Could Pope Benedict Really be Forced to Step Down?

According to this article by the British newspaper the Daily Mail, a priest sexual abuse hotline in Germany was flooded with 4000 calls on the very first day of operation.  Ooops.  It's become increasingly clear that the Catholic Hierarchy aided and abetted child molesters otherwise referred to as 'Priests." 

Germans aren't happy about this.  We shouldn't be either.  Humans are sexual beings.  Bad things happen when we try to oppress sexuality, rather than allowing healthy and normal (and safe) expression.

Not an Alien, and Way Stranger Than Fiction

Cymothoa exigua is a salt water parasite that grasps the tongue of its host fish to begin feeding. The tongue dies eventually, and the parasite replaces the tongue staying put right there in the fish's mouth. A claustrophobic Cymothoan would have a pretty miserable existence it appears.



(The above pictures came from here.)

So, this unusual creature may not be an actual alien, but it was an inspiration for the creatures in the movie "Alien". Remember the mouth-within-a-mouth look of the aliens in that movie? (See picture below.)

A Couple Halloween Costume Do's and Don'ts

I thought of some things I forgot to mention last year.


Be inventive! (Like this kid's Mom was.) Sushi costume with wasabi and ginger headband!!!! Brilliant....

Reconsider if your costume just simply makes you look horrible. I was astonished once to see a (single!) friend show up at a party wearing what looked like a tarp with some leaves and twigs glued to it. She said she was a pile of raked leaves. When we introduced her to someone hot, I suspect she wished she could be siphoned up by one of those giant leaf collection trucks. Awkward...

If you are making a costume for a child, make sure it is something that almost everyone recognizes so they don't have to explain it to everyone.

Again, if you are making something for a child, and if there is a head portion of the costume, try and make it detachable especially if they are going to wear it to a party, or to school.


When I was five, my mom made me a costume that broke both those two rules. I was a 'Nauga'! A Nauga was the fictitious creature from which Naugahyde brand vinyl was taken--------according to their ad campaign. Nobody knew what a Nauga was back then either, and it was hard for a five year old to explain.

The worst thing was I wore it to kindergarten.


In addition to the fact that there was no way to take off the 'head', she had not made an actual opening for the mouth. She simply appliqued that toothy grimace in felt right onto the face. When it was time for lunch and the Halloween party, I discovered that I could not eat with my costume on! Being very motivated by the treats, I discovered that if I withdrew one arm from its sleeve inside my costume, and brought my hand up to an eye-hole, I could slip jelly beans and the like through the small opening and eat them that way.
Another problem was that I needed help to take it off to go to the bathroom....

Which reminds me, if your young child insists on being a mummy, make sure they go to the bathroom before you wrap them up!


And ladies, remember, it's Halloween, not slutfest! If you want to wear one of these tacky outfits, just keep it in your bedroom and role-play to your heart's content.





If you do buy one anyway, be careful about what is included------in the Warrior Princess one, the shoes are the best part, and yet are not part of the get-up. And the sex kitten costume does not include that bod.

Beck Loses Yet More Advertizers----And I Helped

A few week back, I used one of my main skills-----writing mean spirited screeds-----to help the campaign against Glenn Beck's show. An organization (ColorOfChange.org) provided me with addresses, and I sent off my missives detailing how Beck was a loathsome, fear-mongering huckster whom they could not possibly wish to be associated with their products. After receiving a huge volume of such letters and e-mails, Beck lost about half his advertisers.

Of course that left half.

Then, just last week I got phone numbers for five of the communication departments of companies still advertising on Beck's show. I placed five calls and left recorded messages explaining why their companies could not possibly want to be associated with a such a phony "news" show, and how Beck maliciously made outrageous claims about the President, and invented "facts" to suit his fancy. I pointed out that Beck's credibility depended on advertisers being willing to back him; too many viewers falsely assume that he must be telling the truth, or they would not have put him on TV.

Only in one case did I get through to an actual person. Interestingly, the fellow who took my message lives in New Delhi, India. It seems Target outsources their customer service. He seemed very interested though in American efforts to dislodge such corruption from the media.

Apparently the phone blitz has paid off! Glenn has lost 19 more advertisers. I think that is almost all of them.

If he is kicked off the air, no doubt he will grouse about free speech; but he can say whatever he wants. He cannot, however, insist that people pay him to speak when they don't like what he says.

Of course, I do have qualms about this line of attack and reasoning. After all, Bill Maher was kicked off the air because advertisers were afraid to be associated with his impolitic remarks. But the people who complained about his show were idiots!

Way To Go, Bachmann!

Earlier this year, Michele Bachmann (Republican rep. from Minnesota) announced her intention to refuse to answer census questions, fueling paranoia about the census amongst the wingnut conservative faction. Bachmann's mischief has now apparently resulted in the death of a census worker. A 51 year old census worker's body was found hanging from a tree in Kentucky, and investigators have ruled it a homicide.

Although the investigation is ongoing, because the victim of the hanging had the the letters FED scrawled on his chest, the FBI is concerned that the killing was politically motivated, and census workers in the county where this took place have temporarily suspended door to door interviews.

There have been too many threats of violence from this faction of the Republican party, and if the Republican leadership wants to demonstrate any patriotism whatsoever, they need to repudiate this senseless killing and anti-government bile.

Fear of the census is only one of Bachmann's paranoid delusions.

What Stinks?

So, here it is in all it's gory glory! (Click the link to see the earlier post if you don't already know about this plant.)


The flash brought out it's true colors.



Perhaps this gives a sense how big it is. And how furry!


I'm just glad I noticed it had opened before I went to bed for the night. I put it outside right after taking these shots. It did not seem to smell foul yet, but I did not want to take any chances.

Lobster for Dinner

For kerfuffler. And crustaceans everywhere.

Lobster Debacles

I just saw the movie Julie and Julia this weekend, and watching Julie agonize over steaming the live lobster reminded me of a disastrous experience I once had with a lobster. I had decided to try a recipe where you broil it, but to do this you must kill it first.

I read instructions directing me to insert a knife into the head between the eyes to kill it quickly. I steeled myself and stabbed accordingly. The lobster went limp, so I flipped it over and started to slice the tail lengthwise. Just as I inserted the knife into the tail, the tail curled up vigorously and rhythmically. This was no mere twitching. That tail fought hard to escape. And it startled the heck out of me because I thought I had already succeeded in killing it, and there it was writhing and flapping about like the creature in the horror movie 'The Tingler'.



I felt horrible that I had not managed to dispatch the poor thing with a minimum of suffering. But it turns out I am not alone in having trouble killing lobsters swiftly. A quick scan of u-tube entries shows that in most cases, the lobster keeps moving significantly after the "fatal" blow. I suppose the 'nerve center' (a few paired ganglia) of a lobster is quite miniscule, so it is easy to miss. Also, since their nervous systems are so simple, they seem to keep functioning even after taking major damage. They are arthropods after all; just think how insects can keep moving after dismemberment.

There is disagreement in the scientific community over whether or not lobsters experience pain. None of their nerve cells appear to be 'pain receptors', but at the very least, the nerves in the tail I tangled with were saying, "Get me out of here!"

Breaking: NYT lies about health care cost

and breaks my heart.

First, the lie. The NYT says, here, that health care reform will cost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. This is wrong. It will actually cost about 24 billion annually, as detailed here. As explained in this Slate article, a very modest progressive Medicare tax (with a top rate of 2.4%, compared to the current 1.8%) could raise $50 Billion a year annually, easily paying for actual health care reform and then some. But oh noes! Better to have 20K dead americans a year than tax the very rich a very small amount.

But, health reform looks like if not totally dead, at least pining for the fjords. Harry Reid has caved. He's held up the vote on the health care bill until after the August recess at the request of the Republicans, and he has the stupidity? gall? to use the word "bipartisan." Didn't the last 8 years teach him anything? I think this guy isn't a Democrat at all. What is he doing as the Senate majority leader?

Rationing is what US health insurance companies do best!

This morning on a local news show I heard yet another health insurance apologist sledge-hammering home the single talking point that the anti-public option vampires (and not the cute kind either) have chosen: the government will be blocking our access whenever we need medical care.

Could such scary unknown governmental 'rationing' possibly be any worse than what happens today? On July 22 a New Jersey hospital, Bayonne, filed suit in federal court detailing the antics of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (BCBSNJ).

What have BCBSNJ been doing? A few tidbits:

--Selling customers higher priced "out-of-network" coverage, and then disallowing out of network claims.

--Making absurd determinations that procedures are not medically necessary and refusing to cover them. In one case (found on page 40 of the complaint) a patient with out-of-network coverage was initially denied emergency coverage at the nearest out-of-network hospital. After they admitted that the patient had purchased such care, they decided that because the patient had once been a nurse, she should have been able to administer IV antibiotics to herself. Care Denied!

--Sending emergency room patients letters (by courier delivered directly to the patient's bedside) telling them that BCBSNJ won't pay for their emergency room coverage, and they must transfer immediately to a BCBSNJ facility on the grounds (determined by mysterious, faceless bureaurocrats) that the care isn't medically necessary, no matter what the attending physician says. The entire complaint can be found here.

Rationing? Methinks so.

Not surprisingly BCBSNJ makes quite a bit of money. This is such a great business plan! Make people pay through the nose for health coverage and then don't give them any. The market value of BCBSNJ is between 7.5 and 8 Billion dollars; they paid their CEO just a hair under 5 Million dollars last year, and they currently have 1.6 Billion dollars in reserves.

BCBSNJ has paid 5 Million dollars to Wall Street to take the company private. Shocking. Not. As a non-profit, they have to at least attempt to pretend they are working for the public good.

Moreover, 21 hospitals have been driven out of business in New Jersey in the last few years, and it appears that BCBSNJ is attempting to kill Bayonne as well. This would be a serious problem for the people of Bayonne, as the next-nearest facility is between 30 minutes (when traffic is light) to over an hour away.

BCBN's 2007 annual financial report can be found here. If you're curious, the company has 20% overhead--contrast with the 3% overhead for Medicare/Medicaid.

Now She's Gone and Done It!

For many months, djinn and I have been avoiding all mention of Sarah Palin even though it would have been fun to laugh at her antics. She was negotiating a book contract, and basically, the more interest in Sarah was shown on the web, the higher her fee would be. We just did not want to add anything to her bottom line.

But now, the contract negotiations are over, so we might as well enjoy ourselves while keeping track of her weaselly political maneuvering.

Naturally enough, the very first thing I ran across was so appalling that I wonder what I have been missing lo these many months.

Check out her new SarahPAC Independence Day message in this video.(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan) (You'll just need to man up to get past the music, or turn your volume ALL the way off!) Make sure to watch at least until t=1:45

OMG, she has already taken the video down! (Today was it's debut!) I guess you won't have to suffer through the music after all. Can we consider this reaction to her flop a flip-flop?



Luckily I have some screen shots I took, because I figured something like this would happen. She starts off with fireworks and features the word 'Independence'. Is this meant as a coded message for the Independence Party of Alaska? Or did they just walk right into that unthinkingly?

She shows lots of pictures of missiles (threats? or foreplay?) and then has a couple of shots of herself in flight suit type gear a la Bush.





(I feel so safe now at the very thought her her protecting us from those bad, bad missiles ......NOT.)



Then after palling around with men in uniform near fighter jets, she proceeds with a montage of images from that ill advised PR shoot of Air Force 1 buzzing the Manhattan skyline interspersed with pictures of Obama smiling and laughing-----as if he were laughing in real time at the scare he was giving the citizens of NYC.

Obama did not even know about that photo shoot.


But then to top it all off, right after she shows yet another shot of Air Force One over the city, she cuts to this!


Can You F@cking Believe It?!? She compared Obama to King Kong! How could they not think that that was horribly racist? Who is running her PR? What are they thinking?!? Was that just some red meat that they were throwing to their base? Have they already gotten so much flack over that that they decided to pull the message?

This is just one more example of the Republicans at the highest levels of the Party making racist allusions, comments and images. Remember that GOP staffer that just a few of weeks ago sent this image to the "wrong people"? She did not apologize for sending the image, just for sending it to the "wrong people".


Sarah may have pulled the add within a day, but that can never undo what she did. What do you bet that Republicans will deny that there is anything racist about juxtaposing images of the president with King Kong. Remember how they all denied any racist content in this cartoon?

Update: Apparently this video was not official. One of Palin's misguided fans (Laura VW) uploaded it and put the SaraPac logo on it. I wonder if Laura VW has any connection whatsoever to the PAC.

Truly, these people are their own worst enemies.

If Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital in a coma, then he didn't die of a heart attack.

Though his heart certainly stopped.

Suicide.

I must confess; first, Michael Jackson and I are the same age, so the news that he has died hit me hard. The man who had no childhood, and then got even by never growing up.

When I was 13, all my friends were oogly googly about him (poor messed-up freak), and Donny Osmond (who seemed to turn out fine) and David Cassidy, and others that I didn't bother to even learn the names of -- (someone named Shawn?). I thought that they were out of their minds. Back in 1973, I was pretty hardcore. I watched Jackson's career from the sidelines with a certain amount of amazement. What???? Confusion; and when he ruined his beautiful pug nose I was horrified. (Having a pug myself, you may understand my dismay.)

But even I would never wish the life Michael had on anyone. The weirdly religious uber-strict upbringing, complete with beatings via a cartoon-worthy tyrannical father, the early fame with money falling from the clouds, the Beatles catalog, what was it, 7 pedophilia lawsuits to the tune of 25 million, monkeys, ferris wheels, Elvis's daughter, and so on.... oh, the mixed drinks served in pepsi cans. Lawsuits to numerous to mention. What a long, strange trip it was. Did I mention we were almost exactly the same age?

RIP

BTW, I hear that Michael Jackson left his 1/2 share in the Beatles Catalog to Paul McCartney as forgiveness for taking Sir Paul's advice about investing in song publishing rights, and then outbidding him on the Beatles catalog in 1984. I don't think they've talked since. Here. Here, Here, etc.

Sam Imam?

For anyone feeling overwhelmed by the tension in Iran, a light hearted summary a la Dr. Seuss can be enjoyed here.

It's Eurovision time again!

Although there's nothing as stunning as the rather distubingly shiny Verka Serduchka/Ukranian entry from last year, I previewed a number of exceedingly macaroni and extra cheezy entries, so you my dear reader(s) don't have to. What did I find? Well, besides the rather disturbingly wholesome and, uh, eurovisiony Norwegian singer/violinist winner (sorry ancestors)which you needn't watch, I did find the Czech entry--dancing penguins and a rap-like kinda thingie!!! Let's hear it for fake fur! (Always a fan.)

Happy (or something) Führerstodestag -- Hitler's 69th death day!

Yep. 69 years ago today, Hitler shot himself. Yay! Cake for all.

To celebrate, the only funny bit about Hitler I have ever seen. Mr. "Hilter" living in a B&B in Somerset, England. "Telephone for you, Mr. Hilter; It's that nice Mr. Goering. He says he's found a place you can rent bombers by the hour."



ps. Did you know that Hitler had massive problems with flatulence?

Spain opens Guantanamo war crimes investigation

Read about it here.

Judge Baltasar Garzon would probe the "perpetrators, the instigators, the necessary collaborators and accomplices" to crimes of torture at the prison at the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba, it said.
The judge based his decision on statements by Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, known as the "Spanish Taleban" and three other former Guantanamo detainees - a Moroccan, a Palestinian and a Libyan - who alleged they had suffered torture at the camp.
"It seems that the documents declassified by the U.S. administration mentioned by the media have revealed what was previously a suspicion - the existence of an authorized and systematic program of torture" at Guantanamo and other prisons including that in Bagram in Afghanistan, Garzon said.

Ah ha! No wonder the Bush administration did their level best to hide those pesky torture memos.

So how dangerous is the Swine Flu anyway?

The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed between 20 and 100 million people worldwide, including an aunt of mine in the wilds of Idaho. That's what the fuss is about. I don't think we have much worry that the new flu will have anywhere near this severity. Why? Trench Warfare.

Diseases, to spread in a population, must keep an infected host active enough to infect someone else before the host dies. The 1918 influenza killed people within a day or two. How did it develop such virulence?

In 1914-1918, there were millions of men shoulder-shoulder in trenches across Europe. (There were 60 million soldiers in WWI.) In such conditions, a virus could develop with extreme morbidity because it could easily spread to the next poor sod over even if it killed the original poor sod with great speed. And no one was rushing out of the trenches--into the arms of the enemy. Then the war ended in 1918and everyone went home to such remote corners of the globe as southwest Idaho, with their tiny buddies. And people dropped like flu victims.

Timing issues; the first cases of the most virulent form of the Spanish flu were detected in August 1918 in three separate places: Brest, France, Freetown, Sierra Leone, and in Boston, MA. In September, the Armistice was signed, the troops came home, and the flu started hitting communities hard. Since the flu was so virulent, it would only last in a community for about a month before moving on, as without the enforced proximity of a trench, people who became ill quickly became too sick to move around and infect others.

So, the way I see it, the artificial conditions caused by the "War to end all wars" (such optimism) allowed for the flu virus to become much more virulent than a similar virus could be today.

However, are there such immobile populations today that could breed such a virus? Prisons, perhaps? Or maybe we're safer.


The last four minutes of "Blackadder Goes Forth."

So Much For The Bad Apple Theory Of Torture In The Military

You may want to skip over about the first part of this report, but you should perk up your ears at around t=1:40. Rachel Maddow does a brilliant job laying out geometrically the involvement of the administration in the development of the torture programs. Then examining the timeline with Ron Suskind, an alternative motivation for the program emerges.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jason Linkins reported on the interview Rachel Maddow conducted with Ron Suskind.

Suskind noted that the "impetus was not to foil potential al Qaeda attacks. The impetus here was largely political and diplomatic. The White House had a political/diplomatic problem. It wanted it solved in the run up to the war."

People were tortured, FOR THE SAKE OF "SPIN."

So much for ticking bombs and bad apples!

A day late, a song short

I am the spring, the holy ground,
the endless seed of mystery,
the thorn, the veil, the face of grace,
the brazen image, the thief of sleep,
the ambassador of dreams, the prince of peace.
I am the sword, the wound, the stain.
Scorned transfigured child of Cain.

A New Threat-----Coming To A Neighborhood Near You.

EMBED-Strange Cat Door Surprise - Watch more free videos

I can't help but wonder what the home owner would be allowed to do----although pretty clearly this one was complicit.