Yet Another Hole Where Your Tax Money Goes

Here is a map of the births paid for by Medicaid by state. It's no coincidence that the states making the biggest drain on our tax dollars as regards these are in the South, the place where just abstinence only programs are offered and condoms are never spoken of. THIS is where your tax dollars go you nutty teabaggers, paying for babies born under a policy of state and locally applied ignorance, tempered with that old time religion. I guess it's serving the Lord somehow, but I don't see it.



This via Blue Gal who has a great gift of observation and a fine sense of sarcasm :

Click image for larger and more details. And don't give Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada a pass, their states look good only because data for 2003 was not available.

In a perfect world, citizens in states with higher birth-rates among the uninsured would pay a pro-abstinence and prophylactic ignorance tax, which would appear as a line item on page one of their 1040.

"Write the name of your state on line A"
"If your state is listed in Schedule IC (idiot Christianist) subtract $1,000 from your standard deduction."

States that enact medically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive sex education programs would be exempt from such tax after three years of reduction in Medicaid birth rates. (I would also push for free roadside condom distribution and including state-funded advertising for Trojans during all sports programming and American Fucking Idol.)

As I have said before, if accurate information can be made available on the website for Walgreens, it can be made available by your legislature.

Tennessee you must be so proud of the baby daddy who had 21 kids with 11 women and did not plan it that way. "It just happened," he said.

It just happened to Bristol Palin, too. I try not to think about whether Levi is practicing safer sex these days.

All of this is an opportunity to get our national head out of our ass and bite the bullet on mature behavior when it comes to sex. Teenagers need those of us who are adults to be adults. Bristol's mother needed to buy her condoms and tell her to use them, or watch her carefully enough and keep her busy enough that sex with Levi wasn't the only fun she could have.

Memorial Day and Those Of Us Not In Uniform

Ideals are not the exclusive domain of the military. "Freedom isn't Free," as a bumper sticker slogan, is all too often used as a wedge between those who support a particular military action and those who oppose it. But that slogan can as easily be applied to those of us not in uniform. America's servicemen and women have a special responsibility, but that doesn't absolve the rest of us of our responsibility. Part of that responsibility it to recognize the nature of their service by seeing that veterans get the best equipment, protection, and leadership possible when they're in the service. It's taking care of their families both while they're away, and while they're trying to adapt when they return home. It's also making sure that they get the medical attention, training, and job opportunities they deserve when they complete their time in uniform.

Our responsibility is seeing that America remains a place where freedom is not dependent on the money in your bank account, your family connections, the gun in your pocket, or the largess of political leaders. A place where diversity of opinion is not a problem, but a strength. A place worthy of the devotion those in the military have shown.

This day is reserved for honoring those who have served in the military, and that should not be forgotten. Every day is a day for honoring our obligation to both them and to everyone else. Not only is freedom not free, freedom can not be won on a battlefield. All the soldiers who have died in every war from the Revolutionary War to date have not, and can not, secure our liberty. They can only see that we have the opportunity to win it, or lose it, every day, through the actions we take right here at home.

From Devilstower at Daily Kos

Why They Were Kept At Gitmo In The First Place

Good Point

from Talking Points Memo by Josh Marshall
From TPM Reader MR ...

As Congressional Republicans make their childish complaints about the possibility of Guantanamo prisoners coming to the U.S. mainland, it's worth remembering why they were put there in the first place. It wasn't because they possess superpowers or that America doesn't know how to lock up dangerous people. It was solely so that they would be outside of the reach of the U.S. legal system.

It's amazing to me that they would advance such ridiculous arguments as " they would turn them loose in this country " and " these are people who want to kill us ". No one is suggesting that they should be turned loose. Many people in our prisons have killed and would kill again and the prisons hold them with no danger to the local populace. There are terrorists, foreign and domestic,who have been held in this country for years. I have several friends and several more acquaintances who work at a nearby maximum security prison that also holds all the present death row prisoners in the state of Pennsylvania. To say that the US prison system cannot assimilate 241 more high risk prisoners is an insult to them and the other corrections officers that every day perform one of the most dangerous and mentally challenging jobs that can be found in modern society.

Sunday Morning Smile For You

This will bring a smile to your face. It is a compilation of street musicans from around the world doing the song Stand By Me. All the vocalists are amazing and the short bit the guy plays on dobro is sweet. Send it to a friend, spread some joy today, it's springtime .

Google Reader is Pretty Handy and Theres No Dripping And Zizzing Like With The Tropical Fishes

Google Reader is a very handy system for saving time. For years I put off buying a computer because I knew, that as an information junkie I was going to be hooked from the moment I started. And so I was, guitar, Civil War, Blues Music and I wish that was all. Just like years ago when you first got cable TV and couldn't sleep for days for fear of missing something, movies or news or nudity. Years ago I was into photographing trains. I realized that for the longest time the only way I had looked at a train was through a camera lens. I started letting the camera hang on my chest and watching the train as it passed. Real life in real time is best, that's why I don't like to stay here too long.

I found that I was checking 50 or so blogs every day and some of them more than once a day, burning up a lot of time. This Google Reader constantly checks your favorite news sites and blogs for brand new content. Whether a site updates daily or monthly, you can be sure that you won't miss a thing. It shows them all on one page and you just scroll through. Any you click on takes you to that site in a new window. As you read them they are marked as such and disappear. You can Star any story to save it in a separate folder. There is a system to easily search ( type in either URL or blog title and it finds it ) and add content. I use several other Google Services and this dovetails in some degree or another with those. I know, this has probably been around since the 1950's but several of my friends had no knowledge of it, hence my reason for posting this.

pics

Dolly On Vacation


5 Cardinals


Sunrise Up Mather Hill

Buds

Ten Mile Creek

The Grinders Blues Band at Station Square in Pittsburgh, a long ago August. Me , Doch, Kelly and Brian, it was 100 degrees

Fred the cat

My old guitar buddy Steve comes over once a month or so with his favorite brand of Bourbon. Knob Creek is one very good drink and though it is a little hot going down it has a fine aftertaste. No chaser, that's the way to drink good liquor.

The swinging bridge. When I was young we would get about ten kids out in the middle and rock it from side to side like a swing.

Books that I really enjoy are kept and read again every couple years. I probably reread as much as I first time read. But I need to have a yard sale.

We'll Blind You With Teh Fear !

The extremists that control the GOP have come out with a couple new videos hoping to use old 911 fear stuff and Gitmo closings to scare the American public into supporting them again. Grasping at straws ! They still think we are idiots !

Stephen Stromberg at the Washington Post :

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not sure just what these ads are saying we have to fret about. A prison break? Though there are some prisoners at Gitmo who deserve to be let go -- something even the Bush administration admitted -- Obama isn’t going to release the worst-of-the-worst detainees the ad features onto American streets. Indeed, the GOP’s video even shows the heavy gates and high-security features of the facilities in which these prisoners would likely reside. Recently admitted al Qaeda agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri lived in a naval brig in South Carolina for nearly six years, and nearby Charleston is still intact. Colorado’s federal Supermax prison already holds Ramzi Yousef, the World Trade Center bomber, Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th 9/11 hijacker, and Richard Reed, the guy who tried to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. The state’s no less safe for it. There’s a reason they call it Supermax.

The Smirking Chimps writer asks : Will Nation That Housed 425,000 Nazis In WWII Find Accommodations For 241 Gitmo Captives?

Former NSC head of counterterrorism Richard Clarke has a more serious response:

"This video and the recent Republican attacks on Guantanamo are more desperate attempts from a demoralized party to politicize national security and the safety of the American people. But what is more disturbing is their brazen use of imagery and the memory of 9/11 to score political points. Thousands of Americans tragically died that day, and for the GOP to think it can win elections by denigrating their memory is disgraceful.
"The difference between these Republican videos and the very terrorist propaganda that seeks to damage our society is negligible. Each attempt to stoke the embers of fear in order to disrupt American life. Just as al Qaeda videos should be viewed as misguided rants from a small group of marginalized radicals, so too should these Republican videos be equally dismissed. As opposed to what the GOP thinks, the American people are not that naïve."

Limbaugh/ Hannity/Joe The (Not A Real) Plumber - The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Rush Limbaugh, radio entertainer, drug addict and sex tourist is really starting to hit his stride in his efforts to purge "His" party of all heretics who don't walk the far right edge. Others are leaving because it's not crazy enough ! Go Rush-o, and go you other lunatics, you're making a better case against all you stand for than we could ever do. I believe you are finally doing "the Lord's Work."



This from Ellen at News Hounds :

Who couldn't see this one coming? Colin Powell had the nerve to speak outpublicly against the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, calling it bad for Republicans. So rather than debate the actual effect of Limbaugh and Coulter on the party, Sean Hannity called on Limbaugh-sub Mark Steyn to discredit Powell. Earlier in the show, Hannity made the unintentionally hilarious commentthat he doesn't ever hear “nastiness” from Limbaugh. But Powell was fair game, as Hannity introduced the segment by saying, 'endorsing Barack Obama was not enough' for Powell. 'Now he is on the offensive against Republicans.'
Predictably, Steyn claimed, “I don't recognize this characterization of (Limbaugh) as some angry, bitter man who's driving people away.”
Maybe those two don't but much of the rest of the country does. Before he backtracked to kiss Limbaugh's you know what, RNC chair Michael Steele knew it. And the pollsters know it. Limbaugh's favorability ratings are lower than George W. Bush's. And not even uber-loyalist Hannity has been arguing that Bush is good for Republicans these days."
“What sense of a vision do you get from Colin Powell?” Steyn asked dismissively. Earth to Steyn: Powell is not running for office. But he obviously has a vision for Republicans – the one Steyn and Hannity were so busy attacking.
Not discussed at all? Limbaugh's racial attack on Powell in response.
By the way, Powell had a 54% favorability ratinglast fall, compared to Limbaugh's recent 28%.

Wow, now even Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is quitting the Republican Party? That's what a new Time article reports on his latest antics :
"Samuel Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, tells TIME he's so outraged by GOP overspending, he's quitting the party -- and he's the bull's-eye of its target audience," the article says.

Looks like old Joe will be Rush's next target !

Kos nails it:

Republicans are an old party, and their retrograde bigoted positions on equality are repulsive to younger voters. Obama won the youth vote 66-32, and nothing the Republicans have done since then have made them more palatable to those voters. In fact, by doubling down on hatred, Republicans are merely cementing the millennial generation into the (D) column for years to come.
It's true that many Americans agree with the Republican position. In fact, per the polling, that number appears to be about 38 percent, or about 114 million Americans. That's a lot!
But that's not 50 percent, which is useless to you in elections, and it's a shrinking number as new youngsters reach voting age and the seniors pass on. Time is the bigot's worst enemy.
I'm just happy that what makes Boss Limbaugh happy, and what's best for the long-term health of the Republican Party are so diametrically opposed.


And lastly, Driftglass shares with us the official Wingnut Family Photo



First row seated (L - R): Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck
Second row standing(L - R): Joe the Quitter, Rupert Murdoch, Brit Hume

What does it say that the meatheads and toe-pickers are leaving the Grand Old Party because it's just not hair-on-fire/ass-gouting-napalm reckless and crazy enough?

Here is all you need to know about this Miss California Bullshit thats been going on way, way too long

Its like...Fuck this shit already ! This means nothing ! Who cares what this plastic titted bimbo has to say ? She's crying cause she lost for being honest . It's a pagent ! Some win some lose, by their answers. At's it, at's how it goes! Now this Michael Musto is one funny sarcastic son of a bitch ! I have a 12 hour rule on posting .........this means that when I come home drunk and write something that I must wait 12 hours before I post so that I can put a check on my self. But in this case , all bets are off !