2010 archive
We Need Single Payer 0
So we don’t have to have “festivals” like this one:
Throckmorton participated Saturday in the three-day clinic held at the Wise County Fairgrounds.
According to Houchins, there were 4,222 teeth extractions, 1,200 fillings, 1,117 cleanings, 51 root canals, 1,247 X-rays made and 20 dentures made. The clinic opened early Friday morning and continued through Sunday.
“I saw about 21 patients on Friday, 24 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday,” Dr. Houchins noted. “We started at 6 a.m. and were there until 7 p.m. We took a short break and got some crackers and then went back to work.”
Stacy Houchins added, “It was 98 degrees under the tents one day. The people were very patient. Sometimes there was a five to six hour waiting period.”
Adventures in Stupid 0
An ex-pat comes home to the United States to visit his folks and watches day-time television for the first time. A nugget:
Baby’s Got Back(house) 0
A thrilling story of chills and spills:
Follow the link for the rest of the story.
Seen on the Street 0
The storms on Thursday eventually dropped between two and five inches of rain, depending on where you were. This picture was taken from the South Island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel shortly after the rain started at the North End of Virginia Beach, before it had spread to the rest of the area:
A Bouncing Baby Bhoy 0
Details from El Reg.
Point Counterpoint 0
The Rude Pundit takes on Ann Coulter (WARNING: language).
The President’s Weekly Address, Republican Nope Dept. 0
Excerpt:
At a time when America is just starting to move forward again, we can’t afford the do-nothing policies and partisan maneuvering that will only take us backward. I won’t stand here and pretend everything’s wonderful. I know that times are tough. But what I also know is that we’ve made it through tough times before. And we’ll make it through again. The men and women hard at work in this plant make me absolutely confident of that.
Anne Rice FAIL 1
Anne Rice falls into a trap that many persons have fallen into: Confusing those who call themselves “Christian” with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.
Afterthought:
Sadly, those who call themselves “Christian” (and whom Andrew Sullivan calls “Christianists“) are the often the strongest argument against the teachings and example Jesus Christ.
Where he was gentle, they are harsh.
Where he was kind, they are cruel.
Where he was forgiving, they condemn.
Where he loved, they hate.
They cause me shame to profess my faith.
In a related vein, I listened to this interview Friday.
It is worth your while, if not to listen, to read the excerpts from the transcript; the subject of the interview gets the difference between Chrisitianism and Christianity, and it cost him his job.
QOTD 0
George Bernard Shaw, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
Dustbiters 0
You can trust your friendly neighborhood bank, except when it’s run by incompetents and is too small not to fail:
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LibertyBank, Eugene, Oregon
The Cowlitz Bank, Longview, Washington
Coastal Community Bank, Panama City, Florida
Misdirection Play, Af-Pak Dept. 0
I can be equivocal* on the effort in Afghanistan, but I’m calling bullshit on this. This is PR damage-control bullshit:
As if any thinking person doesn’t realize that persons in Afghanistan or Pakistan already know what’s going on there on both, or on all three, or on however-the-hell-many sides there are in that mess.
There are few similiarities between the Wiki-Leaks leak and the Pentagon Papers, but there are two. Both include stuff that
- the Pentagon and the government and even the allied governments already knew, and
- the Pentagon and the government and even the allied governments did not want their citizenry (citizenries?) to know.
Until Wiki-Leaks is caught offing wedding parties with drones, I shall keep calling bullshit.
________________________
*I am equivocal.
Gone Gnomes 0
The big question is, did they get David?
Someone snuck (sic) into Gibson’s front lawn and snatched close to 150 (lawn gnomes–ed.).
“I had them all along the flower bed here and then I had them on the brick,” Gibson said as she pointed toward her fence. “I had them all out in front of my flower pots.”
Gibson figures the thief or thieves stole close to $2,000 worth of lawn gnomes.
I’m trying to visualize a yard with 200 gnomes.
To my relief, I am unable to.
Video at the link.
Keeping the Chesapeake at Bay 0
Nothing much to add to this, except that all these locations are in the Upper Bay, where I used to go boating and where my kids went to scout and YMCA camps.
For comparison, the team also took two water samples from a household toilet: one while it was clean, and another after human feces had sat in it for four hours.
After rain on July 15, the tests showed that three of the seven sites had bacteria levels far higher than Maryland and Virginia standards for safe recreation, and five were above the level for safe swimming. Two — Savage Park in Howard County and Middle Branch Park in Baltimore — had bacteria levels much higher than the dirty toilet.
Deregulation will undoubtedly fix this.
Also, you may already have won.
Double Standards: Rangeling Ensign 0
Steve Benen wants to know, when Ensign is facing criminal charges and Rangel is facing (probably) censure at best . . . .
Rangel is facing a probe from the House ethics committee, while Ensign is under scrutiny from the FBI.
Is this just the IOKIYAR rule taken to the extreme? Was there some kind of memo stating that only Democratic scandals deserve media attention in an election year?
I think there’s more to it than IOKIYAR. Most reporters and pundits with a national audience cluster in New York and Washington; the major news organizations are headquartered in New York.
Rangel is local news for them. Except for conventions on the Lost Wages Strip, Nevada is just some place out there somewhere that they rarely visit and know little about.
They’ve decided what to write for their columns and commentaries each day before folks in the Mountain Time Zone are getting to work.
Unless it happens to Lindsey Lohan or Jennifer Anniston, they have no idea what’s going on west of Leesburg, Virginia.
While I Was Out 0
Virginia AG Cuccinelli finally passed his US Navy Vets campaign contributions to an outfit that will use them to benefit real vets. The founder of US Navy Vets is still missing and unaccounted for. Assuming the money was invested at 4% compound interest for the three or four months since the US Navy Vets was revealed to be a likely fraud, he might kick in an extra $500-700.
In other news, he continues to believe that mysterious magical thinking counteracts the laws of physics, biology, and chemistry.