The Daily Irritant

Friday, March 9, 2012

Missing the irony.

Oh, there's definitely some pretty heavy irony in this story, it's just not what people think.

Via LA Times:

Reporting from Washington—
Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.

http://m.wsj.net/video/20111205/120511hubamhealthlaw/120511hubamhealthlaw_512x288.jpg

So Mary Brown hates the government, right? Libertarian, right?

Brown "doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it," said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business.

Goddamm guv'mint better stay out of her dang business!

But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address.
"This is so ironic," Jane Perkins, a health law expert in North Carolina, said of Brown's situation. "It just shows that all Americans inevitably have a need for healthcare. Somebody has paid for her healthcare costs. And she is now among the 62% whose personal bankruptcy was attributable in part to medical bills."

No, that's not the ironic part. Also, it's not really true. Because her medical bills are only about 7% of her total $62,972 debt listed on her bankruptcy filing. And if she would rather go broke than let the government make her buy health insurance, that just shows how dedicated to her small-government ideals she really is.

No, the ironic part is that Mary Brown is so up in arms about keeping the government out of her business that she is taking it all the way to the Supreme Court. Because you know, who needs the government, right? But yet, once she gets into financial trouble, to whom does she go for help? Bankruptcy court. A court, an agency of the government. By filing for bankruptcy, Mary "leave me alone, government" Brown is asking the big, evil government to help her get out of paying her debts, because, you know, personal responsibility! Now that's irony!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Who My Audience is

These are the search terms that bring people to my silly little blog:

Search Keywords

cat gymnastics

who the fuck is snooki

manatee

rick santorum

cat wigs

young patricia heaton

12 yr old girl cheerleader

professor chaos

sidney spies

tinkerbell naked

Apparently, my little blog comes up when people search for "12 yr old girl cheerleader" or "Tinkerbell naked."

I don't know which is worse, the fact that there are people searching the web for 12 yr old girl cheerleader & naked tinkerbell, or the fact that those people are being sent here. Here among you decent folk.
No one is being directed here because they googled "clever writing" or "funny jokes" or "interesting perspective." I can live with that, I guess, but 12 year old cheerleader and Naked Tinkerbell? Seriously, internet?

Things May be looking Up

A couple surprising things have happened recently.

1. The "Million Mom" boycotts have been utter, thudding failures. First they tried to pressure J.C. Penney into dropping Ellen DeGeneres. Then, they tried to start a boycott of Toys 'R' Us because they were selling an Archie comic book featuring a gay wedding. And J.C. Penney and Toys 'R' Us and whoever publishes Archie Comics said basically "nope. No thanks." Not only didn't they cave, they didn't even feel the need to pretend that the Million Morons had some kind of point, or that their complaints were valid and were being considered carefully. They just said nope! We like Ellen. If you hate her, that's your problem.
The CEO of Archie Comics issued this statement:

We stand by Life with Archie #16. As I’ve said before, Riverdale is a safe, welcoming place that does not judge anyone," he said. "It’s an idealized version of America that will hopefully become reality someday. We’re sorry the American Family Association/OneMillionMoms.com feels so negatively about our product, but they have every right to their opinion, just like we have the right to stand by ours. Kevin Keller will forever be a part of Riverdale, and he will live a happy, long life free of prejudice, hate and narrow-minded people."

http://www.bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/image0011.jpg

Yeah, "prejudice, hate and narrow-minded people." The CEO of Archie Comics called an asshole an asshole. No need to pretend that the assholes are anything but assholes. Good on him!

2. Soledad O'Brien pushed back against one of Breitbart's flunkies.

Finally, someone from the corporate media, and from the Cowardly News Network, no less, calls bullshit on right-wing liars instead of just accepting their bullshit at face value. Unfortunately, no one did this when Breitbart was still alive. Every time he put out some phonied-up piece of video, the media acted like he was Captain Journalism with the Super Scoop, and someone lost their job. This interview may go down in the annals of journalism as the moment when CNN finally started to grow a pair and call a lie a lie. I don't necessarily hold out a lot of hope that this is going to become a pattern, but maybe.

3. Advertisers are FINALLY leaving Rush Limbaugh's horrible hate-fest of a radio show. They are pulling their ads in such large numbers that some stations have actual dead air during commercial breaks (not the good kind of Dead Air)

via Think Progress:

There were four separate instances during this afternoon’s broadcast on WABC 770 AM in New York City where the network fell silent. During the lead in to the show, two and a half minutes of silence was broken up by a single, solitary ad before Limbaugh hit the air. Then, towards the end of the first hour of Limbaugh’s three hour program, a public service announcement was followed by an additional minute of silence before Limbaugh returned. Another minute of dead air came in hour two, and a fifth minute in hour three followed that.

http://skreened.com/render-product/a/e/q/aeqsanwmwatrmgckocug/image.w174h200f3.jpg

I know, I know Rush is never ever going to be driven off the airwaves. There will always be enough gas-huffing troglodytes to keep his show on the radio. But at least maybe he might get taken down a notch? Down maybe to the point where sitting congressmen don't feel the need to kiss his ass? (looking at you, Phil Gingery!)