Torture - It's What's for Dinner

Real tough guy Jesse calls out pretend tough guy Dick

Party at Dick's house! Bring your suit and boogie water board! Boy, for a guy who was so jealous of his privacy that he fuzzed out the Google Earth view of his house, Dick sure has become quite the social butterfly. It's almost as though he's trying his case in the court of public opinion before he's even charged with anything. Trying to obscure the fact that the two guys in charge when everybody shit their pants on 9/11 weren't named Obama or Clinton. Even George has enough sense to keep his head down.
Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about counter-insurgency, interrogation techniques or the capacity of the human body to endure pain. Here's a couple of reasons why "enhanced interrogation techniques" or "torture" as I like to call it, is a bad idea:

1. It's illegal
2. It's against the law

The legality of waterboarding should have raised some flags in the Bush Administration considering that we prosecuted not only Japanese soldiers after WWII but our own guys in Vietnam for the same practice. Then there are the practical problems. How do you know that the intelligence gained is accurate? Take this guy(please). A little outsourced Egyptian torture and we got all the information that we needed on those WMD's in Iraq to make Gen. Powell look like a total retard in front of the whole UN. How do you corroborate the information? Torture everyone until some sort of pattern develops? Seems kind of unwieldy. Maybe our torturers are better. Maybe they all got 2 year degrees in Enhanced Interrogation Techniques from ITT Tech and only produce actionable intelligence.
The primary motivation for the right wing in this country is fear. Fear of Islam, fear of sex, fear of drugs, fear of Mexicans, fear of socialism, fear of flying, fear of dying, fear of termites, fear of their pipes busting, fear of homos. In short, they are all a bunch of pussies. There is no bad situation that can't be made worse by the right wing overreacting. Dumb motherfuckers (and I include all the dumb motherfuckers in the FAA from 1965 on) should have reinforced the cockpit doors and ordered pilots to stay in the cabin and fly the plane and we wouldn't be shuffling around the airport in our socks.
The pro-torture guys like to go on the talk shows and make up some sort of ticking bomb scenarios like: " Suppose a terrorist planted a pocket nuke in your baby's day care and only he had the code for the detonator and you captured him would you dip his balls in boiling oil to get him to give you the code? Huh? Would ya?". OK, maybe one ball, but that's as far as I'll go. C'mon. Is any of this stuff likely enough to base policy on? The Bush admininstration didn't see the initial threat coming and so now everything or everyone looks like a ticking time bomb.

Cars I Have Known (and sometimes loved) Part 1

Before I die I thought I'd better post a list of vehicles I have owned in order to have this information cycle uselessly and eternally in the intertubes. I don't know why, it just seems like the right thing to do. In more or less chronological order:

63 Plymouth Valiant - push button trans, no floor, caught fire on the way to see the Dead. Bummer.

62 Ford F1something or other - well worth the $125 - many cold mornings knocking ice out of the filter bowl, though.

53 Chevy Sedan Delivery - custom, 283 auto, road sign orange, got me, the old lady, two dogs, a cat, a goat and all our stuff from Ohio to Seattle. All the while towing her Volvo P544.

56 Plymouth Belvedere - another $35 Plymouth. No reverse - had to do a lot of deep thinking about parking.

49 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pick up - built like a tank. In fact, I think it was built out of tanks. Plywood camper on the back. Took me from Seattle to San Luis Obispo and served as a mobile home backed up to a cliff looking out over the Pacific. Eat your big fat hearts out, rich people. Abandoned in California prior to the Great Migration back north. One of life's big regrets.

Happy Mother's Day, Baby

Three kids and four grandkids later - still smokin' hot

My BFF Jesus

I got a text from Jesus today. I knew it was from Jesus because he knew I didn't have the time to forward the message. That guy, I don't know how he does it. Anyway, I think he's lonely so give him a jingle. Here's the number: (717) 521-3191.

Here's the message:

"I bet you don't have time to do this; but jesus gave his life for you, send this to ten people and see what happens in five minutes"

This One's Gonna Hurt

Text of my $4,000.00 conversation ($444.44 a word):

"Maybe we should check the black one out?
OK"

Friday we bought a 2006 Ford (Motto: We're not bankrupt yet) Freestyle. Bitchin' ride, for a station wagon. Not the base model SE. That would be the one I had done all the research on. We were on our way in the office to buy the SE when I spotted the black Limited in the lot and, like an idiot, asked the salesman to open it up so we could have a look. Brenda melted at the idea of heated leather seats and I liked the backup alarms. The kids are breeding like rabbits. I couldn't tell you how many grandkids we have now but I know I'd feel bad if I backed over one. Like I did my wife's dog when we were dating. I was backing the 72' LeSabre out when we heard a thump and a yelp and my wife started getting all hysterical on the passenger side. I said "It'll be alright - don't panic", put the car in drive and pulled forward a little bit. These was another thump and another yelp. The dog didn't die. Actually didn't even get hurt, just kind of smooshed down in the mud with a tire track on him so Brenda found the whole thing hysterically funny. That will follow me to the end of my days.
So we drive the Limited around and by the time we get back and park it everybody knows I'm buying this car. The salesman, my wife, my grandaughter. Even me. Traded in two cars on this one. A 97 Mercury Villager (140k) and a 97 Subaru Outback Sport (165k). I got 2k for these, I was hoping for 3k so I squawked a little to keep up appearances but folded up like wet tissue paper in short order. What could I do? Everytime I looked over I was getting that "I want this car - don't screw this up" look. Ah well. Still substantially below book when all was said and done, even with the extended warranty. Maybe my wife will quit emailing me real estate ads for awhile. I'd hate to be paying on something where the terms extend beyond my life expectancy.

Thanks a Lot, Arlen

Now I got no Republicans to vote for, except for the local yokels who help me with my auto stuff. Specter's defection to the Democrats is no surprise to Jim "Pol Pot" Taylor, chairman of the local Republican Party. Taylor is quoted as saying that he never "liked" Specter, anyway and that it was time to purge the party of all its RINOS. Well, I got news for him. They've done gone. Whitman, Hatfield, Chafee, Shwartzenegger, Rockefeller... Eisenhower would be out and I doubt if Nixon would make the cut. No room for Libertarians or fiscally conservative moderates, I suppose. Few are worthy. Taylor says it is time to get back to those core Republican principles. I wonder what they could be? Something like this?

Too bad. I was kind of attached to the two party system.

Happy F#@king Easter

Worst Easter ever. A little background: I've never been very ambitious and have always tended towards procrastination. In fact, if it didn't come easy it didn't come at all. Couple that inherent laziness with an early desire to turn on, tune in and drop out and you have a guy who has relegated himself to the lower ends of the socio-economic spectrum. But I always tested well. Well enough that I tested exactly the same on my SAT's as my BFF who's a respected, rich and successful professional type doctor. So while I was running a cultivator, or flipping burgers, or dismantling cars, or delivering the mail, or stacking books, or driving a truck, or duckwalking around a mixer with a pressure washer, or cutting firewood, or sitting in my cubicle, I always held close to my heart the knowledge that I had the highest SAT's in my immediate family and even though they all got degrees and shit, I could have been a contender. But it is not for this old man to wander into the twilight of his life holding tight to this illusion. My brother couldn't wait to tell me about his precious daughter's SAT's. 50 points higher than mine, combined. Of course, she's only a junior. She hopes to do better next year. Of course.

It gets worse. No holiday meal is complete without my sister-in-law calling me an idiot. After being force fed more organic food than a bunch of pate bound Whole Foods geese, we were all sitting around the table (I don't know about the rest of them but I'm still waiting for Jesus to show) and I was disrespected in the following manner:

Niece: "My religious teacher is a Flemish Lesbian"
Me: "Maybe it's allergies, she ought to take some Claritin D for that."
Sister-in-Law: "You are an idiot!"

A Kiss is Just a Kiss...

Pat Buchanan has his panties in a bunch over Obama's lack of response to Chavez's 55 minute tirade where he called America a fat ugly ho. I guess the problem lies with the handshake and book acceptance after the speech. Now I like Pat and I suspect he's somewhat of a real tough guy but he's thrown his lot in with a conservative movement that's full of pretend tough guys. Obama's the real deal. Only three months in and he's already shot three guys in the head. At this rate he'll have 48 notches in his belt by the end of his term. I would have figured that would have gotten Pat on board. What'd he expect the Big O to do? Slap Chavez upside the head? Throw a hissy fit and walk out? Look at the body language in this meet. It's obvious who the big dog in the room is and who's just yapping around his heels. There's no bigger diss than throwing a tirade and being ignored.

Get a grip, Pat. America's not your mom. We got all the guns and money. Chavez has a few barrels of oil and some nice blankets. Who cares about his sorry ass, anyway?

Yarrrr! Republicans Set Sail in a New Direction

Republican spokesblimp Rush Limbaugh has unveiled a new pro-pirate plank in the Republican platform. Hoping to gain political traction with the hook-handed, peg-legged, puffy shirted portion of the electorate, Limabaugh decried President Obama's execution of three Somali pirates as another socialistic attempt to stifle sea borne entrepeneurship. Limbaugh went on to say, "These private free marketeers were brutally executed while trying to show a little initiative and make a living in the grandest traditions of our free enterprise system."

I Don't Get It

What's so funny about tea bagging? My grandma used to teabag all the time. Sometimes my mom would, too. I can remember us all sitting around the kitchen table in Scranton dipping and dunking away. Tea bagging our hearts out.
At least Joe Scarborough takes his tea bagging seriously. This morning he got on his fellow talk show hosts for mocking the thousands of Americans who opened their mouths in protest and joined their fellows in tea bag parties in cities all across this great land. Middle school juvenile humor, he said, and unfitting for serious news commentators. I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about. Joe's a lot smarter than me so maybe he sees something I'm missing. I'll be the first to admit that a lot of this tea bagging stuff goes right over my head. Maybe he was talking about Dave Shuster who said if you're having a lot of tea bag parties you need a Dick Armey. What's wrong with that? You probably could use a Dick Cheney, too. If fact, I would think you would want all the Dicks (not to mention Toms and Harrys) that you could muster. Rachael Maddow said she didn't invent the whole concept. It's nice of her not to want to take credit but somebody needs to find the guy who came up with the idea and shake his hand. Maybe there's a patent on file. Anyway, I'm with Joe. I'm proud to be a tea bagger and this whole mockery thing rubs me the wrong way.

Our own tea bag party here in the valley didn't turn out too good. It rained pretty hard and the only people who showed were me, six guys from my gun club and the bag lady with her shopping cart. We all wore our side arms proudly (except the bag lady) in support of our God Given 2nd Amendment Rights and to scare off any hippies who would try to crash our tea bag party with their Celestial Seasonings bullshit. It rained so hard my oversize cardboard Obama Kenyan birth certificate fell apart and the bags I had stapled to my hat swelled up and started dripping tea down my face. We all brought our own bags but we only had one umbrella and after an hour or so our bags were getting so soggy that we huddled together in a circle hoping that we could at least save a couple so we could throw them on the courthouse steps. It was not to be and every bag sogged up and fell to the ground. We just left them. I think the bag lady got them.

Maggie Fights Rear Guard Action Against Gay Stuff

If your organization has "marriage" or "family" in its name (like Focus On the Family, Family Research Council, NOM) you are a douchebag and your entire organization is composed of douchebags. How do I know? The evidence speaks for itself.

Gallagher (not the one with the watermelon but, even worse, Maggie, president of NOM) has written an incoherent op-ed for the National Review Online. Apparently Rick Warren is rethinking the whole homophobic idea because the gays got to him. They got their ways. They probably did some gay stuff to him like they did to Ted.

It's worse than we thought. Not only do we have entire gay countries like Canada and Spain (look what's happened to those countries), we have entire gay legislatures as well as gay activist judges. Hence the need for the above retarded commercial. Notice how the actors are isolated in space. You can't be too careful these days and you don't want to get any gay juice on you. And you definitely don't want any gays sneaking up on you and doing gay stuff to you. Notice also how the actors are surrounded by enormous storm clouds of HIV-positive jiz (I know it's HIV-positive because the lightning strikes are going to HIV-negative ground). Notice how these poor people have suffered the worst sort of persecution - persecution against them being able to persecute other people. The last lady is upset that her kid may be told in public school that gay marriage is OK. Well lady, even if your kid escapes your smotherhood without turning gay, he's bound to find out that is some places gay marriage is legal. This is persecution?

You know what I notice? I notice that these are the same arguments I heard against desegregation in the 60's. Crying that your precious rights to "free-association" are being trampled rings hollow. Giving basic human rights to an oppressed minority is a moral thing to do. So, Maggie Gallagher, go fuck yourself (if you're able), and fuck that douchebag organization you rode in on.

Newt's Old Ideas for a Dying Planet

Part of that is true. The ideas are old but the planet won't die. A bunch of us might, but the planet won't. So the prince of well written dumb ideas has put forth what purports to be some sort of energy policy in the latest Newsweek. This is the same guy that said we needed to use lasers that we don't have to shoot down the North Korean missle launch. As you can imagine, his solutions consist of using a band aid of existing and non-existent technologies to cover a sucking chest wound. More of the same isn't going to cut it. Anwar won't help for long, offshore drilling won't amount to much, there's not enough water to process the oil shale and only a dumb ass who has never lived in a coal mining area would suggest "clean" coal technology. I don't care how clean you can burn it, you still got to get it out of the ground and there goes the neighborhood. That leaves us with the same distribution network and the same dependence on those Saudi fuckers who set up the networks that financed those motherfuckers who flew those motherfucking planes into the Towers. What I am trying to say is that it is a matter of national security. I don't want to see Obama wandering around the Rose Garden holding hands with some Saudi prince like Bush did.
I agree with Newt (and here's where I differ with my tree hugging buddies) that we have to start building more nuclear power plants. Sorry Harry, but Obama needs to break one campaign promise and open Yucca mountain. Transporting the nuclear waste is a concern but with 50 years experience hauling nuclear weapons around the country we ought to be able to handle that. Continuing to store it onsite is a bad idea. Upgrade the transmission facilities, toss in a little solar and wind for a sweetener and we're good to go for awhile.
Now the same guys that voted against extending unemployment benefits and were manning the helm while our 401's were deep sixed, are crying crocodile tears about the impact a carbon tax will have on the poor people. We survived $4 a gallon gas. I don't mind paying a little more if it means we won't have to march off to the Middle East every ten years or so. Keep saying to yourself that we're a center-right country, Newt. That's why we elected a liberal democrat for President.

The World's Worst Catholic and the Resurrection

Hate to spring this on you so close to Easter but it didn't happen. Here's how I know:
Back when I was a lad, when dashboards were metal and Christopher was still a saint, my dad had a plastic magnetic Jesus just like the one in the picture. Well, almost just like it. Our Jesus was missing his right hand but it did't seem to bother my dad. I can't remember a time when Lefty J didn't occupy center stage on the dash, right underneath the St. Christopher medal that hung from the rear view mirror. We had all the available safety equipment for an American car of that era.
One Good Friday, when I was about six years old, I snagged the Jesus from the dashboard and buried him at the bottom of the sandbox in my back yard. I knew the story and I fully expected that in three days Jesus would be out of the sand and ready for action. Easter morning I got up, ran outside and....there he wasn't. I dug down in the sand and ... there he was...right where I left him at the bottom of the sandbox. Expecting a miracle, I ended up with a head scratcher. Now you would think that if the Lord could reanimate a dead guy after three days just to make a point he could have sent some frost heaves or a minor earthquake my way and popped my Jesus out of the sand. It would have gone a long way to stymie my emergent agnosticism. If this bums you out, I'm sorry, but think of how that poor little boy felt when his Jesus stayed buried in the sand.

Tips on Sin from the World's Worst Catholic

I know from sin. On my journey from I love Jesus to bad thoughts, bad thoughts, bad thoughts to hey, wait a second to that can't possibly be right I learned a few things about good, evil and how to tell the difference between the two. Now Catholicism is probably not the best religion for an obsessive-compulsive guy like me. I didn't have a lot of down time between the hand washing and the obsessing about bad thoughts. Very uncomfortable. If it wasn't germs, it was sin or some combination of the two. Since I didn't have the equipment or the opportunity to do any real sinning I had to settle for struggling with internal blasphemies which was as close as I could come to mortal sinning. Timing was crucial since I didn't want to carry around a mortal sin the entire week. If I died before Saturday Confession, it was straight to hell. There was some talk about if you were really sorry and a Confessional wasn't available and you happened to die you would be forgiven. But that sounded kind of Protestanty. Lucky bastards.


If I recall correctly, your soul looks like like a hot water bottle. It starts out pure and white, becomes spotted like a Holstein when you unavoidably commit the venial (not too bad) sins during the week, and turns jet black when you commit a mortal (or bad) sin (all it takes is one). If you die with a jet black water bottle you go straight to hell. Sister Mary Joseph explained it like this: Think of the worst pain you ever felt, imagine it was a hundred times worse, imagine it went on forever and ever. That's hell. You don't want that. No Sister, we don't. If you die with a spotted water bottle you go to Purgatory. Sister Mary Joseph explained it like this: Think of the worst pain you ever felt, now multiply it by ten times, imagine you eventually get out when you have suffered enough to pay for your sins. You don't really want that either. No Sister, we don't. If you die with a white water bottle you go straight to heaven. Sister Mary Joseph explained it like this: Imagine being in a beautiful hall with all the angels and Saints, all worshipping God all day long forever and ever. I didn't tell her but I didn't want that, either. Limbo, where the unbaptized babies and ethical pagans go, sounded good to me. Floating throughout all eternity in a state of total contentment without having to bother with all the singing and worshipping. Limbo has since been removed from church doctrine. I don't know if it was never there or just closed for business. I refuse to accept that.

Limbo update:

"the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council. It remains therefore a possible theological hypothesis"

So I was wrong (again) but whatever the Church's position ends up being, I'm pretty sure I no longer qualify for Limbo entry. Thanks Mom and Dad.

British Enraged - Obama Disses Queen

Britons rioted in the streets London today after a perceived snub of Queen Elizabeth II by American president Barack Obama. The Queen presented the president with a set of cuff links studded with rubies taken from the Crown Jewels. In return, the President presented the Queen with an IPod loaded with Notorious B.I.G.'s greatest hits. "For God's sakes, it was a $47 shuffle!" explained a spokesman for the Queen.

The Queen got a small measure of revenge during a half court pick-up basketball game between the Her Majesty, Prince Phillip and the Obamas after the state dinner. Obama tried to dunk on her and she slapped away the ball snarling, "Don't bring your weak shit here. This is my palace, bitch"

The President increased tensions between the United States and BFF Great Britain with his parting comment:

"It was a wonderful visit," Obama shouted to reporters as he and his wife left the palace. "Her majesty is delightful - for a dwarf."

Tough Talk From a Guy With Tits

and a suitcase full of viagra

Johnny - We Wish We Never Knew Ye

John West has got as confusing and frustrating a job as a Lubbock high school biology teacher. It's got to be tough to try to keep the Young Earth Creationists inside the Intelligent Design Big Top while simultaneously trying to bamboozle the secular community with a puff of smoke and a broken pocket mirror. After all, the Discovery Institute isn't going to fund itself and I don't see a lot of patents pending in the near future.

John picks a nit:

Part of the problem is that Foster (pro-science advocate) doesn’t seem to know anything about what the State Board of Education is actually doing.

Neither does the State Board of Education, or John, or me, for that matter (although I've been trying to follow along). He goes on to say that Foster is mistaken in thinking that the state board is trying to change the wording in the textbooks while what they are really trying to do is change the wording in the state science standards. Fucking up the textbooks comes later.

John moves in for the kill:

To reiterate: the Board is not amending textbooks, so it can’t possibly be considering “multiple proposed amendments” to textbooks. I suppose what Dr. Foster meant to say was that there are multiple amendments to add things like the “young earth” to the science standards. Except he’s wrong about that too. There are no proposals to add young earth creationism to the science standards. None.

Great. Except that board member Barbara Cargill, - biology teacher (now I'm praying) and born again cosmologist, sneaks in an amendment at the end of the day to strike language about the universe being 14 billion years old. I'm sure Ms. Cargill was concerned that the students be aware of the 1% controversy in the commonly accepted age of the universe. Move along. No young earth creationism to see here.

John gets to the meat of the matter:

Finally, Jarstfer and Coghlan concisely summarize the scientific challenges to modern Darwinian theory, including the Cambrian explosion, irreducibly
complex biological structures, and the harmfulness of random mutations.

At last, something I can sink my Wiki-teeth into. Better yet, I think I'll check pub Med to get a feel for where the real work is going on. Now granted, consensus isn't everything but given that I am woefully undereducated in the specialities of invertebrate paleontology, statistics and comparative genetics, the only way I can get a feel of who's investigating what is to see who's publishing what. I am making the assumption that these scientists are honestly trying to advance the sum total of human knowledge (or angle for a Nobel prize) and are not part of a global satanically induced conspiracy to advance atheistic Darwinism.

Irreducible Complexity:
Uh oh. To paraphrase Doc, "it appears we're off to a poor start." 18 hits. One on sado-masochism in Bronte's Jane Eyre (WTF?), one paper by Pennock (agin), nine that have to do with medical care and don't relate to the ID concept, one to do with non-biological chemical process, two dealing with the philosophy of science and the need for better descriptions of emerging biological processes discovered through evolutionary theory. That leaves five, none of which supports the idea of Irreducibly Complex Systems as proposed by Behe. None written by Behe or West or Wells or any of the Discovery Institute luminaries. Pretty anemic for 20 years. Strike one.

Cambrian Explosion:
102 hits. That's better. However, I can't find any that claim that the emergent body types were created all at once out of thin air. I've never understood the creationist fascination with the Cambrian period. Is the assumption that God created the major body types at the beginning of the Cambrian and that they evolved from there? At any rate the controversies concerning this particular period are not as advertised by the Discovery Institute and seem somewhat advanced for a high school biology class. Strike two.

Harmful mutations and Beneficial mutations:
497 and 1854 hits respectively. Lots of work being done here. All under the umbrella of current evolutionary theory. Not a lot coming from the Biologic Institute. Strike three. West, you're outta here!

Joe Scarborough - Postnosticator Extraordinaire

Okay. Pretend for a second that I don't know anything about economics. Kind of like Jim Cramer. Forget for a moment that the only time my investments have made money have been totally by accident or by just dumping some dough in a 5 year CD because I was too lazy and/or stupid to figure out how to transfer the IRA to an investment fund. Lucky me.
Here's what I think happened. The Bush Administration decided to maintain their faith in free market principles and let Lehman Bros. fail as a trial balloon to see what would happen. This was the first domino in a cascading series of potential bank failures accompanied by panic selling, abandonment of commercial credit and the inability of AIG to cover the losses. Members of both parties looked at each other, said "Oh shit!", and stuck a big pile of money between the last domino falling and the rest of them. (Something spooked everyone bad because I've never seen Congress act that fast - even after 9/11). Did it work? I think so but I really have no idea. Maybe some of those MIT'ers who developed these mortgage derivatives could put their brains on a better model of economic probabilities. It's done with the weather. Are the markets more chaotic than the weather? Probably, but the idea that nobody really knows what's going on makes me really uneasy.
So Joe (God, I miss Imus) Scarborough, concern troll that he is, with a pathological need to reaffirm his 90's era Newt Gingrich Contract with America conservative cred, jabbers on this morning about the small cabal of Republicans who were "right" to stand in the way of the bailout plan. All because of the pittance in bailout money going to bonuses. Right about what, Joe? The bailout, the stimulus, what? It pisses me off, too, but so what? If it keeps me from digging turnips in the frozen fields of Pennsylvania for sustenance, I'm all for it. What's the alternative - 1929 GOP solutions for a 21st century economy? And don't give me that revisionist crap about the New Deal prolonging the Depression. It may not have ended until the war started but it sure put a lot of people to work. And who funded the war, anyway? Hint, it wasn't small businesses. This post-hoc ethereal pristine theory of economic development ignores the real social forces of vast numbers of unemployed tugging this country back and forth between socialism and fascism. FDR saved the American Way of Life. Greatest President, evah!

Leave Jim Alone!

I feel bad for Jim Cramer. John Stewart's video clip take downs ending in a hearty "Fuck You!" have got to be shaking his confidence. It can't be easy making a living pretending to know the unknowable. I know the feeling. My foray into day trading was less than stellar. I started with $500 in an Ameritrade account. It took me about 2 years to lose it. Every single penny. That taught me a valuable lesson - leave it to the professionals. They've only managed to lose 50% of my 401K. Win!
Jim Cramer is not the kind of guy you want to follow to the exit during a nightclub fire. He's way too excitable. I get a feeling you'll just get trapped in the pileup by the exit with the rest of the investors patrons. Although, in his defense, I did hear him screaming last November that if you were going to need the money within the next few years to sell sell SELL! Of course by then the cliff leading to the abyss was in sight. He seems to feel a compulsion to give Obama advice and the clowns at MSNBC seem equally compulsed to air this advice. I hope to God the President is not listening.

Stewart needs to back off. He could singlehandedly ruin the People Who Get Paid to Pretend to Know What They are Talking About Industry. We can't afford to lose any more jobs.

Nothing Better Than an Irish Funeral

Too bad someone has to die. The Irish do death right. Not a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, at least not in my family, but a lot of drinking and carrying on. My cousin's heart blew up at 48, which is par for the course on that side of the family, usually not so young but for generations now they've just been dropping in their tracks. Too bad, he could really write and was a large living, talented guy and of course, his poor wife was devastated. But, what are you gonna do? Have another drink, I guess.

I got to visit with my Aunt Helen, who is also my Godmother which meant that she was tasked with a nigh on impossible mission. Being the clever godson that I am, I asked her where my three wishes were. She told me I'd get mine after she got hers. I imagine her first wish would be that I shut the fuck up and stop making stupid jokes. That's the impression I got anyway. My Aunt Helen is the last practioner of her generation of the brutally sarcastic art of being an Irish mother. Since my mom died, anyway. My mom was just 5' tall but you wouldn't want to ever cross her. She could cut a grown man down to her size in a hurry with just a couple of words. She was a teacher and I was in her Latin class one year. I always wondered why nobody gave me a lot of shit about that. Turns out it wasn't me they were scared of. Not by a long shot. Don't ever die before your Irish mom, because whatever the circumstance, whether you heart blows up or you get hit by a bus or get bit by a rabid squirrel, it's your fault. You were told to lose some weight or look both ways or stay out of trees.

The mass was at St. Patricks in Gibbsville and the priest nailed the eulogy. I'm used to generic blah-blahs at funeral masses but this was really moving. I guess it helps if you grow up with the deceased. These rituals really do help to bring a sense of belonging. I kept getting distracted by the altar piece which pictured a crudely rendered John the Baptist in a Fred Flintstone suit baptising Jesus while the Holy Spirit/bird flew overhead. The whole thing cantilevered out of the wall and really grabbed your attention. To ease the tension I turned to my brother and asked him why the cave man was drowning Jesus. He didn't laugh. He's pretty devout. Then I accidentally (I swear) sat on my Dad's hat during all the ups and downs. As I handed him the crumpled remains of his fedora he gave me a look that melted 50 years of my life away. Then I was so nervous it was all I could do not to bust out laughing every time I thought about that stupid hat. I barely got through the mass. God, I'm shallow.

Back to Aunt Helen and this Irish mother thing. My mother in law is this way, too. There is no situation, no matter how bad, that they couldn't conceive of some way that it could be worse. So for years my Aunt and my cousin (not the dead one) have been involved in the Charismatic movement within the Catholic church. Kind of like Pentecostalism without the bother of a lot of Bible study. My feeling is that Sister Mary Joseph wouldn't approve. And neither would the nun (and she was the nice one!) who tore up my Mad magazine outside catechism class. A big part of this movement (and I use the term loosely, heh, heh) is looking for signs and visitations of the dead being among us. At least from the snippets of conversation I heard, anyway. And the siren at the firehouse where my cousin voluteered went off, for no reason at all. Right around the time of death. Spooky shit like this is why I don't go visit the ancestral homeland - Scranton.