Friday, August 28, 2009

You know caramel creams?

They are tasty even at 9:30 am. It's true.

Got our dining room/powder room/hallway painted, finally, and I love it. Light blue for most of it, a few violet accent walls, and some purple trim. Did the powder room entirely in violet, but after the first coat it looked really pink and I thought, "Did I just make Barbie's Powder Room?" This did not deter me from continuing because: a) I had faith in my color choice; and b) owning Barbie's Powder Room would be kinda funny. Upon the second coat the violet turned out violet so Mattel need not fear.

I have a message for Americans who want government out of their health insurance: Any time you want to permanently waive your right to Medicaid/Medicare, I've got your back. Totally. I will write the president and Congress myself. We'll save oodles of money when you die at 72 due to lack of care (because no private insurance company on the planet is going to cover a 72-year-old with three preexisting conditions), which means more Medicare for the rest of us. Once you are dead and therefore no longer voting foolishly, the survivors (who were smart enough to keep government in our health care) will get Congress to enact sensible health insurance reform that will protect us and our descendants. So really, you should do it for the children.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Biased media...yeah right

Biased towards foolishness I'd say. Thanks to Poppy for the link to this great op-ed about right-wing craziness and the media. Here's my favorite excerpt:

Conservatives have become adept at playing the media for suckers, getting inside the heads of editors and reporters, haunting them with the thought that maybe they are out-of-touch cosmopolitans and that their duty as tribunes of the people's voices means they should treat Obama's creation of "death panels" as just another justiciable political claim.

It used to be different. You never heard the late Walter Cronkite taking time on the evening news to "debunk" claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of the president's program, or giving the people who made those claims time to explain themselves on the air. The media didn't adjudicate the ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of "conservative claims" to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back then, a more confident media unequivocally labeled the civic outrage represented by such discourse as "extremist" -- out of bounds.


Objectivity is not the goal of journalism but the method of getting to the truth. The responsible journalist looks at the evidence and listens to the commentary, makes her best judgment as to the truth of the matter, and then reports it. She is not required to treat every opinion as equally true, nor should she fear to put the facts in context. Journalists need to worry less about conservative claims of bias and more about doing their frakkin' jobs.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

When you fail at the polls...

...you turn to brute force. Having been thumped in two successive elections, and facing long-delayed but much-needed reform, conservatives turned first to a massive campaign of disinformation. That campaign has been disappointingly effective, and we're likely to see the "public option" portion of health care reform dropped because of ridiculous claims of "death panels." Now, conservatives are turning up the volume by bringing firearms to presidential events.

When one brings a weapon to an event that is crawling with police and other law enforcement officials, it's not for self-defense, nor is it some statement about Second Amendment rights that have never been in jeopardy. It's a threat, plain and simple, and only frightened people make threats. Frightened people like, say, those who failed to achieve their goals at the ballot box.

I heard it said that when conservatives control government they work its levers without regard for anything but their own goals, but when they lose control, they throw themselves on the gears to make certain nothing works. Well, they've certainly succeeded in 2009.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Boo-yah!

I frakkin' conquered the Comedy Cabaret in Marlton Friday night. Seriously. There were ten comics in all and I think I got louder and more consistent laughs than at least eight of them. This was particularly gratifying after the lackluster showing I made last spring. When I got off stage I received many congratulatory handshakes and even a hug from a woman I didn't know, and the next morning my email box was filled with Facebook friend requests. It's like being a successful comedian, except without the fame, money and high demand for my services.