Yet another quote of the day

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

~ Rep. Michele "Crazy Eyes" Bachmann who never lets the facts get in the way of a good rant. Gerald Ford was president when swine flu broke out in the 1970s.

Another quote of the day

"My feeling about gay people is that we have a responsibility not only to make gay marriage acceptable and to make gays feel accepted as much as heterosexuals...Gay people are downtrodden They are beaten. They are abused for their sexuality, and it goes across race. In the white community and the black community gay people are the bastards of the world. And in order for things to change, because any one of you could have gay children, or gay relatives, or gay friends...we have a responsibility to make this acceptable, to get all this bullshit so that some gay kid going to high school doesn't get the shit beaten out of him just because he's gay...I'm as heterosexual as they come. What is this hang-up about gay marriage? Who cares? Get on with your life!"

~ shock jock Howard Stern

Quote of the day

"I also would like to point out that there was a bill -- the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. This -- the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

~ Rep. Virginia Foxx of NC, during House debate on expanding hate crimes legislation

(Matthew Shepherd's mother was in the House gallery when Foxx sputtered this idiocy.)

You don't have to be smart to look good in a swimsuit

Miss California, who stirred up a controversy at the fabulous Miss USA contest by saying she's against gay marriage, now says people aren't born gay - it's "a behavior that develops over time." And, "The way that I was raised, the way that I was brought up, [being gay] was not an option."

She also says that Perez Hilton, who asked her the infamous question at Miss Universe, has "a hidden agenda."

Yes, dear, he has an agenda but it's not hidden. He wants equal rights for himself and everyone else.

I wrote the above yesterday but never got around to finishing the post. This morning, I found another blog piece about the divine Miss Cali. Her church's website claims that one third of all sex crimes against children are committed by homosexuals and one third of all gay men will get AIDS by the time they're 30. No word on whether or not it's the same one third.

Anyone with half a brain who's been educated by anyone other than so-called Christians with no education of their own knows those "facts" are entirely made up. Yes, that's a dig against "Christian" home schoolers because they're the ones who perpetuate this ignorance.

And they're the ones holding the erstwhile Miss Cali as some kind of martyr. She's a big hit on the Christian talk circuit, the new Anita Bryant - a pretty face to promote an agenda of hate.

Saw this on TV last night

Yeah, they confuse me too

Some stuff to gross you out

My mom was released from the hospital on Saturday, exactly a week after they called a code blue on her. My brother took her to stay at his place for awhile.

I don't have much to say, but here are some quickies:

• A guy in Chicago is opening a hot dog stand that employs former convicts, called "Felony Franks." Their slogan: "Home of the misdemeanor wiener."

• I guess the turd boy from my last post got off pretty light. Two guys in Michigan used a blow torch to burn the anus of a 6 year old because he made a mess in his pants.

• Human rights activists say a religious decree has led to a crack down on homosexuals in Iraq. There are reports that Iraqi militia are gluing men's anuses shut then forcing them to drink a substance that induces diarrhea, which results in death.

• A 16 year old boy strapped a dog shock collar to his own testicles and collected $10 every time an old guy shocked him.

• Note to guys who think their chubbies aren't chubby enough: Injecting your penis with Vaseline won't make it thicker. It's the current fad in parts of Asia and now in the U.K. But a British surgeon warns: "The skin of the penis either dies or else becomes severely ulcerated in all cases."

Just so you know.

Apparently, Usher goes commando

This little turd of mine, I'm gonna let it shine

A prosecutor in Pennsylvania is threatening to charge more than a dozen teenagers with felony child pornography because their pictures were being distributed via cell phone, even though some of them didn't send the pictures themselves. The accused include a 12 year old who was photographed in her bra at a slumber party and a 17 year old who was wearing a swimsuit.

One of the girls told the prosecutor "The worst punishment is knowing that all you old guys saw me naked. I just think you guys are all just perverts."

The prosecutor says, "We thought we were being progressive."

Quickies:

• Bristol Palin's attention whore baby daddy is threatening to sue her for custody. Of course, he claims he's not an attention whore - in his most recent of many TV appearances.

• Speaking of attention whores, a 17 year old in Pennsylvania whipped it out and jacked off. You might ask what 17 year old doesn't j/o. But this one did it in English class while calling out the names of other students. At least he didn't get anybody pregnant.

• Bluto and Otter never thought of this: A Nebraska fraternity has been shut down after a stripper penetrated a pledge with a vibrator during hazing.

• Fark headline of the day: While you celebrate Earth Day, say a word of thanks to its co-founder Ira Einhorn, whose other achievement was killing his girlfriend and hiding her decomposing corpse inside the wall of his apartment for 18 months before fleeing to France.

• "This little turd was on the floor in my room." That's the note the kindergarten teacher attached to the bag of poop she sent home with a 5 year old.

• The Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan refers to the picture above as "Worst Logo Ever." It was designed in 1973 for a Catholic Archdiocesan Youth Commission.

Still coughing

Girl cat likes to sleep on my chair and she gets mighty pissed when I boot her off. Dem's the breaks, baby. Mama's gotta blog.

I have a wicked cold right now so I haven't been spending much time at the hospital. Brother R.N. is picking up the slack. Every medical crisis for Mom (and for Dad when he was still alive), I felt like I was always the one expected to take care of everything. Days and nights at the hospital, staying with her when she gets home, cooking, cleaning, driving to doctors appointments, helping with physical therapy - the whole drill. To be fair, my brothers had full-time jobs and I didn't, and Brother R.N. has helped as much as he could in the past, driving 200 miles round trip on weekends. This time, he's taking most of it on himself. I would be helping more but the last thing she needs right now is another infection.

Writer's group met tonight. I felt guilty for taking my germs there and I was out of it so I didn't contribute much. My cough suddenly got much worse and my eyes were itching and watering. The windows were open and I think my spring allergies are kicking in.

Just made a quick trip to the drug store for cough suppressant. The one I used to take - it's been years since I've needed it - either isn't made anymore or they don't carry it.

God's Gift

Mom has rallied! She's off the ventilator, all her organ systems are functioning well, and her mental status hasn't been compromised at all. It's amazing how much things change from one day to the next. She feels a million times better just getting that tube out of her throat and being able to talk.

The only problems that remain - she's still in A-fib so they need to get that straightened out. And they still don't know what caused the infection in the first place.

Tonight we had an encounter with God's Gift to Medicine. Or at least a gynecologist who thinks she's all that.

She strutted into Mom's room and barely introduced herself (I still don't know her name) and said Mom's internist wanted her to do an endometrial biopsy. Mom's already had several of those in the last few years so we asked why it was necessary. God's Gift didn't think she had to explain anything to peons like us. She was nasty and bossy (and as my aunt who happened to be in the room said later) bullied Mom into having the test done immediately without explaining anything and without looking at the results of the previous biopsies.

Her excuse? It was after 5 so she wouldn't be able to get the records from Mom's regular doctor. Her bullying tactic? They weren't going to take her off the ventilator if she didn't have the biopsy first. Mom had been gagging on the tube all day, begging to have it taken out. At that point, she would have let them cut off her foot to get the tube out.

Mom has had heavy vaginal bleeding for many years now. She's 68, well past menopause, and she's been asking for a hysterectomy for the last 10 years. A couple of weeks ago, her regular doctor and the surgeon he referred her to agreed she needed it. They were in the process of doing a workup before she got sick. (With her history, the surgeon wanted her evaluated by a cardiologist first.)

But God's Gift to Medicine storms into Mom's room in ICU and declares she might not need a hysterectomy and she, God's Gift, would be the only one to decide.

Since when was it her decision? Mom already had a gynecologist and surgeon who were treating her. She didn't request a second opinion from this chick.

Mom was in tears, I was asking, Why does it have to be done right this minute, why didn't they look at her previous medical records first, etc.

Earlier in the day, my brother and I had figured out Mom could write messages. She gestured that she wanted to write so I handed her the pen and held the clipboard for her. As soon as she stopped writing, God's Gift grabbed it out of my hands before I could read it. Did she think I'd lie about what she wrote?

God's Gift read Mom's message and smirked. The message was "Just do it." I asked Mom if she wanted them to do the biopsy, she nodded yes and I said okay. They set up for the procedure and booted me out of the room.

About 15 minutes later, her nurse came looking for me in the visitor's lounge and told me they were done so I could go back in. I told her it wasn't the fact they wanted to do the biopsy, it was the way the doctor went about it.

The nurse finally explained they were trying to find out if there was any bacteria in the endometrium because they thought that might be the origin of the infection that almost killed her.

Why didn't the doctor tell us that? I had asked more than once why is this necessary, why tonight and she never said one word about looking for bacteria or their current theory about the source of the infection. We would have agreed to it right away if they had just explained things.

After that, the bitch, a.k.a. God's Gift, started playing nice. She knew how pissed we were and she must have realized she did need more medical history and since Mom couldn't talk, she'd have to get it from me.

She stood next to me and put her hand on my back. It didn't come across as condescending - more like she was saying "okay, I screwed up, I'll be nicer now." Hopefully she'd realized by then that I wasn't just being argumentative. I was asking the same questions Mom would have asked if she could so she could make her own decisions about what they did to her body.

We won't get the results until Friday at the earliest. My big fear now is after everything she's been through is we'll find out she has terminal cancer.

The last couple of days, I've felt like she was going to die and I wondered if we were only prolonging her suffering. I was the one who gave them permission to treat her and I was the one who told them she would want to be resuscitated (as it turned out, shortly before she coded.)

And speaking of that - tonight I told my aunt, "You'd better me nice to your kids." My aunt scrunched her forehead and I said, "I know you already are but remember, someday they might be the ones deciding whether or not you get resuscitated."

She laughed.

Chainsaw tattoo & other quickies

Last week was the 3rd anniversary of when I started my blog. Time flies supersonic.

My mom's condition hasn't improved. She's not going downhill but Brother R.N., a self-defined doom-and-gloomer, think it's only a matter of time until she does.

I need some distraction. Time for quickies:

• A German guy named Frank found out he was sterile so he hired his neighbor Demetrius, who already had kids and happened to look a lot like him, to impregnate his wife. When the wife still wasn't pregnant after 6 months of valiant efforts, Demetrius was tested and found out he was also sterile. Whereupon his wife admitted he wasn't the biological father of their 2 kids.

As if Demetrius didn't have enough to deal finding out he was sterile and his children weren't his own, Frank is now suing him for breach of contract.

What I want to know is what's in the water in that neighborhood that 2 young healthy guys are both sterile.

• Things you see on Huffington Post:

When you think of the beautiful natural world, do you think, "I want the environment to be as clean as my vagina." 
No? Well, maybe you should.

• Speaking of the rape of Mother Nature, the Rodenator strikes again. Last week, I linked to a story about the Spokane Parks & Rec department using a new system to blow up ground squirrels. As in, set off an explosion in their burrows to kill them. Now, a Canadian university is planning to use it to blow up rabbits. Cute, fuzzy little bunnies. WTF?

• Just read an interesting article from Houston Press about how 20-somethings who are uninsured turn to Dr. Google, internet message boards, and untrained friends for advice about medical problems. They even post messages on Facebook asking people to send them unused prescriptions for meds they need. One guy said:

"I had a pot dealer at the time who dealt in many other things, and he once told me that he could get any prescription drug that I wanted ... So I used him to fill my prescriptions. Prozac doesn't have recreational potential, so they were extraordinarily cheap. I think I was getting 200 pills for like $5 or something. It was basically a service charge and he was throwing them in free when I bought pot."

Pretty resourceful if you ask me.

• Speaking of - an actual headline from NPR: America's Uninsured Are Swelling. PMS? Gout? Too many burritos? Guess they'll have to google that.

• Seven months ago, a guy in Philadelphia got hit by a bus and ended up in a wheelchair as a result. Last week, he got hit by another bus and it killed him. Lighting does strike twice. Or in this case, buses.

• Last year, I posted about a teenage girl who was strip searched at her school. They were looking for ibuprofen. Two pills. The case has been bouncing around the courts for years. One judge who heard it wrote:

"A reasonable school official, seeking to protect the students in his charge, does not subject a 13-year-old girl to a traumatic search to 'protect' her from the danger of Advil."

Now, the Supreme Court is taking it on. I've before and I'll say it again: Zero tolerance is stupid.

• If you're going to get naked and trash your hotel room, don't be surprised if the police show up. And when they do, don't threaten to hit them with a toilet seat. That'll get you tasered in Tucson. Dead too.

• How drunk do you have to be to get a bloody chainsaw engraved above your ass crack?

If I twittered this is what I'd write

Shopping Sam's Club online to stock the pantry of my dream house. Because my ultimate fantasy is a huge pantry, unlimited funds and buying TP by the case. Totally mindless but keeps me from panicking over what else is going on. I'm not buying anything, just browsing & making a list. How much Clorox would my fantasy family use? Would 96 oz. last a year?

(This is probably more words than Twitter would allow. That's why I use Blogger.)

Update on the update

We're a family that goes off to our separate corners to deal with pain. Together, we talk about the weather, the kid's track meet, the practicalities like phone calls, finances, arrangements. I wonder what we look like to outsiders.

She's in ICU. Her blood pressure has been too low. Brother R.N. said if it goes much lower there's no hope for a good outcome. The last couple readings were going up though, close to where we need it to be.

While I was sitting there alone with her, I wanted to cry but I knew if I did that, it would only scare her. Because we don't cry in front of each other. I wanted to tell her I love her and I should have but I found every excuse not to, the first being it would scare her. Because we don't say I love you.

Brother R.N. is 11 years younger than me. Family circumstances changed a lot after he was born, even more after I left home. He and I grew up in two completely different families.

Neither one of them was healthy.

Update on "Family Drama"

They transferred my mom to a bigger hospital today. In the ambulance on the way, she started having trouble breathing. By the time I got to the ER at the big hospital, they were getting ready to intubate her and put her on the ventilator. They asked me if I knew her wishes about being resuscitated. I do know her wishes but I wasn't prepared for the question.

She wants everything possible done if there's a chance she'll survive and have a reasonable quality of life. Her biggest fear is being alive with severe brain impairment.

About 5 or 10 minutes later, they rushed me and my brother (who'd been in the waiting room) off to a family room in a quiet corner of the ER. That was when I knew things were really looking bad. About 5 or 10 minutes later they called a code blue. We both knew it was her and the chaplain appeared soon after to confirm. They got her back.

Now she's in ICU. She's on heavy duty meds including one my brother the R.N. refers to as "leave-em-dead." He said if she's not improved enough to get off that med in the next 48 hours, she's not going to improve. In his experience, once patients go on that particular drug they often don't survive.

Brother and I had lots of morbid conversations while we're waiting. Both of us are doom and gloomers, prepare for the worst because it's better to be surprised by good news than shocked by bad.

Mom and I have had a lot of conversations about what if. My dad was only 44 when he had a major stroke and 54 when he died, and Mom's mother was only 62 when she died and I helped her with all the funeral arrangements, dealing with death certificates, life insurance, etc. So we've had lots of opportunities for those discussions and I know what she wanted as far as funeral arrangements, resuscitation, etc.

I'm good in a crisis. The way I get through things like this is thinking about all the practical considerations - take care of this, do that, call this person, etc. I'll save the falling apart for later.

But it's a lot harder this time.

More eye candy

Zac Efron. I guess I'm a cougar this weekend. Grrrowl.

Eye candy for the weekend

That's Chris Pine, who plays the young Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie. William Shatner never looked this good. I want to see this movie!

Family drama

My mom has been in the hospital since Wednesday. At first it didn't seem too serious - we only expected her to be there a day or two. I didn't see her on Thursday and when I went back on Friday, she looked a lot sicker that she did when she was admitted. She didn't have pneumonia when she went in but she does now.

Her major complaint is severe abdominal pain. They've done 2 CAT scans and other tests and they still haven't figured out for sure what's causing it. After she got to the ER, she developed cardiac arrhytmia, which she's had before. The last time, her heart went back to a normal rhythm within 24 hours. Now it's not going away.

She's in a small town hospital being treated by a family doctor. I'm having some major qualms about that. I have nothing against family doctors but mine would have sent me to a specialist by now.

Before all this started she was going through a work up for a hysterectomy, which was supposed to be scheduled for the next week or two. My brother and I both tried to talk her into going to see a gynecologist who's more experienced with hysterectomies instead of the general surgeon at the hospital where she is currently.

But she doesn't want to go to a bigger hospital. She had a really bad experience a few years ago so I don't blame her for being reluctant. But the best gastroenterologists in our area work out of a different hospital than the one where she was mistreated.

I have a bad feeling about all of this. I'm afraid she's going to keep getting sicker and sicker and when they finally decide to transfer her to the bigger hospital, it'll be too late.

I'm off to google now to see if I can find out more about what's going on with her.

More from Susan Boyle

This is another performance from the British sensation Susan Boyle. It was recorded 10 years ago.

Quote of the day

It's hard to talk when you're teabagging.

~ CNN hottie Anderson Cooper, who ought to know

Sans fards, avec farts

Last week, American Idol went about 10 minutes overtime and people who DVR'd it missed the ending, which included Adam Lambert's performance - one of the best ever in the show's history. So this week, they only had 2 judges comment on each performance, which meant I only got half as much Simon.

I wasn't the only one who didn't like it. The American Idol message boards were lit up with complaints even before the show was over.

We want Simon!

Quickies:

• Ever been mad at somebody and sign them up for a bunch of magazine subscriptions to get even? Did you know it's a felony? A woman in Ohio found out the hard way, after she ordered subscriptions to Playboy and Hustler for her neighbor.

• Speaking of getting even, a woman in Colorado was pissed off at her boyfriend so she taped his dog to the side of their refrigerator.

• That aspirin you take every day to prevent a heart attack? It'll make your brain bleed.

• Extreme Muslim madness spreads to Russia where a man hired hitmen to kill his daughter because she wore a mini-skirt. She was a medical student.

• A 13 year old girl is suing a New York sperm bank under product liability laws. Her biological father had a genetic defect that was passed on to her. She seems to be forgetting she wouldn't even exist if they hadn't sold her mother the sperm. Her mother's the one who got the defective product - her.

• Speaking of sperm donors, a guy in Michigan fathered 14 children with 13 different women and hasn't paid a dime of child support. He's in jail now but he sees himself as:

The victim of a system that he says saddled him with debt for children he claims aren't all his and the victim of a poor upbringing that he said caused him to seek affection from older women ...

Poor baby.

• An 83 year old man and a 25 year old woman in North Carolina were arrested for having sex in a Walmart parking lot. The charge? "A crime against nature." She says he gave her $20 for a blow job. Everything's cheaper at Walmart.

• Target has its own special values. A guy threw his semen on a woman in an Oregon Target store. That's illegal. Just so you know.

• You wanna fart in my hotel room? That's a stabbing.

• The picture is Monica Bellucci. French "Elle" did an issue called "Stars sans fards," which means basically stars without makeup. A Yahoo! columnist writes:

So American magazine editors, I plead to you: It's time to step up your game. American readers would like to see some real, healthy women who actually look like themselves. Please stop with the whole Frankenstein thing: We know you attach your cover models' heads to skinnier bodies. We know you slim down their thighs and their noses and you lighten their skin. We know you smooth out all of the facial "imperfections" that make them look human. We're tired of fembots ...

Doesn't he look like one of the Simpsons?

And I'm not talking about O.J.

That's Phil Spector in a mugshot taken Monday following his conviction for second-degree murder. About time. He killed Lana Clarkson six years ago. I wonder if they'll take away his wig.

And check out another classic mugshot from The Smoking Gun. He and his little friend robbed a video store at gunpoint. Their take? 50 porn movies. I guess they've never heard of Google.

More quickies:

• A hospital in Wisconsin decided to lay off 90 employees - "immediately." So immediate that a nurse was called out in the middle of surgery and fired on the spot.

• A guy in Russia had a tree growing inside his lung. You read that right.

• What do you do when the ground squirrel population is exploding? Why, you bomb them, of course. The Spokane Parks and Rec department is pumping propane and oxygen into the squirrels' tunnels followed by an electric spark. That blows 'em up real good.

• Speaking of cruel and unusual, the Fark headline of the day: Taliban in Afghanistan gun down women's rights advocate for violating the Sharia prohibition against having both a vagina and an opinion.

• Actual headline from Sheboygan Press - Wanted: Woman to put head in toilet to prove homicide case theory. The husband says she tried to kill herself by overdosing and accidentally drowned in the toilet while she was vomiting. The prosecutor says the husband pushed her in and held her down.

• Do you enjoy hosting wild parties? Don't post the pictures on Facebook. A British woman evicted her tenants after she found the pictures online. I hope my landlord never finds my blog. I haven't trashed my apartment but I sure have trashed him.

• Princess Eugenie, the fashion police called. You're a beautiful, healthy young woman but the bikini? Not a good idea.

• Did you know you can get de-baptized? You can in England.

• Jack the cat who steals his neighbors' panties has nothing on Bailey the golden retriever. A vet operated on a suspected tumor only to discover that the bulge in the dog's abdomen was caused by "17 garments, including nine socks, four gloves and a stocking" Bailey had eaten.

• A U.K. border agency spokesman says: "Visitors to the UK must play by the rules. Those who do not are refused entry and sent home." Apparently, it's against the rules to pack nothing but lingerie and sex toys. Who knew?

• Dr. Freud would say sometimes a ruffle is just a ruffle.

You have to see this

It's a clip from "Britain's Got Talent." It left me in tears.

Now that I've offended Christians & bunny lovers alike ...

Also Batman fans, I suppose. Oh well.

On Friday, someone asked me if I'm religious. I said, "I like jelly beans, that's about as Easter-y as I get." I didn't even buy any jelly beans this year. Cadbury cream eggs are the reason for the season. I'm meeting my mom and 2 brothers at KFC later - that'll be our Easter celebration.

In the last couple of weeks, I've seen Humane Society reps on the local news with kittens that need homes. I want a kitten.

It's not at all practical. The 2 cats I have already fight over who gets my attention. If I brought a kitten into the picture, I'd have to ignore him until the other 2 accept him which could take awhile and wouldn't be much fun for me or the new baby.

So I set up an aquarium and got some fish. Boy cat is jealous of the fish. Every time I feed them or just go over to look at them, he jumps up there and gets right in my face. It proves not getting a kitten was the right decision.

I used to have 2 aquariums full of fish, 4 finches, 2 gerbils, about a dozen mice and a guinea pig along with 2 cats. Not the same 2 cats I have now. One by one, they all died off.

Since I can't have another cat, I've thought about getting more finches but boy cat and girl cat are not as mellow as the cats I had before. If I let the finches out to exercise, the cats would probably destroy the place trying to catch them.

I just thought of names for the fish. One of them is a silver colored goldfish so I'm going to call him Sterling. And the other goldfish is white with a gold crown so he's going to be Rex. One of the red wags has a chunk of tail missing so he's Attila and the 3 I can't tell apart are the Huns.

Yeah, I know goldfish shouldn't really be in the same aquarium with platys. But I've done it before and they've all thrived. When I get the money to buy more tropicals, I'll move the goldfish to a separate bowl.

He is risen

Check out this slideshow of Easter traditions around the world. Happy Easter.

Hippity hoppity, Easter's on its - chomp!

Quote of the day

"I have a woodpecker in my ass and it keeps poking me."

~ an E.R. patient as quoted by her nurse

Jack has a fetish

The hot new craze among right-wingers is sending teabags to members of Congress and others to protest middle class tax cuts or something. (Who knows what those people are thinking?) They call it tea bagging.

The Urban Dictionary defines tea bagging as a man lowering his scrotum into another person's mouth in the fashion of lowering a tea bag into a cup of hot water.

Sen. David Vitter is confused - usually, teabagging costs you extra.

More quickies:

• Another sign the world has gone nuts: An 18 year old in the U.K. found a cell phone, so he called the last number dialed, reached a friend of the owner, and told him he would leave the phone at a nearby police station. When he got there, he was arrested. The cops held him for 4 hours and took a DNA sample before he was finally released. Who knew being a good Samaritan was illegal?

• Gov. David Paterson is planning to introduce legislation to make gay marriage legal in New York. Elect the right president and the dominoes start falling in place. As one of the commenters on Think Progress wrote: "Fundie heads are exploding."

• Once gay marriage does become legal in New York, be on the lookout for an upswing in mass murders. Because gay marriage causes that, you know. It also causes "abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers." At least, the president of Morality in the Media thinks so.

• A Saudi Arabian just became the first man to divorce his wife by text message.

• Texas State Rep. Betty Brown says Asian Americans should change their names to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. Guess which party she belongs to. Brown's spokesman assures us she's not a racist, but no word on what she thinks about people named Froelich, Fuchser and Fruechtenicht. Those are names I found on a randomly selected page of my local phone book. Let's see. Americanized they might be Freelick, Fuckser and Fruitynight.

• Fark headline of the day: "You know your day sucks when you're quietly riding home and someone throws a dead body at you."

• "Am I Being Punk’d?" That's what the judge asked when she found out she was supposed to decide who got custody of the frozen dog semen.

• Jack has a fetish - he steals his neighbors' panties. I wouldn't mention this except Jack is a cat.

The Gathering Storm

Gay marriage causes hurricanes! And tornados! And floods! And terrorist attacks! Probably earthquakes too! Buy duct tape! And guns! Buy lots of guns!

Kenny Chesney

No comment.

Quote of the day

SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT'S PRETTY FUNNY ... I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM. I NEED TO JUST GET PAST MYSELF. DROP THE BRAVADO AND JUST MAKE DOPE PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS NOT THAT SERIOUS. AS LONG AS PEOPLE THINK I ACT LIKE A BITCH THIS TYPE OF SHIT WILL HAPPEN TO ME. I GOT A LONG ROAD AHEAD OF ME TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE I'M NOT ACTUALLY A HUGE DOUCHE BUT I'M UP FOR THE CHALLENGE.

~ from Kanye West's blog (typing ALL CAPS - something else he needs to change if he doesn't want to be a douche)

The father, the son and the holy heartthrob

Why is it that cats can't puke all in one place? No, it's cack-cack-splat, take a few steps, cack-cack-splat, walk into the next room, cack and splat again. Little bitches. They're both doing it today - it's just hairballs, nothing to worry about, but a pain in the ass to clean up.

My writers group met last night and I finally got a good review for my umpteenth attempt to revise the first chapter of the novel I've been working on for 30+ years.

No, I'm not saying it feels like 30 years - I really have been working on it that long. For the first 20 years, they were just characters wandering around in my disturbed mind, then the various plots and sub-plots started to coalesce, and about 8 years ago (good god, time flies) I actually started to write it down.

This is the novel I've mentioned in other posts. The plot was partially inspired by my idea that Robert Redford and Brad Pitt would be great together playing father and son. I let too much time go by, so now Pitt would have to play the father and I'd have to get some young pipsqueak like Jesse McCartney to play the son. Then I'd have to write a grandfather into the plot because I neeeeed Robert Redford in my movie. (There is a grandfather mentioned but he never appears in a scene. He's a senile old bastard. Redford might enjoy playing one but I'm going to have to redeem the character somehow.)

It's just a fantasy for my own personal entertainment. I'm not totally delusional.

But it is a good excuse to post a picture of my boys.

Now I've got this damn thing stuck in my head

Thanks a lot, Mr. Anonymous in Seattle.

Another quote of the day

"Cramer is a buffoon ... He was one of those who called six times in a row for this bear market rally to be a bull market rally and he got it wrong. And after all this mess and Jon Stewart he should just shut up because he has no shame."

~ economist Nouriel Roubini on CNBC host Jim Cramer

Quote of the day

"For purposes of this section, the term 'buttocks' shall mean the area at the rear of the body which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top such line drawn at the top of the nates (i.e. the prominence of the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line drawn at the at the lowest visible of this cleavage or the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance, whichever is lower, and between two imaginary lines on each side of the body, which lines are perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above, and ..."

~ from a city ordinance banning Jello wrestling in Vero Beach, FL

Another one bites the dust

The Vermont legislature voted to override their Republican governor's veto. Gay marriage is now legal in Vermont. This is the first state that's done it through the legislature instead of the courts. Four down - 46 left to go.

A few quickies:

• Lindsay Lohan broke up with her girlfriend. Again. The only reason I mention this is so I can quote a columnist from E! Online:

Bury the friggin' lead, why don't you? Which happens to be that Lindsay still likes the guys once in a while ... That's what all the fuss is about. And it really is the 800-pound penis in the room that nobody seems to want to talk about.

• The penis label has been getting quite a workout around here lately but as long as I'm on the subject: A guy in Poland got in a fight with a friend and the friend bit his penis off - and swallowed it.

• If that last one made you wince, you'd better skip over this one: A surgeon in Romania who was operating to correct a testicular malformation suddenly became angry. He sliced off the guy's penis, chopped it into small pieces, and stomped out of the O.R.

Here's the really disgusting part: A jury awarded the patient £120,000 and now doctors' unions are protesting. They don't think the surgeon should have to pay.

I think the surgeon should have his own penis amputated and transplanted onto the guy, and he should have to pay for the surgery too.

• There's a rumor that Tom Cruise and John Travolta want to star in a remake of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Cruise would play Redford's part. It's too crazy to be true, but then again, it's Tom Cruise.

• A new twist on suicide by cop: Yesterday a student pilot stole a Cessna and flew over the Canadian border and across 3 states, trailed by American F16s. The student refused to communicate with air traffic control. Now police report he wanted to kill himself and was hoping to be shot down.

He was Turkish so the conspiracy nut in me says he was a terrorist testing our air defense system for a future attack. The bleeding heart liberal in me says that's racial profiling.

• A Canadian girl was spending too much time on the internet chatting and posting pictures on sites her father had forbidden. He grounded her and withheld permission for her to go on a class field trip. So she sued him. And she won.

I could see the courts intervening if his punishment was unreasonable or abusive, but WTF were they thinking in this case?

• Squirrel underpants 'Nuff said.

Turn ons: maple syrup, Ben & Jerry's, burly men in sweaters - ah, Vermont
Turn offs: squirrel nuts

Bill O'Reilly is shocked

Shocked, I tell you, that American Idol dreamboat Adam Lambert (a.k.a. my new boyfriend) is probably gay. And Bill O's shocked I tell you that people are voting for him anyway. And oh my god, illegal aliens get to vote on AI too.

To me, the funniest part of the whole thing is how Fox News blacked out the lips locking and - oh my god - manbodies rubbing up against each other.

You can give a cat a fish

He cut a wide swath with his penis

I've been putting off doing my laundry for a couple of weeks now. Since I don't go anywhere very often, I can get by just washing undies in the sink. Today I finally got my act together, got the clothes sorted, rounded up the soap and fabric softener and quarters, and went down the the basement. The washer had about 6 inches of water in the bottom of it. I have no idea how long it's been there.

So I went over to the other building and the washer there was in use. Guess I got a reprieve.

Quickies:

• On Monday, an earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy, killed more than 150 people. This came as no surprise to seismologist Giampaolo Giuliani. He had been predicting a major earthquake for the area. The government charged him with spreading panic and forced him to remove his findings from the internet last month.

• Should a teacher's aide be allowed to sue an 8 year old boy for injuries she received when he accidentally knocked her down? A woman in NY is trying. I think it's one of the hazards of the job - shouldn't it be covered by workmen's comp?

• Corporate weasels at work, from The Nation:

Thanks to an obscure tax provision, the United States government stands to pay out as much as $8 billion this year to the ten largest paper companies. And get this: even though the money comes from a transportation bill whose manifest intent was to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, paper mills are adding diesel fuel to a process that requires none in order to qualify for the tax credit. In other words, we are paying the industry--handsomely--to use more fossil fuel.

• Psst. Drudge is gay. Pass it on.

• From The Toronto Star:

When he wasn't busy fornicating them to death, Johnson Aziga must have hated women.

Alternatively, the former Ontario civil servant was entirely indifferent to females, without feeling or conscience as he introduced a silent killer – cloaked in lust – into their lives.

Dishonest and duplicitous, thinking only of his immediate sexual gratification, the 52-year-old knowingly and intentionally exposed his unsuspecting lovers to the HIV virus right up until the morning of his arrest on Aug. 30, 2003.

He cut a wide swath with his penis.

Finely aged meat for the Seattle fiend

Left to right: Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner from "Space Cowboys."

I don't know why Don and Jim had to be so shy but Clint's butt sure is nice and perky. Looks like they all got waxed because I've never seen a guy that old who didn't have a hairy crack.

Three boring characters in search of a plot

Netflix is pretty good about recommending movies I would like. The biggest problem is I've already seen half the movies they recommend for me. But they were right - I did like them.

This weekend I saw 2 movies and hated them both. One was "Fur" with Nicole Kidman. (Note to self: Nicole Kidman movie post 2003 = waste of time.)

I thought the movie was a bio of photographer Diane Arbus but it was only an "imaginary portrait." You'd think if they were going to make it all up, they'd at least keep it interesting.

There was a really hairy guy, which is usually a good thing, but this one was even too hairy for me. It was Robert Downey Jr. playing a guy with that genetic defect that causes someone to look like a wolf man. There didn't seem to be much point to the movie.

The other one was "Stranger Than Paradise" which was the worst movie I've seen in years. Many, many years. Netflix called it a quirky indie, which is right up my alley. But the acting was bad, the directing was worse, the plot was non-existent and the characters were boring.

Time for some quickies:

• Aussie moms who went to a baby expo were in for a shock when they opened the gift bags they'd received. The bags contained an erotic novel which had an explicit description of a man masturbating on page 2.

(No, he wasn't masturbating onto the page - although we found the evidence of that inside a book once when I was working at B. Dalton.)

One mom took it all in stride. She said she has no plans to read it to her baby but:

"I'm going to put it away for her 21st and write a note saying this was given to me at your first baby show."

• A recent study shows that the stress from growing up poor affects brain function. Researcher Martha Evans says:

"We know low-socioeconomic-status families are under a lot of stress -- all kinds of stress. When you are poor, when it rains it pours. You may have housing problems. You may have more conflict in the family. There's a lot more pressure in paying the bills ... There's a lot more demands on low-income families. We know that produces stress in families, including on the children ...

"The greater proportion of your childhood that your family spent in poverty, the poorer your working memory, and that link is largely explained by this chronic physiologic stress."

• A Washington man murdered his 5 children before he killed himself. The headline says it happened because his wife was leaving him for another man. Buried near the bottom of the article is the information that he got her pregnant when she was only 13, that he was very controlling to both her and the children. They lived in a trailer park which leads me to wonder how much the stress of living in poverty affected them.

• Narco cops in Philadelphia conducted a bogus drug raid on a small store, they went around cutting the wires to all the surveillance cameras and destroyed the videos. Then they stole $10,000 in cash, plus cartons of cigarettes and all the hoagies, Little Debbie brownies and Cheez-Its they could eat. Unfortunately for them, the store owner had his video backed up on his computer hard drive. The owners of eight other stores had already filed complaints saying the same thing happened to them.

• Attention Michelle Bachmann: The erstwhile congresswoman from Minnesota has been calling for a "revolution" against President Obama. A guy in Pittsburgh showed exactly what can happend when people like Bachmann whip the wingnuts into a frenzy. He ambushed police officers who were responding to a 911 call and killed 3 of them. Friends and neighbors say he was upset because he thought Obama was going to ban all guns and he ‘‘didn't like our rights being infringed upon."

• A university study says the Iowa Supreme Court ruling to allow gay marriage might gay the state $160 million when an estimated 55,000 gay couples travel here to marry. Who knows - once they drive past the cattle feedlots and hog confinements and smell our fresh country air, they might never leave.

• Here's why I usually don't bother checking the weather reports: On Saturday, the National Weather Service said we would be getting 14 inches of snow that night. We got half an inch. Something tells me the NWS is run by those guys you meet on the internet who claim they've got porn star dicks.

Brother, can you spare a happy pill?

Holy shit. Checked my blood sugar awhile ago and it was up to 240. Normal is below 110. When it's 2 hrs after a meal, it should be below 160 (for a diabetic). It's been more than 3 hrs since I ate. I won't admit what I ate but obviously enough to drive my blood way the hell up.

I walked back and forth through the basement for 10 minutes and got it down to 207. I should probably walk some more but fuck it.

You'd think this would be enough to get me to stay off the sugar now? One can only hope.

In other news from me-ville, ever since I switched to Firefox I've been trying to figure out how to get my list of bookmarks to show up along the left side of my browser the way I had it with IE. Tonight, I discovered it by accident. I hit "ctrl-B" when I meant to hit "shift-V." Who knew?

Probably everyone who uses Firefox but me. Oh well. I like it this way because most web pages display better. Wide enough to see the whole page but not too much blank space on either side.

Okay, I'm going to fess up. I ate half a can of frosting. Crazy stupid for anyone. Downright suicidal for a diabetic. WTF was I thinking? I hate myself I hate myself I want to die - that's what I was thinking. And every time I do something self-destructive like that and end up not dead, I hate myself even more.

I'm going to have to surrender. Back on anti-depressants I go.

Love and loss and love

I stumbled across a new (to me) blog this week and I've been going back every day trying to read all the way back to the beginning. It's written by Matt Logelin. In March of last year, his wife Liz gave birth to their daughter Madeline. Twenty-seven hours later, Liz dropped dead from a pulmonary embolism. No warning. The two of them were teasing each other, she suddenly said she felt light-headed and then collapsed.

The blog is his journey through grief while trying to raise a baby girl as a single father. It's full of pictures and memories and all the sweet and heart-breaking moments he's both been through in the last year.

He's developed a large following. He started a charity in his wife's memory and he'll be appearing on Oprah some time in the near future.

I'm addicted to it now.

Quote of the day

This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.

Energy independence and a non-carbon economy should be the equivalent of a war mobilization. Hire Americans to weatherize and insulate homes across the land. Don't encourage General Motors or any other auto company to shrink. Use the auto makers' spare capacity to make busses, new wind turbines, and electric cars (why let the Chinese best us on this?). Enlarge public transit systems.

Meanwhile, extend our educational infrastructure. So many young people are out of work that they should be using this time to improve their skills and capacities. Expand community colleges. Enlarge Pell Grants. Extend job-training opportunities to the unemployed, so they can learn new skills while they're collecting unemployment benefits.

Finally, accelerate universal health care.

~ former Labor Secretary Robert Reich

OMFG!!!

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that gay marriage is legal here! And the decision was unanimous! From AP:

"We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective," the Supreme Court wrote in its decision. "The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

Of course the fundies are flipping out. They and other gay rights opponents can't appeal because they were not party to the lawsuit and it didn't raise any issues of federal law. The suit was filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of 6 couples who were denied marriage licenses.

The Iowa Senate majority leader said it's "extremely unlikely" they'll bring up gay marriage in the legislature because this session is almost over and he's "not inclined to call up a constitutional amendment" in next year's session.

Reaction from a Baptist minister in Des Moines:

"It's a perversion and it opens the door to more perversions," Ratliff said. "What's next?"

You know what, Rev. Ratliff? Fuck you! Move to California.

All hairy chests were not created equal

Last night, I realized what a relief it is to have the whole inspection thing is over and done. My landlord did the repairs to the city's satisfaction.

I'm superstitious so I had put off working on any of the projects I've been wanting to do. I figured as soon as I made new curtains or dragged out all my stuff to finish the quilt I started years ago, I'd get notice that I'd have to move.

Not that I wouldn't love to get out of here and live in a nicer place. But it would be nearly impossible to find something nicer that I can afford where I could keep my cats.

About 25 years ago, I lived in this ugly little hovel in a bad neighborhood. It was slightly bigger than where I live now, more insulated from the neighbors, and had a private garage underneath the apartment plus a huge room in the basement that would be perfect for housing my craft supplies and flea market stuff. I've been thinking about seeing if they had any units available.

I went to the most expensive grocery store in town on Wednesday. They had sent out a flyer with a bunch of coupons. I picked up a few things that were on sale and felt satisfied with myself.

My insomnia isn't getting any better. I've been trying to go to bed earlier - catching myself as soon as I start feeling drowsy - but I just lay there and toss and turn for an hour before I get up. This is not healthy for me. I know my psych doc would give me something for it but the idea of swallowing even more pills every day bothers me more than not being able to sleep.

The picture is David Hasselhoff. Anybody who reads my blog on a regular basis knows I like 'em hairy but this one could use some manscaping. He could also use some more time at the gym.

Psst. David. The hat and glasses make you look like a grandpa who's had one too many early bird specials.

Today's post brought to you by a "dozy American bint"

I did a post over at Talking Points Memo on Wednesday which led to a pretty good discussion. It was about Amazon's Kindle, what the future might bring for publishing and the implications for book lovers everywhere.

As usual, a troll had to get in on the fun. He wrote:

Oh, great, Grandma and Star Fu*cking Trek. Well, fu*ck Granny too. What jibberish. No doubt elec books raise serious and interesting questions, but a bunch of morons dribbling on themselves illuminates nothing.

To which I replied:

Sweetie, you don't need the fucking stars. No language filter here.

And he said:

Well, Debbie, I also don't need the condescention. Especially from some dozy American bint.

Never been called that before. Had to look it up. (see footnote) He was trying to piss me off but trolls just don't get to me anymore. When I have time to kill and I'm in the mood, I like playing with them. So I said:

Sweetie, darling, dear - where I come from those are terms of affection. I have a soft spot in my heart for people who make me laugh.

After a few more exchanges, he said:

Oh, you have no idea how brilliant I am. Oh, and I am a great fu*k to boot. Sad to say, American chicks are terrible in bed. And anecdotally, liberals are about the worst.

I replied:

Anecdotally, I've discovered that men who brag about their prowess spend a lot of time typing one handed while they massage their own "egos."

Eventually I'll get bored with you. Right now, you're providing cheap entertainment. Don't stop.

He never did reply to that. The thing about trolls is if they don't get a rise out of you, they leave.

Footnote:

dozy: 1) drowsy, 2) sluggish, 3) decayed
bint: disparaging British term for a woman or girl

It wasn't quite as nasty as I thought.

(picture found here)

As if the title's not bad enough ...

... look at the name of the band.

Asking, telling? Not yet

The Swedish parliament just passed a new law that gives gays the same marriage rights as straights. The Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Spain already allow gay marriage.

But don't get too sweet on our European brothers and sisters:

Lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals face widespread harassment, bullying and discrimination across Europe, according to an EU report released Tuesday.

That harassment and discrimination occurs "in all areas of social life," from schools to the workplace to health care centers, the report by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency said.

Agency Director Morten Kjaerum said the investigation found gays and lesbians continue to face assault and other physical attacks due to their sexual orientation despite EU rules meant to guarantee equality in the 27-nation bloc.

Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic, more than 1,000 retired military officers are campaigning to stop a new bill that would allow gays to serve openly in the military. The dinosaurs - I mean retired officers - said it:

"would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all levels, have adverse effects on the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Volunteer Force."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says there is no immediate plan to overturn "don't ask, don't tell" because he and Obama have "a lot on our plates right now."

Translation: We don't need your gay votes right now. Talk to us in 3 years.

Hot for Simon

Happy dancing because I don't have to move. The inspector gave me a pass.

I fudged and told him the water's not as hot as it was before, that it just gets hot when the radiators are running full blast like they are today. I've been looking around at all the junk I've accumulated in the last 20 years and decided I'd rather get scalded than haul it out of here.

American Idol was good last night but some of the contestants are losing it. Matt, Anoop and Lil have all lost their sparkle but I hope Megan gets booted off tonight. She's cocky and she doesn't have the performances to back that up. Her wiggling and croaking are getting old.

I think Allison's going home though. Apparently, she sounds much better in person than she does on TV because the judges adore her. Her brassy red hair is hideous and last night, her outfit was even worse.

Kris Allen. Adorable. All the guys on the gay message board I frequent want to do him.

Adam. Once again, oh my god. I love him.

Paula has been giving very educated critiques this year - using all kinds of musical terms that most people wouldn't know. Like "legato." Last night Simon asked her what that meant. I think he was hinting at what I've been suspecting. She always listens to the rehearsals and I think she's got someone in her dressing room feeding her lines she can use later on the show. Girlfriend does not have that much background studying music. Still I'd rather hear her repeat someone else's educated lines than blather on like usual.

Ryan isn't as obnoxious this year. But if I never hear another dawg, dude, da bomb, I'd be forever grateful. I'm talking to you, Mr. Jackson.

And just like every year, you can see the contestants beam when they get a compliment from Simon. He's the only one on the show who really knows what he's talking about and doesn't bullshit them or condescend.