I’m On Planet Quaintly Backward, Yes?

Tags

America, Good Samaritan laws, GOP, immigration, Jeb Bush, Latinos, medical care

I would sure like to know who drugs me and transports me without my agreement to these other planets in the galaxy. I mean, I go to sleep one place, and get up and everything seems normal.

Until of course something so outrageously insane happens, and I look skyward, knowing of course that that sun up there is not my sun, but rays down upon this alien landscape that just looks like my earth.

How do I tell?

Oh. It’s the outrageously insane thing that happens. I mean it ain’t human the thing that happens. It belongs to a foreign and utterly insane race of people who do the opposite of anything any NORMAL human would do. I pity that poor planet. It’s not like mine.

On this planet, a “nurse” who works at a senior assisted living facility, calls emergency services (oddly also called 911 here) to announce that an 80-something lady has collapsed in the dining area and is “barely” breathing. The operator, sends off help and then instructs the nurse to go over and begin doing CPR (apparently they have a similar heart-lung circulatory system as we do). The nurse refuses telling the operator that the company she works for doesn’t allow her to do that.

We are told that the facility doesn’t “do” medical care as part of its services, and prohibits the nurse (whose purpose there is never explained) from rendering assistance to a resident in distress. The operator becomes more and more excited, begging the nurse to find “somebody” who can. The nurse says nobody (except presumably her) knows how to do it. The operator says that’s fine, she can teach them over the phone. The nurse says the company doesn’t allow that either.

The woman of course dies.

The state (also oddly enough called California) has a law that says one is not required to come to the assistance of another. There are plenty of states with such a rule. There are also states that have rules that are called “good Samaritan” laws that protect well-meaning people who help from being sued for causing harm during the helping.

It begs the question I guess to wonder if a nurse has a duty beyond “obeying orders” that might be above the inhuman (obviously because this planet’s inhabitants must not be human like us), order of a company who cares nothing more than for the bottom line–profits shall not be diluted by lawsuits.  It begs the question too why there is a “nurse” employed in the first place if not to at least imply to residents and their families that medical care is only a “step away.”

I sure was glad to learn that I had been secretly kidnapped to this draconian planet. Nothing like this could happen on my earth, and certainly not in my country. Nobody would be that cold and, well, inhuman. No, never in my America.

If that wasn’t enough to assure me that I was no longer in Kansas or anywhere nearby, I saw another thing on this nutsy planet that make it clear it was not mine.

I heard a guy (I swear this is true) who called himself Jeb Bush, just like our Jeb Bush  in America. Only this one, he didn’t have any love for the Latinos like our Jeb. No this one, (not sure he is married to a Latino woman likes ours) he is against allowing undocumented workers a path to citizenship. He is, (believe it or not) in favor of creating them as a permanent underclass in this country they call America, although I think the correct spelling is AmerIKA. No citizenship for them, for as he put it, the last time they did amnesty, why a whole bunch of them didn’t take advantage of it anyway, so they must not really want to be citizens, doncha know.

Yeah, he didn’t mention that maybe some of them were still afraid, and many even more couldn’t afford to pay those fines that you had to pay first to apply.

Our Jeb would never think of such a thing. He’s the smarter of the Bushes (yes they have a passel of  Bushes here too) and that is such an ugly idea that nobody who cares about immigrants would ever suggest that we start defining a whole class as some slave labor reservoir.

They say that this Jeb here, why he is thinking about running for president in 2016. And they tell me that a tiny minority of really nasty mean people hate Latinos for all kinds of imagined things, and this Jeb is courting them for votes.

Our Jeb ain’t like that. He has principles. That Jeb could learn a thing or two from our Jeb.

So, anyway, I gotta run. I’m heading down to the airport and find the next transport back to the third rock from the sun. I sure hope to be back by tomorrow. The food here sucks.

**I learned after the posting of this that the woman in the first instance may have signed a DNR order and may well have been informed that staff were prohibited from offering any medical assistance. I am wrong to castigate the nurse in question if that is so, although I find it odd that she made no mention of this fact when talking to the 911 operator. I apologize to anyone I offended by my attempt at humor. I will not withdraw the post since it’s important to publicly admit one’s errors and not try to erase them in my opinion. I stand by my opinion that the company should have no such “rule” in place.

Related articles

• Jeb Bush: Legal Residency, Not Citizenship, For Illegal Immigrants (mexicoinstitute.wordpress.com)
• Jeb Bush backs pathway to failure (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• Care home death: Nurse refuses to do CPR on 87-year-old who died at California home (standard.co.uk)
• Jeb Bush rejects path to citizenship, says immigrants don’t want it (voxxi.com)
• California CPR case shines light on what retirement facilities offer (kansascity.com)
• A retirement home is defending one of its nurses who refused to perform CPR … – Detroit Free Press (freep.com)
• ‘We always start CPR,’ local medical official says in response to Calif. case (seattletimes.com)

Fool Me Once. . . .You Know the Rest

Tags

budget, environment, gay rights, GOP, immigration, Internal politics, sequester, teabaggers, Violence Against Women Act

I’m having a bizarre discussion on Facebook with a reactionary. I say that because he is a Republican, a small businessman (three employees), and a climate denier.

He’s sure that green energy is a total waste of time. He finds all kinds of bogus “studies” to prove that and that the sun is the culprit in our current environmental woes. He tried to “prove” his case by suggesting that Greenland was named by the Vikings as such because one thousand years ago it was temperate.

That makes as much sense as saying, “hey it’s snowing! So much for global warming!” A tiny investment in some research shows that the Vikings never ventured inland and the coasts of Greenland are always ice-free, and Erik may have named it so precisely to encourage settlement there when he returned to Iceland.

In any event, I find it curious when little guys like this are so enthralled with being in the “club” with the big guys that they don’t realize that while they may be members of the same club, i.e. “business” entrepreneurs, they are waiting tables rather than eating at them. What it boils down to is they don’t want to pay the taxes they perceive come with supporting green technologies, but they are more than happy to continue to pay taxes to subsidize industries like Exxon-Mobile who make BILLIONS in profits every year, and the only part of that they will ever see is as a valet tip.

Meanwhile the Tea Bibbers continue to weigh as an anchor around the neck of the GOP whose rational members are paddling like crazy while the Tea Bibbers continue to punch more holes in the bottom of the boat. They are the sticky paper once touched that you can’t get off your fingers no matter how hard you shake them.

The latest polling suggests that the world for the GOP remains dismal. Nearly 50% of the electorate things they are crazy and useless. The numbers if anything, have gotten worse than they were immediately following the election. Republicans cannot seem to find their way, and when one jumps to the front and announces the “new” pathway, he or she is shot full of arrows from the bottomless quiver of the Tea Faction that wants no truck with RINOs.

As Joe Scarborough put it, the CPAC boys and girls chose not to invite Chris Christie, a governor who enjoys a 74% approval rating in a blue state. His conservative credentials are not in question by rational people. But he had the temerity to act nicely to the President and that is not allowed by the rank and file nuts.

Rubio, who is hungry for a shot at the White House, cut  his teabag in half and got on board with some form of immigration reform that leads to citizenship. Well that caused the expected riff. He’s up against the insanity that John McCain ran into out in Arizona–“where’s the damn fence?” and “they come here and get on welfare.” With that kind of mentality, the reactionary Right ain’t going to get on board. Hell they are going to shoot holes in the bow.

Plenty of the truly demented want the sequester to kick in, because they just want to prove that they are in control. They aren’t but they sure have Johnny Boehner by the short hairs. He’s fallen to the dubious task of lying through his bright whites about how black is white and white is chartreuse. Having no clue what the American people want, he continues to spout that he does, and of course people continue to laugh. John is finding that we actually read papers and read magazines and we KNOW how we got to this place, and his dirty fingerprints are all over it.

Republicans can’t bring themselves to stop sucking at Wayne La PeePee Lapierre’s nether regions long enough to read a poll that suggests that over 90% of Americans want strong background checks on all gun purchases. They are all over the place on this one, from the usual “not from my dead cold hands” to “okay, I can handle background checks.”

Similarly, when it comes to gays, the GOP is turning itself inside out. A number of Republicans have broken from the pack and suggested its time to get out of the dark ages and move into the sunshine. That of course is met with derision and out right calls for hanging among the insane wackos. I do not foresee a happy resolution here no matter what is proposed. The wingnuts are firmly stuck in Leviticus, wallowing in their presumed righteousness, all the while munching on pork chops and engaging in usury, things also prohibited by the Almighty in his dealings with the Chosen.

On women, things get no better. The party that insisted that the “war on women” was merely a campaign ploy by desperate Democrats, continue to amass a mountain of dead (women who will never vote Republican) in their non-war. Plenty of states are still doing everything possible to make sure that women’s private goodies are open for inspection by well-meaning (read lecherous) legislators who are so sure women can’t imagine what is in that womb of theirs that they need men to explain it to them. And then putting impossible demands upon abortion providers that cause them to close their doors in dismay. All this while tens of thousands of women lose the only health care they ever had.

And of course  who can forget that a goodly group of morons parade around as grown-ups yet are unwilling to pass the Violence Against Women Act because it protects Native women from assault by non-native men. And good grief we aren’t going to protect same-sex men and women against violence by their partner either, because well, that would suggest we really do love them, just not the “act.” And since they really DO hate them, well you can see why that can’t be passed. The bill remains in limbo as the Senate version (with the above) is up for a vote by the unwilling jackasses otherwise known as Tea Bibbers.

Well, as I see it, the GOP has learned nada and is headed for more election troubles. And of course, we haven’t even touched upon the anger Karl has unleashed by his attempt to shut the Tea Bags the hell up!  It’s a party for us, and the best show in town.

Related articles

• Don’t bite on GOP’s clever sequester trick, Dems (washingtonpost.com)
• BREAKING: House Republicans Backing Down On Violence Against Women Act (tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Sequester Poll Gives GOP Low Marks On Federal Spending (huffingtonpost.com)
• The GOP’s Ted Cruz problem (salon.com)
• Why do more and more Americans despise the GOP? It’s the hypocrisy (eclectablog.com)
• New Poll Shows Majority Of Americans Think The GOP Is ‘Out Of Touch’ And ‘Extreme’ (addictinginfo.org)
• MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: GOP Full of ‘Resentment,’ ‘Hate’ & ‘Anger’ for Not Inviting Christie (ijreview.com)
• Joe Scarborough: GOP Cheating To Win Implies Party In Decline (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)

 

Just Send Them to a Psychiatrist

Tags

budget, cartoons, Catholic Church, China, Congress, espionage, GOP, gun control, Humor, immigration, NRA, religion, teabaggers

I finally figured it out. How stupid of me not to have seen it before. Nobody beats their head against a wall forever. The outcome does not change.

It is apparent that the GOP is suffering from a bad case of masochism. I mean a really severe case of it. I mean let me explain it by way of a baby.

Okay, you hold an animal cracker in front of an infant, and they will reach for it. You hold out four animal crackers and they will drop the one and grab for the four. Then hold out one, and they will drop the four and grab for the one. They don’t differentiate because they don’t know the concept of quantity yet.

Now the GOP sorta like this. You dangle a few teabibbers in front of them, and they will drop a legion of regular fiscal conservatives. They can’t seem to get the idea of counting. They give up the vast middle because the fraction dances a jig in front of them and threatens to go (where exactly?).

I think they get a perverse sexual kick out of it. Just a theory mind you. But you explain why they can’t let go of the crazies in favor of a really much larger middle.

The Chinese are busy stealing our intellectual property.

That used to be done by stealth by men and women sneaking into offices and jimming safes and taking pictures of formulas.

Cloak and dagger stuff. Something you could at least applaud for the sheer audacity of it.

Now? It’s all done thousands of miles away by geeky types with lips smeared with pizza sauce and button-down plaid shirts and cheap sneakers.

I am very sure that if you go to that building in Shanghai where the special section of the Chinese army is busy breaking into computers all over our land, that is what you will find.

I think we should shame them. I mean, “hey Chinese government, can’t you think up these things yourself? Are you so pathetic in intellect that you have to steal it? So much  for your much touted smarts!”

After all, it worked so well with Japan and South Korea.

It must be something in the rice that makes these folks so wily when it comes to cheating. Or again, it may speak to just how smart they really are.

In any event, we are getting screwed.

The GOP are messing up the immigration thing.

There is no way out for them.

Even if the “calmer” heads in the GOP (stop laughing!) prevail, do you think that the Latino population is going to forget the fight within the party?

When folks are talking about keeping them in guest worker mode forever as a way to insure cheap labor for the “dirty” jobs, well, I think you have already lost the battle no matter what the final outcome.

Perhaps the GOP needs a lesson in “shut the f**k up” when it comes to talking outside of very very closed doors.

It’s that masochism thing again I think.

It is lost on no one, that anything the President proposes, is “dead on arrival”. They actually use those very words.

So if the President proposes  some ideas on immigration, they call it “interference” and “political posturing”. If he leaves Congress alone, they call it
“unengaged” and “not leading.”

They also think we are too dumb to catch on.

They always think we don’t see the truth.

But to be fair, when you have been divorced from the truth as long as they have on almost everything, it’s probably pretty hard to know fact from fiction.

And they are still using the old Rovian playbook which states on page one: If you say a thing again and again, sooner or later, it will be taken as true.”

Of course that is only true if you keep a straight face and are talking to a Teabibber. Actually with a Teabibber, you don’t need the straight face. They are so wrapped in their own little alternative reality that the won’t know the difference.

Lord, things are getting wicked in the Vatican.

Now they are talking about a secret study that shows that the Curia is just chock full of backbiting intrigue, jockeying for power, and *gasp* homosexual liaisons.

Sounds like your average government to me.

Sounds like Benedict has buyers remorse.

Sounds like the Catholic Church is in for a very bumpy ride.

I sigh a lot. I’d even consider going back to the Episcopals, but here in my town, there are no liberal Episcopals only the conservative Anglicans.

It’s just about enough to make a person give up organized religion and just steer an independent spiritual ship. I’m sure Jesus gets tired too.

Once upon a time it used to be pretty easy to tell who was crazier.

Kim Dong Un, like his crazy daddy, Kim Jong Il, were just about the craziest of the loons on the globe.

But America does like to be first.

And we have been running that race into the ground lately.

I mean, like I said, it’s darn near impossible to pick a jackass of the week in Amerika any more.

There are people just standing in line for the honor of being named to that lofty pedestal.

A perennial finalist every week is Wayne La Pee Pee Pierre.

But I’m pretty convinced I’m gonna live long enough to see him placed in a lock box and buried. Better yet, he can be chopped up and put in the nose cone of every nuclear device we have. I bet he would like that.

Time Flies When Gravity Hibernates

Tags

2nd Amendment, Humor, immigration, life in the foothills, Marco Rubio, NRA, right wing media, teabaggers

Be a blogger! You too can make up inane titles that will confuse and confound. Everyone races to see what the hell she’s talking about today!

Oh, hi there.

Just reporting briefly on the home front.

The Contrarian has met the oral surgery and he has lived to tell tales of wonder and astonishment. Actually he’s doing well, slurping down plenty of protein drinks and spacing out on percocet, which is a form of oxycodone, and sleeping sweetly.

My feet are doing vastly better. Turns out I don’t have bone spurs, but rather plantar fasciites. That is the inflammation of the tendon that runs from heel to ball and supports the arch. There is a marvelous product out there that is a heel support you put in your shoes. It almost immediately relieved the intense pain. While I still feel it, its hugely better and hopefully now healing. I’m also popping an Advil every eight hours or so.

The broken toe is more in the vicinity of “sore” rather than painful. I’m back into my tennis shoes, and have bought some hiking shoes that with the inserts should prove supportive. I still have my broken toe taped to its new best friend, the middle toe, and they are fast buds now. The bruising has spread to nearly my main man toe, but the area is barely tender at all now. I should be walking Diego by Monday or so.

Speaking of which, the poor boy is utterly freaked by the changes in his daily grind. No walks, and well the Contrarian ain’t the ball of fun he usually is–not throwin’ the ball and wrestling the boy. All of which makes him anxious, and when he is anxious he worries about I guess being abandoned. So he’s been going through a twelve-inch rawhide bone in about a day and a half, chewing himself silly. He’s a needy little guy, all the more endearing for his anxiety. I’m going to walk him a short way today and hope he doesn’t know the difference.

So. Now that you are thoroughly bored, let’s see what the cartoon world has to say today.

The gun safety “discussions” go on.

With some 90+ percent of the population favoring strong background checks, one wonders how long the reactionary right can hold out with its series of lies and fear-based tropes.

The survivalists will continue to listen as Wayne La Pee Pee Pierre threatens that to give an inch will be to give up the 2nd Amendment all together, for as he warns, Sandy Hook is what the President has been waiting for to do what he has always wanted: take away your guns.

The fact that not one single piece of legislation, nor rhetoric in over four years has suggested any such thing, is well, beside the point.

To a nut case, the very failure of predictions to come true, is why you should worry. It’s just a matter of time.

And the sun will one day devour and incinerate the earth. It too is just a matter of time.

A band of Dems and GOP’er’s are trying to fashion some sort of immigration policy.

The fascinating thing is this:

When Republicans are polled, something like 64% or so favor it. When the President’s name is attached to immigration reform, (with the same general details), favor-ability falls to 31%.

Tell me once again, that GOP opposition to the President is about policy and not about race. Do tell me again.

I continue to hear the same tired arguments: our borders are porous. Well the number of persons trying to enter the southern border without benefit of papers, has fallen dramatically since 2004. More entering illegally are sent back than ever before. In some studies there is now a negative effect, with more returning to their country of origin that coming here because they can’t find work.

Is the system fool-proof? No. But it’s hardly the sieve the reactionary Right portrays either.

It truly is impossible to gain any modicum of truth if you don’t know how to judge what you are watching and reading.

But this seems lost on those who have drunk of the kool-aid and found it “mmmm-mmmm good.” You see folks, when you have belief, and somebody out there is more than happy to tell you that you are right, you tend to be reinforced that your are right.

More so when you are told that even though you barely graduated from high school, and never liked to read, you are right anyway, well, whoa, what a rush!

Now add some “don’t listen to them other folks, they are all liars and just want to brainwash you”.

And then for good measure, use a logo “Fair and Balanced.”

Now you got ’em. And your robots will recite free of charge–

Hey you libtards, stop being sheeple and think for yourself, like we do!

That is a mind, tiny as can be, that has been trashed. I’m not sure it can be resurrected.

Well, it was funny after all.

Say what you want, he was a nervous wreck.

And his message was rather pedestrian.

I mean, talk about how student loans enabled you to go to college, and then trash the idea that the government can help you succeed?

Talk about living in a working class neighborhood and then offer your house up for sale at $675,000 bucks, (with a pool)?

Claim that the “government can’t control the weather” as you answer to climate change?

 

And as always, may your day be brightened by a sweet face:

Don’t hate me cuz I’m beautiful. . . .

 

Yeah So What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Tags

GOP, Humor, immigration, Military, Politics, teabaggers, Women's issues

I’m too pooped for words. Three hours in the kitchen making food items for today and tomorrow. I still have stuff to make tomorrow but now I don’t have to spend the WHOLE day. Not that I give a hoot who wins this game, other than the coach of the 49’ers was from U of M and I HATE U of M with all the passion that a true Spartan can muster. That is a lot in case you didn’t know.

So I made some refried beans and some Mexican rice and some green chile salsa. We’re having chimichangas today but I have those made up from a while back and just have to take them from the freezer and put them in the oven. I still have to make guacamole which has a maddeningly bad habit of turning unappetizingly brown when left too long. It’s the oxygen that does it. Just a tip. Store left over with a piece of plastic spread tight on the surface, touching it to push out the air.

I made some pesto for a dish tomorrow, and a jalapeno popper dip too. Then I made some lemon/pumpkin seed sweet muffins, and then a vanilla wafer/banana pudding dish with a meringue on top. I’m pooped. I had a whole list, and everything is crossed off real nice and neat. I just have to make marinade for the Jamaican jerk chicken wings and then make the dough for the pizza wheels. Those are easy.

Has politics been pissing you off? Has me. Nothing changes. When 93% of the population is in favor of background checks for prospective gun buyers, why do all the Republicans think that they have the RIGHT to signal they are not wanting it? What makes them so special? Oh, yeah, I forgot, the checks they get from the NRA.

I been talking a lot on Facebook with old high school folks. Amazing that there is a couple of them who are the TeaBaggin’ whirly heads. One says nothing but stupid lines like “Obumma is destroying America” and “all democruds are stupid.” He obviously was matriculated through without passing a test of any kind.

The other wants me to explain why the Obama’s don’t have their law licenses any more. I explained it, of course rather easily. She pounced. “You are wrong! Michelle was forced to give her’s up or face prosecution for fraud!”

“No,” I sighed, “that is another of those crazy urban myths.”

She prefers to live in her delusions because it fits her mind-set. Oh and she said Sarah was just “brilliant”. Sarah may be a lot of things, brilliant is not one of them. I have rocks in my back yard that I could have a more interesting discussion with.

The loon-land crazies have gotten no less crazy and a goodly number of them are still being courted by the GOP. Which is fine. It just insures an easier road in 2016.

I mean, I try to be patient with the really bashingly crazy ones. I do. But it does get so boring wasting any time on such blithering bonkers beliefs. How’s that for alliteration?

I love alliteration. Don’t ask me why, but I do. I just love to string ’em all out there until I exhaust myself.

That poor don’t tread on me snake, I feel sorry for him. To be co-opted by such a bunch of dopes. It gives a bad name to snakes. I mean laughing at a snake? Seriously, that must be embarrassing.

 

Is anybody beginning to just laugh whenever they see Lindsey or Johnny pull a microphone towards them?

Bellicose! Outrage! End of world as we know it!

Lindsey is the funniest of all because with his twang he sounds like he’d be better at calling for the next act in the cross-dressing contest at Mardi Gras. His fake shock and awe is truly hysterical.

Somebody ought to tell Johnny that if he dies with that big old permanent scowl on his face, it will stay that way for all eternity. Not the way you want to meet Jesus, John. Your life is way too short to waste any more of it tilting at windmills, or tilting period. Scrape Lindsey off your behind and find a good book to read on a good beach. It’s time.

Women are fit for combat now.

Why anyone would want that I have not a clue.

I’m not the military type.

I’m a lover, not a fighter.

But he, if it floats your boat, go for it.

The usual people displayed the usual mock horror. I’m talking to you no longer relevant Alan West. I’m talking to you.

Meanwhile, what’s left of the sane Republican part, and I use the term loosely, cuz if we were really talking, sane, I’m not sure there could be more than three, is trying to entice all the groups they turned off to come see.

Unfortunately when it comes to women, they are still screwing up. I think they are unaware of HOW to change. They see themselves and their patronizing ways as normal.

As to the “immigration problem” they are trying to work that through. They are trying to be “for” a decent reform. Course, they are also trying to lie through their teeth to convince their peeps that it ain’t what it seems.

NO AMNESTY HERE! they cry. No of course not. HAVE TO GET TO THE BACK OF THE LINE! they chant. What LINE? There is no line. Think about it.

By the by, I had a laugh yesterday. One of my high school (what to call him?) persons I barely knew  at all, said that first we have to secure the borders because only one bomb, and the grid would be gone. He also asks if I’ve crawled back under my rock, so you can tell we have nice chats. Actually I don’t speak to him at all in the hopes that he will get bored and go away. (They never do. They are too stupid to know they are unwanted.)

I struggled with that. He thinks the “grid” is a place you can go and “bomb”. He thinks there is “a” grid. He thinks it has something to do with the border. How can a person be wrong on everything? You see what I’m up against?

This is what you are up against.

The media is so sad.

This is what I need to know?

Why?

Don’t I need to know about Syria? And climate change? And health care issues? And veterans suicide rates? And efforts to screw women’s rights? And the plight of the Palestinians?

Don’t you think I need to know those things?

But you wanna tell me that Beyoncé has lip-synced when I think that that is not really all that uncommon at major events? You want to tell me that? Go soak your head.

 

Tuesdays With Morons

Tags

Election 2012, Fox Noise, GOP, immigration, liberalism, Media, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, psychology

Wheeeee! They are at it again. Voting. Or as we call it, “eating their spinach.” Which idiot this time?

Odds on favorite is Mittens.

Mittens reminds us all again that he wants to be president more than anything in the whole wide world. His handlers are gleefully taking credit for having reshaped “their” candidate to outperform the competition.

No more Mr. Nice-guy for the Mittens.

He went after Newt with a vengeance, and with a certain amount of enjoyment, the same pompous arrogance he used in the debate when he said if an underlying of his came to him with an idea to put a colony on the moon, he would “fire him.” Mittens likes to fire folks.

Meanwhile, Newt has responded in the way Newt responds–with equal venom. And a promise to carry the now very personal fight, on to the convention.

I think Mittens has over stepped here. Newt strikes me as a guy who once he feels personally attacked in this vicious way, will spare nothing to “take Mitt down.” Nothing will stand in the way, I suspect. He will not care. It will be about destroying Mitt.

¶

There is a really good read over at We are Respectable Negroes.  Glenn Feldman, historian and scholar, from the College of Arts and Sciences, U of Alabama, Birmingham has a book out called Painting Dixie Red: When, Where and Why and How the South Became Republican. More important he’s written an essay about it and you can read it here. Really interesting stuff.

¶

Life with dial-up. Oh I can’t tell you the joys. Yesterday, all of a sudden I couldn’t get on WordPress. No matter what avenue, it just ran and ran, and wasn’t up taking data. Finally in frustration, I went to google to see if there were reports of trouble. Eventually I made my way to the forums and started to ask questions. They were sure it was me, and told me all about my header and background not being “optimized” whatever that means.

I left with no resolution, and worried all night about what I would do, should I not get back here. Well, today I got back, but I was still running very slowly. I finally, in frustration, dumped an “adobe reader update” that I had mistakenly installed Sunday evening. (I say mistaken, since I thought it was Microsoft updates). Well, all the sudden my speed picked up.

So I guess the Adobe was running in the background and taking up my precious speed. I guess. Now my mouse is sticking. But that was happening before, and if I disconnect and reconnect, that has cleared up in the past.

Ain’t all this computer crap just a crock of crap?

¶

Now this is rich.

Remember Alabama and its draconian immigration laws?  (some of which have been halted by a federal judge) Remember how crops rotted in the field, because farmers there couldn’t find willing, let alone competent workers to pick? Well, Kansas is not gonna let that happen.

Kansas has petitioned the federal government to allow them to employ undocumented workers. They are not going to wait until the crops rot, they are planning ahead, and they know they have worker shortages.   I wonder what the old GOP has to say about that?

¶

We are heading off to the city tomorrow for our food pilgrimage. Stocking up. Such fun. I’m deep in the throes of “making my grocery list.” This is no small task when you are planning for a month. Having to make a menu for the month, then checking each recipe and noting ingredients. It’s a pain. Can’t wait until I can return to weekly shopping and a quick run to the store for X is actually a “quick” run.

¶

Pretty sad when your own side lambastes ya.

Joe Scarborough went after Mitt today about Medicare. Apparently Mormons condone lying, since Mittens has been really heavy on it. He claims, to Floridian elderly, that Obama has cut Medicare by 500 billion, all the while supporting the “Ryan plan” which would gut the program altogether. “Demagoguery” submits Joe. None of it is true.

¶

A good story about how Fox has taken over the Republican party and is now taking the GOP down the dark path to inevitable distruction. The few rational Republicans now weep in the corner, wondering what has happened.

¶

From Don in Massachusetts:

And lest anyone should accuse moi of being unfair, let’s me point you at this article by Jonathan Haidt, who studies the psychology of politics, and has some not so quite nice things to say about liberals.

He claims that conservatives have a much better handle on the American mind than do liberals.

And frankly, to a degree, I don’t disagree, though I don’t think that that makes a lot of difference. That doesn’t make it right, just true. For the moment.

There are plenty in academia who dispute his findings, or his interpretation of them anyway.

It’s and interesting or fascinating read, which ever of my now horribly worn out adjectives you choose. (I need some new ones! HELP!) As always, the comments are very delicious too.

What’s on the Stove? Beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted carrots and onions.

Sorry, I know this is a weak post. Sometimes nothing catches me.

If There was a Vote:

Tags

astronomy, Donald Trump, Election 2012, GOP, immigration, Joe Arpaio, Newt Gingrich, Scott Walker, Wisconsin

He ain’t a witch, but rather a warlock. But wicked he is. He is poster boy for everything that is wrong in America, and the worst of law enforcement.

I speak of course about of Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Sheriff, known for his “camps” for arrested undocumented aliens in Arizona. Arizona of course is home to the draconian immigration law that served to galvanize the Right in its attempt to prove tough on immigration.

Joe, has endorsed Ricky Perry for President by the way, which tells you a lot about how desperate Ricky is these days.

As is true of many small communities,  El Mirage contracts out for police services. The county sheriff may have several communities that it serves in this fashion. Internal investigations show that Joe and his crew failed to investigate some 32 claims of sex abuse, one at least involving a child aged two. Need we add that almost all of the reports were made by undocumented workers? This, while suspects were KNOWN in all but six cases.

All told, some 400 cases were ignored state-wide.

This is what Arpaio thinks justice is about. Of course, given the calls for his resignation, he is apologetic now.

“If there were any victims, I apologize to those victims,” the sheriff said in his office’s most detailed public comments about the cases.

If?

I apologize, but frankly, should I find Mr. Arpaio along the highway in need of assistance, I would be hard-pressed not to just walk on by.

♦

I suppose you have heard.

The Donald has shaken “The Hair” and much like Sarah, decided that people aren’t paying him enough attention–again. So the Donald has manufactured a “debate” and he will be the moderator. All the usual clown candidates have been to visit the Donald in his throne room and kissed his ring, though for the life of me, I don’t know why.

To their credit, both Paul and Huntsman have said, thanks but no thanks and called it what it is, a circus led by the chief clown.

Go and read Joe Klein’s great piece on the meeting of the Grifter and the Hair. But we could not let you miss this great statement by the Paul campaign:

“We agree, of course, with former Speaker Gingrich — this is a country of people of enormous talent. Those who deliver thousands of babies like Dr. Paul and those who spend their time focusing on promoting themselves for profit. We even have those who lobby, but don’t call it such because, as they say, they can make $60,000 per speech. While those of us in the Paul camp might disagree with Newt Gingrich about whether Donald Trump is the right man to host a serious political debate, we do agree New York is a wonderful place to go at Christmas. We are sure two average Americans like Speaker Gingrich and Donald Trump will have a wonderful time picking out gifts for their wives. We suggest a place called Tiffany’s, we hear it is quite nice this time of year and given their celebrity status they can probably get special deals and $500,000 lines of credit.”

Oh, if only I could make money doing this, it is just so much fun. Klein, by the by isn’t all anti Gingrich. He claims that Gingrich’s ideas about child labor came from him, albeit in a rather different mode, one that on its face would be rational. Klein doesn’t point out strongly enough that Newt twisted his idea and turned it into something that reflects his true feelings about African-Americans and the poor in general.

♦

I’m packing my bags.

I’m getting my bus ticket.

I’m heading to Kepler 22-b.

It’s sista-earth to you not in the know. It’s got a sun in the sweet spot. It’s our long-lost kin.

It’s a big sista, and has a median temperature of 22C. I have no idea what that is, since here in America we don’t bother to learn anything about celsius. But it sounds good.

I figure it would be a nice place to spend Christmas. Wonder if they have any ham there?

It’s only 600 light-years away, so I figure a couple of days by bus.

♦

We kinda figure that Scott Walker, temporary Governor of Wisconsin, is feeling the love. I mean with only twelve days in, the “fire the turd” Wisconsonites have managed to garner over half the signatures needed to throw the bum out.

So, Scotty (please beam me up Mr. Koch) Walker, has decided that a suspension of freedom to assemble and petition the government is in order.

A group of 4 or more (a family in other words) must obtain permission to gather in state buildings. And groups of a 100 or more may be charged with police costs and clean-up.

According to Michael Moore, this is only slightly less draconian than policies in place in Brunei, which has come under criticism by Human Rights organizations.