Friday, October 30, 2009

Movie Night....Son of Movie Night.

Okay had a confab with Lovetron and Tyler. They provided me with some solid suggestions as to types of movies.

(Also trying not to have another post derailed by my immense desire to cock punch Sen. Joe Lieberman.)

As of right now, I think I am leaning towards selecting from these movies:
  • Tremors
  • Slither
  • 30 Days of Night
  • Cloverfield
  • Ghostbusters
  • Dawn of the Dead
As for the meal still looking for input on that. I am leaning to wards the leg of lamb. But I would either need a bigger grill or would need to broil it. Though the Zuppa Tuscana is also high on my list and fall is an excellent time for a hearty soup. Chili also works for the same reasons.

But again any suggestions are welcome. I am thinking of maybe pulling it together on the 7th or the 14th.

-Cheers

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Texts From Last Night.....

From an anonymous source.....

(815): When you are done being ravished come back to the bar.



-Cheers

Thought of the Day.

Evidently Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), grew some stones and decided to go with a public option with an opt out clause. Jonathan Cohn does the heavy lifting on explaining this.

That is all fine and good. But what I am becoming increasingly concerned about is how caustic and perfunctory the dialog on health-care and policy is in this country.

Pundits and our representatives in Congress, do a horrible job of discussing actual policy. They are obsessed with process, to the occlusion of the actual merits of any policy.

Also bipartisanship has becoming fetishized.

What I mean by that is. You are dealing with a two party system in which, agree with them or not, one party is actually proposing solutions and the other is standing in the corner pouting and mumbling "No". You have a minority party that is more conservative and more of a regional party then it has been in almost two decades, yet pundits still compare it to more sane congresses of the past?

You literally have people running around saying that the majority is "too liberal". By definition, to have a large majority you have to dilute the ideological purity of your party. Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) can not win in Terre Haute, Indiana. Nor could, Sen Inhofe win in New York state.

There are metrics for scoring programs. Methodologies for evaluating policy implications. Yet these thing are always secondary. Pundits, congressmen and spokespeople who have very little actual expertise in economics, science or what have you are always focused on more then actual experts.

Even experts I do not agree with are more useful then a congressmen/woman who is just spouting ideological nonsense.

-Cheers

I Fear for Humanity.....

This literally is horrible. Soul crushingly, as a people we possibly have forfeited our rights to exist, sort of horrible.

How anyone with any sense of decency could sit by and watch this.

Truly disturbing.

-Cheers

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Damn Mike.....

For this....

I am totally in love with this woman. First I thought her eyes were creepy. Then they were interesting. Then oddly fascinating. Then absolutely mesmerizing!



-Cheers

Friday, October 23, 2009

Why Women Have Sex

Time has a nice interview with one the authors of the new book Why Women Have Sex. The team from Texas has authored a couple of books on social sexual habits. So I would mildly intrigued.

I figure I like
women, and I like sex so why not give the interview a read. It was actually pretty interesting. I may have to pick up the book at some point. For purely academic reasons of course.

But I found this exchange interesting:
Any particularly surprising findings?
I was surprised by the importance of revenge. A few had sex in order to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease. More commonly, women's revenge sex involved getting back at a cheating partner, or having sex with the partner of a friend who had poached her partner. Actually, the frequency of mate-poaching also surprised me — the frequency with which women try to lure men who are already "taken," either for a short-term sexual liaison or a longer-term relationship. Most women have experienced mate-poaching in one form or another, either as the mate poacher or as the victim.
Every time I read the passage I just envision a leggy supermodel type skulking around a jungle in a hunter's hat with a butterfly net, trying to "poach" mates.

-Cheers

Word of the Day

Today's word is brought to you Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post and the guys/gals over at Ballon Juice who have who for different reasons (Ms. Marcus' lack of perspective and BJ for pointing it out to me!) started me down a path of inchoate rage.

So two things first, when it was pointed out to her that there were acutal substantitive differences in what Fox news does and say, MSNBC, she pretty much dismisses. Though it goes right to her premise, she can not admit that it possibly undermines her argument.

Secondly the comparisons between Nixon and Obama are just silly. Pity upon thee with short memories. As Glenn Greenwald basically concludes that the Obama administrations response is sane, in regards to Fox News and no where near the sort of vindictive operation the Bush administration operated under against the media at large. Now when I see Obama using the FBI, IRS or the FCC to punish/spy on journalist/networks then you will have a comparison to make. Otherwise they are just exercising those same First Amendment Rights that supposedly
Fox is being denied.

Oh well, I guess my attempt to not get riled up failed. So here is your damn word.

Anodyne

–noun
1. a medicine that relieves or allays pain.
2. anything that relieves distress or pain: The music was an anodyne to his grief.
–adjective
3. relieving pain.
4. soothing to the mind or feelings.


Hopefully Vodkatastrophe will be an anodyne to the stupid news coverage!

-Cheers

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Planning Stuff...

So in an attempt to blog about something else other then my supreme desire to scourge the world of those I feel are incompetent.

I will try to write a little bit about some little get-togethers I am gonna try to put on over the next few months.

First up, would be a new installment of the Saturday Afternoon Movie Night!

This time the theme will be horror movies (suggestions are welcome).

The list (which for the actual viewing will choose 3) I am working from currently includes:
  • Drag me to Hell
  • Dawn of the Dead
  • 30 Days of Night
  • Slither
  • Tremors
As with every movie night the menu for the evening is equally as important as the movies chosen.

So some of the current ideas kicking around in my head are:
Anyway any comments/suggestions are welcomed.

Also on a separate note, a blatant food related plug. If you get a moment you should check out my friend Carlin's blog.

She is a pretty spectacular baker and mighty nifty person to boot!

-Cheers

Douche-Bag of the Day

Whew...I do not know where to start. So many candidates for this honor this week!

There is Keith Bardwell, the Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry an interracial couple.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La), who has refused to comment on the topic.

Glenn Beck for being, well Glenn Beck.

Pat Buchanan for being.....Pat Buchanan.

But I think instead I will give it to the Insurance Industry as a whole. With stories like this. I wonder time and time again why we even allow them to exist and just points out why we desperately need reform.

Christina Turner feared that she might have been sexually assaulted after two men slipped her a knockout drug. She thought she was taking proper precautions when her doctor prescribed a month's worth of anti-AIDS medicine.

Only later did she learn that she had made herself all but uninsurable.

Turner had let the men buy her drinks at a bar in Fort Lauderdale. The next thing she knew, she said, she was lying on a roadside with cuts and bruises that indicated she had been raped. She never developed an HIV infection. But months later, when she lost her health insurance and sought new coverage, she ran into a problem.

Turner, 45, who used to be a health insurance underwriter herself, said the insurance companies examined her health records. Even after she explained the assault, the insurers would not sell her a policy because the HIV medication raised too many health questions. They told her they might reconsider in three or more years if she could prove that she was still AIDS-free.

Because survivors of rape and sexual assault really need more to worry about.

Real classy guys.

-Cheers

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

So in love......

I think I may have found a new blog/site to while away my hours at.

The Atlantic: Food

I may have to make this soon:


-Cheers

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Throw-a-way bits

So still on my self-imposed health care hiatus I cam across a comment on social bias and how difficult it is to diagnose.

Basically it speaks to an issue I have tried futilely to write about.

Race and bias are just difficult subjects to broach. There are many reasons why that it is, which
could be debated. But that it is a difficult subject is not debatable.

Adam Serwer of the American Prospect wrote a piece on the Limbaugh-Rams story that had one passage that resonated with me:

On the one hand, there's the general anxiety on the right that comes from the recognition that one can't actually treat black people this way and expect there not to be social consequences. On the other, there's actual bewilderment about the very concept of racism -- conservatives understand in the abstract that racism is bad, but they seem incapable of identifying actual racist behavior. Instead, because (a) racism is bad and (b) liberals are bad (c) racism is a quality possessed by liberals. By definition, conservatives cannot be racist, because they are good, unlike liberals, and therefore nothing Rush Limbaugh says is racist. Moreover, while liberals have sometimes intimated racial motivation for conservative criticism where there isn't any, conservatives have refused to recognize when attacks on the president become attacks on black people. Calling the president "an angry black guy" is one of those times.

This blanket refusal to evaluate their own behavior is what continues to make the GOP seem completely tone deaf when it comes to minorities -- the GOP can list as many black Republicans from the 1800s as they like, as long as they continue to adhere to the Bender Theory of Discrimination and refuse to acknowledge even flagrant racism within their ranks, and even imply that minorities are so stupid they're "fooled" into believing racism exists, they will remain a party minorities do not feel welcome in.

Now I do tend to agree that conservatives are more prone to this sort of thinking then their progressive brethren, but it could be generalized to virtually any sort of intellectual coterie. Those who agree with you are somehow more virtuous then those who do not. But I digress. This is something that is become extremely virulent. People toss around racist, and Nazis like hand grenades.

What I mean with this whole post is this. I am not surprised when some says something racially insensitive. What I find shocking is the absolute inability to engage in any sort of self-examination. Someone else is always the "race-baiter". There is always a rationalization. Whether it is Rush's comments on Donovan McNabb, the commentary of two South Carolinian republican chairmen or well just about anything Pat Buchanan says.

There are not racists, they aren't biased! They are just telling it like it is.

No I think Mr. Serwer has the right of it.

-Cheer

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Yeah...I agree with that.

Taking a break from blogging about health care this week. It seems to do nothing more then make me angry and ruin other peoples conversations with me. So today I figured John Stewart could do the heavy lifting for me.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorRon Paul Interview


-Cheers

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Douche-Bag of the Week

Now today we have a group of award. It is rare that so many contribute to something so douchey.

Senator Al Franken (D-MN), had his first piece of legislation passed in the U.S Senate.
On Tuesday night, the Minnesota Democrat got his first piece of legislation passed by the United States Senate via roll call vote. The amendment stopped federal funding for those defense contractors who used mandatory arbitration clauses to deny victims of assault the right to bring their case to court. It passed by a 68-30 margin with nine Republicans joining each voting Democrat.

Now you may be asking yourself why this is even necessary. Well this involves the horrifying case of Jamie Lynn Jones. If you are not familiar with it here is the ABC story on Ms. Lynn's case.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.

So yeah the facts of this case, were a young lady was raped by her coworkers, her employers locked her in a shipping crate for 24 hours and forbade her from getting medical care.

Sen. Franken was disgusted with this and made these points:
The story came to my attention of Jamie Leigh Jones who, when she was 19, went to Iraq to work for [defense contractor] KBR and she was put in the barracks with 400 men and was sexually harassed," Franken told the Huffington Post in a brief interview shortly after the vote. "She complained. But they didn't do anything about it. She was drugged and gang raped and they locked her up in a shipping container. She tried to sue KBR and they said you have a mandatory arbitration clause in your contract. She tried to fight back and said this is ridiculous. She took it to court and they have been fighting her for three years."

"This bill would make it so that anybody in business with the Department of the Defense can't do this," he concluded emphatically. "They can't have mandatory arbitration on issues like assault and battery."

So he wrote an amendment to address this. Personally trying to deny someone who was wronged, due process is just plain evil. And Haliburton is a pretty douchey organization, but this is more about those who are supposed to watch out for us and act as a buffer between business and the people.

The final amendment passed 68-30. The Douche-Bags of the week are the 30 people who voted against. These people are actively trying to protect a company that not only tried to cover up the gang rape of one of its employees, but then threatened to fire that employee if they sought legal redress. So here you have the knuckle dragging republicans:
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

I will point out not a single woman member in the bunch.

-Cheers

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A Fasion Move I Whole Heartedly Support!


I honestly hope Glamour sticks to this.

I could try to affect a righteous pose on how this is good because it shows women as they actually are! How it is less damaging to women's self-image, and may lead to less eating problems.

But well, that would be disingenuous on my part. Those are valid upsides. The truth is I just like girls with curves. Personally I have no use for girls that weigh less then my pumas! So there.

So down with Kate Moss and her ilk! Up with healthier looking girls with curves who I do not know your names yet!

Rock on wit yo' bad selfs!

-Cheers

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Health Care Debate...an Actual Debate!!

This morning on Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan, there was an interesting development. Mr. Ratigan hosted an actual debate on health care! Shocking I know. But it did happen.

The segment in quest was ostensibly to be a debate between Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and form New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey (some how pronounced McCoy!). Now I am not going to present this as some sort of impartial and objective airing of differing points of view. I loathe Mrs. McCaughey. She has done more in the last 15 years to retard substantive health care reform then almost any other person.

Her track record on this issue is clear. If there is a democrat in the White House, she will be against virtually any health care reform they offer. The New Republic has a timely and long overdue piece attacking Mrs. McCaughey, especially since the very same publication was responsible for publishing her first misguided screed.

But I digress. In contrast to Mrs. McCaughey, Rep. Weiner has been vocal proponent of health care reform (a strong advocate of a single-payer system). So I am clearly on one side of this argument. But here is the segment on the Morning Meeting:


Obviously the host grew increasingly frustrated with Mrs. McCaughey's dissembling. Not only that, but I did very much enjoy the exchange over the "tort reform". While it is an issue which I talked about in much greater detail here, the statics just do not support the claim that it is the magic bullet that so many conservatives paint to be. I mean, viscerally it has the right feel to it. Lawyers are held in low regard by the general public, so it only stands to reason that they are somehow messing up health care too! The problem with that sort of rationalization, though cathartic, just is not an accurate assessment of what actually happens.

To add to that, when Mrs. McCaughey did finally answer Mr. Ratigan's question. Rep. Weiner took that opportunity to pounce. Pointing out accurately, that what she was suggestion was a removal of Medicare coverage for anyone currently 55 years old or younger. Not that I am opposed to some sort of age increase, in actuality I think the CBO's recommendation is a valid one. I just viscerally enjoy when a serial demagogue, gets out demagogued, or at the very least rhetorically treated the way they treat others.

As I stated earlier, it is just pleasant to see specious arguments challenged. Mr. Ratigan did an admirable job of trying to the keep the conversation tethered to the topic at hand. So it is worth a watch.

-Cheer

Mental Health Break....

I will be back to posting about health care reform later today/week. But for today I had just had to post about this.

I present to you the "Craz-E" Burger.


A bacon cheeseburger, with a buttered Krispy Kreme bun. That's right a fraking buttered Krispy Kreme!!!!!

This ladies and gentlemen...is why we are fat. God. I feel my arteries clogging as I look at this thing.....

-Cheers

Monday, October 5, 2009

Moderation as a Religion...

The seeds of fetishized centrism are starting to show fruit. I have to echo Steve Benen and Atrios on this one.
The group, which didn't have any specific policy goals in mind and simply liked the idea of a small bill, specifically targeted $40 billion in proposed aid to states. Helping rescue states, Sen. Collins & Co. said, does not stimulate the economy, and as such doesn't belong in the legislation. Democratic leaders reluctantly went along -- they weren't given a choice since Republicans refused to give the bill an up-or-down vote -- and the $40 billion in state aid was eliminated.
Whether the amount of money was necessary or not didn't even enter the equation. For centrists it is more about extracting their pound of flesh for moderation's sake, then about good policy.

In the past, government hiring had managed to somewhat offset losses in the private sector, but government jobs declined by 53,000, with the biggest number of cuts on the local and state levels. Even the Postal Service, which is included in the public-sector job statistics, dropped 5,300 jobs.

"The major surprise came from the public sector, where every level of government cut back," Naroff said. "The budget crises at the state and local levels have caused an awful lot of belt-tightening."


That was such an awesome compromise.

-Cheers

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009

Health care Debate....Part.....

Pretty much the deck is stacked against citizens getting a fair shake in the health care reform debate. Last night provided the perfect example of that, and earned (the often linked to here) Ezra Klein a place on my "blogs you should be reading" list.

His post on the 'The Status Quo Wins in Health-Care Reform' is a must read.

If you do not know much about Sen Wyden's Free Choice Amendment, it quite simply gave most of the insured populace a choice about insurance. It would give us the same sort of options members of congress and federal employees get with their coverage. Mainly it would give people the ability to chose coverage, portability of that coverage, and reasonable rates even if unemployed.

That was, what was defeated last night.

So yeah. I am a bit disappointed.

-Cheers

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Douche-Bag of the Day Part 2!

I spoke to soon! Evidently there is a race going on to see who can be more douchey then the last douche!

In this corner we have Ms. Anne Applebaum (h/t Greenwald and Lawyers). Ms. Applebaum of the Washington Post penned a 4 paragraph piece in defense of Roman Polanski, here. I recommend reading it:

Of all nations, why was it Switzerland -- the country that traditionally guarded the secret bank accounts of international criminals and corrupt dictators -- that finally decided to arrest Roman Polanski? There must be some deeper story here, because by any reckoning the decision was bizarre -- though not nearly as bizarre as the fact that a U.S. judge wants to keep pursuing this case after so many decades.

Here are some of the facts: Polanski's crime -- statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl -- was committed in 1977. The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children. There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers' fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.

He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland. His pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered in 1969 by the followers of Charles Manson, though for a time Polanski himself was a suspect.

I am certain there are many who will harrumph that, following this arrest, justice was done at last. But Polanski is 76. To put him on trial or keep him in jail does not serve society in general or his victim in particular. Nor does it prove the doggedness and earnestness of the American legal system. If he weren't famous, I bet no one would bother with him at all.



I think this is the first defense of pedophilia and rape combined ever. I was literally speechless.

Words fail in this sort of situation. The man admitted he raped a 13 year old girl. Admitted to giving her alcohol and drugs. Then fled from his incarceration. I say admitted, he pled guilty.

This is simply beyond the pale. But wait it gets better. After being excoriated by the masses at large Ms. Applebaum had response which is here. But I found this bit of it the most mind numbingly myopic part of it:
Of course, there were some very legitimate disagreements, including two excellent ones from my colleagues Gene Robinson and Richard Cohen, and I take some of their points. But to them, and to all who imagine that the original incident at the heart of this story was a straightforward and simple criminal case, I recommend reading the transcript of the victim's testimony (here in two parts) -- including her descriptions of the telephone conversation she had with her mother from Polanski's house, asking permission to be photographed in Jack Nicholson's jacuzzi -- and not just the salacious bits.
I think pretty clearly Ms. Applebaum is blaming the victim.

But there is one thing I do agree with Ms. Applebaum on. If he were not famous, Polanski would have been treated differently. He would have been tossed in jail and would not have had the chance to flee the country.

-Cheers

Douche-Bag of the Day

Today that honor goes to Mr. John Derbyshire. In an interview with Alan Colmes, Mr. Derbyshire had this to say:

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?

DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?

COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.

DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].

COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.


Furthermore, As ThinkProgress reports had this to say:

Derbyshire reasoned that we “got along like that for 130 years.” Colmes countered by asking if he also wants to bring back slavery. No, Derbyshire responded, “I’m in favor of freedom personally.” Colmes noted that freedom didn’t extend to women’s right to vote, however. Derbyshire said, “Well, they didn’t and we got along ok.” Listen here:

Later in the interview, Derbyshire said there’s also a case to be made for repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act because you “shouldn’t try to force people to be good.”

Ahh...so you "shouldn't try to force people to be good", but it is perfectly acceptable to legally hold people in a diminished state?

Evidently "freedom" is only for white males in Derbyshire's world.

-Cheers