Weekend Update - Do What You Gotta Do

I finally had to do it.  I had basically run out of options.  I was down to three good upper teeth along with a couple chipped and broken ones, and the rest was a loose and irritating partial that had to be practically glued in with more Polident than I'd prefer.  And there was that gap thing.  Within a month I had lost half a tooth (lightly popped popcorn kernel) and a complete tooth broken off at the gum line (who knows, it was ready.)  I have always been plagued with weak teeth.  Hereditary, I suppose.  I brushed, flossed, picked, polished, with the best of them.  I went to the dentist every six months for forty years for cleaning and cavity repairs.  But my teeth just got worse and worse.  Some people I know hardly think about their teeth, and haven't had a cavity in their life.  I hate these people.  At any rate, the final straw was the above mentioned gap thing.  I couldn't smile without looking like some third-world refugee.  I developed weird hand movements to cover my mouth when I laughed, and being a singer in a band was rather awkward, particularly during the high notes.  So, something had to be done.  I had put it off long enough.  I chose something called DentureMasters after talking to several of my similarly afflicted friends, and met Dr. Ridley who advised me that the way to go was a denture implant device.  It's like a denture, only without the palate plate, and it's held in place by four implanted posts.  Quite neat, actually, and very real looking.  So out came the remnants of my uppers, and in went the implants.  Fun afternoon, I'll tell ya. Yes, it was rather expensive, and I'll be paying for it for the next two years.  But damn, I'm pretty again.  Grin!  But I digress ...

• And speaking of aging, and bodies going bad, and the coming Apocalypse, how's your back?  My friend Jerry has the back from hell.  I've seen him suddenly collapse to the floor screaming in pain for no apparent reason and lay there for up to an hour, because something not-so-funny happened in his back.  I drove a public transit bus for 42 years, and believe me, the only reason I was able to last that long was because my back, for godknows what reason, was strong.  Only now that I've retired, my back has decided to convince me to stay sitting in the recliner (Honey, would you bring me a beer?) rather than getting up for small errands.  And it's not funny, no matter what anyone says.  Even Mark Morford:  "Stand Up or Die Trying."
• Hillary Clinton certainly has been grabbing the headlines lately.  First of all, just to grab headlines and
  
  lift herself to the level of George Bush, she somehow orchestrated a shoe-throwing incident at some speech she was making.  And then, by some monumental magic, she got her daughter pregnant with her first grandchild.  This truly is an amazing woman.  The ever-so-sharp Republican spin machine has been spewing spittle over the conspiracy theories concerning all of this.  And this is only the beginning.  Secure your seat belts, and brace for impact.  This is going to be a fun campaign.  Go Hillary.
• President Obama referred to Paul Ryan's recently released budget proposal as a "stinkburger."  Horrors.  A very old and technically irrelevant dinosaur named George Will almost had a stroke when he heard that.  While most intelligent people wonder why anyone reads George Will anymore, we do find it rather amusing that he assumes someone does.  From Salon:  "George Will's Humiliating Temper Tantrum"
• After the horrible incidents on 9/11/01, the United States government did a lot of good things, and they did a lot of very bad things.  Can I get an Amen?  The bad things can be laid pretty much directly at the feet of the CIA, who's sleuthing missed all the clues and thusly began an operation of "ohshitguilt" by arresting, containing and torturing every possible suspect they could find.  We've been waiting for heads to roll, and apparently it's beginning.  The CIA has been ordered by a military judge to turn over classified information regarding its secret prisons used last decade to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists.  Uh oh.  
• It doesn't get much better than this.  Some old tea-party-type shitkicker in Nevada named Cliven Bundy has drawn in the right-wing pundit folks by refusing to pay the federal government grazing fees, or some such nonsense, and ohgawd they loved this man.  Other shitkickers from all over the country

  
  

  
  

  have loaded up their various assault weapons in the back of the old pickup truck and headed west to help old Cliven keep the Feds off his (not actually) property.  FOX news absolutely loved this guy.  Right up to the point old Clive not only said he doesn't recognize the United States government, he also had a few choice words about "the Negro community."  Uh oh, again.  And the FOX news
  reaction.
• Bad Hat's Person of the Week Award goes to Dr. Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine who runs the Violence Prevention research Program at the University of California, Davis.  Apparently since Congress pressured the Center for Disease Control to stop funding research on gun violence, because, well, it's our goddamned American right to own an assault weapon, Dr. Wintemute has given more than $1.1 million of his own money to keep the research going.  While the slaughter continues, we salute the good Doctor, and give the big Bad Hat middle finger to the United States Congress who obviously can't get its head out of its ass long enough to smell the gunpowder.  Keep your heads down.