Plastic In the Afterlife

WTF?!? Dolphins Don't Like Raves!

Two dolphins died at the Swiss marine park Connyland after a two-day rave was held just yards from the dolphin's pool.  Evidently dolphins don't like house music.  Not only were these poor dolphins subjected to noise levels measured at 100 decibels (equivalent to "a pneumatic drill on top volume"), but there is a possibility that some of the ravers may have put some elicit drugs in their pool.  I guess they thought the dolphins would have a nice "trip", but the only trip they got was to dolphin heaven. 

It turns out that since 2003, Connyland had 24 out of 36 dolphins either go belly-up or their fate is "unknown".  Unknown?  Better check out the tuna canning plant down the street on those ones.The two most recent deaths of the dolphins Shadow and Chelmers are the seventh and eighth dolphins to go to Davey Jones' locker at Connyland in the past three years.

If you're interested, sign this petition from Change.org to close down Connyland.  Oh, and put away your pacifiers and glow sticks---all future raves at Connyland have been postponed indefinitely. 

The Word "Muslim" is a "metaphor for racism"?

Amid a "firestorm" of controversy, President Obama finally released the long form version of his birth certificate, proving that he is---gasp!---in fact, an American citizen!  Dumbass attention hog Donald Trump trumpeted his self-gratification and pride at having "accomplished something nobody else has accomplished...I am really honored to have played such a big role in hopefully getting rid of this issue."  You the fuckin' man.  Please, please, please run for president---the GOP needs you!

In a recent Associated Press article, Charles Babington cited a new New York Times-ABC News poll in which 2/3 of adult Republicans "either embrace or are open to" the false claim that Obama is a foreigner.   ABC News pollster Gary Langer thinks that the real reason some people polled claimed that they believed in the birther issue is because "Some people who strongly oppose a person...will take virtually any opportunity to express that antipathy."  I do see what Langer is saying.  I know some people who don't like Obama, not only for his politics, but also because the man himself makes them uncomfortable, as if having a man of color in the highest public office in the nation makes some white people feel as if they're "losing ground" and need to regain this ground at any cost. 

 In a roundtable discussion Easter Sunday on This Week, ABC reporter Cokie Roberts and a team of panelists had, what I like to call "A Jerry McGuire Moment"---that is, they said what many people think, but do not have the balls to say, because once you say it, you get neutered.  So, what was their "Jerry McGuire Moment"?  It was that people's objection to Obama is often times a reflection of deep-seeded or even just-under-the-surface racism and xenophobia.  Panelist Steven Roberts said during the discussion that: "The word Muslim is a code word, and it's a metaphor. It's a metaphor for racism. It's a metaphor for he's different from us, he's not like us, he's got this funny name, which he says all the time. And it is - and he's an alien on some level...there has always been a strain of America that wants to exclude the other. Exclude someone who's different..."  Cokie Roberts added: "But...the bad part about this is that...it's acceptable to say that he's a Muslim...because the same people won't - won't say, 'I don't like him cause he's black.' " 

Now pause a second to listen for the gasps and outcries of shock and admonition.  Then wait a bit longer for the predictable network reproaches and apologies, accompanied by statements of remorse by the panelists in question.  Finally, take a step back and take a look at yourself and think about the people you've encountered in your life.  Think about all of the times you yourself have held a bias against someone because of some perceived or real difference.  Maybe you or people around you teased someone in your school days because that person was obese, very tall, very short, too white, too dark, had a speech impediment, wore the wrong clothes, had a strange name, was very poor or rich, etc.  People are devisive.  People take note of differences, and some people are uncomfortable with those who are not like them.  Being able to tell the difference between things and people is a necessary survival skill, like knowing to eat those berries, but not those other berries because they're poisonous.  But being that we are endowed with the ability to "reason", the perception of those differences between people can be skewed to fit that person's perception of the world.  As they say, "perception is reality".

So, let's not get all huffy-puffy about what was said in the program "This Week".  This birther issue, along with the Christian-or-Muslim issue, are just a reflection of the larger issue of fear/hate of "the other".  Noel Sheppard, who writes for "Newsbusters" (whose byline reads: "Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias"), wrote in response to the "This Week" discussion: "Calling Americans racist, despite there being an African-American in the White House, is acceptable on Easter Sunday.  I doubt I'm the only one that felt this was highly inappropriate on such a holy day."  Some play "the race card", some play the "religious holier-than-thou card"---I prefer to throw down the "truth hurts card".  No, not that all Americans are racist---that wasn't what they were saying.  But, having watched enough videos from the 2008 election in which people at McCain-Palin rallies spewed racist and xenophobic slurs about Obama, and having seen videos of Tea Party rallies where like comments were also in abundance, in addition to national polls (such as the aforementioned one) which reveal pervasive and persistent adherence to falsehoods, even in the clear light of the truth, it is then accurate to say that some Americans are, in fact, afraid of those who are not like them, and sometimes for those Americans, it goes far beyond simple politics.

 

Drill Baby Drill, Just Don't Spill Baby Spill!

Ah, yes...the phrase "Drill Baby Drill" first coined by current GOP Chairman Michael Steele at the 2008 Republican National Convention, and since championed and repeated (ad nauseum) by Sarah Palin lately leaves a slight oil-slick-like taste in conservatives' mouths as the BP oil leak disaster continues to spew hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean every day.  Still, Palin refuses to stay silent and forges blindly ahead in an attempt to stay somewhat relevant, kind of like the Kardashians or Paris Hilton. 

On the "Fair and Balanced" "news" program Fox News Sunday, Palin clumsily tried to create some nefarious conspiracy theory in which Obama and his administration were dragging their feet on stopping the oil leak because they were in cahoots with each other.  Said the astute Palin: 

"...the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign...if there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

You can always count on Mrs. Palin to lay some real doozies and make some real stretches in logic.  And how about her uncanny ability to intertwine quaint colloquialisms with hard-hitting political analysis---who else could use the words "doggone" and "complexity" in the same sentence?  I dare you to find someone else---I DARE YOU!!!

Anyway, while it is true that then 2008 Presidential candidate Obama received more money from BP employees ($71,051) than did McCain ($36,649), McCain and Palin benefited much more from campaign donations from the oil industry than did Obama, to the tune of $2.4 million to Obama's $900,000.  Darn those pesky facts!  Really, money from the oil industry flows through our nation's capital as free as the oil spewing from BP's well a mile down in the ocean!  According to PolitiFact.com, "The industry spent $174 million lobbying Congress in 2009, ranking it behind only the pharmaceutical/health products industry and business associations."  And to further chip away at Palin's pebble of truth, the Center on Responsive Politics has noted that "as an industry, about three quarters of the oil and gas money has gone to Republicans since 1990."  Mmm...ain't truth a bitch, Sarah?

As to the criticism leveled at President Obama himself that he is not personally doing enough to stop the oil leak, I guess he should don his spandex suit and cape and fly a mile down under the ocean and seal off the well with his laser-beam eyes.  It's ironic how people rail against "BIG GOVERNMENT" when they try to solve a problem so astronomical that the average person cannot even fathom what the solution could be, such as the health-care and health insurance industry mess, for example, but when another problem so astronomical that the average person cannot even fathom what the solution could be, such as the oil spill, then they call on "BIG GOVERNMENT" to come save the day.  Newsflash, folks---the government actually has the political ability to create laws that will result in concrete changes to the health-care and health insurance industries because debating the merits of bills and allocating funds is their "thing".   Stopping oil from spewing a mile beneath the ocean's surface is not their "thing", got it? 

George Lods, a seafood wholesaler whose business is based right in the affected Gulf region, a man who has every reason to resort to emotional diatribes on "slow" governmental response, stands as one reasonable voice amidst the clamor and political rhetoric surrounding this man-made environmental debacle.  I leave you with his sage wisdom:

"My personal opinion, I think they (the government) are doing what they are capable of doing. They probably could do a little bit more. But BP and Transocean, that was their rig, that was their business, just like this is my business. If something happens here, I'm responsible for it. The government can only do so much. They didn't drill the well. They can't stop it. That is not their expertise...I think it is his (Obama's) responsibility to see that BP and that we do everything we can to clean up this mess. But the president didn't make the oil well blow. The government really...doesn't know what to do.  The people that are in the oil field business know what to do, and they can tell the government, hey, we need this and we need that. But the government is not in the shrimping business either. They can't tell the shrimpers how to go catch shrimp. I don't think they can tell BP how to clean it up, because that is not the government's job."

Louise Slaughter threatened with her namesake

Health Care Reform has been an emotional issue, and due to high emotions, not an altogether rational one.  One way to temper the irrational fears born of relentless fearmongering by various conservative groups, such as the "Teabaggers", is to present cold, hard facts to the contrary.  On one hand, examine the fact that 1 in 6 (46.3 million) Americans are uninsured, and of that number, 8 in 10 are members of working families---not "freeloaders" as many have argued.  Also, according to a Time magazine report, "Eighty percent of those without health insurance are native-born or naturalized citizens. However, immigrants are more likely to be uninsured than legal residents. Racial minorities are also disproportionately represented; about one-third of Hispanics and one-fifth of blacks go without insurance, compared with 13% of whites."  This disproportionate representation and the largely white conservative backlash against Health Care Reform certainly could lead one to draw the conclusion that the ruling white majority is doing what it can to preserve the power balance that it currently enjoys, and that many in the majority fear that any change in health care equity will further tip the scales of equality in the favor of minority classes.  As Arsenio Hall used to say, "Things that make you go 'Hmm...' ".

Anyway, how discouraging it was to learn that a few extreme Health Care Reform opponents took to throwing a brick through the window of the Democratic Headquarters in Rochester, NY and also through the window of Democratic Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's Niagara Falls office.  Affixed to the brick thrown through Slaughter's window was a note that read "Exremism [sic] in the defense of liberty is no vice".  Um, learn how to spell, douche bag.  Mike Vanderboegh, author of the conservative Alabama-based blog Sipsey Street Irregulars (no link provided, thank you), said in a telephone interview with WHAM News 13 out of Rochester, NY:  "I’m advocating broken windows. I’m advocating vandalism...Wake up and understand what is happening in this country. You need to start listening to people who you think you didn't have to pay any attention to, because sooner or later they will get your attention".  Brick-by-brick, I guess.  Well, this brickhead is claiming that he was the inspiration for the incidents that occurred in New York State, as well as similar incidents that occurred in Tucson and Kansas.  Hey---there's a proud legacy to leave to your children.  Um, if you don't already have any offspring, Mike---don't spawn, alright?

To make matters worse for Louise Slaughter, there was a recent voicemail left at her campaign headquarters that advocated "assassination" "toward the children of lawmakers who voted yes."  Ironic how Slaughter, who championed a bill that would help preserve human life is herself being threatened with death, as are the innocent children of like-minded legislators.  Highly illogical, captain. 

But geez, I sure can understand how utterly enraged opponents to the Health Care Reform bill must be when they consider the fact that this bill would now make it illegal for health insurance companies to deny people coverage based on what they consider to be "pre-existing conditions", such as domestic abuse, for one.  Ah, the injustices of this reform!  The humanity! 

Maybe some people should consider grabbing a brick and knocking some sense into their own heads; how's that sound?

 

What a meathead---literally...

 During player introductions in yesterday's Seattle Seahawks vs. Jacksonville Jaguars football game, Seattle  Seahawks' fullback Owen Schmitt repeatedly struck himself in the forehead with his helmet, causing blood to gush down his face and onto his uniform.  Schmitt wasn't even ready until the second play from scrimmage because the trainers had to fix up the gash on his forehead and clean up his uniform before he would be allowed on the field.  Apparently, Schmitt has a history of such self-inflicted head wounds.  While playing at West Virginia University, Schmitt was caught on film on the sidelines smashing his head with his helmet after a play.  Maybe he was just feeling kind of sentimental (emphasis on mental) when he decided to relive the excitement of his college days by braining himself before Sunday's game.

Seahawks' head coach Jim Mora was concerned about Schmitt's actions because he was the only active fullback on the roster. Said Jim Mora about the incident:   "I said, 'Hey pal, if you get hurt, we don't have anybody else.  That's just his enthusiasm. He came over and apologized. I told him, 'Use your head.'"  Ba-dum-bum!  This Schmitt sounds like the kind of player who meets his challenges head on!  He's got a real head for the game!  Heck, he really gets his head into the game!  He is head and shoulders above the rest!  Um...okay.  I'm okay now.

Anyway, Schmitt's teammates were all abuzz about how his actions fired them up.  Seahawks' wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh remarked, "It gets you to the point like, 'Wow, this man here is ready to play.' You can't let a guy like that down when he's busting his forehead open.  That's going to be a scar for life. And it's one game."  The Seahawks did crush the Jaguars 41-0, so I guess that this intentional bloodletting did have its desired effect. 

In fact, so positive was the reaction of the team, that Schmitt plans to top himself next week.  What is it?  Well, not to give it all away, but let's just say it involves some thumscrews and a pair of forceps.  Stay tuned, kids!