My New Favorite Blog...

From Balloon Juice:

9:45 12/28/09
@Johngcole:
"Now that Obama blamed systemic failure, watch GOP pivot and accuse Obama of demoralizing our intelligence agencies."

10:55 12/28/09
@newtgingrich:
"We do not need a wtch hunt in intelligence, we need a fundamental change in administration policies on terrorism"

"Not to break my arm patting myself on the back with my predictive prowess, because this just wasn't very hard to see coming. When you are dealing with the current GOP, you simply have to think of the most shamelessly cynical thing they could do or say, and realize that they will in fact do just that. They are completely unhindered by reality and show no allegiance to facts or recent history. They will say or do anything, they know they will not be held accountable by the media or their own party, and that the Democrats don't have the balls to hit them head on. And when folks like Grayson do, our beltway betters get the vapors.

"This is just the reality we have to deal with- one party is filled with shameless hypocritical liars who will do or say anything, they are aided by a lazy and corrupt media, and the other party must spend all their time reacting to yesterday's bullshit charges while new ones are launched their way today. It is what it is."

Bruise

Bruise
Originally uploaded by BigMisterC

I donate blood as often as I can. It really is important. One unit of donated blood can save several lives. If you are able to donate blood, I urge you to do so. Don't assume that someone else will do it. I have been donating for years and usually have no problems, no ill effects. Hell, I've never even gotten nauseous or light-headed even. I have a one gallon pin that I have affixed to my ID badge at work but have probably donated much more than that - I never remember my donor card so I really don't know how much I've given.

This time however, the phlebotomist who took my blood did not do such a good job. She went into the vein at a bad angle and went through the vein. Of the three veins in the anti-cubital fossa (the fancy name for the inside of your elbow), the brachial vein (the one closest to your body running at an angle) is the worst of the three veins for any kind of phlebotomy. It isn't anchored in muscle like the other and has a tendency to "roll" under the skin. The cephalic vein vein (on the opposite side) runs parallel to the arm and is a bit hard to find isn't much better because of the angle of the needle as it rests against the arm - it would be hard to anchor the collection needle because of the curve of your arm in that area. The vein dead center is the best of the three and the one that is almost ALWAYS used for donating blood.

Well, my phleb chose the brachial vein... she went through the vein and had to pull back into it to get the blood to flow. But that caused bleeding below the surface, hence the bruise. The blood stopped flowing and they had to stop the donation. Now my arm is swollen and discolored. It feels like an over-inflated tire and will soon have a nice rainbow of colors...

Lucky me!

Wierd Science

The "nature fakers" and "liberal media" rely on sound science, not science funded by the oil and coal industries. ...not statistics that lift a micro-trend of warming over a few years out of decades and decades of data that prove beyond a doubt there is indeed an indisutable warming trend.

The right forces the science into a mold that will support their political rhetoric and the rest of the science is suspect!? Only in a Bizzaro universe would that make any sense...

That'd be the same Bizzaro universe where de-regulation brings stability to the financial markets, tax cuts to the wealthiest benefit the poor and tort reform somehow provides health benefits for the uninsured...

Does Yahoo Condone Racism & Hatred?

IThere is a service on Yahoo called the buzz. It is kind of a poor man's delicious or digg. But unlike those two wonderful link sharing services, they also allow you to leave comments about the stories/links, etc., whatever. Which sounds fine, yes?

But here is the problem: it is not moderated in any way, shape or form. I mean, sure that have scripts that change swears to "f***" and "s***" but they are easy to get around and sadly, that is the only control they exert over the content that the users contribute to the site. There is a mechanism to flag an inappropriate comment but from my experience it seems like it's a stop-gap measure so that they can claim that the site is being policed.

For instance, take this story about a black, female politician from Ohio, state senator Nina Turner being portrayed as Aunt Jemima. Here are some choice comments:

Blacks need to perpetuate the myth of Racism as an excuse for their short comings and failures. No other race has been so dependent on misfortune in order to maintain the "you owe me attitude!" Historically, even to this day, they continue to fail because of themselves and themselves alone.

- C. W.

Well what stereotype should they use? A gansta? A crackhead? A muslim? A welfare mom who dont know who her babies daddy's are?

- Joe

BOO f***** HOO MONKEYS
Log Cabin tastes better anyway

- Will

This is about as silly as condemning Minstrels. What's next a remake of " Gone with the Wind, and making Scarlett the servent ? Or how about we fight the Civil War all over again and make the Negro free the White Man. After all, that's who the minority is in America today. The Middle Class, taxpaying American who signs the Welfare Check and keep[s Osama's Aunt in Public Housing until he figures a scheme to keep her here. By the way, Aunt Jemima was a Half-Breed. Her father was a Quaker Oat.

- Desederatta (Not only is this person the antipathy of the uplifting poem "Desiderata," he cannot even spell it correctly)

If it's not favorable to blacks, it's racist. Get off your PLANTATION mentality.

- Mark

This not about Aunt Jemima. Its about the fear Black Leaders have of losing Affirmative Action, quota's in hiring, preference in promotions and obtaining scholarships and precious college seats in Ivy League Colleges, Law and Medical Schools. Not to mention the lists of grants available to minorities. For every Affirmative Action a White Employee loses their job, A white Student loses their College money and seat. Millions of Whites have lost promotions, money, and retirement to promote Affirmative Action. Now, after Trillions of dollars and sacrifice of so many what is the result??

- JimmyFox

Funny stuff. These clowns are no different than monkeys in the trees throwing sh-t at each other. Let's all have a chimp out ! The black race is doomed by it's own stupidity,but it will limp around on the crutch of slavery for many more years untill they finally all shoot each other. There is nothing more brutal than black on black anger. I guess it's the law of the jungle,but these fools never figured out they're not still in the jungle. Maybe they want to bring the jungle here? Im so..... sick of these people.

- JOHNM

Black people continue to keep themselves segregated, not individually, but as a race. They still promote racism by refusing to speak proper English, by playing the race card every chance they get, by following racist bastards like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, by refusing to take advantage of free education, by not marrying and raising their children as a family, by committing the majority of the crimes and blaming white people for all their troubles. As a race, they need to hold themselves to a higher standard like everyone else does, and stop whining. That will lead to the end of all racism.

- Tim S

Aunt Jemima is NOT racist. Sounds like the blacks are ashamed of their herratige. They straighten their hair and lighten their skin by interracially breeding with whites...looks like they have serious issues. The blacks need to be proud of who they are and stop the whinning. Also, they don't like when they are called ni##er but yet they call each other ni##er.....now that is ignorant. They dress like clowns and complain when people make in fun of them. Like I said..they have serious issues.

- TakingBack

It amazes me. Blacks want to raise hell about Aunt Jemima. Her image makes just about everyone have good thoughts about great tasting pancakes. Blacks don't, however, seem to have a problem with: an 80% bastard birthrate, opportunistic theft, having children without being able to support themselves, rampant drug trafficking and use, a disdain for education, destroying community or rental property, violent behavior, perpetrating racism, driving with no license or insurance, grand theft auto, carjacking, home invasion, and 90% of all violent crime committed in this country. What they choose to get upset about is very telling. Maybe her image should sport a different colored bandanna and a Newport hanging from her lips.

- Donald

And I could literally go on and on... And this is just from one story on one day. If you didn't see the Yahoo logos all over the site you might be liable to think that you'd stumbled across a white supremacy website. I've complained to Yahoo numerous times and I have received absolutely no response. There is a Terms of Service that warns the user that they might be exposed to content that they may find offensive. BUT in the agreement it also states that user agrees not to "upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable." Well, that certainly isn't being enforced looking at the comments above.

So, the bottom line is if Yahoo makes it a violation of the terms of service to post hateful, obscene, racist remarks and then does nothing to enforce those rules, isn't that a tacit approval of such behavior? Hypothetically speaking if I put up a sign that tells people to stay off my lawn yet sit on my porch and politely nod to people who cut through my property and give them a knowing wink isn't that actually condoning that trespassing of my property? If so, then Yahoo is condoning the hateful, racist behavior of its users? At what point does not enforcing the rules become a tacit approval of ignoring the rules and has Yahoo crossed that line? I think so...

Sarah Palin doesn't care about you

Do you use twitter? I do. Twitter is about communication, about dialogue. It's about the exchange of ideas.

Well, maybe I am being a bit too lofty. It can be about keeping up with your favorite celebrity. It can be about keeping in touch with distant friends and relatives. It can be used in any way you want.

But there are some people who use it only for self-serving purposes. Their twitterfeed is a non-stop litany of self-promotion. It's like listening to a needy, unsure of themself four year old clamoring for attention. "Mommy! Look what I can do!" There are others, worse still, who think that they can use it as a blunt tool solely for making money. How the hell they would accomplish that is beyond me. I get a few of these as followers from time to time. Very often, I block them. To me, Twitter is a social tool; being associated with their ilk makes it a bit creepy and dirty. Yuck.

Sarah Palin falls into the first category. How do I know? Look at the image from her Twitter profile. She doesn't follow a single person. Not even Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin... Hell, not even P. Diddy and it seems like the whole twitterverse follows him (2.3 million followers)! Basically, where Sarah Palin is concerned, all communication is one-way: I speak, you listen. She doesn't want to hear from you and doesn't care what you have to say as long as you buy her book and you think that she's a "real American." Please don't ask her about her views on foreign policy (it's in the book) and when you address her make sure that you address her as Governor Palin and please... no photos (unless you want to purchase an "autographed" one at one of her book signings - only $30.)

Disappointed

I know that there were not a lot of good options that were present to President Obama concerning Afghanistan and the course we should pursue there. One of the options that I pretty sure were never put on the table for discussion was complete and immediate withdrawal of all of our troops. What is most disappointing is the way that the president is embracing the Bush doctrine; it may not be a full-on, twenty second, bromance kind of hug. It's more like an awkward, uncomfortable embrace with your aging great-aunt who smells funny, but it's an embrace, none the less. Tuesday's night's speech was probably the most un-inspiring, flat, lifeless speech that I've ever heard President Obama deliver. I would like to think that his heart wasn't really in it and that deep down inside that he didn't really agree with the orders our military are about to carry out. I don't know if this decision is the product of pressure being exerted by the pentagon and our military leaders. If so, this decision flies in the face of George Washington's ideal of a civilian commanding our military; the armed forces are supposed to answer to the president, not the other way around.

What really would be immensely disappointing is the idea that this decision was made to give political cover to the Democratic party in the upcoming elections in 2010 and 2012. If the president were to order a complete withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan to begin immediately, the Democratic party would be vulnerable politically. The GOP would portray us as soft on terror, unwilling to make the hard decisions to keep America safe, unwilling to listen to the advice of our military's generals, etc. I am not ready or willing to embrace this idea. I do not think that President Obama, while a shrewd and polished politician is willing to sacrifice the lives of young American men and women and add billions upon billions of dollars to the deficit for sheer political gain. My cynicism hasn't plunged to that depth yet.

One thing I must say though is that while I am disappointed with this decision, I am not at all surprised. I am very much a liberal and Obama was not my choice for president during the primaries. The two candidates who I was most willing to vote for were Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. They had both dropped out of the race when we were voting the primaries in Connecticut. I voted for Hillary Clinton. Obama, I thought was always too much of a centrist; he's not really a liberal. He always said he would, as president, defeat al Qaeda and give the war in Afghanistan the attention it deserved, that this was the region that should be our focus in the war on terror and not Iraq. So while I do not feel that this is the decision that the president should have come to in his deliberation on the situation in Afghanistan, and by proxy Pakistan, I cannot say that I didn't see it coming. And I still voted for him, in spite of this fact. He was a much better choice than Senator McCain - I cannot and don't want to imagine the mess the country would be in if Barack Obama had not been elected. I hope that we stick with the withdrawal schedule the president has come up with for 2011. It's not as soon as I'd like to see the troops come home, but if we stick with that timetable, hopefully the cost of this war, in both monetary and human cost, will not be too high.