Another Crisis! Informed American Minds EXPLODE!

WTF! WTF!! WTF!!!

And Fox News Is There To Entertain The Remaining Pieces

"Why, my lil' ole brain would bust if I tried to think of things like that." When Scarlett O'Hara said that in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, it was supposed to give men the impression that she was a pretty, charming and addle- brained twit in need of male protection. Of course, nobody thinks that the brain will explode with too much information, do they?

Ah, do they?

I sat down today and tried to think of the pressing subjects of the day and the list seemed to develope a mind of its own and just kept going on and on and on. The result was the (admittedly amateur) graphic below. News analyst Rachel Maddow underscored just the political input today by saying that the political picture was developing too rapidly for the news to keep up. I subscribe to seven rss news feeds for my homepage and today I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to take them all in.

And it's not a great day for the media either, if you think about it: all of the subjects seem equally important and choosing what to lead with for front pages, news hours, and talk shows must be maddening.

And then there's Fox News.

The "Dijongate" brouhaha cemented their place in the media spectrum at the very bottom: insipid non-news that fails to justify its existence. Hannity, Van Sustern, O'Reilly, Wallace, Hume, "Fox and Friends" continue to take up valuable airtime and public attention with witless rants and utterly skewed, opinionated "news." The "top videos" on the Fox News website:

• Beck sounds off on GE-Obama connection
• Can Americans stop government intrusion?
• Cavuto: Congress shouldn't rush
• 'Hannity' investigates the Illuminati

For fun, I went to the Hannity piece, part of a segment called "Beyond Belief." (A poor man's Ripley's Believe It Or Not with Hannity playing Dean Caine - quite badly). Hannity was supposed to present a piece on the secret society for our (sorry) illumination, but all he managed to do was to demonstrate how true blue he was to the Roman Catholic Church.

My point? Think of all the newsworthy pieces jamming themselves into our brains today and how they affect our lives. Think of how responsible media is trying to sort it out so that we can digest it better. We can't just throw up our hands in frustration and retreat to a corner and center ourselves on one subject only, tuning out the rest of what's happening to the world.

No, our brains won't explode. Not if they remain reasonably informed on subjects that matter. Not if they are able to consider a multitude of problems presented to them in a way that is FAIR and BALANCED.

Just a thought.

Inside the informed American's mind:

WTF!?: Michael Savage Asks Hillary Clinton To Interceed In British Ban?

"How could they put me in the same league with mass murderers when I have never avowed violence?"

An Open Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Dear Mrs. Clinton:

The British are our friends. They have been allied with the United States for many years. In times of war, our tragedies and triumphs have been their tragedies and triumphs . So it is with a dire plea for compassion and diplomacy that I write this letter.

Please do not request British Home Secretary, the Hon. Jacqui Smith, to rescind the ban of Michael Savage (KEST-AM radio "Host"). To do so, would be an insult almost as grave as his actually being there! His speech foments hatred across the country. The very idea that he would spread that hatred to other countries is akin to knowingly allow diseased rats to cross borders and infest everyone with Bubonic Plague.

Michael Savage was labeled by the Home Secretary's Office as having "unacceptable behaviour." The British are so prone to understatement and restaint. A more apt description might be: "tasteless boor who hates absolutely everyone and who is diligent about making people hate each other."

We owe it to Britain. It's the Christian thing to do.

Sincerely,

Daniel F. Vojir
San Francisco

The very thought of Michael Savage being insulted by anything is hilarious! Or is it Hillary-ous? (I know, that sounds much too lame, like some Tony Perkins headline. Sorry, my bad). Here is a man who is so insulting that he goes for the jugular at the drop of a hat.

From Think Progress:

“It is demented,” Savage said. “I want my name off of that list and I want a letter of apology from this [British Home Secretary] Jacqui Smith.” Now it appears that Savage is seeking help from an old nemesis: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Rich Lieberman reports that “[l]awyers for Savage are formally asking [that] she call on the British Government to withdraw its ban.”

on the sale of babies.

"They are being dissected, sometimes while still alive, and sold piece by piece. Ears for $75 a pair; arms and legs, $150; a brain for $999, tax not included... It's becoming a huge business. And some of this money is being funneled to the Democrat machine."

On gays:

The gay and lesbian mafia wants our children. If it can win their souls and their minds, it knows their bodies will follow. Of course, it wants to homosexualize the whole country, not just the children.

On Muslims:

"They say, "Oh, there's a billion of them." I said, "So, kill 100 million of them, then there'll be 900 million of them." I mean, would you rather die -- would you rather us die than them?"

On students who were fasting in protest of Congress' failure to pass immigration reform legislation:

"I would say, let them fast until they starve to death; then that solves the problem."

AND ... on Hillary Clinton:

“Hillary Clinton, the most Godless woman in the Senate.”

Savage also once suggested that Clinton had something to do with the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. so she could run for U.S. Senate in New York.

And the greatest of insults:

Savage calls his listeners "literate callers with intelligence, wit, and energy." He says that he tries to make a show that has a "...hard edge combined with humor and education...Those who listen to me say they hear a bit of Plato, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Moses, Jesus, and Frankenstein."

Esquire Magazine calls Savage The Republican Party's Bigot Hero.

O.K., here's a man who says he does one thing even though it's obvious that he does another. You can watch his "oh-so-vilified-and-misunderstood" defense below. But first, let us give you a taste his effect on hate groups. Does this look like the work of Moses, Jesus or Plato? This was posted on Stormfront.org, the premier white supremicist website:

Michael Savage's Idea Of A "Pin- UP Girl"

coulter_shooting_gun
Originally uploaded by lachicaphoto

At least the heterosexual part of him. It is rumored that he put the make on Allen Ginsberg more than once back in the 50s, but he attributes that to propaganda of the "gay mafia."

Go figure.

"Your Honor! Mr. Cheney's Testimony Is Irrelevent and Immaterial"

AND: "Idiocy Of The First Order!"

If anyone deserves (today) to be in a witness box being grilled by Perry Mason, it's Dick Cheney. Mason's calm, cool demeanor could disarm anyone and his booming voice could cause an instantaneous breakdown (or pacemaker malfunction). Maybe it could lead to something no one has ever been privy to: a Cheney tear.

Yesterday's stint of former White House Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, on Rachel Maddow's show demonstrated just how blustery and foolhardy Dick Cheney's appearances on every media in the country (except Rachel's show, of course) have been. He alternately described Cheney as "Like Joker with a straight face" and "destroying what's left of the Republican Party."

In addition:
(As guest blogger in The Washington Note)

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)

When asked about Cheney's preference of Colin Powell to Rush Limbaugh:

"Two tours of Vietnam 35 + years of service to his country, 5 deferments for Dick Cheney, never served a day in the military, said he had other priorities. No comparison."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Thoughts On Torture: The Good, The Bad, and The Republican

It's Not A Game

But... Try to match up these people from the Torture Hall of Fame with the various pictures of torture or the various symbols. It's Fun! It's totally subjective!

HANNITY: “I am having a hard time understanding, though, why dunking somebody’s head in water….just to scare the living daylights out of them… why would you oppose that?”

LIZ CHENEY: “[T]he tactics are not torture, we did not torture. The memos lay out the extent of exactly how far we could go before it would become torture because it was very important that we not cross that line into torture.”

HUCKABEE: “It was like a carnival ride. … For example, it wasn’t that we were actually going to drown someone, but it was a simulation of it. And for that, there was in fact some information that came forth.”

SEN. LIEBERMAN: “Most people think it’s definitely torture. The truth is, it has mostly a psychological impact on people. … [W]e ought to be able to use something like waterboarding.”

CHENEY: Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and women in a very negative light. And I have heard from families of service members, from families of 9/11 victims, this question about, you know, when did it become so fashionable for us to side, really,with the terrorists?

ROVE: Taking, for example, the memoranda about the enhanced interrogation techniques and making them public has been a value to our enemy. It has served, frankly, I think, as a recruiting tool. They can now take these memoranda and go to prospective, you know, recruits and say, This is the worst that the enemy, the United States, would ever do to you, and they’ve even forsworn these things. We can help you, prepare you to deal with these things, but even the enemy is so weak they’re not going to use these techniques on you. And it’s given them a tool to make it more attractive to recruit people, and you know, this kind of thing is harmful to us over the long haul.

Lt. Col. Ton Hicks U.S. National Guard:

"...while it would be terrible to lose one of them or have one of them seriously physically injured, it would be worse to have them come home physically well and mentally broken because they had somehow lost their humanity. Torture destroys our humanity, and any equivocation (feel free to exercise the Kantian absolutist vs utilitarian argument to your heart’s content) on the matter is just bullshit."

They're Still Out There: The Elmer Fudds Trying To Become Elmer Gantrys

And They May Resort To Guerilla Warfare!

Complacency is starting to set in amongst the culture warriors on our side (the ones with the culture). People are even talking about the "defeat" of the Christian Right. Whoa! Stop right there. Someone's not seeing the whole picture. Just because James Dobson says "we've lost the battles" doesn't mean we can scrap our weapons and go home in peace. We've cornered the enemy, true. Now we have to contain them. That's not so easy. They're counting on the platoons stationed in the outposts. Here's one captain's screed:

The Bible says everything that has breath has a right to praise the Lord. But there are some times when the Scripture commands woman to shut up!

First, they are commanded to shut up concerning the Authority of the Church. I Timothy 2:12 tells us that a woman is not to usurp authority over the man. God never has called a woman to preach. I know some "mainline" churches are ordaining woman to pastor their churches. Even radio and television are now promoting female pastor's. What a sad day, seeing woman open the bible and expound the scriptures. Eve, in the Garden of Eden, in a perfect surrounding could not even quote on verse correct. I sure would not trust a woman to expound truth in this sin cursed mess we live in. Some sorry Baptist Churches are now letting woman teach men and boys classes. No wonder America has turned "Sodomite". Too many young men have had too many woman as their voice of authority.

I'm sorry to be such a stickler on things like grammar, but if Rev. Kidd is presenting his thoughts to the rest of the world, he might have a better chance if he seems educated to a level that would be void of egregious errors.

His website is almost totally dysfunctional: it looks as if it were designed at least 10 years ago (he posted it several months ago). The picture of him and his wife is very telling: he's dour and she looks as if her face was scrubbed clean - at the last minute. Considering what he thinks of women, your heart goes out to a woman who is either a complete slave/masochist or a very battered wife. I couldn't download the picture itself, so here's the link.

Read some of the comments on this site ("Guestbook"). THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO PRAISE THIS MAN!

Keep preaching, praying, and plowing Dr. Kidd there are alot of people out here pulling for you because you pull for us. You are known as the common man's preacher in this area. You are the Billy Sunday of this day and I am glad I got to witness your great ministry. Keep your eyes on Jesus and we will take care of the "visitors".

Gay marrige is now legal in Maine,and about to be legalized in New Hampshire.How long til it's everywhere in this country? How long until the US is completely in Satan's hands? A muslim president, legalized gay marriage, where will it end?

The second comment was made just one day ago. "A muslim president" places this person at the dark side of the moon. But think about it: pundits like Ann Coulter(geist) who repeatedly says/writes "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" feed the temperaments of these people. "Dr." Phil Kidd is definitely an Elmer Fudd trying to be an Elmer Gantry. But, as you've read before in this blog, but careful - Fudd's the one with the gun.

It's twoo, it's twoo, it's weewee weewee twoo.

The Palin-Texas Connection Scandal: Rape Victims Don't Rate Freebies!

Palin and Texas Cost Too Much

It's true. Palin and Texas cost us by sucking out compassion in order to save $:

From Think Progress:

CNN reports that Texas hospitals are charging women who have been raped thousands of dollars for their rape kits that are collected by police as part of their investigations. According to CNN, Texas’s crime victim compensation fund consistently has a surplus and could likely cover these expenses.

During the 2008 campaign, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) came under criticism for the fact that while serving as mayor of Wasilla, the town’s policy was to “bill victims” for their rape kits.

If a woman is courageous enough to undergo tests for rape so that the rapist can be identified and caught, she should not have to bear the financial burden of the medical expenses involved, right? Well, not if you're Sarah Palin or the state of Texas.

Of course, it might not make a difference if Texas secedes from the Union as threatened.

What a heartless way to start out as a republic.

Just a thought.