Weekend Update - April 24th

• Exposed nipples? Anal sex? Ohmygawd, what exactly is it that's causing all these earthquakes, volcanos, corrupt Republican politicians, etc.? Let us pose our query to the experts. Let us ask, say, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, a senior Iranian cleric, one of those gnarled, severe, crusted-over Muslims you should always turn to with the big questions about women, love and man's imminent downfall, because hoary old guys like him never lie or make s-- up just to maintain their power, authority and secret access to gay prostitutes and cocaine. Let's see what Sedighi says: "Many women who do not dress modestly... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes." You guessed it, Mark Morford reports.


• Seen kids acting strange while hanging out at the mall lately? Think it's probably just drugs? Well, you might be right, although not exactly as you think. "Antipsychotics, which are being widely and irresponsibly prescribed for American children--mostly as chemical restraints--are shown to be causing irreparable harm," warned Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, in a February 26, 2010 InfoMail. The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2 through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the January, 2010, "Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry." Click here for more.


• This story just keeps on getting more disgusting. I think, in retrospect, most of actually knew this was happening all along, but no one one knew what the hell to do about it. In late 2007, as the mortgage crisis gained momentum and many banks were suffering losses, Goldman Sachs executives traded e-mail messages saying that they would make “some serious money” betting against the housing markets. These people are truly evil, and most of them need to be stripped naked and thrown into a pit. 'Course that's just my opinion.


• Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week is former Vice President Dick (we-call-him-Dick) Cheney. Seems he talked the other day about the proudest moment in his storied political career. Remember when he told Patrick Leahey to "go f**k yourself"? "You'd be surprised how many people liked that," Cheney told conservative comedian and radio host Dennis Miller Thursday. "That's sort of the best thing I ever did." And you know what, we actually agree with him. What a putz.


• Remember that group that sent all the Governors letters telling them to step down in three days or be removed from office? An April Fool's prank or a group of fools? It would appear the latter. They call themselves The Guardians of the Free Republic, or some such nonsense, and if you want a little taste of what drives the "Tea Party" people into a frothy frenzy, check out this web site. I figure it's a bunch of beer-swilling over weight pig-brained bigoted Southern Baptists who can't stand the idea of a black President. 'Course, I may be wrong.

Driving the GOP Crazy

(Had to change the look of Bad Hat, but finally got Bad Hat Chief Political Correspondent Arthur in Marin County to break out his famous pen for us. Welcome back Arthur!)

by Arthur in Marin County

I am writing this in part to celebrate the stunning move of Bad Hat to unexpected heights of graphic stylishness. Who knew it could aim that high? Daily Kos and Huffington Post, eat your tacky hearts out!

In case you've forgotten, this is just a quick reminder that the Republican Party has been driving most of the American people crazy for a couple of decades now. Okay, longer. And while I am a live and let-live kinda guy, I'm just a notch away from dismissing them as political toadies and suckers-up to corrupt financial market manipulators and chiselers. But it would be wrong for me to do so and I have decided that I will not do it, no matter how true everyone knows it to be. See, it's time for a kindlier, gentler American public, one ready to forgive, but never, ever forget. Does John Boehner seem to have fallen asleep with his ManTan Rinse (TM) on and gotten a bit yellowed in the process, like an antique book? Does Senator (cough) Mitch McConnell look like his face is a fruit that was left out too long in the sun? Do both of those guys seem to be reading from a list of talking points drawn up for them by conservative Frank Luntz, to whom the truth is but a minor impediment, to be leaped in a single bound of slander and dishonesty? To call these folks out for the obvious jerks they are... would not be nice. So I, for one, will not do so.

But what we could do is this. We could support a guy called Kendrick Meek, currently serving in relative obscurity in the House of Representatives, for US Senator. From Florida. Who else is running? Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate Republican who is about to get swamped in the primary by Mario Rubio, who some might describe as a rightwing jerk and psycho. I would not. It wouldn't be right. But in the GOP primary this Rubio guy looks like he might whup on Charlie Crist. So Crist is thinking about running as an "independent". Good on him if he does, but that could easily split the vote like this: wingnut - moderate GOP - Democrat. Now since Florida is pretty well split between Democrats and Republicans (remember 2000?) it would stand to reason that Crist and Rubio might well split their base into a moderate/wingnut pissing match.

And there is one thing more; Kendrick Meek is African-American. I am not sure whether that is a plus or a minus for him, given that Obama did okay in Florida, but some of the Republicans would choke on their own spit if Meek won. I don't know much about Meek. He seems a decent and intelligent guy, he played football, was for a period of time a Florida Highway Patrolman. How many candidates for the US Senate could say that? You want "Law and Order"? How about electing a guy who really, really knows what it is like out there on the streets. Florida? There is no way I would want to try to keep the peace in Florida. Too much drug money, too many crazy people.

And there is one other thing about Meek that I like. If he wins, not only does it look like he'd do a quite capable job as a Democratic Senator, he'd do something else, too. He would probably do a very, very good job of outing all of the closet racists in the GOP who are winking and nodding at the crypto-racist "tea party activists". I am not saying that Mitch McConnell's head would explode, nor that John Boehner's would. But it would not make them happy. And for them to be unhappy would make me and many other Americans very, very, very happy right about now, because I am sick to death of those weasels. Ooops... I mean, "those gentlemen".

There is not much we can do to convince Charlie Crist to bolt from the GOP and run as an "independent". I don't think we need to. I think his ambition will do it for us. Crist loooves to be on TV. If he loses this election he will not be on TV as often. My money is on Crist jumping ship. And the rest will be history... anyhow, that's my bet as to what will happen.

Arthur

Weekend Update - April 17th

(Okay, in all honesty, the backyard project has been put on hold because of high water tables. Or table. Or something. It all boils down to this: We've had too much rain lately to do any serious digging. The ground is saturated. When the wind blows hard and you look out your window and see waves on your lawn ... well, you get my general drift here. But the good news is that the toilet is dutifully doing its duty for the time being. We await the great drying. But I digress ...)

• We'll give them a little break, at least. The Catholic Church has done some good, somewhere, I suppose. Those orphanages maybe. The ones where they didn't beat or sexually molest the children. There are some, aren't there? But c'mon. Isn't it time for this criminal organization to end? Verily, is the Catholic Church and its dank, nefarious heart, the Vatican, with its attendant red-robed apologists, unreformed child rapists and a leader who is, as Richard Dawkins rightly declares, "a leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds ... a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence," is it safe to say this archaic and vile institution is finally nearing its end? Mark Morford reports.
• Okay, this one gets a little complicated for us average boomer slackers, but you may have noticed something happened to the economy lately. Well, the government has brought charges against a firm called Goldman Sachs. Basically Goldman was pushing investors to invest in stuff that they (Goldman and others) were betting against. Here is a cheerful story of how badly things can go wrong, when bad people have no oversight. Click HERE.
• What?! "Favoring the constitutional right to bear arms over others' concerns about gun safety, Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill making Arizona the third state allowing people to carry a concealed weapon without requiring a permit." Good Gosh Almighty.
• Paul Krugman writes: On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, called for the abolition of municipal fire departments. Firefighters, he declared, “won’t solve the problems that led to recent fires. They will make them worse.” The existence of fire departments, he went on, “not only allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts of burning buildings; it institutionalizes them.” He concluded, “The way to solve this problem is to let the people who make the mistakes that lead to fires pay for them. We won’t solve this problem until the biggest buildings are allowed to burn.” Okay, so he's fibbing a bit. But it's a good point.
• There's really no substitute for hanging out at the New Orleans' Riverside Hilton bar during the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. Only there can you relax in comfort and enjoy a Caesar salad while being lectured to by the president of the Louisiana Women's Republican Club on why the idea of a secular American republic is "a lie sent directly from the flaming pits of Hell," and why secular Jews must accept the Word of God before the coming Final Battle, after which it will be too late. This may be the creepiest Republican story I've ever posted on Bad Hat. Read it at your own risk.

News From the Dahlia Farm in West Haven, Connecticut

As furthur proof that we are indeed all going to be all right, my friend, and pseudo-son Alex, aaaaa-way back East Coast (farther than I'll ever go) has delivered to me another pseudo grand baby, and budding Bad Hatter, I wager. And what a beautiful kid! Our love to all of you. (By the way Alex, you did learn how to change diapers, didn't you?)

Logan Song

April 9, 2010

7lbs 8oz

20 1/2 inches

Keep on truckin', folks. It's all good ...

Tuesday Update - April 6th

(And so the boy turns sixtyfiveyearsold. Good Lord. I find lately I've used the phrase "If I'da known I was gonna live this long I'da taken better care of myself" more than I ordinarily would [which would be never]. Tomorrow I sign up for Medicare part A, whatever that may be, under the direction of my advisor down at the salt mine. I wonder, is getting the sewer line in your back yard replaced part of the "aging process?" Removing fence portions, backhoe tracks over the rose bushes, patios ripped up piece by piece, and the lawn? I'm not actually doing any of the work, but I'm feeling pains previously unknown to my body. They say 65 is the new 50. Well who the hell are "they" and why don't they just leave us alone? Kill me now. But I digress ... )

• Remember that pesky little war in Iraq? The one we were assured would only last a few months and then we'd be greeted as liberators? Well, it's still going on, regardless of what you may have heard. And just when we'd like to forget about the whole shameful thing here comes this intense horrific little video. It's an 18-minute video, and it appears to be shot from the point of view of Apache helicopter pilots surveying a Baghdad neighborhood in 2007. It shows attacks that caused the deaths of 12 to 15 Iraqis, including two Reuters staff members, and the injury of two small children. Even more chilling than the video, is the audio. I offer it to you with the hope it makes you feel ill. WikiLeaks.Org


• Okay, maybe it's time to start using the "S" word. It's at least time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of US government. What's the word? Sedition - "The crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction." Throw all the traitorous bastards in jail. Not enough room? Build more jails. Bygawd.


• The US Supreme Court recently voted to give giant US Corporations the same rights as average citizens. Then someone then please explain this to me: Most of struggle each year to compile enough money from our meager earnings to pay our fair share of income tax while huge American corporations like General Electric ($10.3 billion in pretax income), and Exon Mobil ($45.2 billion!) paid NO US taxes whatsoever. I figger rights is rights. I'm thinking of incorporating myself. (Is that possible?)


• "We know who you are and we know how you voted." The cretinous moron club, a group so low they don't even qualify for Bad Hat Idiot's of the Week, has sunken even lower than usual with their latest attacks: A rash of ugliness aimed at lawmakers who supported the sweeping federal health care legislation. Some lawmakers have been spit on and several have reported receiving threatening calls. Glenn Beck, et al, are doing their "job" well. Again I say, build more jails.


• You've got to give Sarah Palin this one, she's become an all-American brand name. This gritty little idiot, with all her down-home you-betcha folkyness has just absolutely won our hearts with her ... well, her grit? Pluck? Chutzpah? Golly, she's got her own TV show and everything. She's scheduled to show up in our dear old Eugene in a few days, and tickets to her speech are sold out. At $250 a pop. No, I will not be attending.


• In releasing the results of an in-depth nuclear strategy review, President Barack Obama said his administration would narrow the circumstances in which the U.S. might launch a nuclear strike, that it would forgo the development of new nuclear warheads and would seek even deeper reductions in American and Russian arsenals. Ohboy, this is gonna piss those conservative nuke lovers off. Remember Major Kong in the Movie "Dr. Stranglove?" "Oh hell, we aint come this far to drop this baby in the drink." Well, without their over abundance of nuclear weapons, just what are all those war mongers gonna do?


• And finally, Bad Hat's Idiot of the Week Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Florida urologist who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country, posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere." He said he got his information about the health care bill off the Internet, "like most Americans." If I lived in Florida, I would never let this man touch my peepee. (Settle down, I said he was a urologist.)