Dumbest headline ever?

"Organic has no health benefits"

How about dumping poison into the environment to run into waterways and ground water? How about excessive fertilization wreaking havoc to water bodies as well with algae blooms that suck the oxygen--meaning the life--out of those water bodies?How about reflexively pumping livestock full of antibiotics that could be responsible for the next superbug? Don't those count as "unhealthy"?

Wow, talk about completely missing the point. It's all the difference in the world between self-centered short-term thinking and taking responsibility for one's impact on the world at large.

And speaking of Republican hypocrisy...

Oh, how I've been jonesing for another viciously homophobic, anti-choice, white GOP douchebag to be outed. It's a monkey I can't get off my back, but I refuse to kick the addiction to schadenfreude. In fact, I can even wish that 1.) the intern in question had been male, and 2.) that Stanley (like Vitter, Ensign, and Sanford--who each called for Bill Clinton's resignation in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal) hadn't resigned.

The reason I dropped the d-bomb above is this gem:

"Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true," he said during an interview Tuesday with Memphis radio station WREC-AM. "And just because I fell far short of what God's standard was for me and my wife, doesn't mean that that standard is reduced in the least bit."

No, Mr. Stanley. If the "standard" that you try to shove down the throats of law-abiding tax-payers in defiance of reason, data, and basic human dignity is not good enough for you (not to mention of a whole host of your ilk), it isn't good enough for anyone else--including those who doesn't presume to legislate their state and country into theocracy. Figgo to your fantasies about talking to sky-fairies who--quelle surprise--happen to agree with all of your bigoted notions, and give you a free pass for hypocrisy as well as abusing the power you were trusted with.

Republican hypocrisy...umm...shot down

Kudos to the Senate--which includes some of its GOP alumni--for smacking down, however barely, a bill that would have allowed residents of "concealed carry" to pack hidden heat in states that did not have that (cough) "right."

That the measure gained 58 votes is a travesty in itself, but that's another rant for another day.

Funny, ain't it, how the GOP was all about "states rights" when it was a dog-whistle term for restoring segregation. Funny how they're willing to look the other way when states (and Christian terrorists) whittle away at Roe v. Wade. But if it's about letting states decide that they don't, in fact, want nutballs living out vigilante fantasies inside their borders, of course that's completely different, donchaknow?

The irony of me writing this is that, in about thirty-odd hours, I'll be at an NRA class learning how to safely use a handgun. So anyone who calls my cred. into question can just suck it.

Porn for liberals

I'm thinkin' "Meghan McCain vs. Liz Cheney catfight." You like? Mind you, I don't exactly hold a special place in my heart for bottle-blonde GOPrincesses, but I'd totally, totally root for Meghan.

Another sign of the times

Yesterday's run to the grocery store was more of a supplies run than a quick one-off. So instead of the $5 food pantry or animal shelter donation bag, I grabbed a $10 one. I've been noticing lately that the checkout folks have actually been thanking me for doing that, which they didn't do, say, a year a go. I sort'a wondered why. Yesterday I had my answer: After the cashier thanked me the second time, I covered my twinge of embarrassment by saying, "Well, thank you guys for making it easy to do that." "Not many people do it anymore," he replied with palpable sadness.

I loaded my bags into the trunk for the drive home and climbed into the driver's seat. Which is when I noticed the mini-booklet that someone had slipped into the passenger's side window I'd cracked to keep the interior from overheating. You guessed it: A religious tract. Paraphrasing to the back, I can begin a new life in Christ if I

1. Read my Bible every day.
2. Talk to God in prayer.
3. Tell others about Jesus.
4. Worship and serve in a Christian church.
5. "As Christ's representative in a needy world," show my "love and concern" for others.

Dudes, you have the priorities exactly backwards. Here I am, an infidel non-believer in a supposedly Christian nation, among the small minority willing to help fellow creatures when it's friggin' impossible not to notice the means to do so every time I buy groceries.

Do me a favor, peeps: The next time you talk to God, tell him that some manna would come in especially handy just now. Or at least he could send junior with some loaves and fishes. It's not that I mind carrying the ball--I'd do that in any case. That's just how I'm wired. But I do resent that so many on the benches and sidelines won't even get on the playing field--but won't give me credit for the points I score, just because I don't take my orders from their coach.

"Independence" Day

Judas Priest, but I'm loathing this holiday even more than usual this year. It mostly has to do with the fact that Dearest is under the weather, but can't get any consistent rest. It's not even close to dark out, but the fireworks have been going off (on and off) for hours. The only surprise--and mercy--is that the neighbor's drama queen beagle hasn't been going off as well.

Why-oh-why can't we have sensible holidays that revolve around the tangible rather than the abstract? Why isn't there a Humane Society holiday? Or a Local Food Pantry Day? (The closest I can come to that is Eid Al Fitr, actually, but I'll be d--ned if I sign on to that creed, either...)

One of my college History profs. claimed that the notion of "freedom" in Colonial America was less a matter of freedom from the British empire than it was what he called "freedom from the vices of one's neighbors."

Listen. I have absolutely no yuppie ambitions of tearing up a portion of forest to "live out in the country." But, daaaaang. If I want to listen to music, that's what an iPod is for. If I want to stroke my ego with the constant sense of presence that a dog brings, I'll go to the pound and adopt one. If I want to listen to drunken inanity at midnight, I'll crash yer friggin' party. If I want to hear brat-children scream incessantly, I'll squeeze out a few of my own and skip that fussy little nicety we call parental discipline.

You know: Swinging arms meeting noses and all that. And bah humbug to any "freedom" that doesn't have responsibility as its B-side