This guy makes me laugh!

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Liberals told to leave

Datelined Broken Arrow, OK (from the Tulsa World, 3/7/09):

Thirteen-year-old Lane Dunkley just wanted to go hunting with his
grandfather.

What he got was a lecture on politics.

Dunkley and his father, Daniel Reddy, who live in Tulsa, went to Broken Arrow
on Tuesday night for a hunter safety course normally required to get an Oklahoma
hunting license.

The class was a reward of sorts.

Dunkley, who wants to go hunting with his grandfather, was told he could take
the class only if he brought up his grades.

So he did — to a B-plus average.

But when father and son arrived at the lesson, the volunteer instructor, Kell
Wolf, asked if any of the students voted for President Barack Obama. Reddy, a
transplanted Californian — and former Marine — raised his hand.

According to Reddy and others in the room, Wolf called Obama "the next thing
to the Antichrist" and ordered Reddy and Dunkley from the room.

When Reddy refused, Wolf said he would not teach "liberals" and would cancel
the course if Reddy didn't leave.

So Reddy and Dunkley left, as did a few others.

More...

Hey Jim, wanna move to North Carolina?

I couldn't have said it better...

From Ballon Juice:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

An Army of One

I LOVE this one!!

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Ben Stein is cute (NOT!)

I got one of those forwarded, forwarded e-mails that included the following. It got me thinking. I have interspersed my comments in blue, with the original text in black. Bogus, added text is in red. Now, on to that email:

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning


Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah afew hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. This is especially interesting given that this country was founded by a lot of folks who were tired of getting 'pushed around' by their own government for not belonging to the 'official' government sanctioned religion. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I have no idea where Ben Stein got that idea either! I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

I must quote from the blog by Margaret and Helen

Jesus is the reason for the season unless you practice Islam, Hinduism, Chinese Traditionalism, Buddhism, Animist, Spiritism, Sikhism, Juche, Judaism, or any other of the two dozen or so major world religions. And let’s not forget about the citizens of the world who are non-religious because there are over 1 billion of them. In the United States today, over 75 million Americans are not Christian... No matter what you believe, over four billion people believe differently than you do. Four billion.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? As long as we keep the government out of religion, we definitely have a chance to worship God as we know him. I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

None of the following was said by Ben Stein:

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?' Paraphrased and taken out of context. See snopes.com.

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK. She was murdered in 1995 along with her son and granddaughter, for reasons unrelated to her public image and activism (Wikipedia). Or, put another way, apparently, if you are a Christian and you're murdered, it's martyrdom, but if you are not a Christian, it's God's wrath!!

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). In fact, both of Dr. Spock's children are still alive!! See snopes.com. We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say (speak for yourself!), but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny how we can make stuff up, send it out in an email, and ask others to forward it without checking the facts. I have taken it on myself, after eight years of being lied to by our government and the media and email chain letters, to not let these go by without at least one voice of reason to dilute the damage done.

Are you laughing yet? No

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Oh, really?

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. Or, start thinking, learn to use the Internetz and seek some truth! There, I feel better now...



My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,


Ben Stein

Update 1: Helen Philpot summed it up best in the Margaret and Helen blog:

I have no idea if my little rants on this internet have had any type of positive
impact, but I cannot point the gun at Palin and Bush without blaming myself as
well. I sat by for eight years when I should have been getting active
every day in our politcal system. It’s the only way democracy works.
So until they put me in a rest home, I’ll be watching - and writing.
I voted for Obama, but that doesn’t mean I gave him a free
pass. And I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of that
moose hunter in heels. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson. There
will always be bad guys - at home and abroad.

Want a Clear Expose' on Credit Default Swaps?

This is one of the best explanations I've seen and a clear rebuttal of the claims that the Democrats caused the financial meltdown by 'forcing' loans to minorities. It's from a posting on the Daily Kos blog:

History may be written by the winners, but that doesn't stop the losers from wasting a lot of ink in the attempt. This time, it's the GOP revanchists who are busy trying to come up with a reason -- any reason -- for the economic crisis that doesn't point directly to their conservative ideology and the greedy green horse of the Apocalypse, deregulation.

There are dozens of letters percolating through Republican chain mail, and a matching number of posts on right wing blogs, all trying to spread the same message: Democrats loaned money to black people!

Here's an example plucked from my own mailbox.

We're on the brink of an economic disaster and another Great Depression. This was not caused by Republicans. This was caused solely by Democrats.

In 1977 Democratic President Jimmy Carter passed the Community Reinvestment Act to provide housing to poor people. In the 1990s Bill Clinton had Attorney General Janet Reno threaten banks under red lining rules into giving loans to people who could not afford them. Then in the last 8 years, the leftist group ACORN, which has ties to Barack Obama, went to banks and threatened them to relax their rules again. Banks had to give loans to people who had no jobs or no identification.

You have to hand it to them. In terms of bringing together the maximum number of Republican demons -- Carter, Clinton, Reno, Obama -- with the smallest amount of connecting narrative, this is a keeper.

Read more...

Margaret and Helen & New Blog List

I must share this blog! Margaret and Helen are in their eighties. Apparently, Margaret's grandson set up a blog so they could stay in touch with each other, albeit in a rather public way. Their opinions have resonated with a much wider audience than they expected. Find out why by clicking through to their blog. (I've changed this blog a bit to include links to my favorite blogs on the right side of this page.)

Here's an excerpt from a Margaret and Helen posting regarding Sarah Palin. It's titled "Sarah Palin is a Bitch… there I said it."

Look. I am going to say what everyone at CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC is thinking but is afraid to say. Governor Palin is a stupid, conniving bitch. And it’s not because she is a strong woman - I like strong women… worship them… It’s actually the opposite. She is a weak, pathetic woman who thinks big hair, winking, baby talk and self deprecation is somehow becoming of a woman who wants to lead the free world. My god, where is Margaret Thatcher when you need her!

But what really makes me mad is the hypocrisy. She claims to be a Washington outsider and yet is the worst kind of politician. She will say anything and avoid answering any question instead choosing to spout whatever line or soundbite some adviser put into her mouth a few hours earlier. And exactly when did sounding like a hick make someone “more like us”. Last time I checked we were a country striving to educate our children to be intelligent and honest. I think I would die if my daughter came home from school and said something like “I gotta tell ya. Change is a comin’.” At the very least I would remove the Beverly Hillbillies from her approved TV viewing list.

Infuriating mythology of runaway juries

OK, I finally lost it. I got an email that perpetuates the myth of excessive awards from runaway juries. I took the time to manually copy everyone on the distribution list and hit back with this:

Hi everyone,

Normally, I don't respond to forwarded emails like this. But given my history with the legal system from both sides (I'll explain in a bit), I feel I have to do my small part to set the record straight.

First of all, this award, the Stella Award, is full of made-up stories.
You can check out the veracity of this and any other 'urban legend' by checking
it out at http://www.snopes.com/, and this myth in particular at http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp (the stories change each year, but the fiction remains.)

Secondly, I feel very sorry for Stella. Please take the time to learn the truth of this maligned and totally blown out of proportion court case at http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm. For those too lazy or too rushed to take the time to go to the website, here's a brief
synopsis:

• McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least
  20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
• McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.
• McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
• McFact No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.
• McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
• McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company. When it came to the punitive damages, the jury found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious, or wanton conduct, and rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars. (The equivalent of just two days of coffee sales, McDonalds Corporation generates revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars daily from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)
• McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media.
• McFact No. 8: A report in Liability Week, September 29, 1997, indicated that Kathleen Gilliam, 73, suffered first degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled onto her lap. Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.

Now, why do I care about this? First of all, I was an electronics engineer at Joerns Helathcare (Sunrise Medical) and went through training on how to be a witness in trials. We manufactured equipment that would be used in patient environments (hospitals and nursing homes) and had to be aware of the potential for lawsuits. We trained at the University of Wisconsin - Madison with an expert witness as our teacher. Within the first few hours he completely and forcefully exploded the myth that our system of justice was out of control and anti-business. The truth is, 99+% of cases are settled justly. What we have done with liability limitation legislation is 'thrown the baby out with the bathwater' and made it all the easier for businesses to do the wrong thing in the pursuit of profit.

Secondly, my son was killed in a car wreck caused by a drunk driver. In a strange sense I got off easy because he was killed instantly. But can you imagine a person being maimed for life being limited to a $250,000 maximum punitive damage award? How far will that get you? What kind of message does that give to a multi-billion dollar enterprise? It's cheaper and more profitable to do the wrong thing.

Please, please, please, educate yourselves about the truth and try to vet these emails before you continue to fan the flames of ignorance. There are many unscrupulous people who would just love to keep all of us in the dark to improve their bottom line.

Alrighty then, flame off...

Have a nice day!

Joe Ebel

ORIGINAL MESSAGE

It's time again for the annual Stella Awards!

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

So... these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.

Here are the Stella's for the past year:

7TH PLACE:

Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict,considering the running toddler was her own son.

What???

6TH PLACE :

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE :

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance compan y must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish.

We should all have this kind of anguish. Keep scratching. There are more.

4TH PLACE:

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chainin its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

Grrrrr Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE :

A jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there. There are only two more Stella's to go.

2ND PLACE :

Kara Walton of Claymont , Delaware sued the owner of a nightclub in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms.Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies' room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the nightclub had to pay her $12,000, oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.

Go figure.

1ST PLACE :

(May we have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos, please.)

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.

The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid? Or is it just the juries the lawyers select?

PLEASE...

IF YOU HAVE A BRAIN
IN YOUR HEAD OR HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE...

START SHOWING UP FOR JURY
DUTY!

PLEASE!

END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE

Wisconsins True Blue

Nothin new!!!

NC goes Blue!!

Who'd a thunk it?!

Oklahoma - Not OK

Looks like Oklahoma is one 'God fearin' state!

Election Obsession

Mouse over the map to activate it. Click on a state to see the counties or districts. It's a lot of fun, and tomorrow it will be populated with real live data from the AP!

Click on the title of this post to see the original site with a larger map.

Obama and McCain Trade Places

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across a stage, including
a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished 5th from the bottom of his graduating
class?

What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?

What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe
disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his
standards?

What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long
affair while he was still married?

What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to
pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable
organization?

What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were 5 US Senators accused of corruption
in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger
Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?

What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?

What if McCain could use a computer, and Obama could not?

What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included
discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?

What if Obama spent 5 years in a prison camp while Communist
Chinese fiddled around inside his head?

What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?

What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money distributing
beer?

What if the Obama's had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list.
If these questions reflected reality, would the Election numbers be
as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes
positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities
in another when there's a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political
Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this IS about the two highest offices
in the Land as well as our standing in the World. You make the call

The Vet Who Didn't Vet

SNL - Palin, McCain & Bush

Opie, Fonz & Andy Griffith for Obama!

Very much fun...

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

David Sedaris on Undecided Voters

From newyorker.com:

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert & Prunes

Who's Elite??

An observation on the 'free market'

I got this from Josh Marshall's 'Talking Point Memo - TPMCafe' Blog:

An observation from Harvard
By Reed Hundt - September 19, 2008, 10:07PM
This from a well-known Harvard Business School professor:

"Wall Street is the symbol of an industry which for years has described itself as being controlled by a balance between fear and greed. Indeed, the people who talk this way seem to take pride in it.

Any industry that can cause such trouble and which takes into account only fear and greed in its operation is begging for someone to speak up for the public interest. They have dared the government to regulate them. It is a dare that they must lose.

One might also add that any business that markets itself as "too big to fail" is also too big to be unregulated.

Free Marketeers forever quote Adam Smith's famed "invisible hand" metaphor. They interpret Smith to be saying that the sum of everyone acting selfishly will be the public good. If we have learned anything from the mess in which we find ourselves now, it is the untruth of that belief. To achieve a thriving economy - to build a society of which we can be proud - we have to use the brains God gave us. That means positive, active, assertive, informed governmental action. For decades, one political party has told us that government is the problem, not the solution. They certainly aren't acting that way now."


Richard S. Tedlow

Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration

Harvard Business School