Did you know Joe Biden writes for The New Agenda blog? I bet he would be surprised by it too, especially with that flaming example of headline FAIL attached to “his” post.
Or maybe it's not headline FAIL. It’s hard to believe anyone could be so obtuse as to accidentally pair that photo with that headline.
And make a special “get it up” image to go along with the article:
And, when a commenter said, “I know you don’t mean to slur Mr. Biden, but that headline of yours needs a lot of help,” lamely admit that “okay maybe that headline was a little obscure” [ed – I do not think that word means what you think it means…] but let it stand.
Biden said a lot about the scourge of domestic violence in that piece. Was “get it up” really the key message? Maybe if, on your planet, Biden is chiefly an associate of The Hillary Usurper and an erstwhile foe of Our Lady of Wasilla it does. The New Agenda? Ye Olde PUMA. Same as it ever was.
PS: Why does "The New Agenda" put "feminism" in "quotes" in its "tagline"?
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
Headline FAIL
ObamaCare
Did anyone watch ABC’s Prescription for America town hall thingie with Obama Wednesday? It was predictably short on specifics, but that didn’t stop alarmists on both sides from forming wildly contradictory theories:
A: Obama is a socialist who is determined to drive private insurance companies out of business and post government apparatchiks at hospital bedsides to pull the plug when the meter on Granny runs too high.--OR--
B. Obama is an insurance industry stooge who is determined to squander America’s last chance to enact a sane system that covers all (and, oh yeah, Hillary would’ve had this wrapped up by January 21, easy).As I’ve mentioned before, the only health care reform plan that makes sense is a single payer scheme. Health care wasn’t even an issue for me in the primaries because I thought both Obama’s and Clinton’s proposals sucked big green gators.
That said, if we want our government to at least take a step in the right direction (i.e., field a public health option), maybe we should listen to Robert Reich:
...As FDR said in the reelection campaign of 1936 when a lady insisted that if she were to vote for him he must commit to a long list of objectives, "Ma’am, I want to do those things, but you must make me."Is citizen lobbying useless? I don’t think so at the executive level. I think Obama wants to do something positive, even if his target is too incremental by far for my taste.
We must make Obama do the right things. Email, write, and phone the White House. Do the same with your members of Congress. Round up others to do so. Also: Find friends and family members in red states who agree with you, and get them fired up to do the same. For example, if you happen to have a good friend or family member in Montana, you might ask him or her to write Max Baucus and tell him they want a public option included in any healthcare bill.
As for lobbying the legislative level, well it might be useless, depending on where you live. I suspect my senators would rather have their prostates removed with red-hot pincers than jump off the insurance company gravy train. Still, it might be more effective than a "pray-in."
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
Teeny Wolf
I don't remember if Gulliver mentioned encountering wolf packs in Lilliput. But if he did, it might sound something like this:
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
Unsolicited advice for Meghan McCain
I have mixed feelings about Ms. McCain. On one hand, I’m glad she’s willing to take on the GOP dinosaurs who want to keep the party focused forever on wedge issues. I applauded when she told Laura Ingraham to kiss her “fat ass” and took on snarling harpy Ann Coulter on Rachel Maddow’s show.
On the other hand, would anyone give a shit what she had to say if she weren’t John McCain’s sorta cutesy, blogging daughter? Nope.
But even more irksome (to me, anyway) is Ms. McCain’s over-reliance on her youth -- her tendency to pull this card, “Um, bitch? I wasn’t even, like, born then!” when challenged on any issue.
It’s perfectly legit in some situations: No person or group should be forced to grapple endlessly with the same issues. Sometimes it’s truly time to move on and tell the dinosaurs to march forward with you or lumber off to the tar pits. The GOP’s demonization of gays and immigrants are great examples.
But the “I wasn’t even born then” card is no excuse for ignorance and an inability to place current events in their historical context. As Paul Begala so deftly demonstrated here:
Begala is absolutely right. McCain arouses chivalrous instincts even in the hard-bitten Maher, which isn’t especially to either’s credit. And McCain’s reaction when her youth card is unceremoniously torn to pieces and tossed in her face is even worse: She pulls the “I’m just a silly blonde” ace. (sigh)
Note to Ms. McCain: As you are keenly aware, your chosen party is at a historically low ebb. Dead guys (Reagan), pugilistic has-beens (Cheney and Gingrich) and psychotic racist assholes (Limbaugh) are its current ugly face. If ever there was a party in search of a new face, GOP 2009 is it.
You seem to want the job. And hey, in this celebrity-driven culture, someone has to have it. Why not you? You don’t seem stupid. Your instincts seem mostly sound. And you have a famous name and vast wealth, which, though unfair advantages, are advantages nonetheless. Through the miracle of hydrogen peroxide, you may always be blonde, but you won’t always be young. Even if that were possible, you still need to be up to the job.
Use the copious leisure time your accidental access to giant piles of cash bestows to learn some history -- not to stay forever mired in your party’s past but to enlighten yourself about its possible future. “All my friends get along -- why can’t everyone?” is a question, not a solution.
Find out the answer, and then get back on my TV. You might say something worth hearing then, which will be a first for a GOP spokesperson since, like, way before you were born.
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
Old man gets all up in cloud's grill
From MSNBC:
Ex-president plans to celebrate 85th birthday by leaping out of planeHe's made several jumps with the Golden Knights to mark various occasions, including the 10th anniversary of his presidential library. I wonder how much it costs to have highly trained precision military teams and aircraft standing by?
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - Former President George H.W. Bush is poised to celebrate his 85th birthday by making a parachute jump in Maine, but the weather could dampen his plans.
Bush is scheduled to make a tandem jump Friday with a member of the Army's Golden Knights parachute team near his summer home in Kennebunkport. However, Friday's forecast shows a likelihood of rain in the area.
If the event is rained out, Bush's jump will be moved back to Saturday.
I’m sure the folks who raised hell about the expense associated with the Obamas’ recent NYC date night are just as outraged by the taxpayer tab and military resource expenditure incurred in helping Bush the Elder demonstrate his octogenarian machismo. Not.
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
Knocked up
Well, this is kind of embarrassing. It’s the oldest story in the book -- innocent young ingénue meets grizzled, sexy old beast. No one thinks the old boy has got it in him. (Hello? Charlie Chaplin? Tony Fucking Randall?) But 63 days later, boom -- a litter of puppies is born.
This is the drama that played out at the Cracker Compound recently. It all started about a year and a half ago. Our elderly boxer dog, who has been a wonderful pet for well over a decade, was clearly in decline. This made us all very sad. We (we being my 10-year-old daughter and myself) thought a new puppy would cheer everyone up.
We relentlessly lobbied Mr. Cracker on the issue for a few months, and eventually he caved and we got a female boxer pup to be our elderly dog’s companion and our auxiliary pet. It’ll be a new lease on life for the old boy, we figured -- a playmate to keep him young. And he’ll be a great role model for the pup, we thought. Ha!
I fully intended to get the new addition fixed, but I’ve heard it’s a good idea to let a female dog go through one cycle before doing so. (Vets seem to be divided on this issue, at least in this neck o’ the woods.) And in the 14 months or so before the younger dog reached maturity, the old dog showed no interest of that nature in her.
After all, the poor old thing is half blind and wholly deaf; he can barely stagger back and forth from his food bowl to his dog bed. He is intact (due to an over-developed sense of male solidarity on the part of Mr. C), but he (the old dog, not Mr. C) had grown so decrepit we thought sexy time was the last thing on his mind.
Boy, were we stooopit! We never saw a thing, but immediately after concluding her cycle, the young dog began to develop udders, and we knew we were in for it.
I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout whelping no puppies!
Fast forward to Sunday night. The soon-to-be-mama went into labor at 10 o’clock. I’d taken her to the vet a couple of weeks prior, so I had a general timeframe and lots of good advice. But damn. Naturally it occurred right after we’d concluded a family shindig which I’d stayed up to all hours preparing for the previous night…
Our old dog and Mr. Cracker promptly took a snooze, leaving it to me and the kiddo to act as midwives. Since I’ve given birth myself, perhaps you’d think nothing would surprise, shock or gross me out about the process. If so, you would be wrong. It was like goddamned Alien! Eraserhead, even! But we did a good job of it, if I say so myself. Even though I did throw up. Twice.
All’s well that ends well
So now we have a total of 11 boxers -- the parents plus 5 male and 4 female pups. Every single pup looks like the old man and not a thing like the mom.
I may set up a boxer cam once they get a little older. If so, I’ll let y’all know how to access it for those who are interested in such things.
Yeah, I know. There are so many unwanted dogs in the world. I do feel bad about bringing more into it, even though I’m certain I can find good homes for all. I’ve learned my lesson. Henceforth, all dogs in our house will be fixed, anthropomorphic identification on the part of certain other family members notwithstanding. But the puppies are awfully cute.
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
St. Vitus' Dance
Remember ghoulish freakazoid Gingi “Vitus” Edmonds? She’s a so-called Christian and pro-lifer who was last called out here for using the occasion of a tragic plane crash that killed several small children and their parents to slam their grieving grandparents.
Since Edmonds so crassly used that incident as a political football, doing a sack dance on the smoking wreckage of a plane in which an infant, two 3-year-olds, a 4-year-old, a 5-year-old, a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old child had died, I figured she’d be in full cheerleader mode at the news of the murder of Dr. George Tiller. She did not disappoint:
Murder is murder, and it is something that we pro-lifers inherently deplore. But I can't help but note - and my history is rusty so pardon me here - I'm trying to remember, did anyone mourn Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby gunned him down? Or better yet, did anyone mourn the deaths of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, or any other mass murderer for that matter?Well, there was this one dude. What’s his name? He said:
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you.Oh yeah, that would be Jesus, whom Edmonds claims to serve. I’m not a Christian, but apparently I’ve forgotten more scripture than Edmonds ever knew. Here are a few more tidbits from her hateful screed to illustrate how completely she embodies the exact opposite of the humility, forgiveness and love her personal lord and savior instructed her to project:
I mean, think about it. Someone just shot a Nazi guard manning the gas chamber at Aushwitz. I should feel bad about this? George Tiller the Baby Killer's acts are every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the "legal" murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.Read the whole thing, if you’ve got the stomach for it. While Edmonds goes through the usual throat-clearing about “extending love and grace” and “deploring murder,” her point is to excuse the killing and to exhort fellow pro-life loonies to not allow its occurrence to give them pause about the violence they regularly advocate and the demonization in which they routinely engage. And she’s not just a fringe lunatic – a “mainstream” leader of the pro-life movement, Randall Terry, took a similar position.
Is the pro-life position one of violence? Of course not. It is because we are so peaceful that lone acts of extremism immediately garner national attention. In the course of a 36 year genocide, only five abortionists have been killed.
While it is imperative that we extend love and grace to the family of Tiller, we still cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that George Tiller was a mass murderer of the worst kind who made a living off of killing babies and harming women. Unless you are radically against capital punishment, those who view abortion as murder agree that the penalty for the crime of mass child slaughter is death. And although the method and means of his execution is deplorable, the ultimate outcome is not.
There is no doubt that Tiller deserved to be executed for his crimes. I just would have preferred a state sanctioned lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, electric chair, good old fashioned stoning, what have you.
Americans are deeply ambivalent about abortion. According to a recent poll, a slim majority (51%) identify themselves as “pro-life,” but 53% support its continued legality, at least under some circumstances.
Even with an ostentatiously pro-life president in George W. Bush and solid Congressional control with pro-lifers Tom Delay and Bill Frist leading the charge, the political arm of the pro-life movement has been unable to do much to curtail abortion rights. I think people like Gingi Edmonds and Randall Terry are as responsible for that as NARAL.
Edmonds and Terry are Westboro Baptist Church with a more stylish haircut and less polyester content in the suit. Every time they open their yaps, the pro-life cause and Team Jesus take it in the shorts. So if you support abortion rights, if you dream of a truly secular society, wish them well in their continued endeavors.
[Cross-posted at Rumproast]
