And the medical profession still does not know for sure if the procedure is of any value. I am referring to the unkindest cut of all, circumcision.
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The worst part about it for me (I was too young to remember mine and, thankfully, nobody decided to keep a souvenir) was seeing it done. Being married into a Jewish family, I've been to my share. In the house ... the whole family around (extended, not nuclear) ... da mohel dere mit da knife ... and the poor little kid on the dining room table ... That bugged me, but everybody was having a great time. Oy!
It took more than half a decade, countless American and Iraqi deaths in a war based on lies, a sinking economy and the drowning of an American city to finally kill Bush-Cheney-Rove's dream of a conservative realignment.
Democrats, controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, have managed to kill their own dream of dominance in 12 months. [my em]
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Way to go, guys. Do yourselves a favor and beg or bribe Howard Dean to come back.
And a note to the President: It's time to put Rahm on the unemployment line.
That the Dems (particularly the White House) will learn from this humiliating loss in Massachusetts, but I doubt it. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. What a fucking joke.
Entrepreneur and computer engineer John Lee, in Sonoma, Calif., thinks the medical marijuana business has reached a tipping point in terms of its social (and legal) acceptance, and his 5-month-old start-up, PlainView Systems, wants to be the Amazon.com of the burgeoning industry.
Potheads, let's face it, have never been known for being the most organized people, and many of them have the business instincts of a T-shirt seller at a Phish concert. For some dispensary owners, the ever-shifting rules, regulations and decrees set forth by the various municipalities in the state are confusing. So too are the changing accounting standards that are required of the industry.
Accounting? "I got the primo, dude. Gimme the bread." has always been all the 'accounting' needed!
Laws. Sigh. I guess we've got to put up with 'laws' to get 'legalization'. Sigh.
This is a good idea whose time has come.
Note to PlainView Systems: Cash in on this quick before the real Amazon catches on. Free shipping over $25 is hard to beat.
Canadian folk singer and songwriter Kate McGarrigle, best known for performing with her sister Anna, has died of cancer. She was 63.
Kate and Anna, known as the McGarrigle Sisters, began their careers performing at Montreal coffeehouses in the 1960s with a group called the Mountain City Four. They got their break in the 1970s, when their songs were covered by numerous artists, including Linda Ronstadt, who used "Heart Like a Wheel" as the title song to one of her albums.
In 1975 they made their first record, "Kate and Anna McGarrigle," which brought them critical acclaim and additional famous covers by artists including Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins and Billy Bragg.
Kate McGarrigle received the Order of Canada in 1994, one of the country's highest honors.
McGarrigle was once married to American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III. Her son, Rufus Wainwright, recently canceled an upcoming tour, citing an illness in the family.
Born in Montreal, the famous singing duo grew up in the Laurentian Mountains village of Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Quebec. There, they learned the piano from the village nuns.
I have put her work up here several times. An important contributor to the folk genre, but most definitely not mainstream even for folkies. Us hard core loved her. Adieu, Kate.
Kate & Anna McGarrigle and friends (Rufus Wainwright - son of Kate -, Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Karen Matheson, Rod Paterson) perform Stephen Foster's Hard times come again no more during the Transatlantic sessions.
BOSTON (The Borowitz Report) - Firing up voters on the eve of the special election to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat, Republican candidate Scott Brown spoke at a campaign rally today, proclaiming, "With your help, our dream of depriving millions of health care is within reach."
"Let's send a message, Massachusetts!" Mr. Brown exhorted the crowd. "Let's tell people across the country that if they want health coverage, they are shit out of luck!"
Brown stands by supporting a tax-subsidized golf course over 9/11 rescue workers.
TP: Mr. Brown, in 2001 when you voted against financial aid for 9/11 rescue workers, you were pushing a bill for a tax subsidized golf course in your district. Can you explain that?
BROWN: I’m not sure what you’re referring to. [...]
TP: Are you going to explain that vote?
BROWN: Number two, we were in a financial difficulty and we couldn’t afford it unfortunately.
TP: But you could afford a tax-subsidized bond for a golf course?
BROWN: We had to obviously take care of the people of Massachusetts who needed to stay employed.
Video if you must.
Note to the people of Massachusetts: If you vote this teabagger moron in to replace Ted Kennedy, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You'll be sor-reee...
This is a mortal insult to Muslims and endangers our troops. Trijicon needs to knock off the cheap shit and work for free for a while until every last one of the scopes already in the field is replaced.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
[...] Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." [...]
"It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws," said Michael "Mikey" Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an advocacy group that seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military.
"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.
"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. [...]"
I'm all for hollerin' "Allah sucks donkey dicks!" to get 'em to stick their heads up, but this is just wrong.
I wonder if the people who write the checks on our money to pay these fundie idiots their millions are going to do anything about it?
Air Force official: Bible code on rifle scopes just like ‘God’ on US money
Bullshit. 'God' is generic. References to passages in a fictional work, read by few and believed by fewer in one particular religion, and then issued to troops who are fighting against proponents of another religion who have their own book of fiction, many of whom think this is a religious war, makes this a religious war on our side as well which it is not but some morons would like it to be. Worse, we're issuing it to our "allies" of the other religion. I wouldn't blame them for turning those weapons on our guys. Thanks Trijicon, you fucking idiots.
The Air Force is kinda famous for being taken over by the religious right, perhaps in self-defense after Fixer's service...(wink)
Interesting tidbit: The 'Air Force official' is Major John Redfield. Go see what 'Redfield', a company started in 1909 by another John Redfield, makes. And no, I don't believe in coincidences, at least not like that one.
Sixty miles from Haiti's devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.
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*Disclaimer: The Mrs. and I are shareholders in Carnival Corporation & PLC, of which Royal Caribbean is not a part and is in direct competition with, and patronize the Carnival family exclusively. We would not support Carnival if they pulled some shit like this.
Trijicon, a manufacturer of rifle scope sights, has been inscribing references to New Testament verses on the scopes that they have been selling to the U.S. Military.
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The problem in this country is that too many of us want to replay The Crusades. All holy war, all the time.
Republican National Committee (RNC) put out a statement from chairman Michael Steele today honoring Dr. King’s “epic and historic fight for civil rights.” Yesterday, Sarah Palin also put up a Facebook message celebrating his “efforts against racial discrimination.” Both the RNC and Palin also tried to tie the conservative movement to King’s work:
ENC: "[...] As we celebrate his legacy, I’m reminded that his message is rooted in ideals and principles that the Republican Party has advocated since its inception. Today, our Party and the nation honors Dr. King’s dream by continuing his fight — the fight for all Americans to have an equal chance at the American Dream.”
Not only is it unbelievable that the lying Repug bastards would say this, it's unbelievable that they think anybody other than their Dead End Quarter are gonna fall for it, but lies and spin are their M.O. It's what they do, it's who they are.
King is best remembered for his work fighting racial discrimination. But King’s vision for equality extended beyond integrated schools and businesses. He was also a fierce champion for the labor movement and living wage laws. Additionally, King believed that universal health care was essential to ensuring true equality in America. In a speech to the Medical Committee for Human Rights in 1966, King famously said:
Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
As the Kaiser Family Foundation has noted, the health reform bills being considered by Congress — which conservatives are opposing — would significantly benefit persons of color, who make up more than 50 percent of the uninsured (even though they comprise just one third of the U.S. population).
In September, Steele claimed that “Dr. King would be disappointed in the political leadership of this country for failing to address the least of us.” But as Richard Payne wrote in an April 2, 2006 op-ed in the Charlotte News and Observer, “Is there any doubt that King would have been on the forefront of arguments for payment of a living wage to the working poor, and that he would have advocated for universal health care?” [...]
None at all.
The Repugs' record is absolutely clear on matters of race, health care, and a living wage. The party of No! to other than The Bigs.
So is Dr. King's. He has been gone for over forty years and his message is as right today or more so than it was then.
Martin Luther King Would Still Fuck Your Shit Up (A Call to Democrats to Sack Up)
Here's one you might not have heard: Speaking to a small group of protesters outside Santa Rita prison in California, on January 14, 1968, where he had visited Joan Baez and other jailed anti-war activists and draft resisters, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, in remarks that ought to resonate not just with President Obama, but with cowardly Democrats and everyone who thinks that moderation works:
"And I say to you in conclusion that we must continue to stand up and we must continue to follow the dictates of our conscience, even if that means breaking unjust laws. Henry David Thoreau said in his essay on civil disobedience that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. And I do not plan to cooperate with evil at any point.
"Somebody said to me not too long ago, 'Dr. King, don't you think you're hurting your leadership by taking a stand against the war in Vietnam? Aren't people who once respected you gonna lose respect for you? And aren't you hurting the budget of your organization?'
"And I had to look at that person and say, 'I'm sorry, sir, but you don't know me. I am not a consensus leader. And I do not determine what is right and wrong by looking at the budget of the Southern Leadership Conference or by taking a Gallup poll of the majority opinion.'
"Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but he's a molder of consensus. And on some positions, cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expedience asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?'
"But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?'
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. And that is where I stand today and that is where I hope you will continue to stand so that we can speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters all over the world and righteousness like a mighty stream. And we will speed up the day when men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nations will not rise up against nations neither they will not start a war anymore and I close by saying as we sing in the old Negro spiritual, 'I Ain't Gonna Study War No More.'"
We forget, amid all the deification, what a tough bastard King was. We admire him because he was uncompromising and principled, and also because he fought like lives depended on it. Because they did.
They still do. Moderation doesn't work against evil forces, i.e. the far right. They need to be stomped flat with all the strength that can be brought against them. It's almost metaphorical to say that it is kill or be killed.
In One Day, New Jersey Sees Startling Spike in Cases of Glaucoma Same day state assembly legalizes medical marijuana.
Obama Has “Secret Vault” in New York Under Interpol's Control According to Glenn Beck, who's sending Chuck Norris to wrest it from Interpol and bring it back to open on his show, undoubtedly revealing: Obama's Kenyan birth certificate, the Communist Manifesto and a detailed diagram of Glenn Beck's house.
Miss Becky's 'little voices' appear to be getting louder and more insistent.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Days before a major international conference on Afghanistan, militants launched audacious and coordinated attacks in central Kabul early on Monday, with explosions and gunfire echoing across the city. The Taliban said its fighters carried out the assault.
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Police and paramilitary officers at the scene said the onslaught began with an initial suicide bombing in the downtown area near the Justice Ministry, the Central Bank, the presidential palace and the Serena Hotel favored by Westerners. Hotel residents took cover in a basement as the fighting swirled above them, according to a BBC reporter at the hotel.
Militants have become increasingly bold in penetrating the capital as their campaign broadens in many parts of Afghanistan, prompting President Obama to promise 30,000 additional American troops to reinforce the international coalition.
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Yeah, I thought so. Wish we had a Wayback Machine and we could refresh our memories about the way they chased the Soviets out. We should set the dials for about '85 or '86 and we'd see the same things we are now.
It's just a fucking dodge, just one more way to get out of your responsibilities as a human being, just one more way to say, I'm right to be a selfish cockhole who doesn't give a damn about anything. And I for one have fucking had it. Don't come around and say we have problems here at home. We fucking KNOW we have problems here at home. Americans have been trying to solve them for decades while those of you who don't want to hear about anybody's misfortune but your own mouth about welfare cheats and the inevitability of any charity effort to get taken for a ride. If you're gonna say the attention and money needs to be directed here at home, then DIRECT IT HERE AT HOME. Quit fighting efforts to give everybody health care and screaming about death panels. Quit demandng lower taxes that won't pay for the cops you need to patrol your streets, for the community policing programs that actually work but are the first things to get chopped when the state cuts off funding. Quit thwarting every attempt to feed the hungry with lists of forms for the hungry to fill out to PROVE that their stomachs are growling.
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Indeed! The people who bitch the most do nothing to solve the problem.
After an exclusive deal with devil, we are finally able to bring black magic into your very own home! The lucky winner of this auction will attain the soul of Televangelist PAT ROBERTSON in a handheld figurine comprised of the finest straw, cloth, and other organic natural materials! BID NOW to own your very own physical representation of the dark, dark soul of Pat Robertson.
Mark Morford in a piece about the dual horrors in Haiti and along our southern border:
You might even go so far as to suggest that a place like Haiti is cursed, not merely by its terrible location in the hurricane track or by tectonics, not merely from environmental squalor or its crushing poverty, but by God himself.
Indeed, you might go so far as to agree with the eternally vile Pat Robertson, never one to let a massive human tragedy go perversely unblamed on the victims, saying Haitians brought on the tragedy themselves, because they made a deal with Satan nearly 200 years ago, exchanging their very souls for freedom from horrific French enslavement.
Isn't that sweet? Oh, Pat, you contemptible Christian reptile. Don't you know it's exactly the other way around? That, according to the Times piece, it was France's rather evil demand for fiscal reparations after the Haitians won their freedom from slavery that caused much of the country's downward spiral into near-permanent ruin? Say hi to Jerry Falwell in hell for us, Pat.
Hell's too good for phony christian bastards who promote racism and hatred and blame the victims of natural disasters for their own troubles as the work of a vengeful God who's made-up anyway.
[...] And the Bush Administration, through FEMA, is doing its best to insure that Pat Robertson is getting that cash just as quickly as humanly possible.
I've given up wondering why I'm pissed-off all the time. I know.