Just Like Mother Used to Make

Sounds like a lab in Holland came up with an airborne strain of H5N1 bird flu through a little selective breeding. Should the specific sequence of events that led to this be classified? Absolutely. Should this experiment have been done. Again - absolutely. I believe the resulting strain took as little as five mutations to become airborne. Although nature doesn't target her results she's got a mighty big lab full of  villagers with pigs and chickens and everything and all the time in the world to slice and dice and mix up something nasty. So just like it happened 100 years ago it's bound to happen again. Only that time we Americans were living with pigs and chickens and everything and despite blaming the "Spanish" for the whole thing we ended up knocking out 17 million with our own home brew (or not). So it was good work to determine in advance what an airborne pathogen could look like. Good work boys.

Something about the Time's comment section, particularly regarding science stories, brings out a self selected group of stupid motherfuckers. Maybe stupid is too harsh. How about willfully ignorant?  But I stand by the "motherfuckers". A stupid motherfucker is someone who puts your and my kids at risk because they choose to remain willfully ignorant. There were more commenters wanting to kill all the scientists or free the ferrets than got the point of the whole experiment. An unfortunately large contingent thought it would be just dandy for the planet if half of us were killed off by the bird flu. I got kids - I don't share that view. The vast majority thought those naughty scientists should have their slide rules taken away. That, in their sociopathic arrogance, these braniacs with no common sense were meddling with forces with which man was not meant to meddle with. Or doing it to sell vaccines. Not realizing, of course, that scientists are just like you and me, only smarter. Not likely to risk having their kids spike a 107 degree fever and cough up a lung for the hell of it. The idea is to understand the evolutionary mechanisms in order to prevent that. It's not magic, people. It's not even rocket science.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Brainy

Does my large brain make my head look fat?

The smart guy's Tom Delay. Bursting with ideas. So many ideas it takes a massive ego to corral them all. He's so smart he can even invent people:

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. We have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab people, and they had the chance to go many places,” said Newt Gingrich in an interview with the Jewish Channel."

Good ole Newt - been carrying The White Man's Burden (along with 60 pounds of lard) since grad school. You see, there where no Palestinians until the British gave them a name. Same with Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese. Those Brits - always fucking with someone. Until then the Palestinians were just a bunch of Arabs who happened to live in the same spot for 1500 years. Not like the Israelis, who, except for a brief 1900 year hiatus, always lived in the Holy Land. I wonder if we Americans are an invented people? Maybe I'll ask an Indian if I can find one.

Don't Spray Me, Bro!

a spray on tanning session goes horribly awry

Sometimes I wish I knew what I was talking about. Hard to be the archetype wise old grandfather when you're not sure of anything at all.

(Watching the infamous pepper spray video at UC Davis with my granddaughter)

"That cop should be thrown in jail. Those kids are just sitting there and he's coating them with pepper spray.

What's pepper spray do?

It burns your eyes and skin.

Why didn't the police stop him?

He is the police.

I mean the other police.

I guess they were the only ones there. Looks like a peaceful protest to me.

What were they protesting?

Umm....uh.....I don't know...."

Of course the torture apologists come out of the wood work to defend the police acting with "proper protocol". Bullshit. Proper protocol is dragging them off to the paddy wagon if you feel you have to move them. Off course it looks like Officer Tubbs is too fat to bend over and tie his own shoe let alone drag a bunch of squirmy teenagers off the road. Color me disgusted.

Good Things Come in Threes

Texican Governor Rick Perry has unleashed his latest plan to make America great again. He will uproot the three branches of government, shake their roots clean of bureaucratic filth and plant them in pure soil nourished by the blood of patriots where they will bring forth a new tree of liberty which we will call Teximerica. Oh yeah, and JOBS.

The Governor explains:

"I'm going to Washington to uproot and overhaul the three branches of government. The Legislative, the Judicial and ...you know... that other one...the one with the President in it... The ARMY!...The Legislative, Judicial and the Army."

The Governor continues:

"Unique to the Republican field, I have never been an establishment fighure, have never served in Congress or part of an administration, have never been a paid lobbyist, have never talked in complete sentences or forgot to comb my hair, have never read a book without pictures and have never gone jogging without packing a sidearm."

Poster from vjack

Perverts to the Left of Me - Perverts to the Right

Here I am, stuck in the middle with you. I've got to be the world's worst judge of character. First it was Anthony - D thanks a lot, my congressional hero, caught sending Weiner-grams and just last week I was telling the wife that even if Penn State is not a national contender at least they run the cleanest program in college ball. Say it ain't so, Joe.

Et tu -Hermanus? Cain didn't recognize his latest accuser. Maybe if he saw the back of her head it would jog his memory. Or possibly he could identify her by touch.

Even if half of what the grand jury heard is true the sick bastard is going away for the rest of his life. I guess being a defensive genius doesn't get you a free pass to anally rape children. Not a lifetime pass, anyway. What a strange bizarre compulsion. Sandusky had to know what he was risking. Disturbing. Even more disturbing is the cover up. A friend said it best - maybe Sandusky couldn't stop himself but there were people around him who could. Putting kids at risk to protect Penn State's reputation. Something is rotten on the inside and it goes far beyond this incident. When the perverse influence of big time college football money runs into actual eye popping perversion everyone acts all shocked. We shouldn't. The money - the militarism - the merchandise -unpaid boys risking injury to bring in the dough. The whole thing stinks. Wonder what the line for the Nebraska game is?

We are all a little stunned here at work, this being big time Penn State territory and all. Too stunned to even joke about it. One guy is so upset at Joe's firing that he won't let his kids go to Penn State. Another thinks Joe should sue for wrongful discharge. And some asshole thinks the circus was in town and Sandusky was actually caught with a midget and we all owe him a big apology. Sandusky, not the little person. 

My E Receipt from K MART

ITEM QTY PRICE 04318010937 NIGHTLIGHT 1 4.29 T 07200079007 TOWEL RING 1 BG 3.49 T 09072708097 SKELETON 1 3.99 T 03400036307 X-MAS CANDY 1 A 19.99 F Salescheck: Purchase date: 11/09/11 Tax: .71     Total: 32.47

You can get a great deal on skeletons right after Halloween.
I was going to crank up the nightlight, munch on some candy
and admire my skeleton but I can't fit the skull through the
towel ring. I guess that's why most people accessorize with the
ceiling fan.

So Ha!

That's what I get from my granddaughter when I make a minor factual error while I'm correcting her. Something along the lines of -

'Why didn't you clean up the Cheerios you spilled on the floor? -

They're not Cheerios, they're Rice Krispies - So Ha!'

              or

 'Didn't I tell you to turn off Big Time Rush and do your homework? -

It's not Big Time Rush it's Zeke and Luther - So ha!'

The 'So ha!' is the triumphant end of all argument. No amount of reason or rational argumentation will sway the 'So Ha!' moment. It is final. It is unassailable. I am defenseless against it. I sputter in impotent rage as she flounces off secure in her 'ah ha -ness'.

So the Republicans gave us the Reagan and Bush tax cuts coupled with two off the books wars and two unfunded mandates ( No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit) that gave us record deficits and the excuse to gin up a debt controversy to try to force the President to peel back social programs that date back to the New Deal. Of course no tax cuts - no deficit. But that's beside the point. Somehow it was seen as a political victory by the Republicans to force the issue to the super committee. I see it different. By a little political ju jutsu the Prez has got poor Speaker Boehner's head stuck in a corner while he whips his bare ass like a Texas judge. If the super committee fails what gets cut firstest and mostest?- why defense of course. Now Republican Congressmen can go home to their districts over the holidays and explain to all the defense workers (like my wife so you know I'm not exactly thrilled about this scenario) that their bases are going to be shut down because they refused to raise the taxes on millionaires. So Ha!

Shucks

I was just pokin' a little fun. Don't you people have a sense of humor? Just like all the hoo hah about my huntin' camp being called Niggerhead. That's just what it's called. My daddy called it that, my grand-daddy called it that. Hell, everybody in these parts calls it Niggerhead. Cept maybe the coloreds. Speakin' a funny - how'd you like my new tax plan? I got it from some guy in a bow tie who was sportin' a bad case of acne so it's gotta be good. It's called a flat tax cause you can file it on a postcard and a post card's flat. Get it? And don't worry about paying for Social Security or Medicare cause there won't be none. That's nanny state stuff. Ya haveta excuse me - I gotta go find some more Mexicans in that heathen Romney's back yard.

Bonus Babies

Charles Krauthammer, doing his best mini-Will impersonation, grumpily dismisses the Occupy Wall Street movement as the tantrums of a bunch of latte sipping English majors with bad credit. Subsequent investigation of the protesters indicate that most of them have jobs, unlike the retired Tea Partiers. Contrast these yahoos with the Tea Party participants. One worried that the implied contract that a college education would guarantee a job making enough money to pay off the college loans and the other worried that, uh, there's a Negro with a funny name in the White House. One angry that a base alignment of frightened bureaucrats and corporate malefactors have enriched themselves at the cost of the poor and middle class and the other angry that, uh, there's a Negro with a funny name in the White House. One just starting or about to start on a working career in an economy where the game is so rigged that hard work doesn't even guarantee a modicum of economic security and the other, at least half of whom depend on the  federal government for their Social Security and Medicare, screaming at the government to keep its hands out of their Medicare. One makes their way to the city anyway they can and camps out in protest and the other glides in on Koch fueled buses and goes home to wait for the Social Security check. Wonder which one's bullshit?

A Fat Man for Lean Times

the governor sweet talks America

I had the slogan all ready. Too bad the big boned guy pulled out of the race. Not that I would voted for him but I could have taken his campaign all the way. For a fee. A job's a job. As a recently fat guy I appreciate someone who is not afraid to speak the truth to Weight Watchers. Someone who could relate to the soft doughy center of America's middle. By the time I was done with Christie's campaign America would embrace its fatitude and man titties would once again become a badge of honor.

Some freebies for the Gov-
Chris Christie - fatitude with attitude
No second helpings - vote Christie
Loosen your belt America - Christie for President


        

Are You Ready for Some Goofball?!!!

Who cares what that dumbass faux redneck thinks anyway? Merika do, that who. I'll bet that's one bit of ejaculate ole Hank Sr. wished he coulda took back. If Hank Jr. could sing better he'd put you in mind of a long haul Stars and Bars Alabama truck driver. You would think a self styled real American patriot who fancies himself a musician would learn to sing the national anthem. Steelers play off game some years ago - the absolute worst rendition of the Star Spangled Banner that I have ever heard. Worse than Roseanne's because he was evidently trying. Bad, spectacularly bad, so bad that the aural memory is seared forever in my neural circuits. So memorably bad that I can tell you what I was driving, what the weather was like, how much gas was in the tank, even how many birds were sitting on the telephone wire. 94 Toyota truck, sunny 70 degrees, 3/4 tank and 5. That's how bad it was..

Don't ask - Don't Make Sense

I'm not telling and you can't make me

Rick Santorum  (R - pugnant) - kicking out the jams debate style:

"I think it's it's - it's - look, what we're doing is playing social experimentation with - with our military right now. And that's tragic."

Experimenting bad. There's a right way and a wrong way. Just ask Mrs. Santorum.

"I would - I would just say that, going forward, we would - we would reinstitute that policy (Don't Ask Don't Tell),  if Rick Santorum was president, period."

And if I were Jesus the whole world would have some baked trout, a fresh baguette and a nice bottle of white wine. And if Rick Santorum was president - we would be fucked. Period.

"That policy would be re-instituted. And as far as people who are in - in- I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in - in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was sex is not an issue. It is - it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it - keep it to yourself, whether you're a heterosexual or a homosexual."

If sex wasn't an issue in the good old days why was there a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy? Are soldiers supposed to leave it alone or keep it to themselves? Is Rick pro or anti masturbation? He needs to clarify this policy point. And if members of the military are prohibited from self identifying as heterosexuals or homosexuals you would think that would severely limit the pool of potential bullet stoppers.

Of Fundies and Foodies

I'm not convinced that this is all that friendly of a planet. Granted, we've been around, on one form or another, for about 3.5 billion years but it seems to me that the whole setup is not here exclusively for our benefit. The world is full of microscopic creatures that view us a nothing more than a big smorgasbord full of protein and carbs. And, if past practice is any indication of future performance, we have maybe a couple of million years before we either fade away or change into something that we wouldn't recognize as us.

I don't get the idea of "natural". I don't see how anything can be "unnatural". And the idea that natural equates to safe is suspect. Most of the stuff that can get you is definitely natural, not the result of reactions to man made toxins. The Foodies, fundies, anti-vaxers, and various New Agers all share the idea of some sort of pristine natural archetype - for the Fundie it's the Garden, for the Foodie it's some mythical American past where we grew our own local organic food and for the Anti-vaxers it is evidently better to develop immunity by actually getting the disease than to prime your immune system with an inoculation There is a reason that Great grandpa could expect to live to be 47 and I can expect to push 70. And it has nothing to do with the natural foods movement and everything to do with mass immunization against childhood diseases and an efficient, safe, regulated supplemented food supply and science based medicine. Kids don't get pellagra, thyroid problems or have their teeth rot out from lack of fluoridation like in the good old days. Will I eat organically grown produce if it is similar in cost to the commercial stuff? Of course. It's not like I spray my salad with Raid before I chow down. I think factory farming for animals (mammals anyway) sucks. Am I frightened of genetically modified food? Not at all. Everything we eat is genetically modified. I don't see where cross breeding instead of genetic manipulation makes it any more safe. Will I get every vaccination that comes down the pike? Absolutely. The numbers don't lie. Statistically, getting the disease fucks you up way more than any potential adverse reaction. Is Big Pharma your friend? Probably not. But unlike Big Supplement the drug companies have to at least prove through clinical trials that their drugs have some sort of effect.  I supported the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act when it came out. I was wrong. It's a snake oil scam. Like acupuncture, chiropractic and a whole host of other alternative treatments designed to separate people from their wallets.

But there is no talking to people. No convincing people, anyway. If your kid gets bacteremia from chicken pox, maybe you've learned your lesson. Too bad your kid had to learn it the hard way. The species may be engaged in an arms race with existing bacterial and viral scourges but chances are that you as an individual are just an expendable foot soldier. I had all the common childhood diseases and my mom had polio so I'm more than happy that we humans have found a way to game the system.  I have found a lot of born aginer's seem to be into the natural supplement scene. I'm not sure if it's a congenital deformation of the reasoning circuits or maybe Amway. And there is an element of OCD to the whole thing. A search for purity in a decidedly impure world, where you can purify yourself  by what you eat and how you live and keep the demons at bay. I know how it is. There is no way to reason your way out of thinking that the world is full of contamination. I may know in my mind that there is no way that doorknob could be dirty enough to infect me but I still feel as though it is.

*Graphic from Kansas Bob

Soul Snorer

I have two big regrets in my life. One is Family Game Night and the other is Family Movie Night. Both were my ideas. I thought it would be a good idea to get together as a family and do some fun stuff on the weekend. I am an idiot. Not since Alvin and the Chipmunks The Squeakquel  have I put myself through as much pain as I did with this Saturday's viewing of Soul Surfer. (editorial disclaimer: As I reread this post (yes, I do reread these posts...sometimes) I have come to the conclusion that my comments are somewhat mean spirited. My intent was not to dis Bethany Hamilton - who is a courageous and inspirational young lady - my problem is with the packaging of her story - now back to our irregularly scheduled diatribe)

Every once in awhile I get suckered into one of these inspirational Christian movies, covertly Christian but not radically evangelical enough to piss off the Catholics and Jews. Something about the camera work gives it away - almost like a high def version of the Brady Bunch. I have the same reaction I do when I accidentally rent a movie they previously showed on the SyFy  channel - Oh, shit... So young Bethany lives an idyllic life in an island paradise with loving parents and an active spiritual life, surfing and homeschoolin' the days away. She attends a beautiful open air chapel full of beautiful spiritual people. Beautiful white people  with no so much as a pimple to be seen. The leper colony must be on the other side of the island. The fat ugly kids evidently have their own church. Probably not with a view of the ocean. Or maybe they don't go to church - that's why they're fat and ugly. A couple of dark colored people show up, mostly in the crowd scenes. There is one weird Hawaiian guy with a pompadour who shows up from time to time, no doubt a survivor of the the measles epidemic. He kills the shark (his people are good at that). He's OK with the haolies even though they stole his island and decimated his people. Why hold a grudge?

 Miss Hottie, the youth minister, holds a vacation bible school class. She's hot but deep. Throughout the film she is Bethany's anchor to ...uh...spirituality. She explains through a slideshow and well timed quote from Jeremiah 29.11 -For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Bethany takes this to heart, thinking "I wonder if God is going to send a shark to bite my arm off to make me a more complete person?" And darn if that isn't exactly what happens. 

So Jesus needed a hand in heaven and they rush poor Bethany to the hospital after she loses like 98% of her blood but she survives and the Doc proclaims it a miracle. No doc, if she grew the arm back it would be a miracle. But, then again, I set my miracle bar higher than most. But the doc is Craig T. Nelson - so whattya gonna do? Pretty much  the rest of the film concerns Bethany’s struggle to adjust to her disability and learn how to surf again. Asking my wife how Bethany shaves her armpit earned me a withering look. Not the first withering look of the film but definitely the most withering. Miss Hottie (Carrie Underwood) the youth minister who runs disaster tours to help the world's downtrodden decides Bethany needs cheering up and takes her on a missionary trip to an area where thousands of people have died in a tsunami.  There, Bethany bonds with some kid who is traumatized by the drowning of his entire family and takes him surfing. Dr. Phil would approve. Bethany goes home, loses a surfing contest but wins the hearts of her countrymen and my disabled grand daughter. So, once again, I find myself caught between religion and a hard place. Thank God my wife tends to the kid’s spiritual needs while I get to snipe from the sidelines.

The moral of the story? It’s cool to be Christian.

Reason to see this film?   Neat surfing footage

Reason not to see this film? – Dennis Quaid

Cheese rating? - Full wheel

Heroes

More pep rally morality. The talking heads prod our emotions, nodding gravely at this and that, cheapening not only grief but rendering the word " hero" all but meaningless. Does anyone really believe that those poor souls on United 93 were trying to keep the plane from crashing into the Capitol? They knew what the score was and they knew their only chance at survival was to take control of the plane. That fact doesn't make their attempt any less impressive or any less tragic. But it does make it more real. I caught our President (who I still like, by the way) murmuring something about God during the speachifying. I realize we humans have mental short circuit that how God is on our side even though 3000 people got buried in the rubble but isn't God the reason this whole mess got started?  A moment of silence would do. And during that moment of silence our leaders ought to reflect on acting in manner that insures that the cure isn't worse than the disease.

So, in essence, we have set up two monuments to really, really bad luck. Just being in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn't make you a hero. Heroes rush into burning buildings, jump on grenades, shit like that. Arlin Williams on Air Florida Flight 90 who kept passing people to safety as he slowly lost his grip in the freezing river and slipped under - man, that makes you proud to be human. Pat Tillman - giving up a life of privilege to join up and get killed accidentally by his own men - he qualifies. I may be part of the last American generation that grew up with fathers who more often than not served in the military. In my neighborhood it was unusual for a male not to have been in the service. And a good percentage of those who did were combat veterans.  Silver Stars, Purple Hearts, lots of Bronze Stars but not a lot of bragging. And not a lot of media stroking like you hear now. It was just kind of assumed. They were just guys, fathers and uncles, flawed and human, not the mass manufactured heroic icons the media likes to present. My Dad kept busy - got a degree, made a living. He didn't talk about the war much except a couple times when he was drunk. Mostly he would talk about how random it was – wondering why he made it and others didn't and how his 50 caliber guns could have been made of wood for all the good they did him. There was really nothing that he could control.  And I never heard him use the word hero.

The Great Aweakening

 Not weak - never showed pain - not even when waxing

"These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job." -  Marco Rubio Tea Pot vunder boi

More hazy reminisces about the foggily perceived "good ole days"  from another right wing  knothead who doesn't read and evidently doesn't care to. Americans have been whining for the some government or another to make it all better. Waahh - the Indians are bothering me, Waahh - rustlers are stealing my cattle, Waahh - my kid's dying of Yellow Fever. Here's a news flash for you Marco - people are people (and people who need entitlements are the luckiest...) When my grandpa was born people had the good sense to die at an average age of 47 so there was no need for those pesky entitlement programs. And those  who were too old to work and had misspent their wages on stuff like food and shelter could always count on the churches and synagogues (hat tip to Marco's South Fla retirement constituents - what - no mosques?) to stack them somewhere. Hey, and if Grannie can knit she sure as fuck can run a stamping press. I don't care how old you are - a free ride is bad for character. Better to cough your last lung out sorting coal than sitting around waiting to die. Pussies - are there no workhouses? Are there no ice flows?  Of course back then there was no such thing as Alzheimer, oldsters were only "confused". If they got really confused they were "senile". And if they got really senile Mom didn't work so she was always around to change Grannie's diaper. Life was like Little House on the Prairie only smellier.   That was just the tail end of our societal weakening. The pussification of the sturdy American yeoman started much earlier- child labor laws, compulsory education, OSHA, overtime pay, unemployment insurance. All that crap has turned us into the doughy sluglike parasites that are draining the coffers of the job creators. I'd be ashamed of myself  but I'm not collecting yet.

Safe From the Zombie Apocalypse*

 

no blinkin' lincoln

"I have a spine made of titanium" - Michele Bachmann

And just as flexible. That trumps Obama's spine of steel. 

. I guess that's to square the circle and resolve the perceived conflict between being as a good Christian woman subservient to her husband and being her own woman as commander in chief. Alex Wagner on the Mr Irritating Potato Head show thought the Newsweek cover shot unfairly showed her as "blank and confused". In other words her natural state. If her handlers can get her to stop confusing her mascara with Super Glue she may have a shot at the nomination. No wonder she gets migraines.  She does have a Palinesque appeal to the legion of Republican dumbasses who aren't rich. That's what the bell curve does for you. Since stupid worked back in 2000 and 2004 I guess the conservative powers that be have decided for laughs to change it up and go with crazy:

  "But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States."

Like them guys in the Bible that lived to be 150 years old. And that whole 3/5ths thing in the Constitution? That was just a fakeout.


*no brain to eat - I know - it's not a joke if you have to explain it.  So fuck you.