The Skunk and Tiger

Home After Second Hip Surgery.

Nosing Around the Zoo.

Mmmmmm. People!

Never Enough Nukes For the Teabag Queen.

Wow, so Obama is not pro-drilling enough he is also not pro-nukes enough, even though its the same nuke policy Reagan talked about. Not that I would expect Palin to have any sense of U.S. history as far back as twenty some years ago. She is such a Teabag Celeb! Hannity and Bachmann are full of it too.

Palin: Obama nuke strategy is like kid saying ‘punch me in the face’

Hot Politicians

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin may not really be able to see Russia from her front yard, but she did weigh in on President Barack Obama's overhaul of US policy on the use of nuclear weapons. Calling the president's move "unbelievable," Palin told Fox News' Sean Hannity that "no administration in America's history would, I think, ever have considered such a step that we just found out President Obama is supporting today."
Said Palin: "It's kind of like getting out there on a playground, a bunch of kids, getting ready to fight, and one of the kids saying, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me.'
The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled new limits
on the nation's nuclear arsenal, saying it would only use atomic weapons in "extreme circumstances" and would not attack non-nuclear states. The administration said for the first time that countries without atomic weapons which complied with non-proliferation treaty obligations need not fear a US nuclear attack. But President Barack Obama warned exceptions could be made for "outliers" such as Iran and North Korea, which are both accused of flouting UN resolutions.
"The president is saying that if there is a biological, chemical attack against the United States of America, or if there is a cyberattack, a major cyberattack, if it's a country that is part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, then America has taken nuclear weapons off the table," Fox host Hannity said at a rally in Minnesota for Rep. Michele Bachmann.
"It's unacceptable," Palin responded. "This is another thing that the American public -- the more that they find out what is a part of this agenda -- they are going to rise up and they are going to say 'no more.' National security, national defense is the number one job of the federal government

Under the Dome

A little longer than it probably needed to be, but a very fun read. A nice twilight-zone type ending. I was hoping a book this size would be as fantastic as the Stand and It but I guess those two King masterpieces can never be matched.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5

Sunday, Bunny Sunday.

AWFULs

"Patriot" hate groups on the rise again, just like in the 1990's. Kentucky always gets a bad rap but Michigan has many more of the Angry White Fringe United Leagues (I call them AWFUL's).

CNN report suggests Antichrist-fearing militia group hosted Tea Party

From Raw Story

A militia group worried about the Antichrist was the subject of multiple reports over the weekend."A Christian militia group was a target of at least one of a series of weekend raids the FBI conducted in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, a Michigan militia leader says," the Associated Press reports.

The FBI said Sunday that it had conducted raids in the three states, resulting in at least three arrests. Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects. Some of the suspects were expected in court Monday.It wasn't clear what prompted the raids, but Michael Lackomar, a spokesman for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, said one of his team leaders got a frantic phone call Saturday evening from members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group. They said their property in southeast Michigan was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Lackomar said.
"They said they were under attack by the ATF and wanted a place to hide," he said. "My team leader said, 'No thanks."'

"Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment," Hutaree.com reads. "The only thing on earth to save the testimony and those who follow it, are the members of the testimony, til the return of Christ in the clouds. We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming."
Another AP report notes, "Two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that members of the group had planned multiple attacks on police officers or other law enforcement personnel as way to express their hatred for the government. Charges against members of the militia group are expected to be unsealed later Monday when some of the suspects appear in court."
"Nine members of a militia group arrested in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio were planning to 'levy war' against the United States and 'oppose by force' the nation's government, according to an indictment released this morning in U.S. District Court in Detroit," the Detroit News reports.

The indictment says they were planning to kill a member of law enforcement, possibly after a traffic stop, to "prompt a response by law enforcement."
The goal: To "intimidate and demoralize law enforcement, diminishing their ranks and rendering them ineffective," according to the indictment.
The group then intended to use the incident to spark a "war" against law enforcement, using bombs, ambushes and prepared fighting positions.
During a report about the arrests, CNN's Susan Candiotti displayed a web page from MichiganMilitia.com advertising a "Tea Party." The website promotes an "Open Carry Family Picnic & Tea Party" to be held on April 10, 2010.

Read More Here

Freaky Booth

Spending time with family and close friends in a special town Sam calls "Freaky Booth". Also we officially entered our thirty-somethings with our new (used) mini-van.

The Hysteria Rises

I have a new favorite quote "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."-Horace Mann

New online Harris poll basically says: Republicans are insane

By John Amato

OK, let's have some fun. There's a new Harris poll that was just released and the results are pretty hysterical. It's not scientific, but based on who decided to take it online during the height of the health care debate, so take it for what it is:

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."
To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.
Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here's new data to prove it:
67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist. The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.
57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president" 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did" Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist." These numbers all come from a brand-new Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country.
• Michelle Goldberg: What the Polls Really Show The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people right at the height of the health-care reform debate, also clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."

The poll was based on John Avlon's new book: Wingnuts. If nothing else it speaks to the people that are clicking through and then taking the poll. Clearly there is a derangement syndrome going on in America today. We know this by the behavior we see everyday and the actions...oh...like...cutting someone's gas line. Things like that.

GOP Celeb Hints at Violent Action.

It is getting to the point that the GOP spokespeople, not just the fringe base, are trolling for bloodshed. I called my republican rep, not that it matters. The polarization is sickening, but when you rise above it, it is almost like going to the circus. I just hope no one gets hurt.

Sarah Palin's PAC Puts Gun Sights On Democrats She's Targeting In 2010

From Huffington Post

Sarah Palin is targeting -- yes, with gun sights -- House Democrats facing tough reelection fights who voted for health care reform. Palin's Facebook page now carries a map featuring 20 gun sights, one for each of the Democrats targeted this year by her political action committee SarahPAC. Three of the gun sights, those where incumbent Democrats have already announced their retirement, are colored red.
Likewise, Palin's rhetoric is decidedly militant. "We'll aim for these races and many others," she wrote on her Facebook page. "This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight."

Adele Update

Adele is going to have another major surgery. Her right leg is coming out of its socket again and it's not getting better. Her surgery is scheduled for April 20 at University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital, and will take 4 hours. They will be cutting her femur and changing the angle so it better stays in the hip socket. Then, they will reshape her hip socket to get better coverage and also help the femur stay in place. We are, of course, devastated that the first surgery didn't work as we hoped. Adele will be in the hospital for at least two nights (last time it turned into three nights, though). She will be in a hip spica body cast for at least six weeks after, then possibly in a hip brace for another six weeks after that. While we are so sad to put her through this, we now have lots of experience in what Adele needs, what we need to help her. For example, diiapering requires a Poise Pad, on top of a size 2 diaper, stuffed under the edges of the cast, then all wrapped up with a size six diaper over the cast. We are planning to rent TWO hip spica car seats, so BOTH parents can pick up or drop off from daycare. Last time Adele learned to crawl in the cast by about week four or five -- this time I'm betting she'll be going by week two or three!
In other (good) news, Adele is now grabbing a cookie or a cracker and bringing it to her mouth more consistently, and she had a very good occupational therapy session on Monday. She used a oral vibrator (no laughing please) and she used it like a spoon to feed herself after the food was placed on it. She will have lots of opportunity to practice her fine motor over the next few months.

Health Care Close to Passing.

Its not a perfect bill, but this is the first time I can remember congress working on strengthining the social safety net rather than dismantling government regulation. Everytime I was discouraged or disappointed in how the Health Care debate was going I had to remind myself that if McCain Palin had won in 2008 we would not even be having these debates or any bill at all.

Robert Reich
Former Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley
The Final Health Care Vote and What it Really Means
It's not nearly as momentous as the passage of Medicare in 1965 and won't fundamentally alter how Americans think about social safety nets. But the likely passage of Obama's health care reform bill is the biggest thing Congress has done in decades, and has enormous political significance for the future.
Medicare directly changed the life of every senior in America, giving them health security and dramatically reducing their rates of poverty. By contrast, most Americans won't be affected by Obama's health care legislation. Most of us will continue to receive health insurance through our employers. (Only a comparatively small minority will be required to buy insurance who don't want it, or be subsidized in order to afford it. Only a relatively few companies will be required to provide it who don't now.)
Medicare built on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal notion of government as insurer, with citizens making payments to government, and government paying out benefits. That was the central idea of Social Security, and Medicare piggybacked on Social Security.
Obama's legislation comes from an alternative idea, begun under the Eisenhower administration and developed under Nixon, of a market for health care based on private insurers and employers. Eisenhower locked in the tax break for employee health benefits; Nixon pushed prepaid, competing health plans, and urged a requirement that employers cover their employees. Obama applies Nixon's idea and takes it a step further by requiring all Americans to carry health insurance, and giving subsidies to those who need it.
So don't believe anyone who says Obama's health care legislation marks a swing of the pendulum back toward the Great Society and the New Deal. Obama's health bill is a very conservative piece of legislation, building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation. The New Deal foundation would have offered Medicare to all Americans or, at the very least, featured a public insurance option.
The significance of Obama's health legislation is more political than substantive. For the first time since Ronald Reagan told America government is the problem, Obama's health bill reasserts that government can provide a major solution. In political terms, that's a very big deal.
Most Americans continue to be suspicious of government. That distrust is deeply etched in our culture and traditions. Our system of government was devised by people who distrusted government and intentionally created checks and balances, three separate branches, and almost insuperable odds against getting big things done. The period extending from 1933 to 1965 -- the New Deal and the Great Society -- was an historical aberration from that long tradition, animated by the unique crises of the Great Depression and World War II, and the social cohesion that flowed from them for another generation. Ronald Reagan merely picked up where Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover left off.

But Reagan's view of government as the problem is increasingly at odds with a nation whose system of health care relies on large for-profit entities designed to make money rather than improve health; whose economy is dependent on global capital and on global corporations and financial institutions with no particular loyalty to America; and much of whose fuel comes from unstable and dangerous areas of the world. Under these conditions, government is the only entity that can look out for our interests.

We will not return to the New Deal or the Great Society, but nor will we continue to wallow in the increasingly obsolete Reagan view that we don't need a strong and competent government. Today's vote confirms our hope that we can have both strength and competence in Washington. It is an audacious hope, but we have no choice.

The Conservative Fringe gets Uglier (if possible).

Ahhh. The true face of the Teabag anti-reform movement and it is no surprise it has nothing to do with health care reform at all.

Tea Party Protests: 'Ni**er,' 'Faggot' Shouted At Members Of Congress

Sam Stein HuffPost Reporting

Abusive, derogatory and even racist behavior directed at House Democrats by Tea Party protesters on Saturday left several lawmakers in shock.
Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse.
A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.
But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."
"It doesn't make me nervous as all," the congressman said, when asked how the mob-like atmosphere made him feel. "In fact, as I said to one heckler, I am the hardest person in the world to intimidate, so they better go somewhere else."
Asked if he wanted an apology from the group of Republican lawmakers who had addressed the crowd and, in many ways, played on their worst fears of health care legislation, the Democratic Party, and the president, Clyburn replied:
"A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this is not about health care a all. And I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care... it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful."

Wow, real inspiring patriots, these Tea-Baggers. Nice that these blood crazed protesters can outright call for violence and insight hatred without any consequence but just plan to protest the RNC in 2008 and you get arrested.Spitting and gay-baiting too, but this hysteria has been going on since before the election. If these Tea-Baggers tried to have an informed and fair discussion their brains would burst. For the past 25 years the angry white working class have just about voted themselves out of existence and now they want to blame their favorite scapegoats: Blacks, Gays, and Liberals. They must believe if you are one of those three you are also a Socialist, because there is nothing in that Bill that even comes close to socialism. All I wanted was the public option, but I don't know if that makes me a Marxist, a Czar, or a Batman villain? If you reach that level of crazy hate please tell me.