Isaac Asimov On Ignorance

Seal Beach Shooter = Tea party

71 Year old Man tackled for Protesting Paul Ryan

Education and Politics.

Some good news in this part of the world. I got news from PA Career Link that the College Grant I've been doing paperwork and tests for since April has finally been approved. This money will cover the costs of a course at Delaware County Community College for Network Administration from Microsoft. Then hopefully lead to a job with a career orientation. Class starts September 20th, two nights a week and runs into January of next year.

Our local Republican Congressmen in the House, Patrick Meehan, held a town meeting here in Springfield last night. Being a pissed-off unemployed constituent, I get there early enough to plop my butt down in the front row. When Representative Meehan arrived, I smiled, shook his hand along with the rest of the first line of attendees, and applauded at the appropriate talking points. Then, as soon as he went to the "Ask a Question" period, I shot my hand up. Since I was being so polite in the opening portion and nicely visible, I was probably the third or fourth person called on. His handler held the mic up to me, and I let him have it with both barrels.

"Representative Meehan, I am one of those 80% of the country frustrated with Congress. I've been laid of from my job and unemployed since January. When you and your fellow freshman Republicans ran for The House last year, it was all about 'jobs, jobs, jobs.' But since you came into office, not a single jobs bill has been introduced in The House. Bills about abortion, gay rights have, but not jobs. I want to know what, when you return to Washington, you, Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, who today is saying he won't approve help for hurricane victims without more cuts, are going to do about job creation!"

Cue wild applause.

Pro that he is, Mr Meehan went right to "we must work on bringing down the debt in order to make more jobs...." to which the room began to boo. Also, as soon as your question is done, the handlers race away with the mics so you can't reply. But that was pretty much the point where Mr Meehan began to sweat. I'd say that 70% of the room was not on his team, and the questions where pretty pointed, if at least civil. Only one real wacko, a right-wing nut-job who insisted President Obama was secretly opening sub-prime mortgages to high risk home buyers (IE: the blacks!), to which Mr Meehan was cognizant enough to tell her that he had heard nothing of the sort and did not think this was genuine. He also had his share of supporters in attendence, who lobbed softballs his way and he would smile, give the pat answer, and look for another sympathetic attendee.

However, this was not a coming out party for the guy. At 8 PM he stopped solid and I jumped from my chair, grabbed his hand in a firm handshake and thanked him for taking my question. I also repeated that I fully expected him to do more than what was going on and to see some work done. I got the feeling he was sincere if uncomfortable, and was taken aback by the forcefulness of the crowd (my guess about 100 people).

In storm news, my Mom finally got her power on yesterday afternoon after downed trees took out there electric in Northern Lebanon, and my Dad's electric came on yesterday morning. I want to find George Will, who whined that Hurricane Irene was overhyped, and lock him in a house with no electric and water for four days, then let him and his awful toupee come out and give an update. Same with Eric Cantor, whom I am beginning to suspect is a sociopath when it comes to helping the American Public vs GOP.

Keeping America Stupid: More Proof Of The Non-Existence of God. Pat Roberston blames the Earthquake on men who are "Kind of Gay" (Satire)

VIRGINIA BEACH (The Borowitz Report) – Evangelist Pat Robertson sparked controversy in today’s broadcast of his 700 Club program by saying that yesterday’s mild East Coast earthquake was God’s revenge on people “who act kind of gay. All across the Eastern seaboard, there are men who get manicures, wear designer eyewear and know about thread counts,” claims Rev. Robertson. “God finds this somewhat gay-like behavior confusing, and He responded by getting mildly peeved.”

The televangelist warned that if Americans persist in their “seemingly sort-of-gay behavior,” the country should brace itself for additional ambiguous acts of retaliation from the Almighty. “God will strike back at people who act sort of gay with all kinds of mild responses,” he said. “If you keep getting pedicures and facials, you can expect two to three inches of rain and some really hot humid days in your future.”
Rev. Robertson said that New Yorkers who reacted in an over-the-top way to yesterday’s temblor “run the risk of moderately annoying the Heavenly Father yet again.”

“God looks at people who get their panties in a twist after a little shaking, and He says to Himself, ‘Wow, that’s really kind of gay,’” he said.

Mitt Romney for Keeping America Stupid: Corporations are People!

Keeping America Stupid: Racist Teenaged Killers.

Bigotry in action. White Teens go looking for a black person to Kill. Just a warning - this is a very graphic video.

My Amazon DVD Reviews: "House of Numbers"

Utter Bunk  
One Out of Five Stars

"House of Numbers" is a horrible, angering mess. That is the kindest thing to say about it. Basically a rundown of every anti-AIDS conspiracy theory since the crisis began, it repeatedly asks the question over and over; Why Have We not Found The Cure For AIDS? Simple question, sure. But the answers are more complex that this movie wants to address.

For starters, AIDS is a relatively young disease. The main outbreak and plague broke thorough in the late 70's and swelled through the 80's and 90's. While research suggests that there may have been cases far earlier, it wasn't until this period that the Scientific and Medical communities began taking serious research into the illness. In the USA, that research was near nil, thanks to the likes of Jesse Helms and the despicable policies of Ronald Reagan. So asking why we have not found a cure is foolish. Cancer and even the common cold are far older and more researched diseases, yet we still have nothing to cure either. Health Research is not a toaster; things do not just pop out after four minutes.

Then they try and look at the disease itself. They roll out the same tired tropes, like poppers gave you AIDS, the drugs were what caused AIDS deaths (partially true, the misunderstanding of the EARLY drugs - like AZT - harmed people), and the usual crap that gay men having sex were doing it to themselves. The modern 'drug cocktail' has been refined over the course of near 20 years to have balanced the side effects since then, but there's still plenty of conspiracy theorists who will try and convince you that "Big Pharma" is just trying to get your money.

Then they find the Doctors who are happy to tell you their theories why HIV and AIDS are right and the rest are bogus. However, the overwhelming preponderance of the Medical/Scientific have no doubts that HIV and AIDS exist and can kill you if not properly treated. The question raised in "House of Numbers" that HIV may not even be communicable is not just ignorant, it is dangerous. People are exposed to different infections every day (and I'll jump back to that common cold analogy again), but you don't have an illness every day. Illnesses break through in a variety of ways, and sometimes the factors involves vary from moment to moment, even in the same person.

"House of Numbers" raises question and offers no answers. It throws theories out but offers few facts. It questions the deaths of hundreds of thousands, but offers little insight into what killed them. It's easy to cast aspersions on things you do not want to believe. "House of Numbers" drags out stupidity and wild-eyed fear, then tries to offer it as controversy. Like Climate Change or Intelligent Design deniers, there can always be found a small group of true believers willing to argue that there is dissent over 'the facts.' But opinions are not facts and "House Of Numbers" does not offer much of factual info, and that makes it dangerous.

 

Today's Rick Santorum Picture.....

  http://www.spreadingsantorum.com/

My thoughts on Lawrence O'Donnell and the 4/25 edition of MSNBC's "The Last Word"

Dear Lawrence,

Greetings from Philadelphia. I'm a regular, near nightly viewer of the MSNBC line-up, and try to watch as dedicatedly as I can. Tonight, however, may be only the second time I've ever cringed at your show. The interview with Rev (?) Graham made me incredibly uncomfortable, and then the follow-up on Rush Limbaugh just made me wince....well, Limbaugh makes me wince on his own; perhaps this was a double barreled wince.

What made me squirm so hard is that I almost felt you were softballing Graham. The guy is just another typical white rich-kid coasting on his Daddy's reputation along with the inherited Billy G Billions, and you gave him open mike to proselytize endlessly. Did he really need to read the entire John 3:16 quote, plus? Frankly, WHY does it matter if President Obama is a Christian? Should it matter at all? Even more importantly, why would a President need the holy water dripped from the likes of Graham and his ilk for approval to govern?

Given that Graham seems to love using the racist euphemism that Obama has "the seed of Islam" inside him and is now riding on Donald Trump's wig-tail, why get him on camera at all? He brings nothing useful to the discussion other than more proof that evangelicals are crackpots, swindling people out of their cash by using fear of Hell as motivation.

Which leads me to part two: The Thrashing you gave Limbaugh. Yeah, I get it. Rush is a lyin' sack of bird vomit, puking up predigested swill for the baby flock to swallow. They may think it's nutritious and delicious, but they're still swallowing puke. Chairman of the Keeping America Stupid Foundation, that man. (And I can't get a broadcasting gig? Life is SO unfair sometimes.)

Meanwhile....bookend both segments and I was starting to feel like my Cable Box had magically switched channels from MSNBC to an episode of The 700 Club. I half expected your Rush segment to close with a request for viewers to open up their hearts, open up their wallets and call the 800 number on the screen. Operators will be standing by.

If I wanted almost a quarter hour of uninterrupted Christian Come-ons, I can call my Bible Thumping crazy Republican Step-mother. But as one of America's non-believers, I'd prefer my MSNBC to continue giving me useful information, news and relevant commentary. In fact, I am always proud that you, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz contribute thoughtful and factual reports on Gay Rights issues. Tonight, though, just made me wonder where the thoughtfulness went.

Respectfully,

Tim Brough

Another Reason To Love Lady Gaga: She tells off a homo-phobic Christ Stain Idiot

Forward in to about the 2:15 mark





 

Friday night on ABC's 20/20, while doing a story about the typical psychotic people who murder that is their new stock-in-trade, they began to talk about a case in Texas. This was the sign they used as the "location shot":


Which begs the questions: Texas Dept of Highways; Really?
And ABC Network News: Were you trying to be ironic? Really?

Shocker: Another Stupid Republican in Sex Scandal!

You can blame it all on Craigslist! It all started when the Congressman-Stud saw an ad. It said: "I'm looking for men who did not look like toads."


Republican Congressman Chris Lee


This then, brought a response from Mr. Lee: "Hope I'm not a toad. i'm a very fit fun classy guy. Live in Cap Hill area. 6ft 190lbs blond/blue. 39. Lobbyist. I promise not to disappoint." And then he sent her the above photo.

All well and dandy, except Mr. Lee is married. To a woman.

And so, rather than fight the obvious, Mr. Lee has decided to step down and resign his position as a New York Congressman.


Conservatives are losing a good man. Mr. Lee has a solid voting record:

• Anything Gay, he voted down, including the repeal of "Don't ask don't tell."
• Anything to criminalize abortions he voted for, including the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.
• He likes guns too, and wants you to carry one wherever you go.

Now don't worry! Mr. Lee will pretty soon find a replacement job. Just like he said: He's a Lobbyist! And we're sure he'll have a wonderful time spreading money around congress so American corporations can stay in China and not pay any taxes ... And those Heathen Homos can continue to be Second Class Citizens, by the glory of "god."

@@@@@
Too Bad Vitter and Ensign keep hanging on to their posts.

Keeping America Stupid: Ronald Reagan Sucked.

With all the hooey about Reagen's 100th birthday and the pig vomit being espoused about his greatness, one needs to be reminded not just of Iran-Contra, the destruction of the middle class, his lust for deregulation and union-busting, but most of all for his political homophobia and the ignorance that led to so many of my friends dying tragic, unnecessary deaths,

Aids Activist Larry Kramer wrote The following piece, which was published in The Advocate issue dated July 6th, 2004

Our murderer is dead. The man who murdered more gay people than anyone in the entire history of the world, is dead. More people than Hitler even. In all the tributes to his passing, as I write this two days after his death, not one that I have seen has mentioned this. The hateful New York Times (“all the news that’s fit to print”) of course said nothing about this. We still are not fit to write about with total honesty in their pages. Not really. Just as we were not fit for Ronald Reagan to talk about us. What kind of president is that?

I have been writing a long work of history which I call The American People. I chose this title because in every speech he ever made Reagan went on and on about “the American People.” We of course were never a part of his American People. And we knew it. Year after year of his hateful and endless reign we knew we were not a part of the American People he was President of. He would never talk about us, of course, or do anything for us except murder us. There were no social services for us. There was no research into our health. Even as we were dying like flies. How could he not have seen us dying? The answer is he did see us dying and he chose to do nothing. There was no representation in his government of us. There was never anything for us but his ignoble dismissal of us. All of Washington, indeed the world, knew that Reagan hated us. How could they not? Most of them did, too. And when Daddy doesn’t love you, who is there who will stand up to Daddy? This is a trick that Hitler used and which I believe the young Reagan learned from him. He never had to say much out loud himself about his hatreds; but everyone knew what they were. Gays were as hated under Reagan as Jews were under Hitler. It is a trick that both George Bushes have carbon-copied. We have not been included among their American people either.

I could never understand why Reagan’s hatred of us was so intense and manifest and never-ending. Some of Nancy Reagan’s best friends were gay, the self-loathing Jerry Zipkin, at one time her principle “walker,” chief among them. It is said he taught her how to dress. In my play, Just Say No, I dramatized my own theory of why she and her husband kept gays off their agenda as if we were the plague, which of course, as in some hideous self-fulfilling prophecy, we became. Ron Reagan, Jr. That is why. It was no secret in an ever-widening circle that Ron Reagan, Jr. was suspected of being gay. In his freshman year at Yale (I believe this was his only year there; perhaps there were two) I have been told he had numerous gay experiences. I am well known at Yale. Indeed, I have established the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale to document the evil acts that American “history” has performed on us.

And just as damning of the son’s reputation of course, because it could not be hidden, was that Ron Reagan, Jr. was a ballet dancer. This did not look good and was obviously exceedingly embarrassing to a father who rode so many horses. So off with the tutu and on with a wedding ring. Junior was married off and sent to far-off places in positions of low visibility. I have gay friends in Hollywood, equally closeted, who knew him and know him and protect him. To know him is to be sworn to some sort of pact of secrecy. What a hideous life Ron, Jr. must have led all these years. To be denied a life and to have been so utterly gutless about fighting back. (Well, we know all about that.) While his own mother was gallivanting around with some of the biggest fairies in the world. What hateful parents to have had in the prime of your life, “the great communicator” of a father out there communicating how much he hated you and his wife out there going along with this. I suspect by now Ron Reagan, Jr. actually believes he is straight. By now he may very well be. He may well have been all along. He just looked so suspicious, and of course it was this perceived suspicion that, one way or the other, is what caused his father to murder so many of us. Why does history not recognize this monstrous and never-ending history of hatred and the inestimable number of deaths it continues to cause?

People magazine called me for a quote on Reagan’s death. “I wish he had died before he was elected” is what I told them. I wonder what they will run.

It is remarkable that two of the so-called “greatest presidents” have also allowed the greatest perpetrations and perpetuations of mass murder. Franklin D. Roosevelt was shamefully inept in dealing with “the Jewish question,” (see my play The Normal Heart), most ironically since so many Jews were his most loyal supporters, the Jerry Zipkins of their day. No one really writes about this. Roosevelt is one of history’s great gods. Just as no one really writes about Reagan and “the gay question.” These two major murderers so far have got away with helping to cause the two major holocausts of modern history. Just as Jews are asked to never forget their Holocaust I implore all gay people never to forget our holocaust and who caused it and why. Ronald Reagan did not even say the word “AIDS” out loud for the first seven years of his reign. Because of this some 70 million people, so far, have become infected with HIV/AIDS. I wonder what it feels like to be the son and the wife of a man responsible for over 70 million people so far becoming infected with a virus that has killed over half of us so far. I wonder what it felt like while he was alive to ponder this. For surely he must have thought about it. How could he not? He has been called the consummate actor who came to believe all his lines. Does this not make his legacy even more grotesque? It should.

Hitler knew what he was doing. How could Ronald Reagan not have known what he was doing?

But of course no one is writing about this. Reagan too is one of history's gods.

So far he has got away with murder.

Keeping America Stupid: The Good Guys - Chris Matthews Hammers Tea Party Leader Over Bachmann's Slavery Error

Keeping America Stupid: Old White People Edition - Sarah Palin Battle Hymn

Remember, Billboards Don't Influence People

KNST Just happens to be a Tucson radio station....

Keeping America Stupid (and Unsafe): Political Terrorism Comes Home

Wow. "Second Amendment remedies." "Don't retreat, reload." "Texas Republican House candidate says violence, revolution, "on the table." Congratulations, Rethuglicans. Arizona heard you loud and clear today.

When did we become such an irresponsible pack of rabid lemmings? When did Arizona become the new haven for psychobiscuits (such as Gov Jan Brewer's death panels and those 'headless Mexicans')? How did we get to a point where a know-nothing idiot like Sarah Palin could become a leading force in government? When a moron like Christine O'Donnell garners 40% of the vote?

Arizona's tea party douchebag opponent to Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords campaign included the opportunity "Get on Target for Victory in November...Shoot a fully automatic M15 with Jesse Kelly" as a freaking fund raiser. Sarah the stupid Palin put 'crosshairs' on her website, and Giffords was one of them. And every jackwagon who flippantly repeated the "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots" over and over helped to bulldoze today's path to Tuscon. As did the fact that the guntards who think that every single unbalanced individual with a criminal record should be able to walk into a store and purchase a semi-automatic pistol; which Jared Loughner did this week (in a State where it's 100% legal to carry your firearm into a bar).

I'm going to steal a line from those tea-bagging morons. I want my country back. Back to when the worst thing a President could do was lie about adulterous sex. Back to when candidates seemed to be more interested in public service than sticking a power-vac into the corporate accounts of their lobbyists' vaults of dough. Back to being able to attend an event without fear of some "real American" waltzing into the food court and opening fire on "libruls."

Ultimately, and sadly, I am not shocked that today's shootings took place. I am actually more surprised that it took over two years since President Obama has been elected for an assassination to occur. Because these conservabots don't look at politicians as people. They see one sided arguments that must be targeted and removed. Not a wife and mother. Not a nine year old girl born on 9/11/2001. Not 17 other people that now have grief stricken families wondering how a day at the Safeway has irreversibly changed their lives. They, like assclowns John McCain, John Boehner, or Eric Cantor (who, in a very bitter irony, has called off his vote to repeal Health Care Reform in light of today's events), only see a win/loss column. Heaven help the individual that takes their "We’ll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight" rhetoric to the gun closet for a Saturday on the town.

Keeping America Stupid: Barney Frank trashes a Right Wing Christ-Stain Fake News Idiot

John McCain Hates Our Troops (Keeping American Stupid: Vindictive A-hole Edition)

Taken from my friend Hardy Haberman

Strong headline?  Yes, but true.  In an amazing display of petulance for an old guy like McCain, he has stripped a provision from the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011 which is designed to prevent suicides of veterans.  The provision funds counselors who check up on members of the IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) who have had PTSD diagnoses.  It's specifically designed to catch and prevent suicides and for someone like McCain who is a survivor of PTSD it's unconscionable for him to block this.

Of course McCain has been slipping into crotchety "old man" mode for some time.  Now he is just being hateful.