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.

Weekend Update - Spring Is Coming Edition

(Got the taxes done and E-filed, actually going to get a tidy little sum back this year. I probably made some sort of criminally insane mistake, but I'm not afraid of them finding out. The government is too busy keeping us from getting health care reform. But wait, what's this? Something's going on here. The "single payer" option is back? Well blow me ...ahem ...down. It's all insane. Our Conservative Friend says that a recent CNN poll shows that 52% of Americans think Obama will be a one-term president. Meanwhile, while the rest of the country is being battered with horrible weather, Oregon is all sunshine and overgrown grass. Gotta love that El Nino. As soon as we finish this we're going out to scrape the mold off the moss on the deck. Ugly job, but it's got to be done. We digress ...)

• Are all politicians freaks? You know what I mean, circus-type weird oddities? Mark Morford thinks so. They are freaks not merely because they must be so in order to be drawn to such a heartless, ruthless, bizarre, meat-sucking, powermad soul-death of a slime-laden profession in the first place, but because -- no, wait, that's about it. That's the reason. He's got a point.


• And yet another embarrassing CPAC convention goes down. Good Lord, do these people have any shame? (Answer: No.) A good friend of mine asked me the other day what it was about Sarah Palin that irritated me so much. It was a good question, because it made me think instead of just respond. First of all I said it was because she represented what was ugly about right-wing racist red-neck America, and in a cute little cheer-leader way. (How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out for yah?) But after thinking about it for a bit, I dislike Sarah Palin for the same basic reason I dislike George W. Bush. She, like he, brings down the collective human intelligence factor. If dumbshits like the both of them can be in positions of power and influence in this, our United States of America, then we are all dumber shits because of them. Gawd save our country from people such as these.


• Let's go back for a moment to 1981. President Ronald Reagan was shot hours ago and was hanging precariously to life. Vice-President George H.W. Bush was out of the country on a field trip or something, but hey! not to worry, Alexander Haig was polishing the oval office desk. His infamous quote: "As of now, I am in control here in the White House, pending the return of the vice president," Haig said. The country cringed and lit another doobie. Gawd I miss those days.


• Brace yourself for this one. This is a very disturbing article, and it starts like this: A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that - under orders from the chief of the Gestapo - he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson. And ends with this: Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Click Here.


• Okay, so when your normally compliant serfs in Utah, of all places, turn on you, you know something's wrong in the Republican Party. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Utah and all my relatives who live there, but Holy Smith, attacking Orrin Hatch?


• Don't know who Frank Luntz is? He's one of those right-wing "Republican Message Gurus" who common-sense challenged politicians rely upon to supply them with "talking points." One of his latest statements is "Ordinarily, calling for a new government program 'to protect consumers' would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying 'no.' They are saying 'hell no' to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests." I love it when idiots speak for "The American People."


• A new survey of 2,000 self-identified Republicans found that significant numbers believe President Obama was not born in the United States, is a socialist, is a racist and should be impeached and that their home state should secede from the union. We're hoping for a Cheney-Palin ticket in 2012. It just keeps getting better and better.

Run, Sarah, Run! (The Gift That Keeps On Giving)

(Sent to Bad Hat from Arthur a week ago. Sorry for the delay.)

Others may be surprised to hear me give a big shout-out to my homie Sarah Palin. You may say, "But wait, isn't she a dolt and an arch- nativist political fraud?". Well sure she is! and that's just the beginning. Palin is as close to a human train-wreck as progressives could have found, if they were looking for one. Why is she a "good thing"? Because she's lot like Perot in drag. Think about it; both are odd, compelling and creepy people, small in stature and short on personal morals. With me so far? What is the common unifying characteristic? They are both sociopaths. Both that the capacity to divide and demoralize the conservative wing of American politics. Perot? Oh, he was good, but Palin? She's priceless. Okay, so I get a rash when I watch her on television. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace and prosperity? I don't think so. And bless her heart, she is so prone to self-combust.

Witness this curious sidelight from her self-aggrandizing coming-out event at the Tea Party Party meeting in Nashville. C'mon, you'll like it: CLICK HERE

So what the heck was it that she had to write on her hand to remember it? Here we go:

1. Energy
2. Cut tax
3. Lift American Spirits

The suggestion has been made that the questions from the public were shown to her before the Q&A section, something I think we can pretty much count on given the character of the organizers of the Nashville "event". Palin is such a ditz that she had to write down a reminder of her three top priorities, apparently because they are so much on her mind?

I like it. This argues that she is dumber than I thought she was.

And boy, what we need right now in Amurika (not) is a really dumbass politician with a gift for snappy patter. I mean, remember how well our last one did?

Arthur