God's Plan: Rape your Daughters, Make Them Have Your Kids

We live in a time when absolute lunacy is shockingly popular.

Confederate Yankee Gets Ridiculously Pawned By One of His Fans

The doofus of the blog world has a post up on the non-extension of unemployment benefits, highlighted by this:

By stopping unemployment benefits, the Senate will force those lazy Americans enjoying "funemployment" to get off their backsides and get back to work.

He gets this in his comments. It's longish, but worth every word:

I have read and enjoyed your blog for a couple of years. I am very conservative and always have been, but I have to say your comments on this issue are short-sighted, callous and deeply hurtful. I am staunchly for the private sector free enterprise capitalist way of life and hate what this current administration is doing to our economy, but I don’t have a great deal of hope it will get better until they are voted out of office. I thought I would put a face on this for you to perhaps enlighten you to what it is like to be one of those currently unemployed. I realize there are a percentage of unemployed workers who abuse the system, but the majority of unemployed workers are probably similar to me. I just turned 61 and I have worked without interruption for 39 years. I have been out of work since November 2008. My job was eliminated. My company was one of the large investment banks that no longer exist. I spent two consecutive 18 year employment turns: One with a large corporation that is about to go bankrupt after over 100 years in business and 18 years with this bank. My retirement was virtually wiped out when the bank went under and what was left I had to use to attempt to remain solvent through last year while I continued to seek employment. I have applied to every sector, public and private that I could think of and have looked out of state for jobs paying 75% less than what I earned before. I have had four interviews in the 20 months I’ve been looking. I’ve encountered endless examples of age discrimination and am vying with kids right out of school for the same job. Do you think I can get a job flipping burgers or working at Home Depot? Guess again. When hiring managers see my experience (I am a former Managing Director) they promptly move on to the 1-5 year experience range category. I’m not eligible for social security for another year; my husband who is 61 is not eligible and is disabled. We no longer have health insurance. My severance ended in December of last year and I exhausted all my savings until I could no longer pay my mortgage and the majority of my bills with the $1,600 a month I get from New York State. As a consequence we are facing foreclosure and bankruptcy and I have four weeks of unemployment checks left; the proposed extension would buy me a little more time until hopefully I can get a job. I have seriously contemplated suicide; perhaps you think I am adding this for melodrama - I am not. I have one child who is 25 and struggling in his first job to make ends meet; we tell him he is blessed to have a job and he alone prevents me from completely giving up. I remind those of you who would brand me a social pariah and leech that I paid far more into the unemployment insurance system than I am getting out of it, I hate my situation and find it unbearable and I am deeply ashamed to be in this position. I am happy for all of you who have jobs but you need to understand that these unemployment checks barely pay the necessary utility bills, gas and feed one’s family in the majority of cases. Please don’t be so quick to judge those of us who are good honest people who have worked hard all our lives and lost everything we had to show for it through no fault of our own and put us with the minority of losers who abuse the system.

Joe Barton is a Lying Coward

He has now tried to defend his shameful apology to BP, the company that not only put greed over safety and caused the horrible disaster now ongoing in the Gulf - but also killed 11 men in doing so:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex) featured an article on his own website Wednesday morning, in which a conservative author defends the Texas Republican for apologizing to BP for the "shakedown" it received from the Obama White House.

Barton apologizes to those murdering bastards, realizes he's done something stupid and revealing, apologizes for his apology - as if that would make his apology any less revealing - and now wants to go back and kiss some murdering ass again. This man does not have an original thought in his head, or an honest or courageous bone in his body. What a disgrace.

* He's taken the article down. Another gutless move.

General Who?

Civilian leadership of the military is a subject I don't know mountains about, but something I find fascinating. (How much of a reality it is when the Pentagon budget is more than $500 billion is separate issue.) And some smart people are saying that as of today civilian leadership requires civilian leadership.

And from that first link, this may not sound like it's from 1951:

The crisis exploded when a legendary general whose reputation overshadowed the president's, a general who was not willing to settle for stalemate after suffering a shocking defeat at the end of a fabled career, would not cease public disagreement with American policy and strategy.

BP, We're Sorry We Got Our Gulf in Your Oil!

Unbefreakinglievable:

WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Barton , R-Arlington, apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward on Thursday morning for the "political pressure" his company is facing.

Barton condemned the White House's handling of a meeting Wednesday with BP officials, in which President Barack Obama pushed the company to create a $20 billion escrow account for damage claims from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The congressman called the account a "slush fund."

"Apologized to BP."

Beyond comprehension.

A Lede For the Ages

GULF SHORES, Ala. — Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

You Know Who Else Liked Creationism?

The Russians, that's who:

A senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church called for the end to the "monopoly of Darwinism" in Russian schools during a recent talk in Moscow, according to Reuters (June 9, 2010). "Darwin's theory remains a theory," Hilarion Alfeyev, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and a permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Moscow, was quoted as saying. "This means it should be taught to children as one of several theories, but children should know of other theories too."

Children already know other theories. It's called "make believe."

Baby foxes under the house

I've got a family of foxes under the room where I sit right now. Little tiny baby foxes comeout to play right under my window:

Professional Crybaby John Boehner Wants an Apology

Quick, get a hanky or he'll cry his tan off.

"...then he admitted that he could not see anything."

Horrifying story from Mt. Everest:

As the team descended, Mr Kinloch's guides noticed that he seemed to lose co-ordination. He would slip and stumble, then resume walking normally. After an hour, he made a surprising request to the team leader, David O'Brien, to be shown how to get down the ladders. At first he said he was having difficulty seeing, then he admitted that he could not see anything.

It took four hours for Mr O'Brien and a sherpa to help the stricken climber down to Mushroom Rock, barely 1,000ft below the summit. Two more sherpas arrived and for the next eight hours they all struggled to bring Mr Kinloch,28, down the mountain, administering drugs and oxygen. But they were now dangerously close to needing rescue themselves, and had to abandon him and struggled back into camp at 5.30am, exhausted and suffering from hypothermia and frostbite.

RIP Peter Kinloch.

Palin on Crack

I believe this is called going ass on ass.

Seep Thought

The Exxon Valdez accident is now officially a very minor disaster.

Good God.

Sen. Ben Nelson: "I Know About the Holograms"

It doesn't surprise or bother me that someone might never have used an ATM before—I'm sure lots of people haven't—although it is a little odd that a senator wouldn't have. (He says he has a credit card—has he never been out of town and needed cash?) But "the holograms"? That's just too funny to pass up.

I think "I Know About the Holograms" needs to be added to the Balloon Juice Lexicon. I've written up a definition, if I'm ever lucky enough to get it in:

"I Know About the Holograms" - A derisive phrase used to mock people bizarrely out of touch with what 99.99% of us would call "the real world," including the man who actually said it, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb). In a discussion about ATM fees, Nelson had just disclosed that he wasn't familiar with them—because he had never used an ATM before. As a way of defending himself for being so out of touch, Nelson said, "I know about the holograms." He meant "bar codes," which made his being out of touch even farther—and more hilariously—out of touch.

If You Never Understood Why "Tort Reform" Was Bad...

...then BP and the Gulf oil spill is the perfect illustration.

Supporters of "Tort Reform" want huge corporations, one's just like BP, that cause enormous destruction and suffering to never have to pay their fair share for that destruction and suffering. They want those corporations to be able to behave as recklessly as they like in their pursuit of profits, and never have to pay the price when that recklessness has the expectable results.

It is that simple.

In 1990 Congress passed a law that (among other good things) put a $75 million cap on economic costs caused by oil spills. That means that if this spill goes on for, say, three months, or six months, or a year, and ends up costing Gulf communities and businesses $100 billion—BP won't have to pay for that damage. They, by federal law, would only have to pay $75 million.

This is exactly what supporters of "Tort Reform" want to do. They want to cap damages that huge, reckless corporations pay when their recklessness has expected disastrous results.

It's like if Joe "Drunk Driver" Johnson got a cap of $100 on automobile accident damages. That is exactly what "Tort Reform" is.

Terrorist Crashes Muslim Boobs Into Las Vegas Resort

Ohhh, dear:

With two U.S. flags in front of the stage inside a Dearborn restaurant, Arab Americans cheered, danced, and sang into the night Sunday for Rima Fakih of Dearborn—crowned Miss USA in Las Vegas.

I think Glenn Beck may explode on TV tonight.

Look in the Dictionary Under "Unchristian"

And you might be surprised to find that it it actually is a word.

You might also find this:

Catholic school refuses admittance to an eight-year-old boy because his parents are lesbians.

A Roman Catholic school in Massachusetts has “withdrawn its acceptance of an 8-year-old boy with lesbian parents, saying their relationship was ‘in discord’ with church teachings.” “I’m accustomed to discrimination, I suppose, at my age and my experience as a gay woman,” one of the boy’s mothers said. “But I didn’t expect it against my child.”

I Wasn't Sleeping - I had "Light Burn"

Holy crap, this is funny.

• Someone says Senator Kit Bond fell asleep during an intelligence briefing.

• Bond denies it, yad yada.

• Someone asks Senator Orrin Hatch about it. He says that the lights in the briefing room are so bright that sometimes “you have to rest your eyes for a bit; you get light burn.”

You get "light burn." On your eyes. So you have to close them sometimes. Which is why people can think you're sleeping.

Where We Are As A Country, Con't

You can now be attacked, publicly, via an ad on the TV, for believing in science.

[said with truckloads of incredulity] Bradley Byrne...said evolution best explains the origins of life?

Worse: Byrne is fighting back against the "utter lies" that he believes in science:

As a Christian and as a public servant, I have never wavered in my belief that this world and everything in it is a masterpiece created by the hands of God. As a member of the Alabama Board of Education, the record clearly shows that I fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in our school textbooks. Those who attack me have distorted, twisted and misrepresented my comments and are spewing utter lies to the people of this state.

This has been another edition of Where We Are As A Country.

Where We Are As A Country

It is now considered normal and thoughtful and generally okay for a longtime, respected senator to hope that an American citizen under arrest was not read his rights as an American citizen. That actually scores points for you among significant sectors of our country. What's next? John McCain saying it would be a “serious mistake” if police got a warrant for his arrest? Or it would be a "serious mistake" if they police followed any rules at all in apprehending him? Would that score points for him, too?

This has been another edition of Where We Are As A Country.

May 8: Free John McCutcheon Concert in Flint, Michigan

Wow. Wish I could be there. His Web site is here. And here's a song: