She's Really That Crazy

Michelle Bachmann would be funny if you didn't realize she really believes what she says. She continues to be an embarrassment to those of us in Minnesota that are: A) Not in her district, B) Would never have dreamed of voting for her, C) Wonder what planet she is really from, D) Sees her as about as stupid and crazy as they come...

I have read several comments stating things like: "I'd move if I lived in her district," "She has that vacant look in her eyes," and - my personal favorite - "You can almost hear the Looney Tunes music playing when she speaks."

Posted on Talking Points Memo is her latest round of questions and a couple of past doozies - noted as "The Bachmann Effect." Everyone she talks to has the same puzzled look on their face as to what in the world she is talking about. It is actually just plain scary that there were enough people in her district to actually vote her back into office. The first time was bad enough. Are the same vacant looks in their eyes too?

USO Award for Al

While Al Franken is still embroiled in the recount battle with Norm Coleman, he will be honored with an award for his USO service. Franken will be given the award for his work with deployed and wounded service members, as well as numerous visits to the Bethesda Naval Hospital and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. According to alfranken.com:

Al has visited our troops overseas with the USO seven times. He's been to Iraq four times. These trips are the highlight of his year. Visiting a war zone with the Sergeant Major of the Army is an opportunity to visit with members of the armed services, speak with generals, and see first-hand "how it's going over there."

While Franken was reaching out to soldiers, Coleman was busy covering Bush and looking out for himself - while living the high life. Of course now Coleman's main objective is to keep a battle going that he has clearly lost. Franken deserves his rightful seat in the Senate - with a clear goal to help people. It's just as clear that the only person Coleman wanted to help all along is himself.

Many people that voted for Coleman are now ashamed of his shenanigans. I suspect that Coleman has not only lost the senate seat, he has ruined his chance of ever doing anything politically again in Minnesota. And its highly doubtful he'll ever be up for any type of USO award.

Al Franken with the troops
(Photograph courtesy of Alfranken.com)

Gardening at the White House

Even the little changes in this new administration are good ones. Hence, Michelle Obama's plan to have a garden at the White House. The plan is to grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs in the space - with the total cost for mulch and seeds totalling only $200.

This is the first time since Elenor Roosevelt's victory garden during World War II that a garden has been planted at the White House. According to the New York Times:

"While the Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the White House roof, the Obamas’ garden will far transcend that, with 55 varieties of vegetables - from a wish list of the kitchen staff - grown from organic seedlings started at the Executive Mansion’s greenhouses."

This not only sends a great message as far as growing your own fruit and vegetables, but it supplies the White House with fresh grown food. It actually sends a myriad of messages: gardening, eating well, appreciating the environment...the list goes on.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.

“My hope,” the first lady said in an interview in her East Wing office, “is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”

In the process of creating the garden, Obama has brought in twenty-three elementary school children to help. They will also assist in harvesting the food from the garden.

It is nice to have such an active and caring First Lady. I think she really sends a great message - and it is done with her usual class and a true hope in the future.

Interview with a Vampire

After my post about Cheney's ridiculous interview with John King - seriously, what was King thinking - Jon Stewart summed it up even better on "The Daily Show." Of course it was funny and put in after a piece on killer snakes in Florida, which seemed to be an easy transition to Dick Cheney:

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Interview With a Vampire
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John King's Interview with Dick Cheney

I used to watch CNN to get a couple of different views. I still feel they have some good commentators and some intelligent people there - such as Fareed Zakaria - but they seem to be more and more overshadowed by sensationalistic garbage. Several months ago, in an interview with Larry King (definitely not one of the intelligent ones), Bill Maher joked that they needed a CNN II to report the real news. I tend to agree.

The latest junk is John King's interview with Dick Cheney. Why is he giving this man any screen time at all? Cheney is just projecting the failures of the Bush administration unto the Obama Administration. Once again, they inherited this, they did not create it. Of course, in his usual evil way, Cheney spews his garbage and lies. It is ridiculous that John King finds it necessary to put this man on the air.

For the audience that buys these lies, they really need to think about it. Do they really think that Bush and Cheney kept our country safe? Get your heads out of the sand and look at this realistically. See what most of America is saying, what other countries are saying, what the reality is. This makes as much sense as them saying that President Obama is doing too much. Only compared to the last president! President Obama is working hard and has accomplished more in his first days than Bush did in his entire eight years.

Wake up and quit blaming the left for causing all this. President Obama is doing the best he can to clean up the mess that was created and left behind by the previous administration. To give Dick Cheney time to defend what he did is benighted. To give him time to blame someone who is trying to fix it is downright moronic.

Stem Cells & Judgment

This week, on Monday, March 9, 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order on stem cells and a Presidential Memorandum on scientific integrity. This reversed an order signed by former President George W. Bush.

According to Voice of America, researchers are excited about this change:

Medical experts in Miami are hoping to speed up research using embryonic stem cells. Their work may lead to advances in treatment for spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer's disease and other illnesses.

Researchers at the University of Miami Stem Cell Institute responded quickly to President Obama's decision, which reversed a policy signed by former President George W. Bush. The school is the site of most stem-cell research in the area, and experts say the lifting of the ban on human embryonic stem cell work could open the door to more public funding.

Neurosurgeon Dalton Dietrich said he was excited by Monday's announcement at the White House. "I have been waking up many mornings very excited about the possibility of using these cells to target many of the problems we see with stroke, brain trauma, spinal cord injury," he said.

While opponents of this argue that this is another one of President Obama's pro-abortion moves, intelligent people who have taken the time to research it, are not. The embryos used for stem cells are not from aborted babies. Noted on the National Institute of Health's Stem Cell Research Page:

"Many years of detailed study of the biology of mouse stem cells led to the discovery, in 1998, of how to isolate stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in the laboratory. These are called human embryonic stem cells. The embryos used in these studies were created for infertility purposes through in vitro fertilization procedures and when they were no longer needed for that purpose, they were donated for research with the informed consent of the donor."

Why can't we just use adult stem cells?

"Stem cells are important for living organisms for many reasons. In the 3- to 5-day-old embryo, called a blastocyst, stem cells in developing tissues give rise to the multiple specialized cell types that make up the heart, lung, skin, and other tissues. In some adult tissues, such as bone marrow, muscle, and brain, discrete populations of adult stem cells generate replacements for cells that are lost through normal wear and tear, injury, or disease."

I am not pro-abortion. I am pro-science, however. It is quite easy for people to argue against this research when they don't have a disease that will be greatly affected by its research to cure it. I have had personal experience, both with myself and with loved ones, for a list of diseases that can be helped by stem cell research: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and even heart attack victims. All of these ailments, as well as many others, will benefit from this research and will hopefully someday have a cure.

To throw out an attitude that it is just immoral when you are working off of the wrong information - as well as not realizing what it is like to struggle with such a debilitating disease -is not only misinformed it is ignorant.

So, perhaps the better way - in their eyes - to deal with these embryos is to just throw them away? That is not only stupid, it is selfish as well. And it certainly doesn't show much compassion to those people, and all their families, who could benefit from research that could lead to a cure from a terrifying and debilitating disease or injury. I suggest that they not only do a little research, but think what it would be like to walk - or not - in someone else's shoes before they are so quick to judge.

The Daily Show Explains Our Financial Mess...

This whole financial mess the country is in is overwhelming. In my lifetime - in fact, in most of our lifetimes - I've not seen anything like this. One of my favorites, Jon Stewart, explained it well - and in a very funny way - last week. Say what they might, they were all full of it:

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The Windbag Spews Evil

Rush Limbaugh, in his continual problem of a toxic mouth, has done it again. But his latest nefarious comments are just too much.

First of all, the man opposes President Obama's plan for health care for Americans. Really, Rush, who would supply your obese body its drug habit if you didn't have health insurance?

Secondly, his comments on the plan were just plain evil. As posted on Political Intelligence:

Continuing his criticism of President Obama, Limbaugh said Obama has "moved on to health care. This is highly visible, it's news-leading, gets a great focus, plus it has the great liberal lion, Teddy Kennedy, pushing it."

"Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health care bill," Limbaugh said on his show.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quickly launched a petition drive urging Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to denounce Limbaugh. The committee's executive director, Brian Wolff, called the remark "reprehensible" and "truly outrageous."

"Leader Limbaugh minimizes the struggle of hardworking Americans without access to affordable health care and demonizes a patriotic Senator who has spent his life fighting so that every person has the opportunity to live the American dream," Wolff said in a statement, calling the radio host by the moniker Democrats are using to suggest that Limbaugh is the leader of the GOP.

"Leader Limbaugh crossed the line. National Republicans must stand up to their leader, Rush Limbaugh, and tell him that enough is enough."

Yes, enough is enough. Senator Kennedy has spent years of his life fighting for the American people and this is the respect he gets? Or how about just plain compassion? This should not surprise me - Limbaugh can't even respect the President, why should he show respect to anyone else?

Limbaugh seems to have no editing, no caring, and an unlimited amount of venom that comes out of his mouth. He needs to be fired from the radio and fired from his platform of power he has been given. Maybe he was once considered a comedian. But, just like his drug addiction, food addiction, and his black, evil heart, he's just not funny. He's sick.

The Ultimate Overpaid Windbag

Ah, Rush Limbaugh. The ultimate example of an overpaid windbag. The biggest hypocrite on the planet. The man who spews hateful junk and his blind followers give him standing ovations.

Could he possibly have an ounce of class - or respect? By saying he wants President Obama to fail, he is really saying he wants our economy to continue in its downward spiral - and therefore for the American people to fail. Anyone with a brain - I realize I'm stretching it here - would voice his views a bit better. Perhaps by saying that he doesn't really agree with the current policies, but he does hope it will still be successful. It does, after all, not only effect the American economy but the global economy as well.

Limbaugh's has also said that liberals don't know the constitution and then followed that up by misquoting it himself. As posted on Daily Kos:

"So for sake of argument, let's say Rush Limbaugh misquoted the U.S. constitution. (He did, of course, saying the most famous phrase form the Declaration of Independence was in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution.)

Now, let's say that a reporter from the mainstream media noted Rush Limbaugh's error, and asked Ari Melber from The Nation to comment on it.

Does that reveal liberal media bias...or Rush Limbaugh's ignorance?

According the wingnut website NewsBusters, it's proof of a vast left-wing conspiracy."

Keep it up, Rush. The more people you alienate, the more extreme and disturbing your ideas are - and your total lack of editing anything that comes out of your mouth - the more you push people away. Soon you'll be left with just a few wingnuts that are so extreme even die hard Republicans will want nothing to do with you.

The most humorous part of all is his recent idea that he wants to appeal more to women. I don't think that is possible. But, he can't figure out why only thirty-seven percent of women like him (scary in itself). On Tennessee Guerilla Women, there are a few choice reminders on why women dislike him so much:

Why do women dislike Rush Limbaugh? Here's your answer Rush, in your own hateful words:

Sexist comments by Rush Limbaugh -- Hillary Rodham Clinton:

"She sounds like a screeching ex-wife. ... Men will know what I mean by this."

"Mrs Clinton Testicle Lockbox is big enough for the entire democratic hierarchy."

"Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?"

"I don't know why the B-I-itch is staying in."

Sexist comments by Rush Limbaugh -- Nancy Pelosi:

"[If Pelosi] wants fewer births, I have the way to do this and it won't require any contraception: You simply put pictures of Nancy Pelosi ... in every cheap motel room. ... That will keep birthrates down because that picture will keep a lot of things down."

Sexist comments by Rush Limbaugh -- Elizabeth Edwards:

"Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk."

More sexist comments by Rush Limbaugh:

"Some of these babes, I'm telling you, like the sexual harassment crowd. They're out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes."

Yeah, all of us intelligent women out there appreciate his views. Of course there are more and of course he is a sexist pig - and not a very smart one at that. His comments on appearance alone - not to mention all the rest of it - when his own house is apparently void of any mirrors is disgusting. That this man has a voice that is heard so loudly is even more detestable.

But, even an overpaid windbag can ruin his own career. I just wish he would shut up and get off the radio and the high soapbox his ego put him on. Perhaps in the same mysterious way that Ann Coulter's jaw got wired shut his could be wired shut for awhile too. And, last but not least Rush, since any attractive, intelligent woman would run so fast from you that you would only see her tracks once the dust clears - good luck on those hot dates.