Heh, one more

F	Flamboyant
I	Important
X	X-Rated
E	Eccentric
R	Rounded

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator
From Go-Quiz.com

I think I'm going to declare a moratorium with regard to these stupid things. At least with regard to posting 'em. Oy! Thanks, once more, to Cmdr. Sue.

Don't ask

I just got a wild hair.

Update: 21:55:

Tami's a kindred spirit.

Short, sweet, wonderful Truth

Spoken by Jayinbmore at RUFNKM:

. . . Sin is the essential mechanism to create artificial demand for the Church. Or did I misread that?

[. . .]

The Right Wing knows it too.

Your tax dollars . . . never mind

DemVet isn't surprised:

[. . .]

Imagine that. CheneyBurton overbilling 42% of their contract amount. Well, being connected has always paid off. Literally. I guess that all that you know, math and accounting and stuff could be some kind of objectively pro-terrarist™ "fuzzy" liberal-think made up to embarras the gawd-fearin' 1600 Crew.

[. . .]

Hey, it ain't their money, is it now?

Handcuffs?

Morrigan asks a question about the litttle 5 year old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by police. Go answer it.

Responsibility and Culpability

Via Today in Iraq from WaPo:

An Army inspector general's report has cleared senior Army officers of wrongdoing in the abuse of military prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere, government officials familiar with the findings said yesterday.

The only Army general officer recommended for punishment for the failures that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan is Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, who was in charge of U.S. prison facilities in Iraq as commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade in late 2003 and early 2004. Several sources said Karpinski is expected to receive an administrative reprimand for dereliction of duty. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

Not excusing them, but only the grunts get jail time? What about the 'private contractors'? What about the officers? Yup, a few 'bad apples'. None of this would have happened unless the officers let it happen.

Filibuster

Pudentilla sums it up nicely:

[. . .]

As Senator Leahy has noted, Republicans wouldn’t be able to use filibusters to block democratic economic legislation, health care reform, bills to protect unions from corporate use of scabs as they did in 1993 and 1994.

[. . .]

Even that brownnose McCain knows the Democrats will be in power again one day (I hope). If the Repubs succeed with the 'nuclear option', I hope the Dems fuck their asses until they choke when we have the majority again. What goes around, comes around, assholes.

Surprises

From our little troll:

(New York-WABC, April 22, 2005) — We told you yesterday the mayor is launching a $3 million program to reduce unintended pregnancies by pushing emergency contraception.

[. . .]

The two pills of Plan B run $30 at a drugstore. The mayor has just announced that they will be free to any girl or woman of reproductive age at city clinics and hospitals.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "Ninety-thousand abortions is an outrage. We should recognize this as a problem."

Kelli Conlin, NARAL Pro-Choice NY: "People use it - they say 'whew' - saved the day for me and now I'm going to be more responsible."

[. . .]

No matter what side you're on the numbers are pretty amazing. Every single year in the city there are 215,000 pregnancies and 60 percent of them are unintentional and result in 90,000 abortions.

[. . .]

I am very pro-choice, but I'm not a big fan of abortion, especially as a treatment for chronic pregnancy. What bothers me more than seeing 90,000 abortions is 90,000 unwanted children born with two strikes against them. Take a ride up to Attica, Sing Sing, or Rikers Island and see the wreckage of our society.

Now, we have our own wingnut assholes here in New York. To wit:

[. . .]

Michael Long, NY State Conservative Party Chairman: "I don't think that's what tax dollars should be used for.

Michael Long with the Conservative Party says there are simply other ways to deal with the problem.

Michael Long: "If you make a mistake you have to be accountable and you have to understand the fact that you have an obligation - that's a human being."

[. . .]

You know, it's one thing being held accountable for your mistakes. You speed, get a ticket, you steal, get arrested, fuck up at work, you get fired, but do you really think it's a good thing to hold a young girl accountable for having sex (think about that) by forcing her to birth a child she doesn't want? Should the life of a newborn be used as an ankle bracelet to hold its mother accountable? The mother and child are both losers if the wingnuts get their way. A baby should be born into the loving arms of parents who want it, not as a ball and chain for a teenage girl.

My hat's off to the little dwarf on this one. It seems like a good compromise between Right and Left without penalizing an infant for being born to a disinterested mother. The New York Conservative Party and its Chairman should shut the fuck up, buncha assholes. 90,000 kids won't be aborted and only a few cells will be flushed from the mother's body only hours after fertilization, even before the fertilized zygote begins to grow. I don't mind paying for this, unlike some of the other fool shit they shake me down for, and I certainly wouldn't mind paying for free contraception for anyone who wants it.

Like I said, every so often Mayor Bloomberg does something smart and he should be commended. This is one of those times. Now, if only he could get the trains to run regularly . . .

Killin' Time

I've been taking these silly quizzes for an hour. Addicting, it is. Some of 'em are so far off it's comical, others nail you to the wall. Some are just dumb. Some are so flattering you know people will think you jimmied it yourself. F'rinstance:

It's Not Sex. It's ... : Gord and Fixer are back, ladies! Drop the drape and trot out fer a lineup. These guys are hornier'n a five peckered goat! Supermen, they are! Rich an' good-lookin' too!

Get your own Sex Name

Of course, I would never do anything like that, now would I? Now that might produce some real creative fun. A colossal waste of time. And my point is?

A whole lot more bullshit

You Are 55% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Pretty close.

Update: 18:15:

I'm doing these with the Mrs. next to me. I took this one and her first words were, 'they know you'.

You May Be a Bit Schizotypal ...

A bit odd and socially isolated. You couldn't care less of what others think. And some of your beliefs are a little weird. Like that time you thought you were Jesus.

What Personality Disorder Are You?

Even More Bullshit

Slow news days are fun. Enjoy 'em while ya can.

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

That site's got a lot of silly tests.

Update: I went and took The Amazing Meganame Generator. I won't bore you with the details, but I wanted to share this one:

Your punk rock band name is The Happy Dildo

Holy crap.

More bullshit

Your Linguistic Profile:

40% General American English

40% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Thanks to Windy City Lefty.

Backdoor coup

Personally, I thought is was when that woman I was dating finally let me . . . never mind. Glen sees it happening and he has a good point.

Unless you have been in a persistent vegetative state for the past few weeks, you've been aware of the Republicans' assault on one of the foundations of any democracy that does not require quotes: an independent judiciary. DeLay and Cornyn have come just short of endorsing ending judges' terms with extreme prejudice. Tammany Tom the Bugman has called for reorganizing the government, no doubt in his own image: call it the City Upon the Slag Heap (small, unmarked bills, please). Then there's the most frightening (to me) DeLay quote: "The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them [the courts]." Obviously, we've go to do something about that.

Scared enough? Probably not. This morning, Avedon Carol gave me a jolt better than a caffeine IV.

[. . .]

Health care

I'm not a big fan of socialized medicine. I've seen it in action. My Shaivo-esqe nephew is the result of medical malpractice and there was little recourse through the system. He's 14 now and has to be carried, fed, and is still in diapers. As I say this, I read this from The Talent Show, complete with a fancy graph so simpletons like me can understand it.

[. . .]

That's right, we spend more than twice as much as most of our friends, yet we cover a much lower percentage of our people and have a higher rates of illness and death for preventable diseases . . .

Our system is shot, ladies and gents. We need something different before it, and all of us, go bankrupt trying to fix ourselves and support the pharmaceutical industry.

Thanks to Ezra for the link.

Update: 17:25:

Jeff at The American Street has more.

Passover

To all my Jewish friends and my beautiful wife. Happy Passover. Travis has some excellent accessories for the holiday. Seder at our house tomorrow night by the way.

Colin grows a set

I know I'm piling on along with Gord, but I love Jane's writing:

[. . .]

Do you suppose Colin is feeling a smidge guilty about his own disingenuous performance before the UN that mislead the world about the situation in Iraq, and wants to make it up to them by keeping them from being saddled with an arrogant horse's ass? Or is he still just touchy because he was replaced with congenital liar Condaleezza Rice after he scrapped with Big Dick Cheney, and wants to deliver a little payback to the VP by sacking his boy Bolton?

[. . .]

She has a link to a Laura Rozen post you should follow too.

We only have one

Via Rox, Earth Day Republican style.

Pic courtesy of Relentlessly Optimistic.

Update: 15:15:

Riggsveda:

So it's another Earth Day, and the House celebrates by passing a big ol' mess o' corporate welfare disguised as an "Energy Bill". I mean, who else in this country is more deserving of massive tax breaks and general obsequiousness than the largest, richest, most powerful cartel of industrial greedsters in the world? . . .

Powell advising senators on Bolton

From MSNBC News:

Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is emerging as a behind-the-scenes player in the battle over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, privately telling at least two key Republican lawmaker that Bolton is a smart but very problematic government official, according to Republican sources.

Those who know Powell best said two recent events provide insight into his thinking. Powell did not sign a letter from seven other former U.S. secretaries of state or defense supporting Bolton, and his former chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, recently told the New York Times that Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador."

"On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly," a Democratic congressional aide said. "It would be great to have Powell on the record speaking for himself, but he's unlikely to do it."

Bolton is the guy who insisted on the Iraq/nuclear connection language for Powell's ill-fated speech to the U.N. Powell's been a "good soldier" for this administration but he knows he got screwed. I wish he'd say something directly as he's got a lot to make up for in my opinion, but this'll have to do for now. Maybe he's still got a pair after all.

Democrats must change everything

James Carville and Paul Begala are two of my favorite pundits, as those things go. They have written this Op-Ed in USA Today:

"Houston, we have a problem." With those words, spoken with a calm that masked the gravity of the situation, astronaut Jim Lovell informed NASA that Apollo 13 was running out of oxygen.
The skinny guys with skinny ties back in Houston, and the crew-cut crew in space, acted. They didn't argue. They didn't second-guess. They didn't blame each other. They acted. And most important, they didn't deny that they had a problem.

But today, too many leading Democratic strategists deny that the party we love has a problem. When you lose to an unpopular president with a soft economy and a disastrous occupation in Iraq — a man who lost all three debates and who, when he's trying to complete a sentence, is like a drunk man trying to cross an icy street — you most definitely have a problem.

Let's be clear what the problem is — and is not.

Read it in its entirety Below The Fold.

He got me again!

Fixer hooked me like a trout. Again. My lip hurts.

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

Irish is the last nationality I would have guessed for myself seeing as how I don't drink. I'd be under constant suspicion as a traitor. Maybe English or Polish. How much stock can you put in a quiz that misspells "Ferrari" anyway?