Weekend Update - Eradication Edition

(Watching Tiger Woods on the telly the other day, my heart went out to him. Here he was apologizing to his sponsors and a small room full of people who didn't give a crap, and he even managed a little sniff at the end his pathetic little speech. Then I felt kinda dirty watching this spectacle. Like "douche-bag" was slowly becoming a verb and we were all at risk of catching it. But today the sun is shining in my back yard, got my tax return back yesterday, there's brandy in the booze cupboard, managed to arrange a 3-day weekend for myself, and all's right with the world. Therefore, I digress ...)

• "Poll after poll, study after study says the human animal is a fragile, troubled creature. Our bodies are a million ways amazing, but they are no match for the ruthless machinations of time and industry, freeway crashes and health care collapse. We are held together by rubber bands and duct tape, shot through with 10,000 prescription meds, therapies and surgeries, as we offer a thousand nervous prayers for that unsettling chronic pain to please, please, please subside, just a little." Sounds like Mark Morford is in a great mood, no?


• To Bad Hat Idiot of the Week Glenn Beck, the concept of "community" is a "cancer" that "is not our founders' idea of America," or so he oinked and ranted at the latest embarrassing CPAC Convention. As we all know, ignorance, no matter how embarrassing, doesn't get in Beck's way. To wild applause, he labeled this alleged tumor of "community" the supposedly evil "progressivism" -- and he told disciples to "eradicate it" from the nation. So, fellow Progressives, stand by for eradication.


• If you're living in Hawaii and you're reading this right now, you might want to get to higher ground, there might be a tsoon...ah tuswam ... oh, never mind. Earthquake in Chile, high water to hit the islands about now (11:00 am). Remember, you heard it here first.


• In his latest book, “Courting Disaster: How the C.I.A. Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack,” Marc A. Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. and a practicing Roman Catholic, says that waterboarding suspected terrorists was not only useful and desirable, but permitted by the teachings of the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church goes "Whaaaaa?"


• I'm purposely avoiding mentioning much about the ongoing health care debate, mainly because I get so darn angry lately when I discuss it. But here's something fun: Rush Limbaugh thinks the reason they make applesauce is for people with no teeth. And Tub-o-Crap's advice for someone with a broken wrist and no insurance? "Shouldn'ta broke yer wrist." C'mon, let's all get pissed off.


• Most Republicans don't like John McCain much, and, well, (blush) Democrats certainly aren't too fond of him, so will someone please tell me why he's on Meet The Press AGAIN this Sunday? Someone? Anyone?


• Now this is something we've been trying to tell you for months: More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds. Click here for the details. So there you go.