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This week's column again begins with WTF?? moments, and this one is a doozy.

WTF?? #1. You can't help but have heard now about the crashers at the White House state dinner this past week. The Secret Service is embarrassed that they allowed a couple to enter the White House without making sure their names were on the guest list. Embarrassed? They should be horrified at themselves, because they only got lucky this time. Considering that the wife is in the running to be on the Bravo networks upcoming "Real Housewives of DC," it becomes obvious that this couple are just a couple of nutters hoping to make a living without actually working. While this incident merely caused the Secret Service "embarrassment", it could have been much, much worse. In August, we learned that the President receives 30 or more death threats a day - 400 times more than Bush received - and more than the thinly stretched Secret Service can investigate. Given that knowledge, for a Virginia couple to crash the party successfully, to the point of shaking the President's hand at the meet-and-greet, the Secret Service needs to do better, before we end up with another assassinated president. With all the teabagger craziness, with all the "lynch'im" rhetoric coming out of the right-wing talking heads and with all of the racist haters coming out from under their rocks because they can't stand that a black man is running the show, the Secret Service simply must do a better job, before we end up with another dead president.

WFT?? #2. Today's New York Times ran an article about the use of food stamps, and how the stigma of being a food stamp recipient is waning. The Bee can sympathize. Why be embarrassed? Everyone else is on them, too. If you live in a red state, that is. The map at this link shows where food stamps are used the most, and guess what. Ding! You are correct! Red states. Red states represented locally, statewide and nationally by men and women who have no sense of loyalty to their constituents, who care only about what can line their own pockets, who hold idiotically to their "morality" and who would just as soon cut off their constituents from such "socialist" and "commie" programs as...food stamps. It is no surprise that primarily in red states, where republicans rule the roost, we find the poorest of the poor.

This weeks "Strikes My Fancy" portion begins with...the final death of Ronald Reagan.

SMF #1. Last week the GOP leaked its purity test, designed to weed out those possibly centrist republicans, like DeDe Scozzafava in the New York political race of the year when she was forced out of the running by the GOP because she wasn't "republican enough" and the seat was subsequently lost to a democrat. The Huffington Post seems to think that Reagan himself, the holy grail for all GOP primary debates, would have been ousted himself for not pledging his allegiance to the GOP "values" test wherein we can discover just who is the most rabid of the right-wing freaks currently masquerading as legislators. The purity test isn't really a WTF?? moment so much as it strikes my fancy, because it will end up being just one more nail in the coffin of the GOP. It will weed out their moderates and force them to form, or co-opt entirely, another smaller party, thereby taking votes from the GOP come 2012. That is fine with me. Really, I can deal with that.

SMF #2. Whether you love him, hate him or are just neutral about him, you have to admit that Obama is most definitely NOT Bush. Bush didn't believe in science. He didn't understand it - it was beyond him. When faced with the reality of global warming, his administration commissioned a report, written by such scientific powerhouses as podiatrists and dermatologists, to outright deny the reality of global climate change. In short, Bush was a...ahem (cough cough) president who was short on knowledge and long on stupidity. Those days, fortunately, are over. The White House has kicked off a national science and technology education initiative. Among the ranks of those who will spearhead this initiative are thousands of scientists, video game programmers, and Elmo. The President announced an annual science fair hosted by the White House. The winners will get to meet the President. "If you win the N.C.A.A. championship, you come to the White House,"(the President) said. "Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House, we're going to lead by example. We're going to show young people how cool science can be." Huzzah! Mr. President, Huzzah!

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11/25/2009

Probably the one good thing George Bush did during his tenure as chief village idiot was to sign into law a bill that banned lead content over .03% and several toxic chemicals in toys sold in the USA. The law (which certainly was NOT his idea, but at least he signed it) seems to be working well: Toy recalls have dropped from 162 last year to 38 so far this year, she said. Recalls of children's products with excessive lead levels have decreased from 85 last year to 15 this year, and according to the article linked in the headline above, even the Chinese aren't willing to mess with that brand of fire anymore. Not since they've been found out, anyway.

However, there is still room for concern and discriminating toy shopping this year.

Every year, the U.S.PIRG Education Fund releases a report about problems with toys in America. Problems such as excessive lead content, lead paint, phthalates (a chemical exuded by certain plastics - remember the plastic baby bottle scare?) and excessive noise levels in toys for small children. While the findings show marked improvement over 2008, some major retailers are still selling items that are WAY over the lead content, that still contain phthalates, and with high volumes and no volume controls.

At Claire's Boutique, they found a jewelry charm that was 71% lead.

Seventy One Percent.

At Toys'R'Us, they found a child's book that contained .19% lead. Not quite as bad as SEVENTY ONE PERCENT, but still well over the legal limit.

You can read the actual report here via a pdf doc. I highly recommend it for parents and grandparents of young children before hitting the local toy stores and trinket shops this holiday season.

This is the Bee, signing off in preparation of the annual gorge and family fight marathon tomorrow, and wishing you and yours a happy turkey day. I'll be back on Sunday with another potluck, and boy o' boy are there fixin's galore from this week to stuff that bird with! For now, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving is beckoning from the living room, and there are pre-black-friday online sales to "window shop."

Happy (screw the indians twice day) Thanksgiving, ya'll!

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11/22/2009

I'm starting a new weekly column here on my lowly little blog called Potluck Sunday. This column will consist in part of news items that make me go "WTF??" and in part of news items that just strike my fancy, as I hope they will yours.

WTF?? 1. One potential problem that surfaced after 9/11 was the idea of the "suitcase" nuke. The easiest way to get a nuke into the US is through container shipping. Every day, millions of these suckers are off-loaded from ships in US ports and loaded on trains and trucks that carry all those Gladware disposable containers to Walmarts and Targets all over the country. Stashed in QVC's latest shipment of Boyd's Bears and HP Pavilions could be a small nuclear warhead, just waiting to be detonated at the Super Bowl, a la Tom Clancy.

The Department of Homeland Security commissioned 1,400 devices that detect nuclear materials in shipping containers and packing to be used at ports to catch these genies in the bottle before they get planted in the middle of NYC and destroy Gotham City.

Turns out that these devices use helium-3, which forms when the tritium used in making hydrogen bombs decays. The US stopped making tritium in 1989. You can do the math - they're out of helium-3. To get more, we'd need to make more nukes.

All is not lost, says the New York Times. Helium 3 is not hazardous or even chemically reactive, and it is not the only material that can be used for neutron detection. Homeland Security has older equipment that can look for radioactivity, but it does not differentiate well between bomb fuel and innocuous materials that naturally emit radiation, like kitty litter, ceramic tiles and bananas, and sounds false alarms more often.

What delicious irony. Until a viable alternative is found to helium-3, we'll have to make more nukes to catch nukes being imported surreptitiously into the country. Helium-3 is also used in medical research, so we'll see that go down the pike as well as costs go into the stratosphere, because this stuff costs $2,000/liter now, whereas a few years ago it was running at $100/liter.

WTF?? 2.Everyone remembers September 2008 when the economy took a steep nose-dive into oblivion. One of the major factors in that nosedive was the housing market's implosion and unbelievable numbers of defaulted mortgage loans. Wall Street took a lot of taxpayer money to save its sorry ass when various powerhouse banks and firms that specialized in marketing stinky loans into even stinkier securities bundles that even they couldn't explain nearly bit the dust because of the losses. Guess what? They're doing it again, only with government backed mortgage securities gained by homeowners were allowed, through the kindness of Wall Street's steel plated heart, to refinance their mortgages into a government backed FHA loan before they lost their home. The Senate should get moving on Senator Dodd's finance reform bill, because Wall Street will take us all down before this is over.

Strike My Fancy 1. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island was barred from taking communion because he is pro-choice. The Bee thinks that Rep. Kennedy should bar the church from receiving any more donations from the Kennedys, if they want to play dirty pool. Personally, I'm all over yanking tax exemption for any church that lobbies various members of congress in favor of Stupak or that threatens to pull its charitable organizations out of DC if gay marriage is even mentioned, but that's just me. I'm a hardass that way.

Strike My Fancy 2. Repairs to the CERN supercollider seem to be moving nicely, and attempts to recreate the environment of the Big Bang are on the agenda. Meanwhile, Vegas is again taking bets on whether or not CERN will destroy the earth by creating a black hole that just won't go away nicely into non-existence like most small ones tend to do. Of course, whoever bets on CERN destroying the earth will find it a tad difficult to collect. But that's another blog entirely.

That wraps it up for the Bee's Potluck Sunday. Here's hoping the best for you and yours this coming week. And if you fear you might gorge yourself too much on Butterballs and Mom's Famous Stuffing and find that waist line expanding, there's always this discovery of a fat slimming gene. Now, if only they can move it from fruit flies into my ass...

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After an indy panel of doctors and what-have-you decided that women don't need mammograms when they turn 40, they only need them when they turn 50, and no one needs to be taught how to do a self-breast exam because lord forbid that boobies get fondled in this country, even if it is by the owner, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been doing damage control. Sebelius tell us to keep doing what we girls have been doing: Get your mammograms starting at age 40, and keep on kneading the girls monthly, just in case. I'm sure the insurance companies will be jumping all over this, because Vishnu forbid that they should have to pay for preventative services for females.

Speaking of healthcare, Harry Reid has a Senate Bill that sucks. Yeah, I suppose we all kind of saw that coming.

Sarah Palin's book is out (I'm not even going to bother giving a link to the book itself), and of course the McCain campaign is saying it's FULL OF LIES!. Gee, didn't see that one coming, either. I suppose that's what happens when they forget to vet their VP choice. Whoops, and now she won't go away.

Speaking of the Book of Lies, if you think Palin's is fiction, just wait until Karl Rove's hallucinogenic "memoirs" is released next March. I smell a CYA, just in time for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's civilian trial.

Speaking of the 9/11 "mastermind's" trial, someone please explain to me why the President is talking about the assurance of this man being executed? Now, the Bee knows good and well that this guy isn't going to get an impartial jury of his peers, but the President talking about Mohammed's eminent execution certainly doesn't help.

Finally, LEGGO MY EGGO! WE MAY NOT HAVE ANYMORE UNTIL NEXT SUMMER!!! We may all have to go to...to...to WAFFLE HOUSE!

Good thing I'm a big fan of dives and diners.

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11/15/09

I care. Why? Because let's face reality. After over 100 years of burnt coal, oil, gasoline and general gluts of carbon emissions spewed into the atmosphere from every conceivable source, the earth is in trouble. Let me rephrase that: The planet itself isn't going anywhere unless the sun explodes, or a behemoth asteroid smashes us off course. The problem is the sustainability of life.

In the Matrix, Mr. Smith lectures Neo on the strikingly parasitic qualities that humans possess. In a way, Mr. Smith nailed it. We are parasitic - but fortunately, we have the intelligence quotient to outsmart our instinctual tendencies and make ourselves less parasitic. Less viral. Less destructive.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, when the public collective thought processes generally don't really think about global warming/cooling, atmosphere disintegration and why it really is so important that the world's leaders come to some kind of agreement in Copenhagen this December about just how to keep us all from killing ourselves, and the rest of the life on the planet, slowly. Oil won't last forever, they ain't making any more of it, and collectively, the planet's human population is nowhere near ready to deal with that potential disaster. As it stands, there aren't enough solar panels in the world to run New York City, much less every, or any, other major city. "Drill baby drill" just won't cut it.

Too many Americans won't even acknowledge that climate change is happening and is coming fast and furious to force us to make a change, or die. Too many world leaders won't acknowledge the facts. Our last President wouldn't even acknowledge the fact. In fact, they won't just refuse to acknowledge the fact, they deny it vehemently. Why?

Probably because, deep down, they're scared of the potential meltdown of the human species, so to deny it is the easiest route. Think humanity is depraved now? Just wait until there is a severe shortage of energy for the basics we in the developed world take for granted: heat and light. Add to that a possibly irretrievably polluted global water supply, and the pressure goes off the meter. Just go ask the third world - they are well acquainted with what happens when there are too many people and too few resources.

When NASA's LCROSS probe made its planned crash into the Moon a couple of weeks ago, I saw howls from different sectors. From Cindy Sheehan on Facebook likening it to the military takeover of the moon to republicans saying...well, not much of anything really, it seems from the deafening silence. Maybe the Moon is too far-reaching for their train of thought. I won't even go into what the Moon(bat) Landing Hoax Conspiracy Theorists would say about it.

Yesterday I saw various comments in various forums about the wastefulness of crashing a satellite into the moon, how they wish that we could work on water reclamation here on earth and how basically unimportant it is given all of humanity's other problems.

Unimportant it most certainly is not, not in the long-term scheme of humanity. Because if a couple of buckets worth of water are found in one little spot at the Moon's pole, then there may be more. And if not, there is always Europa, with its ever changing icy crust. And where there is an ever-changing icy crust, there is liquid underneath. Warm liquid. Water, and lots of it, and along with that water, the probability of life. Because if there is water on the Moon, and water on Europa, there is probably water all over the universe. And if there is water all over the universe, there is probably life all over the universe. And that presents the challenge: Do we continue to keep our collective heads in the sand about the damage we humans have inflicted on this planet, or do we fulfill the dreams of science fiction writers and reach a little farther for the stars? Or at least take a trip back to the Moon and have a walkabout, maybe see what else is trapped in her mysterious crust?

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11/12/2009

The Bee is pooped, so instead of my usual rambling, I thought I would pass along this story about little Will Phillips. He's 10, and he's a true patriot.

Will Phillips

This is the kind of kid I hope will be running this country in 20 years.

Read the comments, if you really want your head to explode.

Enjoy!

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11/8/2009

The House passed its version of the Healthcare Reform bill last night. History, for better or worse, was made last night as this is the first time that a serious healthcare reform effort even made it out of committee, much less to a full floor vote. It passed 220-215. Five measly votes, and for those, women were, to some degree, sold out to get the blue dogs on board. And lest we forget, the solitary republican who voted in favor of the bill, Joseph Cao of Louisiana who represents a primarily democratic district near New Orleans and only sits in his seat because his dem opponent was crookeder than a dog's hind leg.

Eric Cantor told teabaggers who converged on Capital Hill Friday in the thousands, replete with signs pasted with a photo of Nazi concentration camp survivors and Little Black Sambo Obama signs, that not one single republican would vote in favor of the healthcare reform bill before the House, and in fact, they would bury a hatchet in the bill and kill it dead.

Cao bucked Cantor and Boehner and this schmuck who couldn't even get the pledge of allegiance right, probably because he was too excited at getting to say "under god" on tv:

Pledge of Allegiance FAIL FAIL FAIL

Despite republican vows to commit murder on healthcare reform, despite all the media hand-wringing this past week about how Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes, OMG there's 10,000 people on Capital Hill saying they don't want no gubmint control of their overpriced and under-supplied health care insurance, and the world is coming to an end, 5 votes managed to slip the bill through.

Huzzah! Now on to the Senate, the meshing and melding of the House bill and the inferior Senate bills, and let's hope they don't screw it up too much, but victory is victory, even if partial, and let's crack a beer and drink to the House for bringing us all one step closer to putting some kind of brakes on the ravaging of the country by the insurance industry.

However, not everyone is celebrating, and I don't mean republicans.

NOW issued a press release today saying The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

And it begins. Republicans throwing out the bathtub, and liberals throwing out the baby and the bathwater, too. All for one piece of the puzzle, and democrats spooked by the original funding of elective abortions voted for the Stupak Amendment(.pdf, 4 pages, 77 kb).

I cannot agree with NOW on this one because I think they are wrong. I am a woman, I am pro-choice, I am as liberal as they come but I don't have blinders on. This isn't just about women and their access to abortion, this is about all americans who simply cannot bear the strain of the excesses of the insurance industry for another twenty years before another chance comes along to de-rig the system, if such another chance ever comes at all.

I prefer to dis-engage from the rhetoric for the moment and take what might prove to be a very unpopular pragmatic look at the controversy.

An elective abortion, without complications, costs anywhere from $50 to $500, for first and early-second trimester abortions. Third trimester abortions rarely occur unless the mother's life is in danger. Federal funding was already cut off for elective abortions a long time ago, and most states disallow the State portion of Medicaid funds from being used for elective abortions already.

According to NOW, this amendment negates Roe v Wade, and outlaws abortion. That is knee-jerk reactionary, to say the least, and a bit disingenuous, at worst. The amendment bars federal funding for abortions, unless the mother's life is in danger or in the case of rape/incest. Federal funding for abortions except in these instances was already denied years ago.

NOW goes on to say that the Stupak amendment, if included in the final bill that will be put before the President for signature, will:

Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion

This is not the way I read it. The amendment states "...nothing in this amendment shall restrict any nonfederal QHBP offering entity from offering separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section, or a plan that includes such abortions, so long as: 1. premiums for such separate supplemental coverage or plan are paid entirely with funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act."

This does nothing but uphold the position that the federal government already took a long time ago, regarding Medicaid.

NOW says the amendment, if included in the final bill before the President, will: Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion

I don't read the amendment quite this way either. The amendment says: "...nothing in this amendment shall restrict any nonfederal QHBP offering entity from offering separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section, or a plan that includes such abortions, so long as: 2. any nonfederal QHBP offering entity that offers an Exchange-participating health benefits plan that includes coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section also offers an Exchange-participaing health benefits plan that is identical in every respect except that it does not cover abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section."

And finally, NOW says that Stupak, should it be eventually signed into law, would: Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

They fail to say how this amendment would accomplish this feat. The amendment states: "...nothing in this section shall be construed as prohibiting any nonfederal entity (including an individual or a State or local government)(emphasis mine) from purchasing separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section, or a plan that includes abortions so long as: 1. Such coverage or plan is paid for entirely using only funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act; and 2. such coverage or plan is not purchased using (A) individual premium payments required for an Exchange-participaing health benefits plan towards which an affordability credit is applied; or B. other nonfederal funds required to receive a federal payment, including a State's or locality's contribution of Medicaid matching funds."

In other words, the Federal Government won't pay for abortion (except in the case of incest, rape, danger to the mother), but it does NOT disavow individuals or States or local governments from purchasing supplemental insurance, using funds not part of the monies provided by the Federal Government. I fail to see how this is different from how Medicaid funding of abortion is already set. This amendment does NOT stop a woman from obtaining an abortion, and it does NOT stop a woman from obtaining private insurance paid for by herself, or by a State or local agency not using any portion of Federal funds, that covers abortion.

NOW is a good organization. But on this one, they are wrong to refuse support for the entire House bill based upon 4 pages which do not much more than reiterate the stance the federal government has already held for years now, meaning, it won't provide insurance coverage for abortion, but it is not disallowing a woman from getting one altogether, and it is not disallowing anyone from obtaining private insurance to cover them, and we're talking elective abortions here. Who the hell gets insurance to cover an elective abortion that for most women will never be needed?

I believe NOW is falling into the trap the republicans set months ago, talking about a public OPTION as if it were an across-the-board MANDATE, that everyone would have to sign up, there would be no private insurance available for anyone ever again, and this also is simply not true. This final House bill doesn't have that kind of teeth.

While the amendment does reinforce the federal government's stance that elective abortion not be financed using federal funds, it certainly does not go so far as to invalidate Roe v Wade.

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry.

This is not, by far, the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination. Allowing pharmacists to deny filling a prescription for birth control or a morning-after pill was a far worse blow to a woman's fundamental right of self-determination. And yes, the Stupak amendment mollified a few blue dog dems, and one republican. Enough to get the bill passed through the House, and at this point, getting that bill through the House was far more important, in the bigger picture, than providing already non-existant federal funding for elective abortion.

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11/4/2009

Yesterday, the glacially inertial "conservatives" in Maine decided to repeal a law allowing gay marriage by public referendum.

Refusing to honor a human right is abhorrent. Retracting a right already conferred is the cruelest of blows in a country that prides itself on the freedoms enjoyed by its citizens. But there is a segment of society which is consistently, state by state, being denied its rightful place at the civil rights table by a band of miscreants who can't even provide us with cogent evidence as to why they wish to deny the right of marriage to an entire group of people.

All the arguments against the allowance of gay marriage falter upon close scrutiny. Biblical references were once used to promote slavery, to keep African Americans in what was perceived as their "rightful place" for a hundred years after the Civil War ended and to keep women from voting. The biblical adages cited often today against gay marriage are irrelevant in today's diverse and multi-cultural world.

The argument that gay marriage would somehow invalidate hetero marriages is simply nonsense on the face of it. This country runs a 50% divorce rate, and the far right gets divorced more often than the far left. So clearly marriage isn't really all that meaningful to those most vehemently spouting such lofty sentiments as "the sacredness of marriage."

Economic arguments such as the strain it would put on the tax base are inherently unfair and also fail. Single persons pay more in taxes than do married couples, particularly in the lower to middle classes, and the gay community has been paying more than its fair share of taxes without even the possibility of alleviating some of the tax burden by marrying and filing jointly.

Claims about the perceived immorality of the gay community are also fatally flawed, with zero evidence to support them.

It all must really come down to the "ick" factor, no matter in what language it is couched. However, the "ick" factor never has, and never will be, proper justification for denying, or retracting, civil rights from any human. No matter how much the right wing, and some of the left, wishes it were enough, it is not.

Last night's Maine debacle was indeed a blow for gay rights. In fact, it was a blow against all of our rights as citizens of this country. Because if a state can, by simply having a public vote, retract a right extended to a segment of its population based upon something as intangible as the "ick" factor, then how long before other groups are targeted?

Rights are tenuous things. They can come and go at the whim of a majority vote. They can be eradicated at the whim of mob rule. What we saw last night in Maine, and last year in California, and in 29 other states across the union, was mob rule fueled by nothing so much as an "ick" factor presented in lofty and ultimately meaningless language.

How very sad for us all when, with all this country has been through, with all the struggle for freedom and equality, we still have so very far to go.

My friend Bo said today "I'm still very demoralized. I can't help but take it personally."

My selfish side tells me that I'd better hope that I never feel quite that way. My pragmatic side tells me that it could very well BE me someday, feeling as if half the country really does hate me for no reason other than they just don't like what I am, or maybe because some blind christian mullah told them to.

Bo, and all my other gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered brothers and sisters, please do not lose your hope, and do not lose your hearts. Lasting change can take time, and sometimes it takes a congressional mandate to force it down everyone's throats that no, this group will not be left out in the cold any longer. Yes, sometimes it must be forced down the throats of the entire country, just as the Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights Acts were foisted on an american public which was divided in its acceptance of those rights. Just as Jim Crow laws were eradicated by judges simply saying enough, we're not allowing this anymore.

Keep fighting for the acknowledgement of your rights. Never say allow. Allowance can be taken away. Acknowledgement is, if not acceptance, then resignation that rights do exist, and there is nothing to be done about it, and those who profess their hatred of you will just have to deal. Just as they just had to deal when when women were acknowledged to have the right to vote and to guide their own destiny. Just as they just had to deal when it was acknowledged that black americans have the same rights as white americans.

Know this - I, and others like me, will always have your back.

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11/2/2009

Dede Scozzafava single-handedly turned a House seat race in upstate NY that no one ever paid any attention to into the buzz on the net, oh yes she did.

The GOP didn't think she was "conservative" enough (read: batshit crazy enough), so they threw her under the bus, ran over her 39 times, parked on her back, and forced her out of the race so they could push in some Conservative Party schmo who is more to their taste - he's an idiot.

On her way out the door, Scozzafava flipped the GOP the Big Bad Bird. And now they are in a paroxysm of self-aggrandizing righteous anger in their utter shock that the bitch would DARE, DARE I tell you, DOUBLE DOG DARE to endorse the democrat after the treatment she got at the hands of the GOP.

Rush Limbaugh, the official spokesman for the GOP, said Scozzafava has screwed every RINO in the coun... we can say that she's guilty of widespread bestiality.

The National Review editors called her the liberal nominee forced on voters by New York's feckless GOP establishment.

That would be the same feckless GOP establishment which said Dede Scozzafava's endorsement today represents a betrayal of the people of the North Country and the people of her party.

Yes, people who are thrown under the bus and run over with it 39 times tend to switch their allegiance to the side that DID NOT throw their carcass onto the pavement under the wheels on the bus.

HUZZAH to Dede Scozzafava, for smacking back that hand that struck her. HUZZAH to the GOP for inserting one more nail to their historical coffin with their love-affair with the far right totalitarian-minded morons who would turn this country into a banana republic given the chance.

The GOP is eating itself alive tonight, because Scozzy told them to stick it where the sun don't shine, and it's a wonderful thing to behold. I have to admit, I LOVE seeing the GOP melt down. It really does brighten my day.

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11/1/2009

Last November, Virginia seceded from the Confederacy 143 years late. Looks like come this Tuesday, we're going right back in, if and when Bob McDonnell gets himself elected Governor.

McDonnell is probably the worst thing that could happen to this state right now, short of Pat Robertson himself running the show. Oh, but I suppose he will be, in a way, since McDonnell did to go Patty's little ol' Regent University, where law school classes begin with prayer meetings and from where BushII pulled way too many federal judges and advisors.

Jerry Falwell finally croaks, and Pat Robertson steps in to put a stranglehold on Virginia with his boy McDonnell. As an armchair historian, it always gives me a little chill how history just keeps on repeating itself over, and over, and over again and again and again.

McDonnell likes to pooh-pooh his college thesis, where he decried the societal damage that birth contol use by married couples and working women would perpetrate as the ramblings of a young, idealistic college student still trying to find his way in the world.

He was only 34 years old, dangit, so that shouldn't count in anyone's estimation of his character!

And he stopped saying stupid stuff like that...a couple of years ago, when he thought about running for guv.

Meanwhile, Virginia is going to suffer under this cretin. He has been a Virginia delegate to the state legislature, and voted consistently against anything that even smacked of being helpful to the citizenry, such as Medicaid and Medicare (which he would love to do away with entirely) and extensions of SCHIP benefits, which he called welfare for kids.

He will win Tuesday, if the polls around these parts are correct. He's running a 11 point spread, depending on which local right-wing rag of a local paper Virginians get to choose from.

Mr. Bee and I will go cast our votes Tuesday for Creigh Deeds, who is no great shakes himself, but is a hell of a lot more palatable than Patty Robertson's boy McDonnell.

And it all comes down to this: Republicans = Stone age. Democrats = circa 1972. I'll take 1972 over the stone age.

So in the Great Experiment of 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, count Virginia out, because we'll be too busy trying to figure out how to pay increased real estate taxes to pay for McDonnell's wackadoo, backwoods craziness masquerading as "morality." Not to mention his completely skewed ideas on how to improve our transportation problems and improve our schools all at the same time from the State's equivalent of "petty cash" which is our general purpose fund. Of course, none of that money will actually be spent on education or transportation - it will just disappear into the black hole of corporate welfare, just as every republican Virginia governor has always done before him. It's the republican way, dontcha know.

At least Virginia businesses will get a $1,000 tax cut per new job created for hiring more than 50 employees. Too bad 90% of Virginia businesses have fewer than 50 employees, with no hope of adding more with the economy in the toilet.

Off-shore drilling will fund Virginia...only, Virginia doesn't get to keep those funds, even if she does engage in off-shore drilling. Which she won't, and let's face reality here, Virginia couldn't even get a wind farm in the Blue Ridge 10 years ago because some of the rich fatcats might have their view impeded, so what are the odds of oil rigs going in off Virginia Beach?

Tuesday, I really believe we will get this misogynistic-Pat Robertson-butt-kissing-mouthbreathing-troglodytic-throwback for governor. Just lovely.

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