TURTLE THOUGHTS

What Is Joe Lieberman's Deal?

Any rational person can see there's something going on with Senator Joe Lieberman. Seems kinda needy. Wants a bit of attention now and then. His latest attention-grabbing stunt is to scuttle any kind of meaningful health care reform. Since Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the leadership seem to have no problem with Lieberman leading them about by a nose ring, he continues to sabotage reform.

Happily, MoveOn has already raised a million dollars to put Joe Lieberman out of our misery. Let's hope they're successful.

In the meantime, I have to wonder just what is Lieberman's deal? Is he really just getting his revenge on liberals who replaced him with Ned Lamont in the last Connecticut Senate race? Is he still hatin' on those mean ole progressives who almost kicked his sorry vacillating behind out of the US Senate?

And while we're talking about what makes Joe tick, I'd like somebody to answer Susie Madrak's question: Is he really a devout Jew or a pious egotist?

And why aren't we hearing more about a possible conflict of interest since the Senator's wife, Hadassah Lieberman, works for the pharmaceutical industry?

And I must admit it's crossed my mind. Is he just crazy with grief from missing an old boyfriend who moved out of town? (Hey, it's possible!)

Nope, I think the only thing that can explain Lieberman is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Yup. Gotta be the ole NPD

Hey there are Joe Lieberman jokes now. Did you hear this one?

What do you get when you cross Joe Lieberman with a frog?

A fascinating, frog-voiced lump of wrinkles whose blood runs cold with reptilian contempt for those in need. And a frog. (by David Rees, courtesy of Riotjoke)

 It's all about Joe.

World AIDS Day--December 1st

Today marks the 21st World AIDS Day, and it's a fair time to assess what's being done to combat the disease. This is from AIDS and human rights activist Michael Kavanagh.

Where is the $50 billion for global AIDS promised by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary Clinton when they were campaigning for our votes? The 2010 budget certainly didn't have it.

Where's the promise to double the number of people on AIDS treatment around the world they pledged? With no new money we're hearing reports from Uganda and Nigeria of people being turned away from clinics because doctors cannot afford to start them on life-saving treatment.

And so on World AIDS Day activists have put together a report card, and the result is not pretty: a D+.

Catholic Church Hypocrisy Knows No End

Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy, has been barred from receiving communion by Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin. The Church is punishing Kennedy for his belief that women should be allowed a choice about whether or not to go through with a pregnancy. Kennedy says he was told he'd be denied the sacrament because he is "not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that (he has) taken as a public official."  

Catholic politicians who supported and continue to support the war in Iraq haven't been barred from Communion, even though the pope came out strongly against it. Catholic politicians who vehemently support the death penalty are not barred from Communion, even though the Church is against it. But when it comes to abortion, we see that there is a different standard. Why in the hell is the RCC still tax-exempt? If they want to function as a political entity that lobbies and puts pressure on lawmakers, I say, have at it. But don't pretend you're not doing it so you can retain your tax-exempt status.

The Great American Smokeout

Today is the annual Great American Smokeout. Many smokers are giving up the habit--for this one day at least--with the hope they'll become former smokers once and for all. Tobacco use accounts for one in every five deaths in the United States. That's 443,000 people dead from smoking in this country every year. It remains the leading cause of preventable death. Yet nearly 20% of adults still smoke. Of those, 70% want to quit but haven't been able to.

The best way to quit is to keep quitting until it takes. Successful quitters usually have given up smoking several times. The important thing is to keep at it. There's a lot of support.  You don't have to go cold turkey. Call 1-800-QuitNow to get the help that's available.

So Maybe Heather Could Have Two Mommies AND a Daddy

A team of Japanese researchers doing work on in vitro fertilization in older women has stumbled upon a way to combine ovarian material from two different women to form one egg, which can then be fertilized. They've done it in the lab, and they speculate the fertilized human eggs with three genetic parents would have a good chance of making it if they were to be implanted. According to the UK Telegraph:

IVF often fails in older women because there are abnormalities in the outside of their eggs, known as cytoplasm, which surrounds the nucleus.

The team at St Mother Hospital in Kitakyushu, Japan, believe one way around the problem would be too implant the healthy nucleus - which contains most of the information to produce a baby - into the cytoplasm of a donor, usually a younger mother.

The team successfully did this in 31 eggs and of these seven formed "early stage embryos" when injected with sperm in a test tube.

It turns out a team of American scientists has already successfully conducted this experiment with monkeys. BTW, the point is not to make some kind of freaky hybrid baby (though that might be interesting), but to stop the misfortune of some mothers passing along incurable diseases to their children.

Patrick Kennedy: An American Catholic, Not a Catholic American

       

Two Roman Catholic bishops are calling for Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to apologize for daring to criticize the Church for opposing health care reform. 

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, of the archdiocese of New York, and Bishop Thomas Tobin, who is Kennedy's bishop, called on the Catholic lawmaker's criticism of the church's opposition to healthcare reform, citing concerns over whether the bill would allow funding for abortions.

"I can’t understand for the life of me how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time, where the very dignity of the human person is being respected by the fact that we’re caring and giving health care to the human person," Kennedy said in an interview with the Catholic News Service.

"I thought they were prolife?" Kennedy added. "If the church is prolife, then they ought to be for health care reform, because it’s going to provide health care that are going to keep people alive."

Tobin demanded an apology, calling Kennedy's statement "irresponsible and ignorant of the facts" in a statement last week. Dolan, who occupies one of the most prominent and influential positions in the U.S. Catholic church, followed suit this week.

"His remarks were sad, uncalled-for, and inaccurate," Dolan wrote on his blog. "The Catholic community in the United States hardly needs to be lectured to about just healthcare."

"All we ask is that it be just that -- universal -- meaning that it includes the helpless baby in the womb, the immigrant, and grandma in a hospice, and that it protects a healthcare provider’s right to follow his/her own conscience," Dolan added. "This is what the President says he wants; this is what we bishops say we want."

The important thing to remember here is that Patrick Kennedy is an American first and a Catholic second. That means he's a REAL American, which is the least we can expect from elected Members of the United States House of Representatives.

Patrick Kennedy was not elected to represent Catholics, he was elected by a majority of the voters in his district to represent all the people of Rhode Island. Those people need affordable, decent healthcare, and they don't all share the Catholic Church's belief that having an abortion is a mortal sin. If the Church can force a politician to thwart the will of the people in order to meet an arbitrary set of faith-based beliefs, then that politician isn't fit for office.

If the Catholic Church forces its will on elected officials, then what's to stop Scientologists, Islamic fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Moonies, and every other radical religious group from trying to do the same thing? That may sound preposterous now, but who knows what the cultural and religious landscape will look like in 40 or 50 years? We cannot allow a precedent of letting a particular religious group guide American policy. By definition, that is un-American.

Patrick Kennedy, just like his late father, is a patriot. That means he's not going to allow a narrow set of religious beliefs to dictate his decisions--he's going to abide by the US Constitution and thereby represent all of his constituents. The United States of America is not a theocracy. At least not yet, and we have elected leaders like Patrick Kennedy to thank for it.

 

Feds Will No Longer Interfere When States Allow Medicinal Pot

 
The Obama administration is letting states that have legalized medicinal marijuana continue the practice without fear of federal interference.

"The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws," according to new policy guidelines to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors, the AP reports.

"Prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws. The policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes."

"Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. ... A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent today to federal prosecutors in the 14 states and to top officials at the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration. ... The government will still prosecute those who use medical marijuana as a cover for other illegal activity, the officials said."

I disagree with Obama on some key issues, but I'm with him on this. The feds have plenty to do already without wasting resources arresting seriously ill people who smoke pot to simply combat pain or allow them to eat without becoming sick. Having a rational president is a nice change.

  

Republicans (A Lot of Them) Support Obama's Healthcare Reform Plan

One inherent weakness in today's news media mindset is that issues always boil down to two equal and opposite sides. And they keep reporting within that frame of reference--Dems vs Reps for instance--even when a cursory review of the facts shows that an issue in question, say, Obama's healthcare reform plan, is something supported by all Democrats and abhorred by all Republicans. Not the case at all, when you know there are a few Dems who are against it, but a much more impressive list of Republicans who have endorsed Obama's vision for heatlhcare reform:

"And earlier this week, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came out in support of reform, joining two former Republican Senate Majority Leaders: Bob Dole and Dr. Bill Frist, himself a cardiac surgeon. Dr. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, supports reform. As does Republican Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. These distinguished leaders understand that health insurance reform isn't a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but an American issue that demands a solution.

That's a quote from today's weekly radio/internet address by Obama, lifted from Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly's Political Animal.

Teabaggers On Parade

Tens of thousands of angry white people (not hundreds of thousands or millions, as they'd have you believe) met up in DC over the weekend to stoke their rage about having a black president. Or something like that. Anyway, the teabaggers brought some lovely signs. This assortment of images comes via the good folk at the Great Orange Satan.

        

UPDATE: Some of the anti-healthcare reformers are trying to inflate their numbers by trying to pass off a five year old photo as a snapshot from this past Saturday.  

Thanks, Joe!

If you're an obstructionist Congressman who hates the president, why not scream out that he's a liar during the middle of a joint session of Congress?  One reason not to do that is because it will enrich your election opponent by more than $200,000 in just a few hours.

That's what South Carolina GOP Representative Joe Wilson is learning today after his disrespectful outburst during last night's presidential address to Congress. Wilson, sitting among a pack of smug Republican Members, apologized almost immediately, but the damage has been done. Along with raising money for his opponent, Rob Wilson, he made himself and his party look like shrieking babies.

     

UPDATE: Rob Miller has now raised $600,000.

September 4th

September 4 is a very significant date for me.  I quit tobacco exactly six years ago today. I smoked more than a pack a day. But I decided to quit cold turkey just a few minutes after learning that my dad had died suddenly from a heart attack while working in another state. I couldn't understand why that could happen unless it had something to do with his 2-pack+ a day consumption of cigarettes. Keeping that up for well over 40 years takes its toll on your heart.

I''d smoked for about ten years when I stopped.  Occasionally I'll have a dream in which I'm smoking a cigarette, and I wake up in tears thinking that I've somehow let down my dad. I don't know whether it's healthy to tie a decision to give up cigarettes to the death of someone you love, but so far it's been effective.  I find its strengthens my resolve by thinking of Not Smoking as a way to honor my dad. I think he'd appreciate that. Like most smokers (70%, according to the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health) my father wanted to give up his smokes, but he never figured out a way to do it. I can't and don't blame him for that. Cigarettes are more addictive than cocaine (more so when you have coffee...or maybe that was just me). So you just keep quitting and keep quitting and eventually it sticks. I'd quit more than once before my dad died, but on that day, my quitting 'took.'  Use whatever you can to help you quit smoking, and if that entails tying your decision to a personal tragedy, well, there are worse ways to react.

Odd side note...my dad died on September 4th of his 59th year. His dad died on the same date, also in his 59th year.  The year I turn 59, I'll probably just stay home on this date. 

This image has little to do with this post except for the depiction of smoking, I guess. I only post it because I think it's proof that George Burns occasionally liked to hang out in drag. 

Not Your Typical Policy Debate: Man Gets Punched Then Bites Off Opponent's Finger

If the people on both sides of the healthcare insurance reform debate keep at it like this, they'll need to start bringing doctors and medical supplies to the rallies. Forget healthcare. They need triage.

          

Back to School

Time again to note the transition to a brand new month. August (aka, National Catfish Month AND National Water Quality Month, though I hope we're not talking about the same batch of water) and September (aka, National Yoga Month) can be celebrated simultaneously.

In the interest of saving time, simply pair August's Studious Behavior Awareness Month together with September's National Bourbon Heritage Month. The result? Undergraduates, of course. 

 

Some Men Say Having STDs Makes Them Feel More 'Manly'

Have you ever wondered who was smarter, men or women? The answer is in this study in which some men reveal that having a sexually transmitted disease makes them feel more manly. I know nothing could make me feel more butch than having itchy, oozy man-parts.  

                                 

Senator Edward M. Kennedy Dies

                           

The youngest Kennedy brother loses his battle against brain cancer. Ted Kennedy was 77.

Jim Cooper Upset with Kos

You know the poll I wrote about earlier that the Daily Kos commissioned in Congressman Jim Cooper's District?  It made Jim all mad and stuff!

Health Insurance Lapdog Jim Cooper Not Representing Constituents

Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) represents one of the two liberal Congressional Districts in Tennessee (Steve Cohen of Memphis is the other...I wish they could all be like him.) Cooper is best known for putting a knife in the back of the Clinton health reform plan 15 years ago. He's doing his thing again, shilling for the insurance companies, ignoring his constituents, and generally begging for a Democratic primary opponent. New polling from the Daily Kos shows a genuine Democratic candidate would have a real shot at putting Cooper out of a job. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

                                              

Fears That Senator Ted Kennedy Is Nearing the End

Senator Ted Kennedy, the 77-year old senior Senator from MA, who has been fighting brain cancer since last year, hasn't been seen in public for months. 

Add that to his absence from a White House ceremony this week honoring him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his being unable to attend the funeral for his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, on Friday, and you have some grounds for concern. The Hill reports Senate insiders as saying they fear Kennedy may not be around to vote on healthcare reform, a cause that he's championed for decades. Here's hoping he's able to see that legislation through.

                

The "Slippery Slope" to Raging Violence

Frank Schaeffer, the son of ultra-conservative theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer, is also the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. In a disturbing post on Alternet, Schaeffer draws a straight line between his late father's vehement opposition to abortion and the crazies who are now disrupting townhall meetings because of the lies they've been fed about health care reform.

To the uninitiated, this linkage sounds unhinged. To me it sounds an alarm bell. I know that it taps into 30 years of slippery-slope rhetoric resulting in four abortion doctors being shot and countless acts of violence against clinics. We too began by yelling at people in our marches. In the end, our words opened a door to violent actions.

I'm not sure if the insurance-industry leaders using lobbyists to stir the pot know what they've just hooked into. Do they know that the comparisons of Obama to Hitler, and the call to break up a wholly imaginary "conspiracy" against the elderly may lead the fringe of the fringe to the next step? Is this fear of mine farfetched? I don't think so.

Schaeffer continues...

The fact that otherwise-sane people now believe that United States government is in a conspiracy with the Obama administration to kill our elderly makes sense only when seen in the context of the hysterical, Armageddonlike expectations of the religious right/pro-life movement.

When you understand the link between the hatemongers, the lobbying groups carrying water for the insurance industry and the ideology that came out of the pro-life movement, then you can you understand what is happening today in town hall meetings that are being disrupted by screaming people.

I'm very afraid he's right about all this. We know that people who murder abortion doctors believe they are acting on behalf of God. It's not a large step for them to go after pro-health reform politicians for the same reason.

 

       Frank Schaeffer with his father (date unknown); Frank's book; Frank today

Senator Chuck Grassley Perpetuates "Death Panel" Lie

Iowa Senator (and the world's oldest living Twitterer) Chuck Grassley is one of those strange Republicans who's pretty right wing yet enjoys the undeserved reputation of being a moderate. 

Well, he put that image to rest today when Grassley agreed with Sarah Palin that Obama's health care reform would include 'death panels.' Sam Stein writes about Grassley's appearance at an Iowa town hall meeting this afternoon:

There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

And Grassley's not just any Republican--he's one of the key GOP players who is supposedly helping to create bipartisan health care reform. If this is one of their moderates, just how batshit are the hard core Republicans?

 Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Clowntown, IA)

Corporate Lobbyists Go To Any Length in the Assault Against Health Care Reform

As you follow the health care reform debate (and any other significant debate in Washington), it would be helpful to keep this in mind from consultant Bob Lewis, president of IT Catalysts, Inc., a consultancy specializing in IT organizational effectiveness and strategic integration.

In mass media, the entertainment or information isn’t product — it’s bait. The audience is the product, of which advertisers are both customer and consumer.

Lewis wrote those words in a column posted in 2002, and it's even more salient today. Don't be suckered by talk of horrible "government bureaucrats" making decisions about your health care. The people currently making those decisions are insurance company employees who have every incentive in the world to deny a claimant's coverage.

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are government run programs, and I'm not hearing anybody enraged about health care reform talking about doing away with them. If government run health care is bad, there'd have been a long-running grassroots movement against it.  So don't be fooled: This fake, corporate/ industry astroturfing we're seeing now is just smoke and mirrors.

            

(Image from FarLeftSide.com--h/t to Crooks & Liars as well as D.Aamodt)

Well, It All Makes a Little More Sense: Sarah and Todd Palin to Divorce

UPDATE The Christian Science Monitor reports that Sarah Palin's spokesperson, Meg Stapleton has posted on Palin's Facebook page that the Palins are not divorcing. Maybe that's true, but I'm not convinced. 

___________________________

What a crazy month it's been for former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Just before the July 4th holiday, she dropped the bombshell that she was resigning but couldn't offer a coherent response when asked why she was doing it. Turns out what she didn't say was that she and Todd are about to divorce.

Knowing that the National Enquirer had written about both Palins having extramarital affairs and seeing no way to save the marriage, I guess she figured it'd be a little easier if she weren't governor when it all hit the fan. (Like that's gonna slow down the darned librul media!! as she might say.) 

I told you the other shoe was a-gonna drop!

(Speaking of shoes, I'll bet this is the straw that broke the camel's back.)

                             

Helen & Margaret Remember Sexy Uncle Walter

Margaret and Helen ("Best Friends for 60 Years and Counting"), the world's most amazing old lady bloggers, remind us that the late Walter Cronkite wasn't just a great news man--he was a stud.

Helen gets started by talking about the critics of health care reform...

 Rush Limbaugh,  a man who will never have to worry about the cost of insurance and  admits to a prescription drug addiction, actually wants to challenge Obama on healthcare reform.  Really? I am just stunned.  And now they attack Walter Cronkite … the most trusted man in America… Uncle Walter.   I guess the Americans with Disabilities Act needs to be revisited again to include “Republican” as a form of mental impairment because this has gotten out of hand.  And I will gladly give up my  mobility impaired classification and the great parking space that goes with it to make room for them.

Let me tell you about Walter Cronkite.   Besides being sexier than Rush will ever be, Cronkite was someone you could respect even if you didn’t agree with him.  He knew the difference between news and opinion and was quick to announce when he had switched from one to the other.  Each evening for years he brought millions of Americans together to know and better understand the world around them.  He was a man’s man who wasn’t offensive to women – unlike Rush who is an ass’s ass who couldn’t pay a woman to respect him… and I am sure he has tried.

Margaret responds....

Helen, dear, we can certainly agree on one thing for sure. Walter Cronkite was a very sexy man. I  tell you, he was the Anderson Cooper of his day. He could melt my butter each and every evening.   He could toast my bread on both sides.   He could float my boat, row it out to sea, and wait for it to return with the tide any day of the week.  Although, I’m not quite sure what that means, I do know that Walter Cronkite was a real man.  And, my dear Helen, that’s the way it is…

I just love them. (h/t to Bill in Portland Maine, the funniest writer at the Daily Kos)

Happy August Eve

As National Fireworks Safety Month (July) turns into National Eye Exam Month (August), it is fitting to engage in the traditional Melding of the Months and blur these great monthly observances into one.

Don't be this girl.

 

Be these girls.

 

Actually, the one on the left looks like me in 1977 except my glasses were bigger.

Sens. Brownback and Landrieu Legislate Against Mermaids, Centaurs, Gorgons

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback is very proud of his legislation that would outlaw human-animal hybrids. He, along with Louisiana Blue Dog Mary Landrieu, are very concerned that the science of cloning will lead to nightmarish, Dr. Moreau-like results, and, by God, they're on the case to prevent that from happening. I just wish they'd acted in time to spare us from these:

  

We Really Need to Listen to The Elders

Jimmy Carter proves over and over again that he is one of the most decent and wise men ever to hold the office of President of the United States. The former president is part of a worldwide group of leaders calling themselves The Elders, "...an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity." Writes Carter:

"We have decided to draw particular attention to the responsibility of religious and traditional leaders in ensuring equality and human rights and have recently published a statement that declares: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable.

"We are calling on all leaders to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices, no matter how ingrained, which justify discrimination against women. We ask, in particular, that leaders of all religions have the courage to acknowledge and emphasise the positive messages of dignity and equality that all the world's major faiths share."

      

The Elders leave one seat empty for fellow Elder Aung San Suu Kyi at board meeting in Morocco. May 09 (Photo: Jeff Moore.)

Rooting Out the Sociopaths in Your Life

Some experts say that about one out of every 50 people you know is a sociopath (aka, psychopath). But how can you possibly know whether someone you know and/or love falls into that category? Your responses to these questions provides an answer:

1. Do you often feel used by the person?

2. Have you often felt that he (or she) doesn't care about you?

3. Does he lie and deceive you?

4. Does he tend to make contradictory statements?

5. Does he tend to take from you and not give back much?

6. Does he often appeal to pity? Does he seem to try to make you feel sorry for him?

7. Does he try to make you feel guilty?

8. Do you sometimes feel he is taking advantage of your good nature?

9. Does he seem easily bored and need constant stimulation?

10. Does he use a lot of flattery? Does he interact with you in a way that makes you feel flattered even if he says nothing overtly complimentary?

11. Does he make you feel worried? Does he do it obviously or more cleverly and sneakily?

12. Does he give you the impression you owe him?

13. Does he chronically fail to take responsibility for harming others? Does he blame everyone and everything but himself?

I brainstormed and couldn't think of anybody I know who falls into the sociopath/psychopath category. That probably means it's me.

                                   

National Review Cracks Stale/Over-Used Joke, Delights Readers

This most recent National Review cover is supposed to be clever, and it might have been 15 or so years ago, but you can only go back to the well so many times.

                                         

But you've seen this joke already.

                                          

Turns out National Review isn't the first to lift the gag.

                                        

Outlawing Loud TV Commercials

You know you watch too much TV. Okay, *I* watch too much TV, but you probably do, too.

Aren't you annoyed by how loud the commercials are compared to the show you're watching? Well, so is Representative Anita Eshoo (D-CA), who is sponsoring the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act, aka CALM.

In all, 63 House Members and two Senators have signed on as co-sponsors. Eshoo, a member of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, says she's just had it.

"Every time the ads came on they blew me out of my seat," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who introduced the bill last June. "It really turns you off, makes you think, 'I'll be damned if I give them any of my money.' "

                           

At Least It Helps Contain That Diaper Smell

When I was a kid, my mother had an insanely disproportionate-to-reality fear that I would somehow manage to smother myself to death with a plastic drycleaner bag. I could freak her out by holding one up to my face, so I did it a lot. (Where I grew up in the middle of nowhere, you had to entertain yourself.)

Perhaps my mother's fear is grounded in having seen this DuPont magazine ad from bygone years (via Gawker).

                    

That's still not as bad as the Flintstones hawking cigarettes.

                    

Rep. Steve Cohen Makes Sense, Bumfuzzles FBI Director

Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen is a longtime supporter of legalizing small amounts of marijuana going back to his days in the Tennessee General Assembly. Now as a Member of the US House, Cohen is getting some national attention for taking FBI Director Bob Mueller to task about the 'dangers' of pot.  

During a Congressional hearing, Mueller fell back on the same old line, calling marijuana a gateway drug.  Cohen asked him how many people had died as a result of marijuana, and Mueller admitted he didn't know of any. Cohen went on to tell the FBI Director that the gateway theory has long been discredited, and if the theory were true, we could believe that milk is a gateway drug to bourbon because bourbon drinkers definitely consumed milk and then perhaps moved onto beer before finally graduating to bourbon. Mueller appeared confused and little flustered causing me to wonder whether an occasional toke might help him relax enough to get through these kinds of hearings.

As long as our top law enforcement officers insist on lumping pot in with crack, heroin, and other drugs that are a real danger, the longer we'll continue to lose the so-called 'war on drugs.'

                                     Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) of Memphis

Coffee Drinkers Take Note--It's Either Good or Bad for You (Just Thought You'd Like to Know)

We are people who like coffee. Don't matter whether you call it joe, brew, cafe au lait, espresso, decaf, or battery acid, we just loves us some coffee.

And of course we all know that coffee is bad for us.

But now we all know that coffee is good for us.

According to the latest study, your morning cuppa varnish remover might offer protection against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis, and Parkinson's disease.  So why have we been all over the map when it comes to the dangers/benefits of coffee consumption?  And why should we believe the latest findings?

Lots of new research, and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.

"Coffee was seen as very unhealthy," said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Now we have a more balanced view. We're not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice."

It would be great if the answer to the 'is-coffee-good-or-bad-for-you' was yes or no, black or cream, up or down, but it's not. As with so many of life's goodies, the answer boils down to: It Depends.

Scientists know that coffee, a major source of caffeine, is metabolized by the enzyme, cytochrome P450 1A2, and some individuals who have that particular gene are "rapid" caffeine metabolizers, whereas those with a different variation of the gene are "slow" caffeine metabolizers....

Dr. Ahmed El-Sohemy of the University of Toronto, one of the authors of the study, says they found in individuals who had the slow version of this gene, two to three cups of coffee a day increased their odds of a heart attack by 36 percent, and four or more cups a day increased the risk by 64 percent.

While for those with the fast version of the gene, there was no increased risk, even with four or more cups a day, says Dr. El-Sohemy.

The study, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concludes that no matter what kind of genes you have, you should probably restrict yourself to no more than four cups of coffee a day. (But they don't say what size that cup can be....)   

                                                                                                     

 

It's Just Plain Ole OPRAH, not OPRAH, MD, mmkay?

I know we're all supposed to love Oprah, and I usually do, because she's from Mississippi, and so am I, so that makes us, I dunno, like soul-twins or something. Anyway, I still had to agree with this medical doctor writing for Salon, who makes a good case that Oprah has been pushing questionable health claims on the American public for years, and lately she's getting worse. Like when she had Dr. Suzanne Somers on to talk about her amazing treatment for post-menopausal women that includes downing copious amounts of hormones.

But what Somers was advocating was radically different from standards of medical care. She admitted to using mega-doses of bioidenticals continuously and aggressively. She started her regimen, she told Winfrey, by rubbing bioidentical estrogen and progesterone creams on her arms, injecting another hormone, estriol, vaginally every day, and topping herself off with 60 different oral supplements. Physicians who may have been watching the show surely winced, but Winfrey was not concerned. "Many people write Suzanne off as a quackadoo," she declared. "But she just might be a pioneer."

Oprah is a real guru to her audience, and we all know she can sell a book, movie, or TV show just being mentioning it. So why is she giving so much valuable airtime to alleged quackadoos like Somers, and the anti-vaccine crusading Jenny McCarthy, not to mention that horrible woman who scammed millions with the POS book/video/phenomenon  called"The Secret?" Add in the fawning celebretard brown-nosing, especially with a string of prominent but loopy Scientologists, and her show comes off like an acid induced psychology experiment. 

              

I don't know why she's giving the nuts a platform, but I can honestly say that if Oprah would give me a car, I wouldn't care nearly so much.

Whizzing In the Pool: A Summertime Tradition

                                                   

Memorial Day is just around the corner, and that means summer will be on top of us before we know it.  Are you one of those people who lives to hang out at the pool all season?  If so, you might want to dip yourself in Clorox before having a dip. Turns out one in five people admit to peeing in the pool. Is that all? 

The CDC encourages people not to swallow pool water, and they unnecessarily add 'Don't swim if you have diarrhea.'

Oh yeah, and please don't pee in the friggin' pool!

I'd Like a Dime Bag of Cheerios, Please

The Food and Drug Administration is making a bit of news by saying General Mills promotes its Cheerios breakfast cereal in a way "that causes it to be a drug."

Cheerios claims to lower cholesterol by 4% in 6 weeks.  

It sounds like a crazy story until you remember that Cheerios markets itself with claims that eating it can lower your cholesterol. They might be able to get by with that, but they get more specific about it. They say eating Cheerios will lower cholesterol by four percent in just six weeks. In its letter to General Mills, the FDA says "...because of these intended uses, the product is a drug." This means General Mills must stop the marketing or negotiate a compromise with the FDA. Conceivably, Cheerios could be taken off the shelves if there's no resolution, but don't count on that happening. General Mills claims one in every eight boxes of cereal sold is Cheerios (but, hey, these are the same people who market their cereal like a drug, so I don't know if they're lying or not.)

I love Cheerios, but if they're really a drug, then can I suggest including a bit of Gas-X in the recipe? Them thangs are yummy but they're hell on my tummy.

 An unidentified Cheerios addict sleeps off a bender.

But Saying Swine Flu Is Just So Much Easier

The first any of us ever heard of it, they called it the Swine Flu. Turns out you can't catch it from swine, just from other people. But to be fair, some of them are swine so maybe we're squared away.

If not, then maybe they called it the Swine Flu because it originally came from pigs and the reason we know that is because it has pig DNA in it. Okay, I'll give you that. But it also has human and avian DNA in it, so why not call it the Swine-Bird-Man Flu? 

In Israel, they're calling it the Mexican flu since it seems to have started in Mexico, and the Israeli Deputy Health Minister adds that the reference to pigs is "offensive" to both Muslims and Jews. My theory is that they don't like the idea of giving the word swine all that face time, so they're killing two birds. What can I say? I have to admire it. Unsurprisingly, Mexico has lodged an official protest.

But most of us were introduced to this as Swine Flu, and that's just what we're used to, so get over it, right?  Nope. The good folks at the US gubmint would like to remind you that the pork industry is very important, and they don't like this flu being called the Swine Flu, so call it something else, and STAT, why doncha? They're asking that you refer to it by its non-interesting scientific name of H1N1. They even hauled WHO aboard.

Actually, I don't have a problem with calling the flu H1N1 because, uninspiring as it may be, at least it's accurate. If this flu had been called that from the beginning, Egypt might not have killed 350,000 swine yesterday--every hog in the country. They claimed it was for the public health,  but I think they'd just been looking for an excuse. Now they'll be a hundred percent pig-free like in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Lybia where swine are banned outright.

The Egyptian slaughter most directly impacts the 10-percent or so of the Egyptian population that is Coptic Christian, many of whom are rubbish collectors who need the animals for their livelihood. The government has promised to compensate the owners for their losses, but few believe it will actually happen. Even if it does it'll be a short-term solution since the swine are a renewable resource and a government check isn't, as the UK Times online illustrates:

Mr Ishak said that his community receives 6,000 tonnes of organic rubbish every day, but if the pigs die there will be nowhere to put the waste. “What is the use of compensation? It will feed us only for several months, what then?" he asked.

So I guess everybody is on board with this H1N1 thing except for most of the media, which is really too bad since people tend to get their news from media and all.  The responsible thing to do is to call this illness what it is (H1N1) and stop calling it something it's not (Swine Flu.)