stuffing
Turn offs: salmonella

Here's a shock - I'm in a good mood

Last night, there was a note downstairs that said pest control is coming this afternoon. It inspired me to clean - I got up early this morning and got caught up on all the dishes, cleaned the kitchen counters, swept the kitchen; cleaned the bathroom; cleaned the kitty litter and discovered Boy Cat had puked on my antique sewing machine. (I know it was him because he likes to puke in high places - Girl Cat always does it on the floor.)

Anyway, I vacuumed the whole apartment, took the garbage out, and all I had left to do was mop the kitchen and the bathroom. And then fricking water was shut off!

At first, I blamed my landlord and was ready to ream someone but there was no plumber or anyone else working anywhere on the premises. So I called the city's customer service number. I was very polite (give me a gold star for that). She said yes, they had the water off in my neighborhood. She didn't know when it would be back on, so she gave me another number to call.

The woman who answered the other number was pissed off that the customer service chick is giving out her number. That made me happy. I like not being the only one who's pissed off, especially when I'm not the one pissing people off.

But here I sit - grimy, sweaty, greasy-haired, and I haven't even brushed my teeth. When things like this go wrong, I usually flip into the life-is-hopeless-everyone-picks-on-me-I-want-to-die mode. Not today. I'm still in a good mood. After a few weeks of not being consistent with taking my meds, I'm back on them. And they're working.

I'm even sleeping several hours at a time - at night! Miracles do happen.

She's really not a hugger

Singer Rihanna at the AMAs.

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

For women of a certain age (yes, I'm talking about myself), Tom Jones was the pussycat's meow.* He may very well be where my hairy chest fetish began. There's even a story that he insured his chest hair. I was too young to appreciate a nice bulge back then, even though he certainly showed his off. But the fur ... sigh.

This stroll down memory lane started when I saw the headline: Busking** Tom Jones Shocks Fans.

More quickies:

• A new book by an Italian politician says that Europe should stay true to its Christian roots, which is also a central theme of Pople Benedict XVI's time in office. They seem to forget that Europe's roots aren't Christian. Pagans were there for centuries before Jesus came along. Even the Jews were there before the Christians.

• According to a 2007 Gallup poll, Americans are more likely to vote for a Muslim, homosexual or Jew than an atheist. But a study of 18 democratic societies found that the more atheist societies have lower rates of murder, suicide, abortion and teen pregnancy.

By the way, did you know Danes and Swedes are "probably the most godless people on Earth"?

• The Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain is known for catering to children, which is why they instituted a policy of stamping people's hands when they come in the door. Children and their adult escorts are stamped with the same number and an attendant is supposed to check the numbers when they leave. They aren't supposed to be allowed to leave if their numbers don't match.

Well, a team of ace journalists (i.e. TV reporters during November sweeps) conducted an undercover investigation and discovered that the attendants don't always check the stamps, and even if they do and the numbers don't match, they still let people take the kids out the door with them.

OMG, let's sue. I mean, it's not like parents should be responsible for watching their own kids. And it's not like Chuck's would be guilty of false imprisonment or kidnapping if they refused to let people leave.

• But then, some children are better off without their parents. A woman in West Virginia burned the word "WIMP" on her 6 year old daughter's neck. She used a cigarette.

• Fark headline of the day - Today's little known fact: In an emergency, you can repair a broken fan belt with a snake. (the story)

• On second thought, this is the headline of the day - You come to Fark.com in part because we show you what happens when a big-ass snake eats a few golf balls. Well, here's your slideshow.

• Hey, I've got an idea. Let's row a boat all the way across the Indian Ocean. Naked.

• Their couch is haunted. Their name is Strange.

• BHO hearts HRC: We should've seen it coming.

• Groom your poodle.

• Rickrolling is so 2007.

• Footnotes:

* The bulge makes its appearance at 1:01, the humping at 1:11 ... sigh.

**Busk: to entertain by singing or dancing. I'm not sure what they call that move he does in the video but it's no wonder women threw their panties at him.

Turn ons: Tom Jones before
Turn offs: Tom Jones after

Quote of the day

If we're serious about oversight, can we get the makers of Q-tips to finally come clean about what their product is really for?

I mean, enough of the lies. It's a new day.

~ Josh Marshall, TPM

Baby mamas

There's a website that has a set of message boards called expecting clubs. There's one for each month, e.g. boards for pregnant women who are due in November 2008, December 2008, etc.

I love to lurk on those boards. They are a microcosm of American society and even include several people from Canada and a few other countries. There are women from the far right, the far left and everywhere in between. Straight, Lesbian, Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, pagan, home schoolers, career women, unwed pregnant teens thru women in their 40s, "oops" pregnancies as well as women who went through years of fertility treatments. Occasionally even a surrogate carrying someone else's baby or a soon-to-be adoptive mom.

They form their own little community - there might be a couple hundred women on each board, and what they have in common is they're all expecting a baby the same month. And they talk about everything - their marriages, divorces, sex or lack thereof, abuse, new jobs, lay offs, bitchy mother-in-laws, politics, the economy, pop culture. There are always a lot of posts about the costs of health care and the way most of them get jacked around by their insurance companies, if they're lucky enough to have insurance at all. Recently, I saw a post from a woman who's due next spring and is having complications that have required extra tests and hospitalizations, and she just found out the premiums from her company's insurance plan will more than quadruple January 1st.

I've learned a lot about the practice of obstetrics in this country. And it is not good. So many OBs push women to be induced and inductions lead to C-sections. One C-section leads to another - many doctors and/or hospitals have policies that do not allow women to even attempt a VBAC. Often, there is not a hospital or an OB within 100 miles that will allow a VBAC. Often, there's not an OB within 100 miles that will allow a woman expecting twins to deliver vaginally. All of which explains why the U.S. has way too many C-sections.

Doctors also bully or frighten women into having C-sections because ultra-sounds show the baby will be "too big." But size estimates based on ultra-sounds can be (and often are) off by as much as 2 pounds or more. I've seen many cases where the mother was told her baby would be 9 or 10 pounds and it turned out to be only 7. "Big" babies are also the cause of many early inductions, often as early as 37 weeks. Since due dates are also only an estimate, many of these babies turn out to have serious issues related prematurity and end up spending time in NICU. Occasionally, they suffer life-long disabilities as a result.

What many people don't know is that C-sections are not only more dangerous for the mother, they're also more dangerous for the baby. The contractions and the process of being squeezed through the birth canal forces the fluid out of a baby's lungs. It also causes hormones to be released that help the baby's breathing.

This fall, the expecting clubs also had a lot of debates about politics. Conservative Christians are usually the biggest bloc on these boards. A lot of them are stay-at-home moms. Reading their opinions really gave me insight into what McCain supporters were thinking, where they got their info - Fox News, talk radio, emails from conservative friends. And many of them were crazy enough to believe every negative thing they heard about Obama, no matter how much evidence there was to the contrary.

Which is what prompted this post. Last night, I saw a discussion about Obama that made my jaw drop. The title was "Obama not a U.S. citizen?" A few excerpts:

• [My mother-in-law] has believed the rumors that Obama was born in Kenya! She said that his Grandmother and other people confirmed that he was born in Kenya ... Well today she said that she heard on the radio that they are investigating where he was born.

• Hawaii wouldn't release his birth certificates or records. The scuttlebutt [was] he might have been born in Africa. I don't know what ever happened regarding his birth records, but given some of the people he is/was associated with I could see this as a possibility

• First, his mother did not have enough years residency in the US (minimum 10 years, 5 of which must be past the age of 16) for him to have automatically been granted US citizenship if he was in fact born on foreign soil ... Because he attended a school in Indonesia that registers Indonesian citizens only, it seems that he either was not a US citizen to begin with or his mother must have renounced his US citizenship when she remarried and moved there ... This isn't really new news though. It's just been buried by the press b/c they were so eager to see Obama elected.

• [I] had also heard from some talk radio show that HI finally produced a birth certificate, but when they did it didnt match the version that was in print in the year Obama was allegedly born. Meaning either it was a forged birth certificate or he was born later than he says he was.

The ignorance is shocking. And some of these women are home-schooling their children. They aren't trolls just trying to start a fight - they actually believe what they're saying. That's the kind of stuff I've been reading throughout the primaries and election, and they're still not letting it go.

WTF is wrong with the people who run these radio stations and commentators like Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh who spout this crap? They know it's all a bunch of lies.

Free speech is good. Free speech is good. I have to keep repeating this to myself because I so want to campaign for the FCC to pull their licenses. As far as I'm concerned, they're guilty of sedition. It's no wonder there are nutjobs who think it's okay to photoshop Obama in a coffin.

Eye candy, part 2

For guys and girls who like guys: Actor Scott Caan and his father James. I'll take the oldie but goodie.

Plus, here's special gift for my anonymous fiend: Prince William pissing.

Eye candy for the weekend

For guys and girls who love girls: Actress Caterina Murino. Gorgeous.

Another gratuitous mention of Brad

Some quickies:

• Takes a real genius to figure out how to solve the health care crisis. Oklahoma State Insurance Commissioner thinks anyone without insurance should have their drivers license, state tax refunds, and college football season tickets taken away.

• This week Congress berated Big Three auto execs who flew to Washington on luxury private jets to beg for taxpayer handouts. GM has responded by getting rid of 2 of their leased corporate jets. They still have 3 jets left.

• From Florida:

A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke. Some watchers contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs' home - a scene also captured on the Internet - it was too late.

He was bipolar.

• Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar are being sentenced to prison terms up to 65 years:

Our correspondent says such breathtakingly disproportionate punishments send two clear messages from the generals who rule Burma: that they will brook no opposition in the lead-up to their carefully managed transition to what they are calling a "discipline-flourishing democracy"; and that they are unconcerned what the rest of the world thinks.

• Meanwhile, in Thailand:

A maverick Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday.

• Check out mugshots from The Smoking Gun. #8, #9 and #19 look like a clown school drop out and #4 could really use some waterproof mascara. And apparently #15 really likes getting her picture taken. #18 wants to know What's up?

• Speaking of mugshots: The butt cheek bandit has been arrested. For more than a year, some guy has been leaving greasy imprints of his butt and/or groin on store windows in Valentine, Nebraska. A "lone deviant" is now in custody.

• According to Perez Hilton, who's quoting "impeccable sources," Madonna's divorce from Guy Ritchie is costing her $70 million. You'd think she would've been smart enough to get a pre-nup, but I can't feel too sorry for her. Obviously, she has at least $70 million left. Girlfriend needs to be giving more to charity. The starving children of Haiti would be a good place to start.

• Forbes has a list of the highest paid celebrity couples. Jay-Z and Beyonce are on top, earning more than $168 million in the last year. (As if anyone can "earn" that much.) Will and Jada Smith were #2 with $85 mill. Brad and Angelina ranked #5 with $34 mill.

• Headline of the day: Obama to Tap Clinton After Thanksgiving. Like the poor girl hasn't been tapped enough by that horn dog she married.

Something I haven't seen on the evening news

Or on the cable news networks. And I haven't heard our politicians talking about it either. The little girl in the picture is 4 years old. She's from Haiti.

From Yahoo News:

In pockets of Haiti accessible only by donkey or foot, children are dying of malnutrition - their already meager food supply cut by a series of devastating storms that destroyed crops, wiped out livestock and sent food prices spiraling.

At least 26 severely malnourished children have died in the past four weeks in the remote region of Baie d'Orange in Haiti's southeast, aid workers said Thursday, and there are fears the toll will rise much higher if help does not come quickly ...

Poverty is the real terrorist in this world. Far more people die each year from starvation, malnutrition, lack of clean water, and easily preventable diseases than from terrorist attacks. Yet, most people in America are hardly aware of the abhorable conditions in third world countries. We are squandering dollars and precious resources in the so-called war on terror when we could be sending money, food and medicine to places where we could truly be effective.

The worst part of our current policies is that helping people who need us the most would actually help to stem terrorism. Children who grow up in those circumstances end up hating us because we've ignored their plight. Al Qaeda and other groups use that hatred as a recruiting tool. Our politicians who campaign as good Christians who support family values seem forget Christ's most important lesson - love thy neighbor. We're not supposed to be killing people.

There are children who go hungry every night right here in the U.S. Children who don't get adequate medical care. But no matter how bad our economy gets, we can afford to help our human family around the world who need help the most.

We are sending aid to Haiti but clearly not enough. It's only a tiny fraction of what we're spending in Iraq.

I should've been a banker

For the last few weeks, Keith Olbermann has been saying that the Wall Street bailout would someday be known as "why daddy went to jail." Case in point:

The founder and CEO of South Carolina's largest bank retired in October and received an $18 million severance package. This week, the bank announced it's getting $342 million from the feds. Now, South Carolina's governor wants the Treasury Department to investigate because it appears the banker moved up his retirement to avoid the golden parachute limits that come along with the bailout money.

CEO knows the bank's going to fail so he takes the money and runs. To me, it's just another form of insider trading, which is what Martha Stewart went to prison for. Prosecute the bastards and give them the option - give the money back or go to jail.

I'm willing to bet a lot of those sleaze balls would keep the money and do the time at the federal country club. Even more of your taxpayer dollars at work.

But the rules are so fucked up that what this guy did, no matter how immoral, probably isn't a crime:

The widespread ingenuity of executive compensation packages means that an executive at a bank that's taken federal money could walk away with tens of millions even while abiding by the limits. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the country's biggest banks owe their executives billions in deferred pay and special executive pensions.


A corporate analyst says:

"If you and I decided to retire, we might get what's left of our 401(k). But for some reason the rules seem to be different for executives. They get severance even though they're retiring. There's no logic to it at all."

As if the millionaires and billionaires don't already have the deck stacked in their favor, on Wednesday I saw Mike Huckabee on C-Span. He said he wants to eliminate all federal and state income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, etc., and run the government based entirely on consumption taxes. Sales tax.

In other words, you pay taxes not based on how much you have but how much you spend. So low income people like me, who spend 100% of their monthly income just to buy gas and groceries and pay the bills, will be paying taxes on 100% of their income. While people like Donald Trump, who can drop $1000 on a meal or a few million on a private jet and still be spending only spend a small fraction of their income, will be paying taxes only on that small fraction. The rich keep accumulating wealth while the poor go deeper and deeper in the hole.

I don't know if Huckabee is too ignorant to understand what he's advocating or if he's really that corrupt.

Better quote of the day

[What] needs to be articulated around religion and homosexuality is that you can have your theology and also sign off on gay and lesbian civil rights and full enfranchisement, including marriage. You know, a lot of Christians think Jews are going to hell. Right? And yet Jews can get married in our culture. No one's attempting to strip Jews of their civil rights in our dominant Christian culture.

~ writer Dan Savage, patiently explaining the truth to the moron formerly known as D.L. Hughley

Quote of the day

"There is a difference between respectfully advocating one's civil rights and demanding public endorsement of what many still consider to be unnatural sexual behavior through cruel coercion and repression tactics."

~ the moron formerly known as Chuck Norris

This picture put a smile on my face

They're so damned photogenic and they seem real. I'll be proud to have this family in the White House.

What took the smile off my face was another picture I found on the same website. It was a photoshop of "Barack Husain Obama" that showed him in a coffin with bullet wounds in his head. It's captioned "My condolence." And the photo's title is "This is your home." (Click with caution. The picture left me with a sick feeling in my gut.)

I emailed the site (Photobucket) and asked them to take it down and also suggested that they should contact the Secret Service. Hopefully, it'll be gone by morning.

I googled Secret Service with thoughts of reporting it myself but they don't have an email address, just a phone number for the Des Moines Field Office. I decided I don't want to call attention to myself.

What a sad state this country's in that I'm too paranoid to be a good citizen, for fear I'll bring the wrath of Big Brother on myself.

But change is coming. I can feel it.

Fat, sick and ugly

Where do the fattest and sickest people in the U.S. live? Huntington, WV:

Huntington's economy has withered, its poverty rate is worse than the national average, and vagrants haunt a downtown riverfront park. But this city's financial woes are not nearly as bad as its health.

Nearly half the adults in Huntington's five-county metropolitan area are obese — an astounding percentage, far bigger than the national average in a country with a well-known weight problem.

Huntington leads in a half-dozen other illness measures, too, including heart disease and diabetes. It's even tops in the percentage of elderly people who have lost all their teeth (half of them have).

Maybe I should move there. I'd fit right in.

More quickies:

• One of many challenges for teachers:

While racial and sexual harassment are real, [president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education] said, universities have “created and encouraged ambiguity” by letting students believe that anything involving race or gender that they disagree with is somehow inappropriate harassment. “These absurdly overly broad and constitutionally wrong definitions,” Lukianoff said, have led to “a belief among students that they have a right to punish professors they deem to have said the wrong thing.”

The article is worth a read.

• Headline from Fark: Owner puts rusty 1963 Pontiac Tempest on Ebay. No motor. No transmission. Asks $500. Turns out that it was the fastest car of its time and 1 of only 6 ever made. Car goes for over $226,000. (story)

Damn. I only got $300 for my Pontiac LeMans. But then, there was a reason I called it my LeMon.

• Check out this slideshow of the World's Ugliest Buildings. Three of the seven are in London, including Buckingham Palace.

American health care: insanity

America is facing a shortage of primary care physicians because family doctors and internists are throwing in the towel. According to a new study, half of those who are in practice say they would quit if they had an alternative. They're burned out - not because they have too many patients, but because they're buried in all the red tape from insurance companies and government agencies.

This illustrates what I've been saying all along. We need single-payer universal health care. As it is now, every insurance company, plus Medicare and Medicaid and state and local programs, cover different drugs, procedures, tests, and medical conditions, and each requires different documentation. The amount of paperwork generated costs a fortune in time and money.

The insurance industry continues pumping out propaganda against "socialized medicine." So-called "pro-family" politicians and the numbskulls who vote for them scream that they don't want the government making their health care decisions.

Instead, giant corporations, whose only motivation is profit, decide what kind of care you'll receive, if any. Many employee insurance plans no longer pay for contraception, or for prenatal care, labor and delivery. Deductibles and monthly premiums have skyrocketed. You lose your job - which, in the current economy, is happening to thousands of workers every month - you lose your insurance. If you find a new job with benefits, there's a lengthy waiting period before you're eligible for the plan. If you have a pre-existing condition, forget about it. There are thousands of people on welfare or disability because it's the only way they can qualify for help with medical bills.

Think of the dollars that could be saved if some of those people could go back to work without losing the lifeline Medicare and Medicaid provide them. Think of the marriages that could be saved if couples didn't have to divorce in order to qualify for medical assistance for their kids. Health care workers wouldn't be so burdened with paperwork if every patient had the same coverage.

Single-payer universal health care. It's time. Way past time.

Ignorance is blessed

Did you know that education has a dark side?

So says a Catholic bishop who blames the growing skepticism and dissent among Catholics on people who've been corrupted by their educations. According to Bishop O'Donoghue:

"What we have witnessed in Western societies since the end of the Second World War is the development of mass education on a scale unprecedented in human history - resulting in economic growth, scientific and technological advances, and the cultural and social enrichment of billions of people's lives ...

"However, every human endeavor has a dark side, due to original sin and concupiscence. In the case of education, we can see its distortion through the widespread dissemination of radical scepticism, positivism, utilitarianism and relativism.

"Taken together, these intellectual trends have resulted in a fragmented society that marginalizes God, with many people mistakenly thinking they can live happy and productive lives without him."

Oh darn. If everybody would just stop going to school, we could all go back to the good old days, the Dark Ages.

Gulf War Syndrome

Remember the first Gulf War, featuring Bush the elder who was smart enough not to invade Baghdad? Get in, drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and get out.

Back then, the big fear was that Saddam would use chemical weapons to attack our troops. So our government made soldiers take pills that were supposed to protect them from exposure to nerve agents. They and their surroundings were also sprayed with pesticides. Government research has now concluded that the pills and the pesticides caused Gulf War Syndrome.

They've been studying the problem since 1991 and until now, it seemed the focus of the research was trying to prove veterans were just imagining or faking their symptoms, which included persistent memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread pain, gastrointestinal problems, and other chronic abnormalities, as well as an increased risk for Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). One veterans' leader says:

"Years were squandered by the federal government ... trying to disprove that anything could be wrong with Gulf War veterans."

Few of the afflicted vets have recovered and no cure has been identified. And it was all caused by chemicals we used on our own troops.

More proof that our government is a greater threat to its own citizens than any foreign totalitarian or terrorist.

Pretty tame, as far as rants go

My days and nights are turned around again. I'm staying up all night and sleeping all day. On Saturday, I was in bed from 9 a.m. til 6 p.m. I kept dozing and waking all day, so I was still exhausted when I got up.

I seriously need to get a door for my bedroom so I can shut the cats out. When I sleep during the day, they fight over who gets to sit on top of me. No matter who wins, I end up with a butt in my face.

A few quickies:

• An artist in San Francisco who has an artificial eye wants to replace it with a web cam:

She's issued a challenge to engineers on her blog: build an "eye cam" for her prosthesis that can dilate with changes of light and allow her to blink to control its zoom, focus, and on/off switch.

I would totally do this is I lost one of my eyes.

• Studies show that rates of paranoia in the "normal" population have tripled in recent years. Surely, it's not a result of the fear mongering our leaders have used to keep us docile. Or the fact that there are surveillance cameras everywhere, the FBI's reading our emails, NSA's listening in on our phone calls, and TSA makes you bend over and spread 'em before you get on a plane.

• While ICE wastes all their resources building and patrolling a multi-million dollar wall along the Mexican border and raiding packing plants to terrorize mothers and fathers who want nothing more than to work to support their families, 75% of jail inmates who've admitted to being in the country illegally are released back out on the street because ICE doesn't follow up on their cases. These include people who've been convicted of rape, child molestation and murder.

Why don't they leave hard-working, law-abiding people alone and focus on deporting the criminals?

• Some nimrod has been chopping off horses' tails in Iowa. They sell for $35-100 on eBay.

Eye candy for the weekend

I have no idea who he is. Happy Sunday, Seattle.

Holy a-holes

A Catholic priest in South Carolina wrote to his parishioners and told them they can't take communion if they voted for Obama, unless they confess their "sin" and ask for forgiveness first. From the letter:

Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president ...

Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.

It's way past time to take away their tax exempt status.

Rambling but not too far

Ever tell someone in real life about your blog and then regret it? I'm so there right now. Ugh.

New subject: Some friends of mine run a respected literary journal and they've hired me to read fiction submissions for them. So far, I've read about 20 stories and haven't found one I think is worthy of publication. I usually compare myself to writers that are published - sometimes, I feel like I'm as good as any of them, other times they totally blow me away. Comparing my writing to the stuff that doesn't get published is a kinder, gentler way of judging my work. It's convinced me that I should be sending my stories out, if this is what I'm competing against.

Bill O'Reilly was on Jon Stewart tonight. I love seeing O'Reilly in front of an audience that boos his blow-hard ramblings, and where someone actually calls him on his bullshit. Not that it does a thing to change O'Reilly's mind, it's just fun. And he's good-natured about it.

Tonight, there's a rumor that Hillary Clinton is Obama's pick for Secretary of State. Josh Marshall at TPM asks:

Secretaries of State don't usually last more than a single presidential term. And sometimes they don't make it that long. So, for the life of me, I do not understand why Hillary Clinton would want to give up what is in all likelihood a senate seat for life to run the State Department for Barack Obama.

My response:

1) Because she's patriotic and wants to serve our country.

2) Because she cares about people all over the world.

3) Because she wants to make her mark on history.

4) Because it will give her the opportunity to advocate for human rights and help women and children living in poverty. That's what she's been working for all her life.

Turn ons: Hillary Clinton
Turn offs: juicy gossip that you can't tell anyone

Lame excuse for a post

Totally unreliable, totally sleazy gossip (isn't that the best kind?): The National Enquirer says Cindy McCain is having an affair with a guy who looks like "a washed up 80s rock musician."

I've been saying for a long time that Cindy would dump J-Mac once she saw her dream of being first lady was never coming true.

Sorry, I had nothing better to say.

Today's post brought to you by "cheifing"

Follow up on No honor whatsoever -

A 13 year old rape victim was stoned to death by Islamic fundamentalists in Somalia. She had been convicted of adultery.

More quickies:

• "A flagrant act of nutritional disobedience" - that's the charge against a high school swim team in California. Schools there no longer allow bake sales on campus because they don't like fat kids. So the boys held their fundraiser off campus and ran through the halls in their speedos to promote it.

• Governor Ah-nold thinks the California Supreme Court "will maybe" overturn Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. But journalist Jeffrey Toobin thinks not. Meanwhile, The View's very blonde Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her even dumber co-host Sherri Shepherd displayed their ignorance again. They both claimed that if Prop 8 hadn't passed, clergy people would be required to marry gay people and they'd go to jail if they refused.

Barbara Walters should be ashamed of herself for putting these 2 nitwits on TV.

• Speaking of stupid bigots, on this date in 1634:

Under the urging of Anglican Bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery." Seven years later, the good Bishop Atherton is himself the second man hanged under the Act.

• Fark headline of the day: 2,000 year old golden earring found in Jerusalem. How did they find it? Radar, love.

If you get the joke, you're old. Really, really old like me. (the story)

• Once, twice, three times a lady:

"She performed this exhibition three times where she would re-enter her apartment and return to the balcony to expose her bare buttocks and spank herself," said Sgt Campbell. "With the amount of public education regarding this nature of offending, it is very disappointing to see a relatively mature lady behaving in this manner, not once but three times effectively."

• Cheifing = to write, mark, shave, sud or otherwise vandalize an individual who is comatose due to over consumption of alcohol, as in a New England Patriots cheerleader was fired for drawing penises on an unconcious friend and posting the pictures on Facebook

Body image

Quote of the day

"I can't believe Obama is already sitting down with an unpopular, aggressive world leader without preconditions."

~ a TPM reader, commenting on Obama's meeting with Bush

The beehive

Remember last week (you probably don't, and I know, who cares?), when Sarah Palin did an impromptu interview back home in Alaska. There was a story in the NY Times that the RNC was sending lawyers to her home to repossess her family's fancy new wardrobe. She said it wasn't true.

Her dad contradicts her - he says she spent Saturday trying to figure out what things are supposed to go back to the RNC:

"She was just frantically ... trying to sort stuff out ... That's the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for."

Why was the RNC buying her kids underwear?

A fun tidbit from the article:

Jessica Steele can't wait to see what Sarah Palin does next — not with her political career, but with her hair.

"That's something I want to talk to her about: What's our vision for her hair?" says Steele, proprietor of the Beehive Beauty Shop and keeper of the governor's up-do since 2002. "I can't wait to see her and say, 'OK, I've got you alone for three hours. Just relax, and how are you, really?'"

Insert clever title here

This weekend, I got into a debate with a guy on a message board. He kept laying out arguments that were based entirely on false equivalencies, and every time I shot him down with facts, he came back with "You know nothing of me."

Delusions of self-reference there, slugger? The debate had nothing to do with YOU - it was about whether or not Congress should investigate the crimes of the Bush administration. They should. End of debate.

Meanwhile, Joe Lie-berman is whining about his soon-to-be-lost committee chairmanship. Dude, you spoke at the Republican convention and campaigned against Obama. What did you expect?

Time for some quickies:

• Did you know FEMA's official firefighters' manual includes a chapter on how to deal with UFO crashes? From the manual:

You may have engine trouble upon approaching the scene and radio contact could be lost with your dispatcher. If at night, your headlights could go out, the city could be blacked out, and your portable generators may malfunction.

Have the guys at FEMA watched Close Encounters one too many times, or do they know something they're not telling us?

• Another sign that Americans are surrendering to the alien invasion: Breaded deep fried bacon drenched in gravy. Who cares about cholesterol if we're all about to die?

• By the way, those weird lights in the night sky in Perrysburg, Indiana? Kites.

• The picture is from If State Signs Were More Truthful.

Turn ons: Check out these cool shoes. My favorites are the fish flip-flops.
Turn offs: Remember Jonestown? Thirty years ago this week, more than 900 people died.

Not everyone in Utah is crazy

Quote of the Day:

What's more harmful to society - two well-dressed men getting married and settling down, or two idiots tying the knot and cranking out any number of additional idiots?

~ Robert Kirby, columnist at The Salt Lake Tribune

Renegade

John McCain might be the Maverick, but Obama is the Renegade. That's his Secret Service code name. (I've never understood why they give these guys a code name and then tell everyone what it is.)

Now that he's president elect, he'll be carrying a panic button with him at all times. It's shaped like a credit card:

At one time, the President and Vice-President were given three-inch-high models of the Washington Monument to put beside their beds. They had simply to knock them over to summon the guards.

But the models were abandoned after Vice-President Dan Quayle - noted for being clumsy - knocked his over late one night while making love to his wife.

In seconds, the door burst open, the lights went on and Mrs Quayle was thrown out of bed to the floor as bodyguards flocked around her husband to ensure his safety.

By the way, did you know the Kennedys kept pet parakeets in the White House?

Check out the article for more info on the Obamas' new life.

Behind

Belated eye candy for the weekend. I don't know who the guy is but he's got a nice butt. I think it's from a show called Firefly.

Sarah Palin removes all doubt

One of the Sarah-bashing allegations coming out of the McCain camp is that she thought Africa is country instead of a continent. The MSNBC pundits - esp. Matthews - have been scoffing at that. They keep asking how can any adult, college-educated person in the U.S., the governor of a state, not know that Africa is a continent.

Frankly, I didn't have any trouble believing that. American high schools aren't known for producing well-rounded individuals and colleges don't have geography, history, politics or sociology requirements for graduation. With the xenophobia and racism that runs rampant in this country - esp. among Republicans - as well as the Republican penchant for anti-intellectualism - is it really a shock that a governor from a low-population, conservative, and "maverick" state like Alaska would be so ignorant?

And now, Palin has inadvertently confirmed her own gaffe:

If there are allegations based on questions or comments I made in debate prep about Nafta — about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there — then those were taken out of context.

The continent vs. the country? So she thinks there is a country called Africa? At the very least, she's confirmed that she said something that could be construed that way.

By the way, why would Africa come up in debate preparation about NAFTA? Maybe because she didn't know which countries are part of NAFTA? That was another allegation coming from McCain's camp.

During the same spontaneous press conference, Palin denied that the RNC had sent anyone up to Alaska to repossess her $150,000+ wardrobe. But she confirmed there were, in fact, RNC reps doing an inventory of her wardrobe. Hmm.

Remember, this is the same chick who, the day after the Alaska legislature's Troopergate report came out, saying she had done things that were illegal and unethical and enumerating those things, she told the press she was glad the report said she'd done nothing illegal or unethical.

I guess nothing's true until Sarah says it's true.

Girlfriend needs to shut up. Maybe she's never heard of this good advice, sometimes attributed to Lincoln:

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

She is not the reason McCain lost. McCain choosing her might be the reason he lost, but why should she be blamed for that? I've been feeling sorry for her because I think she's being scapegoated. But now I'm thinking - karma's a bitch.

Next time someone asks her if she wants to run for national office, maybe she should blink.

If you need a laugh ...

... go read this blog. I'm not sure if that guy and his commenters are really that stupid or if they're just having fun making shit up.

The only thing that pisses me off is that I found it through a link on Yahoo news. Why is Yahoo promoting this crap?

The enforcer

Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who worked in Clinton's White House, will be Obama's chief of staff. The Republicans are already chafing at the bit. From the NY Post:

"H.R. Haldeman, White House chief of staff to President Richard Nixon, famously said, 'Every president needs a son of a bitch, and I am Nixon's.' And many observers believe Emanuel fits nicely in that slot."

Personally, I think Obama needs a tough guy to balance his own non-confrontational manner. Go, BO.

Scapegoat

Republicans are still using slash and burn politics, but now they're turning it on each other. Some see Sarah Palin as the future of the party while others are doing everything they can to make sure that never happens.

The McCain camp is placing the blame for the $150,000 shopping spree on Palin alone. They say she was only authorized to buy herself 3 suits for the convention and 3 more suits for the campaign. Instead:

Bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue. The bills included clothing for Ms. Palin’s family and purchases of shoes, luggage and jewelry, the advisers said.

The same sources report that the RNC will probably send lawyers to Alaska to do an inventory and try to account for all that was spent.

McCainians said Randy Scheunemann was fired for leaking info that trashed staffers to bolster Palin's image. Two of McCain's top advisers are on the record saying that's not true, and Scheunemann is still answering his phone at McCain HQ. He said:

“anybody who says I was fired is either lying or delusional or a whack job.”

[Update: TPM says the campaign stopped short of firing Scheunemann but they did cut off his email and take away his blackberry. No blackberry? OMG, poor baby.]

The campaign and Palin's own advisers look even more ridiculous thanks to this little tidbit: The prank phone call where she thought she was talking to the French president was placed on her schedule 3 days ahead of time. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing. As much as I hate her, I really can't blame Palin for this one. It was their job to verify who she would be talking to long before they put her on the phone.

Everybody always wants to blame the girl. Way back in February, people started saying Dems would lose the White House if Hillary didn't drop out. Shows what they know.

Trashing Sarah Palin

Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's chief advisers, was secretly fired last week for spreading lies about the campaign staff in order to defend Palin. But now staffers are finally admitting Palin wasn't vetted and choosing her was a Hail Mary. Fox News "reporter" Carl Cameron is doing their dirty work for them:

There is to be an avalanche that will continue for many days now, we're told, of story upon story of the foibles of Sarah Palin.

For starters, when they were prepping her for the Katie Couric interview, they discovered that she thought Africa was a country.

Plus, Newsweek says:

Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported ... Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards ... One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast."

Quote of the day

We are crying in my house! JOY! We're going out to buy an American flag tomorrow. I haven't felt good about being an American for so long. I had lost hope. But I'm restored and stunned and grateful and HAPPY.

~ seen on a message board for expectant mothers

Can we forget he's black for a minute?

One of my earliest memories is the day JFK died when I was 3. I was playing in my room and all of a sudden I knew something was wrong - I think I heard my mother crying. I went to the living room where she was watching TV. I didn't understand what she was watching but I knew it wasn't her soap. I asked what was going on and she said, "They killed the president."

I was 8 years old when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy died.

Which probably explains why, last night as soon as it became real, as soon as Obama had won enough states that I knew they couldn't take it away from him no matter what shit they tried to pull in Florida or Ohio, my first thought was, "They're going to kill him."

I think the single image from last night that I'm going to remember the longest is Jesse Jackson standing in the middle of the celebrations at Grant Park. He was crying. Jesse Jackson was on that balcony in Memphis - he saw Martin Luther King get shot. He had to be remembering, wishing MLK was here, knowing this day would have come sooner if MLK had lived.

I have to believe Jesse was thinking the same thing I was - they're going to kill him. The fact that Obama's black is one reason but this is about more than race. Barack Obama represents a shift in the paradigm.

MSNBC was showing live views of the celebrations in Chicago and New York. Times Square was filled with thousands of people, most of them half my age or younger (it hurts to write that) and they were jumping up and down and cheering. Most of them were white. Grant Park was filled with VIPs and regular people of all ages - black and white. And they were jumping up and down and cheering.

And I thought, "They're going to kill him."

Not the kids who were celebrating. "Them."

Even if I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan acted alone (and most of the time I do), it was a conspiracy. In each case, one man pulled the trigger but others set the wheels in motion.

That doesn't mean I think the CIA or the mafia or anyone else sat in a room plotting the assassinations then recruited some nut job to do it. But the old white men who ran this country weren't ready to let go, and they were willing to incite hatred and violence to hold on to their power.

Nigger. Nigger lover. I'm old enough to remember when people weren't afraid to shout those words, when good old boys who viewed themselves as crusaders got liquored up and went looking for a "darkie" to string up.

It didn't happen where I lived, but that's probably only because there wasn't a black man to be found anywhere in the county. Small towns in Iowa were lily white in those days. "Negroes" as we polite people called them back in those days were so rare that I stared at them when my family went shopping in the city. Not because of any hostility or hatred - it was only curiosity. I was fascinated that the palms of their hands weren't as dark as the rest of them. My mother would grab me and speak in a harsh whisper, "Don't stare."

I remember hearing stories of marches and people getting beat up and hosed down, of little girls getting killed in churches. So I understand the significance of a black man becoming president.

Nowadays, there aren't many people who are bold or ignorant enough to shout, "Nigger." So they say Muslim. Terrorist. Thanks to Bush and the other cowboys who've held the reins, those 2 words are equivalent. It's still okay to hate people with dark skin.

The thing about racists is they don't see themselves as racists. They see themselves as "conservative" and "Christian." They don't have anything against blacks but they hate "terrorists" and "liberals." That's why a Republican leader in California can send out a newsletter with a picture of Obama on a food stamp surrounded by watermelon and fried chicken and be mystified that people got upset. She's not lying when she says "I'm not a racist" because she thinks she's not.

If an assassin finds a way to get Obama - please god, don't let that happen - no matter what the guy's name is, Rush Limbaugh pulled the trigger. Karl Rove pulled the trigger. Sarah Palin pulled the trigger. John McCain, perhaps unwittingly or unintentionally, put the bullets in the gun.

In the meantime, since "they" can't get to Obama, violence against African Americans and Muslims will go up. There will be bombings - maybe a mosque, maybe someone's house. There's going to be a lynching. I wish I wasn't so sure but I know it's going to happen. It's already started.

Still, can we forget that our new president is black? Just for a minute. Last night, that's all the dopes on MSNBC could talk about.

Yes, I get it. The fact that we elected a black man to lead this country where the KKK still exists, where most of us remember the day the first Negro walked through the doors of Ole Miss, this election is historic. Momentous. A huge step forward.

One of the things the MSNBC commentators pondered, hour after hour, was why, according to exit polls, something like 30% of the white people who said race affected their decision voted for Obama "anyway." Didn't it occur to them maybe we voted for him, at least in some small part BECAUSE he's black? A lot of white people want equality among the races too. We understand the symbolism of all this.

But those white kids in Times Square weren't jumping up and down and screaming with joy because Obama's black. They were cheering because he gives them hope.

He gives me hope. And that's saying a lot.

Oh shit. Now what?

Buh-bye!

Joe Six Pack and his pals

No honor whatsoever

"How long will women be buried alive and made to face hungry dogs? Women are not given their rights."

That's the response of a female senator in Pakistan, regarding the murder - "honor killing" - of a 17 year old girl.

Her father was locked in his home and forced to watch as she was mauled by dogs and then shot. Her husband - the father's nephew - had been beating her throughout their 5-month marriage. He accused her of adultery but the father says the real reason she was killed was because the nephew wanted his land.

Arguing about why she was killed misses the point entirely. Every year, hundreds of Pakistani women are killed by male relatives.

Grrr

I should be sleeping. I tried - I really tried. At this point, it's useless. I have to get up at 6:00 to go do poll watching and I know I'll feel more tired if I sleep for an hour than I will if I just stay up.

It's going to be a long day. I hope the turn out is as big as they keep saying it'll be. The day will go a lot faster.

And I hope Obama wins Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Virginia and they call it right away so I can go to bed early. I slept through all the drama the night Gore won then lost. Don't want to miss it this time.

The fucking crooks. The way I look at it - with so many moderate Republican leaders publicly endorsing Obama, it makes it harder for them to steal the election this time.

Not that they won't try.

Vote, dammit!

Right to life or right to be a nutjob?

From the Denver Post:

A proposed amendment to the Colorado state constitution that would define a human egg as a "person" from the moment of fertilization would go far beyond its intended purpose of outlawing practically all abortions.

Philosophers may debate when human life begins, but scientists are unanimous on the subject of when pregnancy begins: it's when a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus.

But the proposed Amendment 48 specifies that the egg be considered a "person" in the eyes of the law even before it is implanted in the uterus. That means, effectively, that those forms of birth control that prevent such implantation would be classified as homicide under the proposal.
Even without the use of drugs, many eggs just naturally fail to implant in the uterus. Likewise, many eggs are implanted only to result in a miscarriage in the early days or weeks of pregnancy — often before the woman is even aware she is pregnant. Should a woman who suffers a miscarriage be charged with negligent homicide because she failed to protect a fertilized egg she may not have even known she carried? Should a man who fertilized an egg be entitled to file a civil lawsuit against a woman who miscarries, charging her with the wrongful death of his week-old fertilized egg?

Unfortunately, none of these possibilities is far-fetched. They would be the almost certain results of the mischievous interaction of the proposed Colorado constitutional amendment with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I'm trying to remember ...

... what I used to blog about before I got obsessed with politics this year.

Some quickies:

• Maybe my landlord's not as bad as I thought: After an apartment building in Hawaii collapsed, tenants said the owner had been conducting medical experiments on them.

• When a deputy sheriff in California found out his wife was going to leave him, he tried to force her to castrate her lover. She faked it, then the deputy sodomized her and used the same knife to chop her hair off. But his uncle defends him:

"Robert is a real good father, and he didn't feel his wife was acting in an appropriate manner, especially since she's a mother."

• Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy: HAVE you ever looked at a raisin … really looked at it? Rolled it around in your fingers for a minute or so, explored its sticky ridges, even crinkled it next to your ear?

It's a treatment for depression. Maybe if the deputy had been contemplating raisins.

• Don't let your magpie peck you. It can lead to gangrene and an amputated leg.

• Not wanting to be pecked, an Aussie guy went hunting for a magpie goose. He shot the goose, then tripped and shot himself in the arm. Them magpies are gonna gitcha, one way or another.

• "Misdirected leisure activity" - That's how British police refer to the BDSM scene between the naked woman and the guy in camouflage at a train station.

• Speaking of misdirected leisure activity: The vicar fell backwards onto his kitchen table while hanging curtains. And, um, he was naked. That's how he got a potato up his ass. No, really, doc, that's how it happened.

Other patients at the same hospital have been similarly afflicted with a can of deodorant, a cucumber, or a Russian doll. So buy yourself a dildo already.

• And ladies, if you've been missing out on leisure activity, misdirected or otherwise, try wearing red. Research has shown men think women look sexier in red and they'd even be willing to spend more money on you. It might be traced back to our monkey ancestors since female baboons and chimps show red coloring when they're nearing ovulation.

• Obama's grandma died on Monday. She had already voted absentee and it will be counted.

• Good news from the guy who wrote Left Behind:

"The Antichrist isn't going to be an American, so it can't possibly be Obama. The Bible makes it clear he will be from an obscure place, like Romania."

So there. Vote for him, dammit.

Not so classy reunion

Today, I got a mysterious CD-R in the mail. The return address was in Ohio and the name might have been one of my high school classmates, but I wasn't sure. Our 30 year reunion was this summer but I didn't go. This guy decided to send pictures anyway.

What I learned: Apparently, I didn't miss much. Only 25 out of the 64 of us showed up. Looks like all they did was sit around in someone's back yard and get drunk. Pretty much the same thing they all did in high school. Everyone got fat, except for one chick who's still skinny. But she looks older than everybody else.

I only recognized 3 or 4 people.

More eye candy for the weekend

Paul Newman. It's still hard to believe he's gone.

Quote of the Day

George Bush may be in an undisclosed location, but Dick Cheney's out there on the campaign trail because he'd be delighted to pass the baton to John McCain. He knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush's economic policy and Dick Cheney's foreign policy-- but that's a risk we cannot afford to take.

~ Barack Obama reacting to Cheney's speech endorsing McCain

A few political bullets

I might add more later, but here goes:

• Sarah Palin thinks we're at war with Iran. At least, that's what she told Greta Van Susteren on FNC.

• Even John Judis, the senior editor of The National Review, thinks McCain's campaign is racist and may be the worst in history.

• In your face: Obama's running ads in Arizona, where his polls are picking up. Nothing could hurt more than McCain having to defend his home state.

Hello, Seattle

Eye candy for the weekend - Brad Pitt's butt.