Thought for today

The president wants to win the future. Republicans are still trying to win the past.

Here's the deal

While I was going through chemo and radiation, I went crazy with overeating. I was under so much stress and so depressed that if I hadn't been shoving food in my mouth, I would have killed myself.

I gained more than 10 pounds. I went up to my previous all-time high then surpassed that by two pounds.

I promised myself that I'd work on it after treatment, then I decided to wait until after the holidays. Well, I finally got serious about it. I went from not exercising at all to walking 30 minutes a day for the last 14 days. I'm proud of myself for that. I'm not dieting but I've cut way back on eating.

And I'm pissed off because I'm not losing weight. I always fluctuate slightly from one day to the next. Prior to starting this project, I fluctuated from previous all-time high (PAH) to new all-time high (NAH). (Regular readers will note that I talk about all kinds of TMI, including my pubes falling out and growing back, but I will not reveal my actual weight.)

Anyway, now I'm fluctuating from PAH to 3-pounds below PAH. So, on a good day, I've lost 5 pounds from NAH, but on a bad day, I'm still at PAH. Which really depresses me.

I'm seeing my chemo oncologist on Feb. 7 and my gyn-oncologist on Feb. 15, and I was really hoping to be able to show some results by then. But their records from my last visits show my PAH and that's exactly where I weighed in today.

I still have 11 days to try to take off a few pounds.

What's worked for me in the past, and what I'm doing now, is changing one thing per week. The first week was no more drive-thru fast food, the second week was starting to walk every day, and this week is eating more raw veggies and fresh fruit.

I do not want to forbid junk food because then I feel deprived and that spells doom for any effort to change things. The theory is that if I snack on fruits and veggies, I'll stop craving the junk. It's worked for me before.

But it would go so much faster if I counted calories. Short-term benefit. But in the long-term, I'd gain the weight back plus more. Been down that road before.

The place where I walk is indoors and it's free to the public. A lot of people use it. There's one 50-something couple that's there almost every time I go. They're both tall and slender and they walk really fast. I hate them.

But last night, as they went around me for about the third time, the guy said, "You're getting to be quite a regular." I said, "Yeah, I've been coming every night." He said, "For how long?" I said, "A couple of weeks." Then I tossed in the sympathy card because I'm embarrassed by my extremely short hair, "Ever since I finished radiation." He smiled and said, "Yeah, I had cancer too. You'll be fine. The treatments really work."

How can you hate a guy after he says something nice like that?

Still wasting away

Evangelical Christian and self-identified bisexual Rev. Ted Haggard told GQ: "You've got to understand ... people are, at their cores, hateful. I don't want to believe that, but the facts have prevailed over my idealism."

The surprising thing is, after reading the article, I have some respect for the guy. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think he's more honest than a lot of evangelicals.

Time for some quickies:

• Oh-oh, another terrorist anchor baby. Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem had a baby boy, born in Los Angeles.

• A grocery store in Arkansas put a "family shield" over the current issue of Us Weekly to hide the cover picture of Elton John and his husband David Furnish with their new baby son. They say they did it because some customers had complained. It's probably no coincidence that Arkansas is ranked dead last in education.

• Psst: Michele Bachmann is a balloon head. Pass it on.

• Jimmy Buffett died after falling off the stage during a concert in Australia last night. Or maybe not. Seems like TMZ was a little premature in reporting his death.

Quote of the day

The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in when they're in saltwater. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked.

- President Obama, State of the Union address

Would you want to touch Jesse Ventura's junk?

Former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is suing the TSA for violating his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. He says the full body scans are a "warrantless, non-suspicion-based, electronically-recorded strip search," "demeaning and degrading" and "meet the definition of unlawful video voyeurism."

He says pat downs violate his "basic rights to privacy and dignity" because they involve "offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body" and "meet the definition for an unlawful sexual assault."

Ventura has a titanium hip replacement so he's forced to go through additional screening every time he flies, which is several times a week. He says if he didn't fly, he'd be forced to retire and give up his income.

Go, Jesse.

A few quickies:

• House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has come out in favor of de-funding a high speed rail project in his home state of Virginia, which would create 85,000-160,000 new jobs. Because job creation is Job #1 for Republicans. Oh wait, kissing Tea Party ass is Job #1. Never mind.

• Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he's willing to work with Obama: "If the president is willing to do what I and my members would do anyway, we're not going to say no."

• Yesterday, Tea Party darling Justice Antonin Scalia told Michele Bachmann's seminar guests that earmarks are constitutional. And he pointed out that without earmarks, the president would be free to distribute the money as he saw fit. Damn, that's gotta hurt.

Cooper nails Bachmann

Is she ignorant or is she a liar?
Or is she an ignorant liar?

Coming soon to a theater near you

Keith O, executions, & Michele B

Today, there's a report that Keith O has been planning to start his own internet empire, along the lines of the Huffington Post. That way, he could control the content and would no longer have to answer to the corporate overlords. He'd also (potentially) make more money.

Here's hoping he'll be doing video special comments. And I'd love to see something along the lines of Worst Person in the World.

A couple of quickies:

• Hospera, the only US company that makes sodium thiopental, a sedative legally required in all lethal injections, has stopped making the drug. Their Italian branch also no longer makes it because the Italian parliament asked for a guarantee that it won't be used in US executions. Hospera couldn't make the guarantee because the drug was distributed through wholesalers. The European Union has banned executions. Opponents of capital punishment are also trying to block the US from importing the drug from a British company. Here's hoping they succeed.

• Sarah Palin's not the only gal who likes going rogue. Fox News darling, airhead Michele Bachmann, is planning to give her own response to the State of the Union address in a video posted on the Tea Party Express website. Bachmann is currently courting political favor in Iowa, in her not-so-secret efforts to build support for a run at president in 2012. Here's hoping she loses the Republican nomination (which she will) and runs as the Tea Party candidate. I nominate Steve King for the second spot on the ticket. The country could use a little comic relief.

I'm sad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I think the beginning of his statement makes it pretty clear he was fired. Looking at his tweets, it seems like he was told tonight would be his last show somewhere between 6:00 and 7:00 pm eastern. Around 6, he tweeted the title of his James Thurber reading for tonight. Around 7, he tweet, "We will have a slight change in the Thurber selection tonight.

They'll deny it as much as they can but I find it hard to believe that it's just a coincidence that Olbermann was abruptly taken off the air the same week Comcast took control of NBC.

What they're saying online:

Time magazine The Guardian New York Times

UPDATE. TMZ says:

Keith Olbermann was fired by MSNBC sources tell TMZ, and we're told it had everything to do with Comcast's acquisition of NBC. Sources connected with the network tell us ... Comcast honchos did not like Keith's defiance and the way he played in the sandbox.

He still makes me hot

I found a really good article about Robert Redford. He says he's interested in doing a sequel to The Way We Were, where their onscreen daughter grew up to be a radical:

"She'd have gone to Berkeley and gotten in trouble, and we'd have to meet again to get her out of jail."

He also says:

"The other movie I want to make is about people who rediscover themselves in older love. They got together out of passion years earlier, but it flamed out and they went their separate ways. They get to be older and somehow come back into each other's lives and regain their relationship with a more mature love."

I think those are the same movie. Everybody wants to see Streisand and Redford finally work it out.

Quote of the day

I want them half a inch larger in the waist than they were before except I want two or three inches of stuff left back in there so I can take them up. I vary 10 or 15 pounds a month ...

And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence ...

See if you can't leave me an inch from where the zipper [belches] ends, round, under my, back to my bunghole, so I can let it out there if I need to.

- Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, ordering some pants

Real idols on Idol plus some quickies

American Idol started last night. It was fun but Steve Tyler and J Lo need to learn how to be a little more hard-assed. A lot of the contestants came in excited and weeping to be meeting them. I can understand why it would be hard to say no to someone who's standing there telling you they love you. But a quick no would be easier on contestants than making them wait while you agonize over what to tell them.

It's like a boss who makes you sit there while he tells you how painful it is for him and he wants you to know he's really sorry and it's so, so hard for him to fire you. Dude, I'm the one who's getting fired. Why should I have to hear about your pain?

Simon's insults were more merciful than J Lo whining, "I don't know what to do."

A few quickies:

• This is precious: That chick who was so wrapped up in texting that she fell into the fountain at a mall is threatening to sue. She's embarrassed that the video has been seen around the world. But if she hadn't contacted the press, nobody would have known her name. And most of the world never would've known that she's about to go on trial for charging more than $5,000 to a co-worker's credit card. She's not some stupid teenager - she's 49.

• Tucker Carlson's "news" website says that Michelle Obama is causing pedestrian deaths. But it's responsible journalism because they put a question mark after the headline.

• TPM editor Josh Marshall responds to readers' objections about so much Palin coverage: We're very big on chronicling folly, outrageousness, pretention and ignorance. Which makes Palin a regular topic.

• Note to Steve Tyler: Be careful with the jail bait.

Quote of the day

This [House vote to repeal health care reform] is not symbolic, this is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill.

- Michele Bachmann, making total sense as usual

Boundaries, bitch

Last week, I told my therapist I wanted to try pureeing the cat food to see if they if my cats would eat more. She offered to loan me an old blender that she doesn't use. I said I wasn't comfortable with that, she asked why, I said, "Boundaries."

She said she'd ask her supervisor if it was all right. This week, she reported that he said it was good I was concerned about boundaries but there was nothing wrong with her loaning me a blender. And she presented me with the blender.

It. Pissed. Me. Off.

How very condescending of Mr. Supervisor to compliment me for being concerned about boundaries and then totally dismiss my boundaries. How very oblivious of Ms. Therapist.

A few weeks ago, I stopped talking and started crying right in the middle of telling her about something that was going on in my life. After several minutes of me sitting there in silence, not responding to all the advice she was giving me, she asked me what was wrong. I said, "Nobody ever listens to me." That shut her up for awhile.

Last summer, she loaned me a heating pad and some kind of back massage thing because she thought they might help with the bone pain I got from chemo. I wasn't comfortable with that either but I didn't tell her. I just brought the stuff home, left it sitting in the sack for a week, then took it back and told her it didn't help.

This time I did tell her I wasn't comfortable with her giving me something. That should have been the end of it.

I don't need her trying to fix my problems for me. She used to say she'd pray for me until she realized how much it pissed me off. I had to go about it sideways* but she finally got the message. I ranted to her about someone else getting preachy with me, telling me they were praying for me and hinting that I should turn my problems over to god. I told her I knew most people meant "I'll pray for you" as a gesture of kindness and I usually took it that way. But I was fed up with so-called christians telling everybody else how to live.

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent.** Even though I had told therapist I didn't want her blender, she gave it to me. I smiled and thanked her and pretended it was okay.

But I'm pissed off.

I've been down this road before. When I was in my twenties, I had a different therapist named Carol.*** When I told her about a problem, she'd try to fix it for me. She loaned me $10 once so I could pay a parking ticket. When food stamps were my only income, she gave me her empty beverage cans and bottles so I could turn them in for the refund. (Good lord, they drank a lot of booze at her house.) One year, I told her I was sad because I knew I wouldn't be getting any Christmas presents so she bought presents for me.

I didn't ask Carol for any of that or any of the other things she did for me. She volunteered, usually over my protests.

Then, after I'd been seeing her for three years, she started accusing me of manipulating her into giving me stuff. She said I didn't respect HER boundaries. She went on and on about how I had manipulated her and corrupted her into being inappropriate with me. Then she dumped me, right when I was already in the middle of a semi-psychotic suicidal crisis.

Bitch.

Current therapist doesn't respect the normal boundaries that are supposed to exist in a relationship with a client. And she doesn't respect my personal boundaries. This will end badly.

------------------------------

*Approaching problems sideways is a characteristic of people born under the sign of Cancer the Crab, which, until recently, I was. I'm not sure how we Geminis are supposed to approach things.

**Are they sure about this new zodiac thing? I'm feeling awfully crabby.

***The name has not been changed because she's not innocent. In fact, if she was still in practice I'd give you her full name so you could avoid her.

Colbert nails Palin

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Right on target - and hilarious.

Dear Jennifer Aniston

You look like a porn star. Or a Real Doll. Actually, the dolls look more real than you.


The picture's from Allure.

Another quote of the day

i have your new dicks on my kitchen counter

- Tammy Lynn Michaels

Quote of the day

If you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister ...

anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother.

- Robert Bentley, newly elected governor of Alabama

Fluff

First it was birds, then it was fish, now it's cows? 200 cows dropped dead on a farm in Wisconsin, with no apparent explanation.

It's the damned UFOs, I tell you.

Some celebrity quickies:

• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban just had a baby through a surrogate. They say they chose to have the baby in the US instead of their native Australia because they're under more press scrutiny down under. I say they wanted an anchor baby.

• TMZ says Charlie Sheen hooked up with his latest "escort" via email. All the booze and the coke and the hookers don't bother me. But Charlie still uses AOL. I've lost all respect!

• Dear Lisa Rinna: You're too skinny. I'm not sure that's something to brag about. There's something seriously wrong with a world where being a zero is something for women to aspire to.

• Dear Hayden Panettiere: If you're not brave enough to show your nipples, don't wear a see-through top. The daisy petals look stupid. Let J-Lo show you how. Hell, even Cher does it better.

• Actress Amy Smart is dating one of my crushes, Carter Oosterhouse (pictured). Carter Can do me anytime he wants. Carter can do anybody anytime he wants.

False alarm

I got really excited just now. I checked my bank balance and I had $400 more than I was supposed to. Maybe an anonymous benefactor made a deposit for me. Maybe Verizon realized they're greedy bastards and gave me some money back.

But no. The extra money's not really there - it's just that a couple of my online payments haven't cleared yet.

Blah blah blah

I'm not sleeping well but I'm staying in bed a lot. It's probably time to increase my antidepressants. I depend on the time and date display on my computer to know what day it is.

My birds are still sitting on their eggs. It would be so cool if a couple of them hatch. The cats are being very finicky about food. They'll lick the gravy off the canned food but won't eat the chunks. Boy cat will eat pieces of chicken or turkey or cheese if I feed them to him by hand. If I put them in a dish, he walks away. I found some cat treats that he loves that he'll eat out of a dish. I tried mixing them in with regular dry food and the little bugger managed to sniff out the treats and only eat them.

I'm behind on laundry and behind on tending my flea market booth. I really don't care about either one right now.

The most exciting thing in my life is that American Idol starts this week, but it won't be the same without Simon.

Quote of the day

What we've seen from the Tea Party and Sarah Palin is that they excel at playing the victim. The danger there is that since they feel so victimized, they're just going to get louder, and they're going to ratchet it out, and they're going to make more outrageous comments ...

The energy and the dynamism is really with the Tea Party, but so is all the crazy and the outrage. And that's where the danger lies.

- HuffPo editor Roy Sekoff

Brain damage

My father had a stroke at age 44. It affected the left side of his brain. After that, he walked with a noticeable limp, his right leg stiff and weak. He had to wear a brace sometimes. His right arm was paralyzed - it would swing at his side when he walked. It was heavy and he felt like it was in the way. Sometimes he said he wished they would just cut it off.

The most profound effects were on his speech, his memory and his emotions. He would stammer, he couldn't always pronounce things correctly. He would know the word he wanted but he couldn't come up with it. Sometimes, he'd use a word that meant the opposite of what he wanted to say. He might answer 'yes' when he meant 'no.'

His short term memory was lost - he could tell funny stories about things that happened when he was a kid but he couldn't remember whether or not he had breakfast.

He would cry at the drop of a hat and get frustrated and embarrassed, even more so because the right side of his face was partially paralyzed and he'd slobber and blubber when he cried. His temper was quicker than before the stroke. Since he couldn't speak well enough to yell whatever he wanted to yell, he'd throw things.

He was embarrassed to go out in public. He didn't want to see his old friends.

He had several more minor strokes along the way that took a toll, though it wasn't that noticeable to my mom and brothers who lived with him. I would only see him every few weeks or few months. I would notice that his speech was getting worse or that he was dragging his foot more.

The drugs he took to prevent another major stroke contributed to the heart attack that killed him at 54. He spent most of the last 10 years of his life sitting in a recliner in front of the TV, doing word search puzzles and shredding newspapers. Shredding paper became a compulsive habit for him.

I'm writing about all this now because of the gunshot that went through the left side of Gabbie Giffords' brain. These are the kinds of aftereffects she will likely be dealing with.

No matter how miraculous her recovery, her life will never be the same. She will never be the same.

I'm not a Cancer anymore

I'm still a cancer patient but I'm no longer a Cancer. Because of gradual changes in the Earth's alignment (over the last 3,000 years), the dates for zodiac signs have changed. I'm a Gemini now. And I so enjoyed being a crab.

They've also added a new sign, Ophiuchus. Glad I didn't get that one.

Time for some quickies:

• Rush Limbaugh is pissed off at the Fox News panel that praised Obama's speech at the Tucson memorial. He said they had slobbered all over it. Charles Krauthammer responded directly to that and Limbaugh's other accusation: "As one of the three slobberers...I find it interesting that only the ruling class wants a president who is smart articulate and oratorical in delivering a funeral oration. It's an odd and rather condescending view of what the rest of America is looking for in their president."

• On Friday, the Pima County sheriff released the names of some of the people who were wounded in the Giffords shooting. What stood out to me is that, of the 12 names released, their ages ranged from 52 to 75. It's not concrete evidence but it suggests something that's already well known - young people tend not to participate in politics.

• How's this for weird? Jared Loughner, the guy who shot Giffords and all the others, took photos of himself wearing a red g-string, holding his Glock next to his crotch. He dropped them off to be developed at Walgreens at some point before the shooting.

• Not all babies are cute.

• But even so, child abuse in the name of beauty?

File this under WTF

A top Obama administration official at the Pentagon (some guy I've never heard of) says Martin Luther King Jr. would be in favor of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same MLK who preached in favor of non-violence. The same MLK who spoke out against the war in Vietnam. The MLK who said:

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

I think somebody at the Pentagon needs to go back and study history.

Another bitchy post about Sarah Palin

I was going to write another bitchy post about Sarah but this guy did it for me. From Bob Cesca on HuffPo:

Sarah Palin could have used her time to be a leader -- to take the high road and talk about the heroes and the victims of this terrorist attack. She could have used the time to discuss responsible gun ownership. She could have taken the time to address her people and mitigate the anger and political hatred that's bubbled up around this tragedy. Instead, she diminished the tragedy by conflating it with the attacks against her and her record of inflammatory statements.

And, along the same line, arguably the biggest gaffe of today's narcissistic word salad was her use of the phrase "blood libel." So not only did she opt to whine about her critics on a day when real heroes and real victims will be memorialized, but she also compared the criticism and stress she's endured throughout the last four days to thousands of years of anti-Semitic religious persecution endured by Jews.

Can you imagine how she'll react in a crisis should everyone go insane and elevate her to the White House? "Rachel Maddow is committing a holocaust against me. Wah! Feel sorry for me! Oh, and by the way, we're invading Mexico. God Bless America. And my life is as tragic as a German Jew in 1943, also. Good night!"

The rest of the article is worth the read.

There's just one more thing I want to add. Sarah, it's pundit not pundant. Since you use the word so often, it's about time you learned how to pronounce it.

100,000

As of today, my blog has had more than 100,000 page views. Woohoo! A little Brad to celebrate.

Touching

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand describe the moment when Rep. Gabbie Giffords opened her eyes last night:

Wasserman Schultz: Exactly. The only way I could describe the feeling that we had, that I had, was other than the birth of my kids, this was the most incredible feeling, to see literally your -- one of your closest friends just struggle to come back to you, to come back to her family, to come back to her friends. I mean, we know how strong Gabby is and you could see all the strength pouring out of her to touch her husband --

Gillibrand: And to tell us she's there. Like she was -- it was -- you imagine this when you watch a movie, but it's like she wanted to tell us, I'm here, I can hear you, I'm with you, and I appreciate everything you're doing.

Read the whole thing.

A day in the life

This is how my cats are spending their days. They're both going downhill. I feel panicky when I think about losing them.

Horny little devils

My finches have four eggs in their nest. They had one a couple of weeks ago that I found broken at the bottom of the cage. They're not supposed to breed because the male is a society finch and the female is a zebra finch. Guess they fooled me.

When I had zebra finches in the past, they laid several eggs over the course of the 2-3 years I had them. Only two eggs ever hatched but both babies survived to adulthood. It'll be fun to see if these little ones make it out of the shell. They're supposed to take 10-12 days to hatch. Mom and Dad are taking turns sitting on them.

Both of my cats are sleeping a lot. They're curling up on the bed together more often than they used to. Their appetites come and go.

This morning, I mentioned to my therapist that I wish I had a blender because I think they'd eat better if I pureed their food. They've been licking the gravy off it and leaving the chunks. Therapist offered to give me her blender which she hasn't used in years. I said I didn't feel comfortable with that. She said, "Why not?" I said, "Boundaries."

She seemed a little shocked. I think it was a wake up call for her. She said she'd ask her supervisor if it would be appropriate.

In other words, I'm not allowed to set my own boundaries.

This afternoon, I called my gyn-oncologist's office to ask when he wants to see me again. The chart said 5-6 weeks after radiation finished but I'm seeing the chemo oncologist for blood work on 2/7. I scheduled the gyn-onc appointment for the week after that so we'll have those lab results to look at. That'll make it 8 weeks.

The pictures show my hair three months post-chemo. It's coming in completely straight. I'm hoping my natural curls will come back when it gets longer.

Quote of the day

Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them.

- Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

Heartbreaking

Photograph of Gabrielle Giffords' husband holding her hand in ICU.

Best six minutes of my day

Quote of the day

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. And that's the sad thing of what's going on in America. Pretty soon, we're not going to be able to find reasonable, decent people who are willing to subject themselves to serve in public office ...

Let me just say one thing, because people tend to poo-poo this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech. But it's not without consequences.

- Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik at a press conference about the mass murder in Tucson

Sarah Palin put her in the cross hairs

Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head today during an open meeting with her constituents in Tucson. As of this afternoon, the local sheriff's department says that 18 people were shot and 6 were killed. The dead include a 9 year old girl and federal Judge John Roll.

Roll had been under U.S. Marshals Service protection in 2009 after receiving death threats. Roll had made a critical ruling on a civil rights case involving illegal immigrants. Local talk radio hosts spurred their listeners to make threatening phone calls and post the judge's personal information, including his home address, online. MSNBC reports that Roll lived in the neighborhood where Giffords was holding her meeting and just stopped by to say hello.

Giffords had been subject to several violent incidents in the last year. An attendee dropped a gun at a previous meet and greet event. In March, she was one of several pro-HCR members of Congress whose offices were vandalized in the week following the health care reform vote. In June, her Republican opponent Jesse Kelly held a campaign event that was promoted with this notice:

Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly

Up until a few hours ago, Kelly had this on his website. The headline said, "Kelly places the crosshairs squarely on Rep. Giffords." (It's since been taken down.)

But the first person to place Gabrielle Giffords in the crosshairs was Sarah Palin. In March, she put a map on Facebook with crosshairs over 20 districts whose Representatives had voted for HCR. She listed the names of the Reps under the map, and promoted it with links on Twitter that said:

"Take Back the 20!"

"Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"

Today a reporter asked Giffords father if she had any enemies. He said, "Yeah. The whole Tea Party."

Now, Michele Bachmann says, "My tears are flowing, and I am stunned and angered that Gabby Giffords was savagely gunned down while performing her congressional duties."

This is the same Michele Bachmann who once said, "I want people ... armed and dangerous ... because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing. And the people - we the people - are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country."

The same Michele Bachmann who told Sean Hannity, "We are at the point, Sean, of revolution. And by that, what I mean, an orderly revolution -- where the people of this country wake up get up and make a decision that this is not going to happen on their watch ... we can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer."

Sarah Palin put Gabrielle Giffords in the crosshairs, Michele Bachmann provided the ammunition, Jesse Kelly loaded the gun and Jared Loughner pulled the trigger.

In this day and age when right-wing political leaders are calling for an overthrow of the government, there is no such thing as a lone gunman.

Horrified quote of the day

I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff. An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country.

- John Boehner

Steve King calls Boehner and Cantor big ol' liars

As I deliberate and I listen to the gentleman from Tennessee, I have to make the point that when you challenge the mendacity of the leader or another member, there is an opportunity to rise to a point of order, there is an opportunity to make a motion to take the gentleman's words down, however many of the members are off on other endeavors and I would make the point that the leader and the speaker have established their integrity and their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't believe it can be effectively challenged and those who do so actually cast aspersions on themselves by making wild accusations.

- the genius formally known as Steve King

OMG! I had no idea it would be so entertaining

Republicans have been in control of the House for less than 2 days and it's been nothing but a laugh riot.

Steve King just testified that health care reform is unconstitutional because the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over dead babies in garbage cans and therefore cannot compel them to buy health insurance.

Quote of the day

New version of Huckleberry Finn replaces N-word with"slave." Looking forward to their upcoming version of "Moby Junk."

- tweeted by @ppatel

Help us Jesus! Or whatever

Quickie time:

• Headline from TPM: Virginia DMV Revokes World's Greatest License Plate. It wasn't the cannibalism they objected to so much as the possibility that it referred to oral sex. The guy's had the plate since 2004.

• Hey guys, who needs a rolled up sock when you can buy undies with a well-endowed penis shape conveniently molded right into them.

• The CBO now says repealing health care reform would cost $230 billion in the next 10 years. Cost, not save. Way to go reducing the deficit, Boehner.

• Iowa's own loud-mouthed dingbat Rep. Steve King made good on his threat to introduce a bill that will prevent kids born in the U.S. from becoming citizens, unless they happen to be lucky enough to have parents who are here legally. King's the new chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees citizenship and immigration. He's also got a big wall to sell you.

• "Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!" exclaimed the woman seated in the gallery of the House of Representatives. The Republicans are staging a stunt of reading the entire Constitution into the Congressional record, which is good since a lot of them have never read it before. Dems are even taking turns with the reading. The outcry came when a Republican was reading the section that says you have to be a natural born citizen to become president.

Natural born. Oh no. What about all those poor little babies being born by caesarean nowadays?

• By the way, those Constitutional-purists-in-name-only are reading a sanitized version of the document. They're leaving out parts that had to be amended, like the part where our founding fathers decided that slaves only count as three-fifths of a person.

• Have you heard about the "Obama prayer" that's sweeping the internet? It's based on Psalm 109: "Let his days be few, and let another take his office." A Florida cop got suspended for passing it on to a colleague. He says: "In hindsight, maybe it wasn't the smart thing to do, you know ... I should have been more careful where I left it, or whatever."

Josh Groban does Kanye

His name is Honors - how ironic

Owen Honors, the commander of the USS Enterprise is being relieved of his command after getting press attention for some videos he made using naval equipment, back when he was an executive officer. He used the F-word liberally, as well as the other F-word "fag." The videos also showed two women showering and were shown to 6,000 crew members aboard the Enterprise.

When I saw clips of the videos, I thought they must have been made a long time ago. Nope. They were from 2006-2007. Back then, after receiving complaints from sailors, his superiors told him to knock it off but he was never officially disciplined.

Last weekend, a Virginia newspaper published clips from the videos. The Navy's first response was: "The videos created onboard USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 were not created with the intent to offend anyone."

They put out that statement in spite of the fact that, in one of the videos, Honors himself said: "Over the years I've gotten several complaints about inappropriate material during these videos, never to me personally, but gutlessly through other channels ... This evening, all of you bleeding hearts, why don't just go ahead and hug yourself for the next 20 minutes or so, because there's a really good chance you're going to be offended."

A few quickies:

• State legislators in South Carolina have proposed new specialty license plates with "Coon Hunters" printed on them. I wish this was a joke.

• Ask Dr. Stool: What do you call it when you see meal remnants in your B.M.? Deja poo. And did you know the average American man will produce 9033 pounds of shit in his lifetime? Which is nothing compared to how much bullshit Rush Limbaugh can produce.

• Speaking of poopy heads: Iowa's own Steve King brags about the fact that he goes to school assemblies and asks grade schoolers where they stand on abortion.

Future Republican

A little eye candy for the new year

Alex O'Loughlin from "Hawaii 5-0."

No resolutions from me

I've never stuck to a New Year's resolution so I don't make them. I promised myself that after I finished cancer treatment, I'd start taking better care of myself - exercise more, watch what I eat.

I put that off until after the holidays. Some diet guru on TV said it's best not to start a new diet on January 1 because you're just setting yourself up for failure. I can always find excuses to procrastinate.

Last night, I watched "The Kids Are All Right" with Julianne Moore, Annette Benning and Mark Ruffalo. There was a plot twist that I didn't see coming at all. Based on the previews, I expected it to be a lot funnier than it was. Good movie though.

I'm also watching "Mad Men" on DVD. I've finished the first season and I'll start the second season tonight. It's a lot darker than I expected. The sexism - which is portrayed very realistically - is just shocking to see. It's crazy to think how much things have changed, just within my lifetime. Younger women take a lot of things for granted. To a lot of them, feminism is a dirty word. They don't appreciate all that feminists have done for them.

Boy cat is not doing well. He used to come to bed with me every night and annoy the hell out of me in his quest for affection. He hasn't done that for several days now. And he's really lost his appetite. He used to follow me around and beg for food first thing in the morning, but now he just lays around. After I give him his heart pill, he goes to the food dish but he only takes a few bites. The only food he's still eager for are slices of American cheese but he'll quit eating before he finishes the whole slice.

I'm trying to catch up on cleaning but I can only do a little bit each day. The fatigue from radiation has really set in. Other than that, not a lot going on.

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