Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Two Awesome Kids

While riding down Peachtree Battle Street in Atlanta, Mrs. Chaos and I happened across two young kids with a lemonade stand.
http://visualingual.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/lemonade.jpgThat's not them. These kids were a bit older.

So we stopped to buy lemonade, thinking we were helping out young entrepeneurs, when we discovered that the purpose of the stand was to raise money not for themselves, but for oil-spill relief! I know! When I was that age, it never would have occurred to me to work for money to give to someone else.

Mrs. Chaos asked the little girl if they had a charity lined up to give the money to, and she said "last night on CNN, they had a number to call, and they gave us a place to send it to." (or words to that effect.

"You watch CNN?!?" I asked the girl.

"Well, my brother was watching."

http://uglydemocrats.com/democrats/United-States/CNN/cnn-large.gif

So, I'm already in awe of these kids, neither of whom could be much more than ten, when their mother came out of the house to tell them to start packing it in. She said that the had brought in around $80 that day, and that a few weeks ago, they had done the same to raise money for Haiti.

I know!

So, if you are near the North side of Atlanta, come down to Peachtree Battle Street, between Moore's Mill Rd and Howell Mill St.* and buy some lemonade. They also have iced tea, and they said they'd have smoothies tomorrow. You'll be glad you did, and you'll meet a couple of awesome kids.

*I know, we have funny street names in Atlanta.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Remember When George Will Used to be Not-Insane?

From Crooks and Liars:

TAPPER: George, I want to start with you. I know you don't agree with what Republican Texas Congressman Joe Barton had to say, but does the idea of this $20 billion escrow account make you uncomfortable?

WILL: It does. Look, there is no defense of BP which has an execrable safety record in this country, from the refinery disaster in Texas in '05, the Morris Slope leak in '06, all of that and so no apology from BP. But if you don't want to live in a Northern Hemisphere Venezuela, you ought to be a little queasy about the fact that a president, any president of any party, using raw political power, without recourse to courts that exist for this sort of thing. . .



Oh, the courts! Suddenly, the right is all in favor of people using the courts to have their grievances redressed! You know, Torts? The righties just loooooove torts!

. . . under laws, with due process, essentially confiscates $20 billion from a publicly held corporation, about half of its shares held by Americans, to be dispensed, again, with out judicial supervision, as the political branch sees fit.

Supervision by judges? What if they're activist judges? Since when has the right wing had any respect for the judicial branch?

That is worrisome. Even, they have even said that BP maybe held responsible for the lost wages caused by, not BP, but the administration's own moratorium, six-months moratorium, on deepwater drilling. Which maybe more costly to the economy of the Gulf than the spill itself.

Really? A six-month moratorium on drilling more costly than having the shrimping, fishing, and tourism industries destroyed for at least a generation? Really? That's what you're going with? You're gonna just go ahead and stick with that, then, hmm? Yeah? The six month thing, more costly than the giant catastrophe? Yeah? Really?

WILL: Well, among those asking, upon what meat doeth [sic] our Caesar feed that he has grown so great?, is "The Economist" of London, which I think we have all accept as a mainstream publication. They say, in a section of their lead editorial, called "Vladimir Obama", "The collapse of BP's share prices suggest he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding. If the president does not stand up for due process he will frighten investors across the board. The damage to Americans environment is bad enough, the president risks damaging the economy, too." That's not a partisan outfit, "The Economist".



I think that if you title your editorial "Vladimir Obama," you've pretty much given up all claim to being a mainstream non-partisan outfit. And by the way, BP's stock price only ever went down as low as $32 a share, that's hardly a collapse.

And the editorial in the Economist is a pretty blatant attempt to deflect any blame from BP:

Vilifying BP also gets in the way of identifying other culprits, one of which is the government. BP operates in one of the most regulated industries on earth with some of the most perverse rules, subsidies and incentives. Shoddy oversight clearly contributed to the spill, and an energy policy which reduced the demand for oil would do more to avert future environmental horrors than fierce retribution.


See, it's not BP's fault that it cut corners on safety and got shoddy and careless. The government should have stopped them. This is the sort of defense that routinely gets laughed out of the "courtroom" on Judge Judy. It's the sort of thing children come up with. "yeah, I took the car and crashed it, but mom and dad should have hidden the keys better." It's pathetic.

It seems to me that George Will used to be more sensible than this, before he started writing masturbatory odes to the splendor of baseball. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but he's definitely slipped into FOX territory now.

Happy Solstice!

 A picture of a Russian pagan putting on a fiery show at Kupalo, one of the summer solstice 2010 celebrations.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Find The Kitty

Believe it or not, there is at least one kitty hidden each of the following pictures.

See how many you can spot!

http://cute-pets.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hiding.JPG


http://www.ihasafunny.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/i-ar-hiding.jpg

http://www.innocentenglish.com/cute-pictures/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/cute-cat-hiding.jpg


http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/images22/CatSylvesterChristmasTreeHiding.jpg


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWi2fm83e4p0ueByAOprf0AlyXrn11ajsmjrSICyjUMlz9lYcNoNjRQ9Zd7sR5wiUSREPPAiLUvntBoT-MKNqyCKD0S3WVsKwv-pJ_nho413mQNTJN21bPweIBJ6gTUiB__-vMkrZu9M/s400/hiding+kitten+2.jpg


http://pw0nd.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/stelth-500x415.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3029/2561131332_05bca75e23_b.jpg

http://osanimals2.homestead.com/Cats/4/11769321.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_Qogq3ys5M8M/S61KKcXO1yI/AAAAAAAADpU/tBnY92hqYog/s640/1371513901_eafa772b6b_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3094/3133418406_877a10a04d.jpg


http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/6/22/128901875992224412.jpg


http://electrorash.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/IMG_04781.jpg

http://files.sharenator.com/Cute_Hiding_Cat_The_art_of_hiding-s599x396-38560-580.jpg


http://www.skwerlicious.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/here-i-is-hiding.jpg

Friday, June 18, 2010

Nominees for Horrible, Disgusting Scumbag of the Year

1) Graydon Smith of Seattle, Washington
Wash. man claims contract allowed him to beat pregnant teen lover

SEATTLE -- A 31-year-old man arrested for domestic violence-related crimes claims he had a
The Seattle Weekly blog reports that a 31-year-old Seattle man, Graydon R. Smith, in jail awaiting trial on domestic violence charges had previously admitted to making his 19-year-old girlfriend sign a contract giving him permission to beat her up anywhere but on her pregnant belly. Yes, he forced his teenage girlfriend to sign a contract intended to legalize his freedom to assault her when the whim took him.

Back in April, Smith's girlfriend called the police stating that her boyfriend had threatened to kill her. She told them that she believed this was a real threat, because he'd assaulted her and forced her to sign a contract permitting him to attack her. So police gave Smith a ring, and while he denied making the death threats, he readily owned up to requiring the abuse contract. In a display of severe problems with our legal system, law enforcement went oh, sure, an abuse contract, that's not suspicious at all, and decided not to arrest him. (emphasis added)

At the end of last month, they were called again, this time by Smith's stepfather, who was punched when he tried to stop his stepson from choking his girlfriend. Police arrived to find the girlfriend bleeding severely. This time, they did what they should have done in the first place, and which would have spared the pregnant teenager further violence: they arrested Smith.

(source)

2) Dr. Dix P. Poppas, Cornell University http://www.caresfoundation.org/productcart/pc/scientific_medical_Poppas.jpg

Alternet reports: . . .the head of the pediatric urology department at Cornell University's New York Presbyterian Hospital -- which is often ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country -- has been operating on young girls who suffer from what he (and likely the girls' guardians) have decided is "clitorimegaly," or oversized clitorises.

In order to relieve these girls from what seems like little more than a cosmestic issue, Dr. Dix P. Poppas cuts out parts of the clitoris' shaft, saving the glans, or tip, for reattachment. Poppas triumphantly calls the procedure -- rebranded a clitoroplasty -- a "nerve sparing" one unlike the FGMs practiced in other countries.

How does the good doctor know that nerves have been spared? Well, Poppas and his nurse practitioner developed a series of sensory followup tests involving Q-tips, their fingernails and vibrators. But don't worry, a family member was always present in the room. As the resulting journal article notes, management of such situations requires a "compassionate and multidisciplinary approach."

3) Gail Posner, Late of Miami Beach, Florida: conchita.jpg

When Ms. Posner died in March at age 67, Conchita and two other dogs inherited the right to live in her seven-bedroom, $8.3 million Miami Beach mansion, their comfort ensured by a $3 million trust fund.

In a 2009 interview with a blogger for browardpalmbeach.com, Ms. Posner said Conchita typically accompanied her on lunch dates and then shopping. Ms. Posner said she at one point considered getting the dog her own Range Rover, for transportation to the animal's weekly spa appointments for manicures and pedicures, but Ms. Posner decided to get herself a new car and gave the dog her gold Cadillac Escalade, she told the blogger.

(editor's note: by the way, she never earned a goddamned cent of that money. She inherited it from her late father, who was, according to the Wall Street Journal, "A master of the hostile takeover who became one of America's highest-paid executives, Mr. Posner pleaded no contest to tax evasion charges in 1987 and was later barred from involvement with public companies.")