Private Lenders Just Dont Care

We, the lowly taxpayer, bailed these rich bastards out & now they want to, once again, screw over needy students. These bankers appear to have no sense of citizenship.

Nicholas Hughes, R.I.P.

This is too bad, he was only 47 & he studied salmonids, the best of the fish world. I never liked his mother's writing or her life-drama, but I found his father, Ted Hughes, to be a great & wonderful poet. Obit here.

...and it offered a kind of blessing to Nicholas, who had long kept the literati at bay:

So leave her.

Let her be their spoils. Go wrap

Your head in the snowy rivers

of the Brooks Range.

I Approve

It's a Portuguese Water Dog. More info on the breed here & here & here.

What A Great Nation

Things like this used to really piss me off. Now, I such sink lower in my chair & deeply wonder whether this nation actually gives a shit about people. For this to happen now is difficult to understand. Aren't we the richest, most innovative people in the world? Thanks to the goddamn ReThuglican Party we have become a nation of me-firsters, me-gotsit, mescrew you. & the ReThugs response to all of this? Hey, you lazy, overweight people, get rid of you dogs & save enough money to pay for your care. & you autistic kids, you're all faking & you need a decent kick in the ass to straighten you out. Don't worry parents, nobody will come investigating you these days.

My Friend Al Is Going To Win

& it's time for the douchebag asshat Norm Coleman to realize that he has lost the election. Minnesota  would then have the two sitting Senators they are allotted under our Constitution. As pointed out in the link, even the right-wing nutjobs are suggesting to Coleman that he's a loser. It's time to sit my friend Al. & then, hopefully, retribution. The following is the thinking driving the ReThug Party in almost everything they do & think these days. Pathetic.

Moreover, Raju says, the Republicans advancing this idea are looking to an infamous precedent -- Bush v. Gore, the case that ended the recount in Florida following the 2000 presidential election. Raju quotes Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as saying, "The Supreme Court in 2000 said in Bush v. Gore that there is an equal protection element of making sure there is a uniform standard by which votes are counted or not counted, and I think that’s a very serious concern in this instance." Other prominent GOP senators have also made similar arguments.

My emphasis.

Wisco Elections

Finally, the absolutely criminal Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce were unable to elect a right-wing tool as a Supreme Court justice. Shirley Abrahamson easily won reelection to a 10 year term.

Abrahamson, nationally known as an influential state judge, waged an aggressive and largely positive campaign that touted her experience and integrity to defeat Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Randy Koschnick, based on preliminary results.

The victory makes Abrahamson, 75, only the second justice in Wisconsin history to be elected to the court four times. If she serves four years of the 10-year term that begins in August, she will become the longest serving justice in the state’s 161-year history. With 70 percent of precincts reporting, Abrahamson was leading Koschnick 60 percent to 40 percent.

Legislative Effort This Time

A wonderful override of a patently stupid veto. Good for the Vermonters. The time's they are a changin', indeed. If we can keep this up, the ReThugs will be marginalized at an even faster pace.

The House recorded a dramatic 100-49 vote - the minimum needed - to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto. Its vote followed a much easier override vote in the Senate, which rebuffed the Republican governor with a vote of 23-5.

The Awful Legacy Of The Last Eight Years Continues

Bu$hCo did a lot of damage to institutions, among many other things, during his reign. I hope the medical professionals (& I use that term very loosely) who helped torture understand exactly what they did. I looks like the schools that trained these criminals had better examine their ethics courses, if they even have them.

Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a “gross breach of medical ethics,” a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded.

*****
...the medical professionals’ role was primarily to support the interrogators, not to protect the prisoners, and that the professionals had “condoned and participated in ill treatment.”

*****

Mr. Mansfield added, however, that Mr. Panetta “has stated repeatedly that no one who took actions based on legal guidance from the Department of Justice at the time should be investigated, let alone punished.” The C.I.A.’s interrogation methods were declared legal by the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. (So much for change, or honor, or decency, the rule of law. - ed.)

*****

Another critic of medical involvement in harsh interrogation, Dr. Steven H. Miles, a physician at the Center for Bioethics of the University of Minnesota, said he had counted about 70 cases worldwide after World War II in which physicians were punished for participating in torture or related crimes. Most were in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, he said. None have been in the United States.  (Surprise, surprise. - ed.)

My emphases.

Jeff Gordon Wins!!

It's been awhile, but Jeff Gordon is the points leader & he has finally won a stock car race.  For those among you who are wondering about my choice of drivers to root for, let me just tell you this, 24 - The Kid was born on the 24th, plus, he's just plain hot, IMHO.

Bridge To Somewhere Shatters

But, but, but, but, global warming is just am made-up crisis, made up by liberal Marxists, or liberal fascists, or liberal liberals, who knows? Somebody made it up, look at how cold it's been up here in northern Wisco this spring? It sure is hard to keep denying global warming. The dickwads on the right will keep trying, however.

An ice bridge holding a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place has shattered and may herald a wider collapse caused by global warming, a scientist said Saturday.

*****

The loss of the ice bridge could mean a wider breakup of the ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut.

Image from here.

The Fool That Is Little Bobby Jindal

But even as Mr. Jindal has criticized the stimulus bill, his own subordinates have continued to request money from Washington, notably in replacing Charity Hospital, which for generations served the poor in downtown New Orleans. State health officials, disregarding restoration work at Charity done in the months immediately after Hurricane Katrina, say they need a brand-new hospital and an additional $500 million; the Federal Emergency Management Agency has balked and is offering only $150 million.

*****

In Louisiana, however, the consequences have hardly been dire — just the opposite, in fact. One of the governor’s leading aides, the state’s recovery director, Paul Rainwater, praised the federal relief effort in Louisiana in recent remarks to Congress, the day after his boss scorned federal help on national television in the Republican Party’s response to President Obama’s first address to Congress.

“No other state in the nation has been blessed with such generosity from Congress and the American people,” Mr. Rainwater said.

The more we find out about this stooge, the stupider he appears. With this ReThugs, it's always ideology over common sense. This article just how hollow his words were when he spoke in rebuttal to Pres. Obama's SOTU speech.

There was so much insane gobbledygook that came out of Gov. Bobby Jindal's mouth last night that I could keep wring for days about it. I couldn't believe my ears when Bobby Jindal used the utter failures of the Bush administration over their "Brownie" handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster to attack the role of the federal government in our lives. Especially when the state of Louisiana has received billions of dollars from the federal government to help them recover. [I can believe it, ed.]

My emphases.

Deep Thoughts

From my little sister-

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

This Makes Me Happy

One more Supreme Court, when asked, has done the right thing. What is unfortunate, however, is that it has taken up so much time & used up a lot of resources in order to do this thing state-by-state. & the worst of is that this shouldn't even be a legal or moral or religious issue, it is about two people loving each other & wanting to commit to each other in a normal, formal manner. It's a no fucking brainer. But the right-wing morons have accomplished one thing: they have forced progressive folks to give up their time & money in order to set things right. I have more rights about my health care than gay & lesbian & transsexual people have. I can fill out as many forms as I like to allow my health care providers to talk to each other about my sorry ass. Imagine, filling out forms to let people talk about you, what will they think of next?

It All Began In 1983

All of the lawyers must have been laid off last month.

Heh

GPS to the rescue? I think not.