RoguePlanet

FREEDOM, bi-atch!

Shorter LGF'ers

"Jill Carroll had it coming."

I really hate that we liberated the bastards who are holding Ms. Carroll hostage.

"The terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear"

Much like the GOP.

SOTU preview

Developing . . . (courtesy MD)

Cindy Sheehan

Can I be frank? She annoys the bejesus out of me. So I sure hope the Capitol Hill police had cause to arrest her.

'Cause if they just arrested her because she doesn't like Bush, well . . .

New to the illustrious Rogue Planet blogroll

Hey NSA! Go tell the Bush admin. what you think of it.

Use the computer of a hated co-worker when you visit it, in case the NSA's monitoring it.

(Just kidding. That would be wrong!)

No, sweet Bejus, tell me he's not going to

play the puppy card!

Gone again for a few days

I'm NEVER DRINKING AGAIN

No, really - THIS time I mean it.

'Cause I just read this:

NICKY Taylor, 39, is stumbling around a nightclub dance floor in the early hours of the morning, clutching a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.

In five hours, she has drunk equal to four bottles of wine in a potentially fatal mix of cocktails, spirits and beers.

She is drunk. She has vomited once, but Nicky carries on, determined to keep up with her female companions.

This ugly scene is not a typical night for Nicky. In an experiment for a British TV documentary, the single mother spent a month matching the bingers drink-for-drink to see what it did to her body and mind.

Over 30 days, going out five nights a week, Nicky consumed a staggering 516 units of alcohol -- 17.2 units a day. Guidelines say women should drink no more than two or three units a day, and a maximum of 14 a week.

One unit is 8g of alcohol, or a small glass (125ml) of wine, half a pint (284ml) of beer or a pub measure of spirits. But stronger beers may contain 2.5 alcohol units per half pint.

Nicky hopes her experiment will open people's eyes to the gravity of binge-drinking in the same way Morgan Spurlock's film Super Size Me (in which the American filmmaker ate McDonald's for 30 days) did to the dangers of junk food.

"What I discovered shocked me to the core," says Nicky, who was monitored by medical experts during the experiment.

She was chosen because her bosses wanted a responsible woman in her 30s. She went into it with gusto, but emerged depressed and exhausted. Her home and professional lives were suffering and she developed an increased risk of liver problems and alcoholism.

Her body fat increased from 37.4 per cent to 38.9 per cent, she put on more than 3kg, and her skin became so damaged she had the complexion of a 50-year-old.

Over time, with the dehydrating effects of alcohol no longer taking their toll, her skin will return to normal. But doctors said that in another five months she might have seen signs of cirrhosis.

Here's Nicky before:



Here, if you can believe it, she is after the 30-day experiment:



Yikes. Now, in my bartending days I remember observing that nothing ages a woman like drink. I saw some mid-30's ish ladies who looked 15 years older, thanks in part to a daily diet of hard liquor (and cigarettes and bad food). After years of that a woman (at least the ones I saw) had puffy faces, bloated torsos, and skinny arms and legs. And chalky, dull skin, tired eyes, straw-like hair, and no muscle tone. It's not purty.

But I always thought it took years of daily hard liquor drinking to ravage a body like that. It's hard for me to believe that 30 days of drinking could do that kind of damage. I dunno, I guess maybe "17.2 units" a day could make a gal retain a little water. But I'm a little skeptical of those photos.

(Story link courtesy of MD)

"Justice Alito says 'HELLO!'"

From the letters section of The Sun News:

Thank God for TV; without it, we the people would never have seen the true picture of these "liberal" Democrats in action. When the TV camera focused on Sens. Pat Leahy, Edward Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, it reminded me of the Three Stooges - except watching the Three Stooges made me laugh.

Watching these three puppets made me sad to know that they are elected officials who took an oath to protect America and now are trying their hardest to destroy a good man, who would be a great judge for our country.

They made one mistake after another trying to catch him on nonsensical statements.
But the greatest mistake was attacking him on his personal agendas (which were all lies), thus causing Mrs. Alito to break down for a moment.

As an American of Italian heritage, I can tell you that was a big no-no. We are like elephants; we never forget.

Jim H. Nuovo Sr.

Little River

[emphasis supplied]

Never mind the incoherence; what's that last paragraph supposed to imply? If I were "an American of Italian heritage" I might take umbrage at such a crude stereotype. Though it IS rather amusing applied to the Mr. Magoo-looking Alito.

Blame Geor3ge

He tagged me with this 7 things list. I'll do part of the list but not all of it, because I'm the commander of this blog, see?

Seven Things To Do Before I Die

(in no particular order)

1. Travel to every continent.
2. Drive a Maserati.
3. Scuba dive.
4. Run a sub 3:45 marathon.
5. Be the girl on the flying trapeze.
6. Make cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
7. Achieve world peace.


Seven Things I Cannot Do

1. Sing.
2. Believe in God.
3. Touch the tip of my nose with my tongue.
4. Speak German.
5. Watch George W. Bush without muttering and twitching a little.
6. Sew.
7. Stay awake during a musical.

Seven Things That Attract Me to...Blogging

1. It's easy.
2. It's free.
3. "The only problem is what to do with all the fucking CASH!"
4. I like the suspense of wondering if I'm on the no-fly list yet.
5. Bonding with my global readership.
6. The invitations to Tim Russert's summer house on Nantucket.
7. It keeps me off the streets.

Seven Things I Say Most Often

SEVEN things? [sigh]

1. "I'M NEVER DRINKING AGAIN."
2. "Shoot."
3. "Darn!"
4. "I reckon so."
5. "Could I have extra hot sauce, please?"
6. "TC, git offa him!"
7. "I really mean it this time - I'M NEVER DRINKING AGAIN."


Seven Books That I Love

(You know, I used to read a lot more books before I started reading BLOGS)

1. Lolita (I hate to be so predictable, but.)
2. Madame Bovary
3. Swag (Elmore Leonard)
4. The Sheltering Sky (Paul Bowles)
5. Deliverance
6. A Bend in the River (VS Naipaul) (I hated it the first time I read it)
7. Mildred Pierce (James Cain)

I need to re-read ALL of those. Plus I need to read the Russians. I've never read the Russians. (Nabokov doesn't count)

Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again

(Finally, an easy one)

1. To Have and Have Not
2. Rear Window
3. Blazing Saddles (left in from Geor3ge's list)
4. Scarface (the De Palma one)
5. The Godfather
6. The Godfather II
7. Barfly

Seven People I Want To Join In Too

OK, this is the one that I'm not gonna finish 'cause I think every other lefty blogger I know has probably already done this list. So I'm not gonna name any lefties . . . other than

MD

and

All the other Distance bloggers (when they return from their ski vacations!)

And if the following righties happen to stumble across this post I'd want them to join:

Velociman
Satan
PJ (I won't link to her blog unless she tells me it's OK. She knows where her blog is. ;) )

It always sets my teeth on edge

when Dubya repeats his "we thought the oceans would protect us" line. Every time I hear him say that, I think, what's this "we" shit, asshole?

I see Samurai Sam's had similar thoughts, although he's much more polite (and more eloquent).

First of all, it seems likely that Bush may, assuming he's telling the truth, be the only person of his generation that actually believed being "separated by oceans" made America safe from its enemies.

So, if you believe Bush (and why should you?), he's gone from a state of blissful ignorance, oblivious to known threats, thinking the "oceans would protect us," to his current state of hyper-vigilance. By "hyper-vigilance," of course, I mean "using the threat of 911 to justify his trashing of our civil liberties and his every political power play."

Vote early and often

Wampum Blog has listed the Koufax nominees for "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition" and "Best New Blog." Voting's not open yet. I'll be voting for Grace in the former category and Desi in the latter. Lots of other fine blogs nominated . . . so many blogs, so little time to read them all.

Thanks

For all the kind thoughts and wishes.

I'll be spending long weekends with the family for the next few months (I hope), so blogging will be light to non-existent, but hell, it wasn't like I was a blogging dynamo anyway.

Thanks again.

Awfully sorry but

blogging will be even more sporadic and lame in the near future. Serious illness in family.

See y'all in a couple weeks, maybe.

When the newspaper prints lies

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina, The Sun News published a letter to the editor that was simply riddled with falsehoods. It's not uncommon for the paper to publish letters that contain mis-statements of fact, but this one was a doozy. Whenever a letter writer criticizes some aspect of The Sun News, the editors frequently append their own italicized comment after the letter in which they correct the mis-statement, but otherwise, lies routinely appear without comment in the letters section. The Katrina letter was particularly egregious, but even before that, I had often wondered what the paper's policy is with respect to brazen lies in letters, or if it even has a policy.

I mean, I suspect I could write The Sun News a letter in which I say, "The liberals' hero, Madame Hillary Clinton, murdered Vince Foster with a knife so no wonder she supports murdering innocent babies!" and The Sun News would print my letter without comment. Or, at most, it would add an italicized corrective comment: "Vince Foster was killed with a gun."

So Monday when Atrios wrote,

When newspapers run utter horeshit in the "letters to the editor" section I can never figure out if they're really just that lazy/stupid or if they like the opportunity to print horseshit while distancing themselves from it.

I thought, yeah!

Monday night I read The Sun News and it had published the following letter, without comment:

In a typical news story written by Knight Ridder's liberal propagandist Steven Thomma, he mentions six Republicans and one Democrat as having received money from Jack Abramoff and who are planning to return it.

Here are just a few Mr. Thomma did not include as having received money from Abramoff: Sen. John Kerry D-Mass., $98,550; Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., $79,300; Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., $78,991; Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., $68,941, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., $29,550.

There was no mention of any of these stalwart Democrats offering to return any money received from Mr. Abramoff; he did mention that Dame Hillary is planning on returning the $12,950 she received from Abramoff.

Clyde J. Davis
Pawleys Island

Of course, Abramoff didn't give money to ANY Democrats.

Listening to James Frey's voice

It's really hard to take him seriously as a super-bad-ass.

Update: The memoir genre is not about truth, it's about truthiness!

Paging Laurin Manning * **

Re the anti-cyberstalking provision stuck in the called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act, Atrios asks: Who will be the first head up their ass blogger to try to get one of their trolls in trouble with this law...

Frankly, I was a little worried after reading Atrios's initial short take on the law - if they outlaw being annoying on the Internet, I thought, then I might as well throw my 'puter away. But after reading the text of the statute, I decided that it doesn't cover my brand of annoying-ness. Nim, Ham Hock of Liberty, agrees. So snark is still legal.

*Just kidding, Ms. Manning. I know you wouldn't do that!
**Alternate post title: If flaming is outlawed, only outlaws will flame!

New to the illustrious Rogue Planet blogroll

[Never mind. Blogrolling policy current under review by site administrator . . .]

Thealogical question

If God is punishing Sharon by smiting Sharon with a stroke, what's He up to when He repeatedly knocks Bush onto his face? Is God punishing Bush? Or just screwing with him a little?

SamuraiSam has some thoughts about Mullah Robertson here.

Bush vs. the brush

Via The Poor Man, here's a post at Bottle of Blog about Bush's battles with the brush, or should I say, "the brush."

Bottle of Blog commenter Ricky wonders what Bush has against underbrush:

Bush has zero animals. Not a cow. Not a horse. Not even a bunch of chickens.

What's he clearing brush for? Pasture land for Barney?

Let's let President Bush himself explain:

"See, Ricky, what you gotta unnerstan' is that the brush HIDES things. It harbors things. Animals. We're dealin' with critters that lurk and hide, and then they srike. Chipmunks. Bunnies, with nasty big pointy teeth. See, if you harbor furry terrorists, you're guilty of terrorism. So lemme just put it this way: There's a lotta brush that will no longer pose a threat to Amurrica or her friends and allies."

Ooh! Blogger catfight!

Just noticed this in the comments to my post about Laurin Manning's blog. Specifically, the post was about what happened to a commenter on her blog.

Ms. Manning says, "If any of you has a problem with me and my actions, why don't you grow a set and contact me yourself rather than badmouthing me on a blog that gets 5 hits a day?"

Maybe it's 'cause they don't want to get fired? Just a guess.

Oh, and I'll have Ms. Manning know my readership is in the DOUBLE DIGITS. I think. I'm not sure, 'cause I don't have a hit counter.

Shorter Anderson Cooper

"It wasn't our fault! It wasn't our fault!"*

The media sure have their investigative hats on trying to find out the source of the miscommunication - maybe because it left our 24 hour cable news networks with egg on their faces.

They seem rather less interested in issues of mine safety, etc.

I so want the governor of West Virginia

to say to the assembled "journalists": Fuck you, you bunch of stupid motherfucking bastards. Vultures.

Bush versus the ground

"There's an enemy that lurks, see. It lurks and it hides. See, you gotta unnerstan' the nature of - the nature of this enemy. It lurks, and it hides until it strikes at the very heart of our freedom.

See, it used to be that we thought the air would protect us from the ground. But now we know that the ground may lash out at us from our very own shores. But I'm confident we're gonna . . . we will defeat the ground and its i-dee-ology of hate. The ground is firm, but my face is firmer. My face has resolve. It will not falter, and it will not fail."

The fix

is in.

Via Digby.

How the heck do you train a cat

to do anything, let alone dial 911 in case of emergency?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Police aren't sure how else to explain it.
But when an officer walked into an apartment Thursday night to answer a 911 call, an orange-and-tan striped cat was lying by a telephone on the living room floor. The cat's owner, Gary Rosheisen, was on the ground near his bed having fallen out of his wheelchair.

Rosheisen said his cat, Tommy, must have hit the right buttons to call 911.

"I know it sounds kind of weird," Officer Patrick Daugherty said, unsuccessfully searching for some other explanation.

Rosheisen said he couldn't get up because of pain from osteoporosis and ministrokes that disrupt his balance. He also wasn't wearing his medical-alert necklace and couldn't reach a cord above his pillow that alerts paramedics that he needs help.

Daugherty said police received a 911 call from Rosheisen's apartment, but there was no one on the phone. Police called back to make sure everything was OK, and when no one answered, they decided to check things out.

That's when Daugherty found Tommy next to the phone.

Rosheisen got the cat three years ago to help lower his blood pressure. He tried to train him to call 911, unsure if the training ever stuck.

The phone in the living room is always on the floor, and there are 12 small buttons — including a speed dial for 911 right above the button for the speaker phone.

If I ever passed out at home, my cats wouldn't dial 911. They'd point at me and laugh derisively. Then they'd try to eat my face.