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Sarah Palin’s Strong Suit June 15, 2009

Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Entertainment and Media, Family Life, Humor, Life, News & Events, Politics.
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I’ve been planning to do a quick piece on the Sarah Palin/David Letterman/Willow Palin joke kerfuffle for a few days now, but in the mean time the Iran election business has gobbled up the spotlight, and several commentators on both sides have done pieces on the issue. The best one, in my opinion, is Shannyn Moore’s piece which can be found here.

But more than just that, here’s the kicker: if Sarah Palin is so concerned about the sexual exploitation of young girls, then why the bloody hell doesn’t she set aside her idiotic ideology and set the laws straight in Alaska to let 14-year-old girls who were actually raped and became pregnant to get abortions?

If Alex Rodriguez had actually had his way with Willow in the Yankees dugout during the seventh inning stretch, and the little white stripe had come up with a plus sign, would Governor Palin force her daughter to carry the baby to term? Would she stoop to the level of torturing her barely-pubescent child for nine months carrying an unwanted child conceived during an act of criminal violence, then strap her immature body to the bed during delivery? Is that what she truly believes is the right thing to do?

Ignorant twit though she is, I doubt she is sadistic enough to force her own daughter to do such a heinous thing. That she would not submit the rest of the young girls in the state she governs to such treatment only stands to reason.

But then again, reason is not Sarah Palin’s strong suit.

Things To Say May 27, 2009

Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Entertainment and Media, Family Life, Humor, Life, Money & Investing, News & Events, Politics, The Economy.
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Well! It’s been quite a six months since the elections, hasn’t it? The bank bailout, the economic stimulus, the car companies, AIG, financial sector bonuses, the fact that the election is STILL not over in Minnesota, Alren Spector jumping the aisle, an American held hostage by Somali pirates, Dick Cheney directly authorizing the use of torture, the closing of Guantanamo Bay — or not, Proposition 8, and the nomination of the first Hispanic to the U.S. Supreme Court. And let’s not forget all of the teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling, and trash talking from every fascis— er, Republican pol, pundit, and pip-squeak with a pulse and access to a microphone.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh yeah: the Palin kid had another Palin kid; Jon & Kate (of ‘Plus 8′ fame) might split up; and Ashton Kutcher convinced Oprah to challenge CNN to fight Paris Hilton to be the most popular person on MyTwitFace. Or something.

There are a few things to say…

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The California Supreme Court ruling upholding Proposition 8 is a preposterous miscarriage of justice. It essentially says that the State of California will allow a well-organized group of hate-mongering propagandists to railroad a bill through the referendum process regardless of how egregiously that bill discriminates against one specific segment of our society. It’s the homosexuals’ Jim Crow setting down roots.

Unfortunately the chances are so bleak for being overturned at the federal level — thanks to the stacking of the Court with the Fascist Four; Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia — that the Prop. 8 opponents may turn to other means to have the law struck down. What those may be, I’m not sure. But this is when we see the real-world consequences of ideologues putting puppet regimes on the U.S. Supreme Court: the Constitution is used as toilet paper in favor of the twisted bigotry of a small group of rich, well-connected white males.

*     *     *     *     *

So everybody and their brother on the Right says waterboarding isn’t torture. A few brave souls even volunteer to be waterboarded themselves to prove it. All but one chicken out — all but proving the point right there.

But the one who goes through with it, one Eric “Mancow” Muller with whom I am relatively familiar living near Chicago as I do, comes out of the experience with the following statement: “It’s torture. That’s drowning, it’s not simulated anything!”

After this hits the mainstream media and becomes a YouTube sensation, perpetual loud-mouthed ignoramus jerk-bag Sean Hannity has the huevos to call up Mr. Muller to declare that — even though Mancow has just gone through the procedure himself, and even though Hannity was one of the brazen cowards who volunteered and then backed out when called on the carpet — waterboarding isn’t *really* torture, you’re just being a wimp.

Hannity, you’re a despicable piece of shit, a coward, and a liar. Go fuck yourself. Sideways. With a steam shovel. While it’s running. Piss-ant little shit-heel: why don’t you go suck Rush Limbaugh’s tiny little dick, if you can find it.

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Bristol Palin: quit while you’re behind. You are making yourself look like more and more of an airheaded tramp every time you open your mouth. You are walking proof that abstinence education doesn’t work, and yet you’re walking around trying to convince people that it does. How stupid is that? Get off the campaign trail and try to be a good mother to your son. That’s about the only way you will regain any respect with the American public.

Oh, and sign on for a spread in Playboy. You’ll get at least six figures, the issue will sell out, and the money will put your kid through college. Twenty million hard-up high-school boys are eagerly anticipating it.

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Norm Coleman, don’t be an idiot. The longer this goes on, the worse it will look when you get nominated to take Michael Steele’s position at the RNC. Just bail, it’s over, let them seat Stuart Smalley and have their 60-seat majority. The courts are going to come back with that decision anyhow, better to surrender and live to fight another day. Lay low for a while and let things settle down before you step back into the limelight. That is, if the ethics investigations don’t force you out of politics for good…

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A radical Muslim terrorist in a SuperMax prison fifty miles down the road, or a convicted child molester living fifty yards down the street from you. Which would you rather have? Because I guarantee you, right now the second one of those choices is probably true for you — you just don’t know it.

Don’t fall prey to the idiotic fear-mongering of the Right Wing-Nuts. It’s a load of crap. We face more danger making a right turn on red than we do moving terrorists onto American soil. Guantanamo is a disgrace: America used to set the standard for giving prisoners fair treatment, now we set the standard for prisoner abuse. Is that how we want the world to see us? Is that how we want our grandchildren to read about our generation?

*     *     *     *     *

Dow is up over 1000 points off it’s 2009 low; 9 out of ten economists surveyed in the last week indicate that they now believe the American economy will start expanding *this* year instead of next year; and in April the consumer confidence index took its biggest jump in six years.

Hey conservatives: the economic stimulus was supposed to ruin the economy? Blast unemployment into the stratosphere? Jack inflation through the roof? Devalue the dollar below the Hungarian Forint? Cause American businesses to collapse?

I notice we haven’t heard any of you screaming at the top of your lungs on the talk shows lately. Is that, perhaps, because you were DEAD WRONG?!?

Next time you want to go shooting your mouths off regarding something about which you know less than a five-year-old, look up the meaning of this acronym: STFU.

Time To Bother May 18, 2009

Posted by naughtwirthreeding in Family Life, Future, Life, Money & Investing, News & Events, The Economy.
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There is a destructive and costly mind-set that has run rampant in America’s consumer culture, and I think it’s high time we began the process of setting things right. As consumers it has become part of our everyday lives, so we don’t think twice about it. It’s always been that way, we rationalize, so why bother?

It’s time to bother.

Why don’t they build a light bulb that lasts forever? So that they can continue to sell you the light bulbs that burn out. This is one of the more obvious (and inexpensive) examples of a de facto collusive consumer marketplace that worships at the church of the endless revenue stream. Why fix a problem for good, when we can make billions of dollars per year fixing it temporarily? Why find a cure, when we can be rolling in dough by just treating the symptoms? Light bulbs are small potatoes, but the next example should put the severity of the problem into more acute perspective.

There is a disease that is the #1 cause of asthma attacks, the number one cause of sinus infections, ear infections, and upper respiratory infections, and is often a contributing cause to influenza. Indirectly, this disease is responsible for thousands of deaths per year. It is the leading cause of days missed from work or school. The economy loses over $50 billion in wages, productivity, and expenditures on treatment every single year. Every human being on planet earth is affected by this disease dozens, even hundreds of times during their life. And yet no researchers are looking for a cure, and there is no foundation raising money to fund a cure.

The disease is the common cold. And yet, with this massive impact on our everyday lives, with the billions of dollars lost, not to mention the toll on human life, the pharmaceutical companies are trying to get us to believe that the best they can do is NyQuil?

The truth is, the common cold is the biggest cash cow the major drug companies have. They never release details about the precise source of their revenues, however sales of cold remedies are estimated to be between $5 billion and $30 billion annually. We get the sniffles, head to the store for some Kleenex and Sudafed, plunk down $15. Now multiply that by every family in the industrialized world: about 500 million of us, two or three times per year. Starting to see what this really costs?

Should we expect a cure for the common cold anytime soon? Not a prayer. The big drug companies have entered into licensing arrangements with nearly every major research facility in the world, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, every major university, and even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If anyone dares to try for a cure, the money from the drug companies disappears. So nobody’s trying, because they’re rather fond of the millions of dollars that the drug companies pass their way every year. If anybody they haven’t already co-opted manages to get close, you can bet those drug companies will show up with a nice fat check and a suggestion that they quietly stop work on the project.

So instead of getting a cure for the common cold, we get railroaded by a coalition of drug companies that has the entire research sector and the government agencies that regulate it in its pocket. Thus, we make the pharmaceutical companies rich, one pack of Benadryl at a time.

This mind-set has now permeated every industry that serves our consumer culture. Plastic isn’t only cheaper and lighter weight, it breaks easier — meaning that you have to constantly replace the radio, the cordless phone, the door handle on the rear passenger’s side, the knobs on the stove, the silverware basket in the dishwasher, the battery mount in the flashlight, the trim around the base of the TV, and on, and on, and on. Making those parts out of metal would mean they last several generations, but where’s the profit in that?

Clothes, shoes, luggage, carpet, paint, tools, electronics, home appliances, office equipment, you can’t name me a consumer product whose industry hasn’t fallen victim to this plague. The church of the endless revenue stream is a cult, and every stockholder on Wall Street has been drinking the Kool Aid. Planned obsolescence will make us all rich: all of us, except the people who have to keep paying for this crap over, and over, and over, and over…

It’s time to hold industry accountable to a new standard, and reward companies that produce cures instead of merely treating symptoms. It’s time to turn our money towards the companies that solve problems instead of merely profiting from them. Whoever puts out the ever-lasting light bulb won’t be in business too long, but they will solve a problem that costs Americans millions of dollars each year. It’s time we put a premium on that kind of innovation, and send the companies that have been fleecing us for so long into bankruptcy. It’s a well-deserved end for any firm who has bilked us of so much for so long.