Mountain Laurels - Part Deux

My ten years + mountain laurel project bore fruit this spring. I mean flowers.


For those whose schedules are too busy to click on the picture:


Mountain laurels are poisonous...but the meese will eat them if they are hungry enough. For instance, if it's winter on the mountain and there is a large concentration of meese in the area.


We don't drive on your shooting range...

I had been sitting on this since my first mountain laurel post, as I was hoping to get a picture when the flowers were bigger. Ah well.

Next year.
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Senator Dave the Shtter News: Breaking Like The Wind

Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana says he will vote against confirming Sonia Sotomayor to be a Supreme Court justice.

Isn't that special? I suppose Senator Dave is concerned about Sonia's views on hypocritical whore-mongering, diaper-filling, racist Senators.



Jeane Palfrey has left the building.

Dave the Shitter? Mister Family Values?

He's still around.

Update: Dirty Dave opened his maw again today.

“I’m on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values,” said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Seriously? I think Dave Vitter and company have been pursuing their core values relentlessly.

Getting caught is a bummer, though.
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I'm Number 3,189,523!11!

Respect my authority!

Also:
Just Another Blog (From L. A.)™: Why Sarah Palin Is An Absolutely Useless, No-Talent Loser
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My left foot

These pictures came from a trip for work to Arizona. I had to fly into Phoenix, visit a couple of properties, and then drive up to Page. I timed the trip so I'd hit the Grand Canyon on Friday afternoon, and then fly back home on Sunday.


I'm going to have to visit NW New Mexico soon. I hope to do some hiking on Mount Taylor.
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Get apparattus.

The blog claim process is not going well.



So great idea! I'll add the technorati favorite button, and then favorite my blog to my new technorati account.



*sniff*
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Health care, again, some more

Thank you, Mendacious D and Another Kiwi, for giving us your take on health care coverage in Canada and New Zealand in the comments on the previous post.

The fact that other countries provide better health care for half of what we pay here in the U.S. is a secret that can not be told by serious people. The proles might find out, and that would be revolting.

It's like Iraq's WMD...only dirty hippies question the official propaganda. And dirty hippies don't get hired by the Washington Post. Dirty hippies dont get invited to Katharine Weymouth's parties.

No matter how incompetent a hack you are, as long as you hack for the tycoon class, you have a job at the Washington Post.

The tycoon class isn't shy when it needs to send a message, either. So sorry, Dan Froomkin, you're fired. Michael Gerson and William Kristol, hired. Because Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Jim Hoagland, and Robert Kagan (etc., etc.) were so lonely.

Another Kiwi provided a link in those comments, and I think every person/zombie/meese/bird should click on it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medical bills are behind more than 60 percent of U.S. personal bankruptcies, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a report they said demonstrates that healthcare reform is on the wrong track.

More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.

"Unless you're Warren Buffett, your family is just one serious illness away from bankruptcy," Harvard's Dr. David Himmelstein, an advocate for a single-payer health insurance program for the United States, said in a statement.

The tycoon class wants even more of your dollars, and they don't care if you die while they're grabbing them. And they own the MSM.
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Health care, again

Steve Benen:

IN A WAY, IT IS STILL FRESH TODAY.... Over at "The Corner," Jonah Goldberg highlights this 1961 clip from Ronald Reagan, criticizing Medicare. Goldberg said Reagan's criticism of the landmark health care program is, nearly a half-century later, "still fresh today."
...
Reagan's misguided diatribe from 48 years ago also serves as a reminder that we hear the same arguments from conservatives, over and over again, every time real reform is on the table. Republicans, Fox News, and Limbaugh, for example, reflexively shout "socialized medicine" whenever the issue comes up -- just as the right has done for 75 years.

Lee-Anne Goodman (Canadian Press):

A Manitoba-born physician, David Gratzer of the Manhattan Institute thinktank, has been a Republican favourite, frequently appearing to assail the Canadian system.
...
Another observer from afar took aim at Republican fear-mongering about Canadian health care.

"I'm 82, and in excellent health," Art Finley, a West Virginia native now living in Vancouver, recently told the Huffington Post.

"It costs me all of $57 a month for health care, and it's excellent. I'm so tired of all the lies and bullshit I hear about the system up here in the U.S. media."


Thank you, Lee-Ann and Art. Needless to say, David Gratzer is full of crap.

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths by Rhonda Hackett - The Denver Post:

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

If we're going to get the public option we should have gotten long ago, we're going to have to let everyone know that Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, and the rest of the wingnuts are full of it...as usual. And we're getting ripped off, and even dying, as a direct result.

Total health expenditures per capita, 2003

United States $5711
Australia $2886
Austria $2958
Belgium $3044
Canada $2998
Denmark $2743
Finland $2104
France $3048
Germany $2983
Ireland $2466
Italy $2314
Japan $2249
Netherlands $2909
Norway $3769
Sweden $2745
United Kingdom $2317

UPDATE: Let's tell the folks what we win for spending double on health care!

37 United States of America

WE'RE NUMBER 37! Wahoooo!
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UC, Chuckles, and Kathleen are Samson

Who knew?

P.S. Another view of the wienermobile. It would be hard to describe this as "half ass".


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Sing Along With The GOP

Whistle While You Jerk (If I Only Had A Brain)


You could be a shitter, even do it with the sitter,
If you've got an R behind your name.

No need to be a quitter, even if you're Vitter,
The liberals are to blame.


You can hike a trail, or chase some Latin tail,
And then pray away the shame.




Divorcin' wives with cancer, it's an easy answer,
When your mistress wants your game.


Play a mens room sport, in the Minnie airport,
A wide stance you may claim.




Chase a youthful page, your base you might enrage,
Fox will place a D behind your name.


A waitress could sue you, for your groping voodoo,
And your sheriff will smear her name.



A Senator named Ensign won't face the need to resign
Just because he was chasing after dames.

G.O.P. Gross Old Perverts
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Feeling Ducky?

I had to travel to Wisconsin for work porpoises, so I figured why not stay nearby at the beach? After all, the Best Western Harborside Inn was just as cheap as anyplace else, and it is right next to Simmons Island.

A flying squirrel glides into a lesbian bar

I know there's a punchline in here somewhere...
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That is just a snack, fish!

Fish posts a video:

Pinko, Snag, and Zombie on a road trip

Welcome to Columbus!



The sandwich consists of 2 and a half pounds of lunch meat, bread, and toppings....
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Click For Your Medicine

Sometimes I make fun of Bob.

But overall, I think he's indispensable.

Bob Somerby on the Washington Post and health care

First off, you can go to any site populated by the wingnut crowd and find them Blar-Har-Harring over the WaPoo pay for access scandal.

Ha Ha Libs!

But a sober analysis of what was going on there shows, as Bob S. does, that the Washington Post is serving their corporate clientele at the expense of the rest of us. Ever since Donny Graham became the publisher, this has been the trend at the WaPo.

We have a choice between a right wing corporate press and an insane right wing corporate press in this country.

Next, getting to the specifics of the health care debate, these numbers should be published everywhere:

Total health expenditures per capita, 2003

United States $5711
Australia $2886
Austria $2958
Belgium $3044
Canada $2998
Denmark $2743
Finland $2104
France $3048
Germany $2983
Ireland $2466
Italy $2314
Japan $2249
Netherlands $2909
Norway $3769
Sweden $2745
United Kingdom $2317

Those are astonishing data. Over the past fifteen years, they’ve almost never been discussed. Everyone but Krugman understands—you simply mustn’t discuss them.

UPDATE: Horton hears a Who?

I mean, Harry gets a clue?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) abruptly waded into health care reform negotiations Tuesday, telling Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) that Democratic leaders had serious concerns about a bill that would tax health benefits and nix a strong public insurance option.
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Droopy Dog versus Wolf

This should come as no surprise:



The same Jerry-atrics who rate for the verminous mouse also rate for the authoritarian right wing fascist dog rather than the noble wolf.
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A question for those who rate for Jerry

First, a little background from the home of Righteous Leftous Bubba:

Independence and Strength

Furthermore, here's the cartoon:



In the post below, I was looking into the background of one Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III

Note the first comment:

Tue, 05/05/2009 - 15:09 — pissed off patricia

I didn't know this about Sessions. I mean I knew he was a total jerk but I didn't know this ugly side of him. How the hell did he ever get elected in the first place with a background like this?

His looks remind me of the mouse in the Tom and Jerry cartoons






Well, another Kiwi? lawnguylander? What have you to say for your Jerrymandering ways now?

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, the Mouse Problem remains unabated, in spite of the evidence.


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"an ugly new chapter"

A Puerto Rican legal advocacy organization that Sotomayor used to belong to helped a group of Hispanic police officers in the 1980s challenge the promotion exams for New York police officers, arguing they were discriminatory.

On Tuesday, the organization, Latino Justice PRLDEF, sent the Judiciary Committee more than 350 pages of documents from the 12 years Sotomayor spent on its board, opening what could be an ugly new chapter in the debate over confirming the federal appeals court judge as the first Hispanic justice.

The Title VII discrimination case involving the police officers was settled, leading to twice as many Hispanics being promoted than before. A group of white officers fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court but lost primarily because they didn't intervene in the case sooner.

Guess who, folks?

No. I am not going to link to FAUX.



Fuck 'em.

UPDATE: Bonus FAUX:



Michael Scheuer: America needs Osama to blow us up in order to save us.

Glenn Beck. Good plan, but Osama is too smart to fall into our trap.
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