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counterspinyc


ear candle productions, who reads the rude pundit so i don't have to:

... I reproduce this quote from one of his [rude pundit's] readers.

"For some few years I volunteered as an escort at Dr. Tiller’s and several other clinics. I didn’t know the good doctor well, but met with him on several occasions and was impressed with his kindness and the care he obviously felt for the women who needed his services.

"Of course I have been heartbroken by his assassination, but I’m not so full of hate towards his killer. I’ve seen too many of his kind on the lines; in fact I remember seeing him. We knew Mr. Roeder as 'Prom Queen' from the flowers he usually carried there, and the screaming fits he would throw when approached by escorts. He was one of many not-too-bright mentally ill recruited by various self-appointed fundie leaders who groomed them to scream the threats they themselves were so careful not to utter aloud.

"I’m pretty sure that he has been exploited again to shoot Dr. Tiller. I don’t know who is using him this time- when I saw him, he was in Troy Newman’s stable of nuts, but the fundie leaders are an incestuous bunch who tend to swap followers as needed.

"According to papers Roeder filed today, his possessions amount to a 16yr.-old Taurus and $10, and he only works occasionally at minimum-wage jobs. Yet he managed to finance several 400-mile round trips to Wichita from the KC area in the last month to case the church and know Dr. Tiller by sight, bought a handgun, gas and meals etc. Also, he asked- begged- for bail to be set today, despite his total lack of assets. Obviously, the poor bastard expects someone to post it, all of which leads me to believe that he is not the solitary nutcase the fundies claim he is.

"Somebody had to put him up to it, help him plan it and pay his expenses, and will now feed him to the sharks. Hopefully, and maybe with a bit of psych help, he will realize how he was used and name names."

While you're there, you can check out this movie review and this piece on this piece on Iran.

My new idol

The White House held its annual congressional picnic yesterday, and the star of the show was Sasha Obama for sinking chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in the dunking booth.

Yessss!

The House health care deform bill

here, and the summary of the public option FAIL.

via badtux

Clearly, this drug had to be stopped

RIP Andante

So long, and thanks for all the blogging.

[for reference]

Can't remember if I've linked to it before or not, but here's a nice description [from 1993, so some things have maybe changed] of the French health care system.

It's a guy thing, isn't it...

this standing up to pee?

Curmudgeon cat has always been a stand-up kinda guy, especially in the litter box. This has posed some problems, given that he won't go inside one of those enclosed litter boxes, and the high-sided boxes aren't generally built for a cat who likes to balance on the side of the box [standing up] rather than dirty his paws by touching the litter.

It took me a few tries, but I finally came up with an arrangement that works, except that it's a bit of a Rube Goldberg cat box, and since everyone likes a clean bathroom, curmudgeon cat can be counted on to jump into the clean box even before I can get it fully assembled again.

Which he did tonight. Cats.

This time, though, as I watched the puddle spread across the bathroom floor [thank ceiling cat for linoleum], it was with great joy mixed with only a little exasperation. Not long ago, curmudgeon cat's old-cat-itis [he's, best guess, about 18 or 19] turned from a creeping case to a galloping case, and in short order he went from being his own sofa cushion to downright skeletal, literally half the cat he used to be, and nothing the vet did seemed to help.

Every day I came home from work expecting to find a dead cat, and every night I wondered if I'd put it off too long and should have already taken him in for that final trip to the vet. And since things seemed worse at night, and since he was going to die anyway, I decided to stop the bedtime medication to see if his last days would be a little more comfortable. And lo, he was. So much so, that he perked up a bit. And so, I stopped all the other medications too, at which point he perked up even more.

He's been eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, grooming, purring, and talking up a storm for a couple of weeks now. And while he's still pitifully thin [the photo is from fatter days], his skin is clearing up and he's got enough strength back to jump from the floor to the counter top without any intermediary steps [though he still takes the easy way most times].

So, apparently his aging system can no longer handle any of the drugs he's been on for much of his life [he's always had that 'sensitive stomach' trouble, it's just worse now] and I've had to search ever further afield for food that doesn't make him throw up, and the new no more drugs policy means that the only defense left against his skin problems is frequent medicated baths [thank ceiling cat he actually likes baths]... all of which is a real pain, but golly gee whiskers I'm deliriously happy that he's going to stick around for a little longer.

I get mail

email, that is, from Bernie Sanders ---

Issue June 16, 2009 - http://sanders.senate.gov

A PETITION TO CONGRESS
Supporting Single-Payer Health Care

Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance. Even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. Close to 20,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have regular access to a doctor.

The time is now for our nation to address the most profound moral and economic issue we face.

The time is now for our country to join the rest of the industrialized world and provide cost-effective, comprehensive quality health care to every man, woman and child in our country.

The time is now to take on the powerful special interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and pass a single-payer national health care program.

• Sign the petition
• Tell Bernie your experience with health care and insurance.

"... [T]he Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

has calculated that Energy Secretary Chu’s modest proposal to paint all the world’s roads and rooftops white would cost $17 trillion this century, and would cut global temperature by just 0.2 Fahrenheit degrees..."

Yeah riiiight, like I'm gonna believe that dude can do math. Not.

Also, apparently he did this calculation per Rush Limbaugh's request.

[for reference]

The American Medical Student Association has a short primer on various countries' health care systems.



note to self: see if there's any follow-up to these comments--
1
2



dartmouth atlas mortality statistics

New favorite blogs

Ill and UNINSURED in Illinois, someone whose situation is even more dire than mine

The Peter Rost Blog, because how can you not like a drug company whistleblower who posts pictures like this?

i c dead peeps

[for reference]

draft of the kennedy bill

[for reference]

kff.org slides: medicaid

Rose Ann DeMoro is God