Wednesday Weirdness

• Zygotes are people too! If the anti-choice movement has its way, the moment one sperm eats its way through an egg's outer shell would be the last moment in human development that wouldn't be covered by the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, it's a rather lucrative racket. Rates high on the "Oh Brother" scale.


• Whole Foods is the Wall Mart of "organic foods," and its "concerned" CEO John Mackey wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal decrying Obama's health plan. and he even quotes Margaret Thatcher. According to Mackey, if we could all just afford to eat organic food from Whole Foods we wouldn't need health care. Or something like that.


• Feeling depressed? Well, Mark Morford says that very soon now, maybe three, four or 30 years hence, just about every American and most of the planet, too, will be on some sort of narcotic, behavioral med, modifier, zinger or zapper or calmer or leveler designed to mollify or numb or dry up all your saliva, give you some really weird dreams and make you never want to have sex. Now, don't you feel better?


• Going Weird in the Middle East Dept.: Arthur gives us senior class chum Vinnie Grace Holderman who has her own web page, mp3, and radio show. Arthur explains: "she was much into theater, and hoped to have a career on the stage but that ultimately was not to be. She then became an evangelical and is now beaming ham radio messages of peace and reconciliation into the Middle East, which I rather suspect are used by Hamas as either recruiting tools or as a means of torture." We listened to a couple of her Mp3 recordings and found them not only delightfully weird, but actually somewhat disturbing. Click here.


• Wow. A large number of big-name advertisers have dropped Glen Beck's show like a frozen dog turd. Who's left? Penis enlargers and egg cookers. Here's the latest list of Glen Beck advertisers.


• Today's picture is of a tobacco smoke enema device, a remarkable device that...well, I'll let Wikipedia explain: The stimulation of respiration through the introduction of tobacco smoke by a rectal tube was first practiced by the North American Indians. In 1745, Richard Mead was among the first Western scholars to recommend tobacco smoke enemas to resuscitate victims of drowning. One of the earliest reports of resuscitation by rectally applied tobacco smoke dates from 1746, when a seemingly drowned woman is reported as being successfully revived after, on the advice of a passing sailor, the stem of the sailor's pipe was inserted into her rectum and air was blown into the pipe's bowl through a piece of perforated paper. Now given that someone tending to a drowning woman would seek advice from "a passing sailor," one can imagine the ensuing conversation. "Help, my wife is drowning!" "Drowning, is she? Arrgh. Turn her arse over and lift her skirt, I've got an idea!" Now envision the husband being restrained as the wizened old sailor deftly thrusts the stem of his Meerschaum into the helpless damsel's nether region. The stuff of legends.


• It never gets weird enough for us, but it's getting close....

Who Yah Gonna Trust?

Are you going to trust Glenn "Lonesome Rhodes" Beck of Fox News, shown in this clip (see below) interviewing a British Conservative MP, a player of the Tory "shadow government" whose comments were later rebuked by the leader of his Tory Party? Or are you going to trust our President and the progressive members of the Democratic Party in our country? Are you going to trust statistics posted by Fox News? Oh golly, only 43% of the British say their healthcare is "excellent"? Why, that's terrible, or is it? How many in this country would say ours is?

It turns out that our satisfaction ratings are surprisingly similar to the UK, though Fox News did not choose to confuse its viewers by mentioning that pesky fact: Click Here

But here is Beck, in full lying-eyes-mouth and other parts mode: Click Here

As Beck puts it, "You were warned". I would argue, based on Beck's lengthy record of public lies and the lively backlash currently being directed toward Beck's advertisers, roughly a third of which have pulled their advertising to steer clear of Beck's negative image, that what Beck's viewers have been warned about is... Beck. But this staged interview accidentally did the British voters a huge favor by showing them exactly what sort of a person a key member of the photogenic Tory leader's shadow cabinet really is. It also showed the Brits that Dannon is a complete dolt, who did not realized that his words would quickly be drawn up onto the Internet and Youtube, where everyone in the world will be able to see him profess himself to be an avowed enemy of a public medical system that there is no public interest in dismantling. Saying one thing in their own country and another abroad has come to be a bit of an intelligence test for political figures, one that Dannon just flunked. Britain says, "Thanks Glenn!"

(And More...)

You've got to hand it to the Republicans, they've done a tremendous job of vilifying healthcare reform. Our task is to educate ourselves and others and to push back. Some sort of a bill is going to be passed, but the strength of breadth of the reform is what is at stake here. If the changes make the tremendous differences that many of us believe it will, that will pretty could help sink the more regressive wing of the Republican Party. Click Here, and FAQ's.

Arthur

Weekend Update - Dumb Edition

• Did you know that Barak Obama and his evil group of health care reform Democrats want to KILL OLD PEOPLE!? Oh yeah Baby, and that's why we must not let them talk about health care and we must not listen to the facts because that would just confuse us. These people are just like the Nazis, and Pol Pot, all those other evil people who killed people. Death, Dishonesty, and the GOP.


• The idiotic shock jock and Fox host Glenn Beck, who has built a career out of stoking the paranoid delusions of the right-wing fringe, managed to outdo himself last week when he accused President Obama of hating white people.


• Well, I feel slightly better about ignoring my Facebook account, ever since Archbishop Vincent Nichols, leader of the Roman Catholic Church of England and Wales stepped out from behind the drab, heavy curtain of a massive, dying religious dogma haunted by millennia of abuse and homophobia and scandal and misogyny and generally Getting it All Wrong Nearly All the Time Forever, to let the world know he is deeply concerned about kids today and their newfangled gizmongery and how it all just might be destroying social life and inviting death. Mark Morford reports.


• Mr. Obvious has been saying this for years: Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday. It just costs more. Oh, and tanning beds cause cancer. Thank you, Mr. Obvious.


• President Obama's poll numbers are slipping. Not happy with the way he's handling the remnants of the Bushies mess? Here's an extraordinary Frank Rich column that brings it all home.


• Here's a quote directly from Sarah Palin: The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil. There are quite a few dumb people in America, and Sarah Palin is their queen.


• Here's an interesting yet scary story by Chris Rodda about the influence of "The Family." "C Street and the Military."

Weekend Update - August 2nd

(Arthur and I are fresh off attending last night's gala Hilton Hotel party honoring the 45th anniversary of graduating from our high school. Over a hundred old geezers were in attendance and a grand time was had by all. I passed out Bad Hat cards to several of the true believers in the room, and would like to welcome those of you who have taken the bait. And, by the way, Arthur has promised us a new column within the week. We shall hold him to it, assuming, of course, he can find his way back to the safety of Marin County.)

• We've always liked Jonathan Alter, but when he wrote recently "Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are," we ran off to load our gun. But then we realized he had tongue firmly planted in cheek.


• Our man SENATOR Al Franken is quickly growing a pair. Last week he berated that old gas-bag T. Boone Pickens for his role in the swift-boating of John Kerry. We think Franken's term is going to be a fun one to watch.


• According to her MySpace page, she's a big Glen Beck fan. "a Long Island mother of three -- armed to the teeth with an assault rifle and shotgun -- was arrested for scouting out and taking pictures of an Air National Guard base." The weird story of Nancy Genovese.


• President Obama calls it "a teachable moment." The NYT's Bob Herbert isn't too sure. He calls it being arrested for "Angry While Black."


• Hard-core Right-wingers are a sorry lot of late. Here's an eye opening little story that illustrates just how desperate these mental midgets have become. Brace yourself.


• Sweet Jesus I hate Bill O'Reilly. But it appears he's won a round in the feud between him and Keith Olbermann. Damn.


• And here's another Conservative Douche-Nozzle talk show host: Thankfully relegated to the low-ratings, low-significance Sirius Satellite Radio, he is nonetheless, with the exception of the moronic blabbermouth Mike Church, the most narrow-minded, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist buffoon on the airwaves. Who is he? Andrew Wilkow.


• Burning question: Is President Barak Obama an actual citizen of these United States? Lou Dobbs and the dumbing down of America.

Weekend Update - Sorry Edition

• I did something really silly a couple months ago. Out of curiosity I signed up on this Facebook thing. I looked at it once, mind you, but now I get these E-mail notices every day that new people are becoming my "friend." People at work, people off the street, people I've never heard of before, I think. Pretty scary, and I wish it would stop, but I'm afraid of going back in and ending it all. Christ, I wouldn't want to offend anyone. And that's assuming I haven't already offended all those I've ignored to date, which I'm sure I have. So if you're thinking of becoming my newest Facebook "friend," sorry, please skip it. Get back to googling porn like you're suppose to. But Mark Morford gives me hope. Apparently you're limited to 5,000 friends on Facebook. He's made it, and I'm unfortunately on my way.


• Thank God for god, without whom we'd have no one to ask for positive reinforcement and the all important "forgiveness." And the old imaginary diety is coming through once again for admitted adulterer playboy politician Mark Sanford, who just can't seem to shut the hell up. "It is true that I did wrong and failed at the largest of levels, but equally true is the fact that God can make good of our respective wrongs in life." Somehow comforting, ain't it?


• Science News: Scientists have solved an Artic mystery. The Great Alaskan Blob is NOT Sarah Palin. (Okay, sorry, cheap joke, but it's an interesting story.)


• The hearings were pure “Alice in Wonderland.” Reality was turned upside down. Southern senators who relate every question to race, ethnicity and gender just assumed that their unreconstructed obsessions are America’s and that the country would find them riveting. Frank Rich comments on the Sonia Sotomayor hearings.


• It is absolutely, without argument, TIME (past time) to bring our troops home from the insanity of Afghanistan. Robert Gates wants one more year. Somewhere, the ghost of Robert McNamara is laughing.


• And finally, with apology, I give you this one: Those purchasing a vehicle at Max Motors in Missouri will receive an AK-47 assault rifle with their purchase during the month of August. Now really, ain't that America? Aim, and squeeze here.

Weekend Update - July 11th

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Weekend Update - 4th of July Edition

• Your imminent apocalyptic death is just around the corner. It'll happen any minute now. No, really. Just ask Mark Morford.


• In a really stunning political move, Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of Alaska. But the big question is why. Some of us think it's because the heavy indictments are coming down the pike and she's getting packed to move to Russia. (A short U-haul trip from her front porch.) At any rate, something in all this is a bit spooky, mark our words. Here's the full text of Palin's very bizarre resignation speech.


• The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. Is Obama in Goldman Sachs pocket? Here's a must read article out of Rolling Stone Magazine by Matt Taibbi that should be on the front page of the NYT.


• Jon Stewart points out that God killed Michael Jackson to let Mark Sanford off the hook. But Sanford can't stop treating the press and public like his private confessional.


• Canada is independent of England, isn’t it? I think so. Not a bad society. Canadians have good health care. They have a lot of things we don’t have. They didn’t fight a bloody revolutionary war. Why do we assume that we had to fight a bloody revolutionary war to get rid of England? Howard Zinn offers a different and highly interesting take on the American Revolution.


• Our friend Al Franken has finally won his senate seat in Minnesota. We knew it all along. And you know what else? Rush Limbaugh is STILL A Big Fat Idiot.


• Jim Hightower: "Without agitators battling in politics, on the job, in the marketplace, for the environment, on Wall Street, in education, for civil liberties and rights, and all across our society, democratic progress doesn't just stall, it falls back." Happy 4th of July, from all us agitators.


• Note to Conservatives: President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the federal government are evil. They already have too much power and want to take even more control over your life. They're out to take away your guns, liberty, freedom, paycheck, and perhaps your mother's apple pie! Worse yet, now they want to count you. Have they no shame? But the Right has a super-secret plan. Oh yes. They do.