Jack Danforth hammers GOP whackjobs

I remember Jack from when I was just a kid. He's an old-school conservative Republican, not some Rush Limbaugh-listening wanna-be.

Here's a bit of what he had to say, with a link to the rest.

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.

When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30danforth.html?oref=login

Yahoo! News - Employers Relying On Personality Tests To Screen Applicants

Over the past few years, personality assessment tests have moved from the realm of experiment to standard practice at many of the nation's largest companies, including the Albertson's grocery chain and retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Target. A recent survey found that about 30 percent of all companies use personality tests in hiring. To many companies, the tests are as important, if not more important, than an applicant's education, experience and recommendations.

Yahoo! News - Employers Relying On Personality Tests To Screen Applicants

The place I work uses these tests.

We have higher turnover than your average McDonalds restaurant, and I mean at all levels from the lowliest clerk to the honchos.

If life hands you lemons, blame Clinton.

Yahoo News item: Rumsfeld Hints at Fewer Base Closings

Rumsfeld said he had no specific estimate of how much base capacity is surplus and therefore vulnerable to closure. However, when he pushed Congress hard in 2001 to approve the new round of base closings, he said the military had about 25 percent more base capacity than it needed. On Tuesday, he said the Clinton administration had put it in the 20 percent to 25 percent range.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050330/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/rumsfeld_4

Wouldn't it be nice - just ONCE - for one of these Bush clowns to step up to the plate and say, "Yup, we really screwed the pooch on this one!" instead of blaming Slick yet again?

A total waste of time and effort

An autopsy will be performed after Terri Schiavo dies to show the extent of her brain damage, her husband's attorney says.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050329/ap_on_re_us/brain_damaged_woman_8

This is a complete waste of time and effort. The "Keep Terri Alive" crowd will not be persuaded by facts. Any inconvenient facts that might prove them wrong will be ignored. Reality has absolutely no meaning for this bunch.

Wendy's Old Fashioned Chili - it's finger-eatin' good

A woman bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database Thursday to determine who lost the digit. The incident occurred Tuesday night at a San Jose Wendy's restaurant and left the customer ill and distraught, said Joy Alexiou, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County Health Department.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050325/ap_on_fe_st/wendy_s_finger_1

A few years ago, the Long John Silver fish'n'chips chain had their 25th anniversary. As a promotion, they had fried shrimp for 25 cents a piece the entire month of their anniversary.There was one right by work, so I stopped several times during the month and brought home a couple dozen shrimp for dinner.

The last time, we'd become kinda burned out on them, and couldn't finish the last half dozen or so. So my wife was picking the breading off and feeding the leftover shrimp to our cats.After removing the breading from one shrimp, we noticed it had green spots. Ugh.

Needless to say, that was the last time we went to LJS. We have a running joke in our family about an LJS commercial along the lines of "Arrr, matey! C'mon inta Long John Silver's for our famous Green Shrimp Special!"

Oh, but that's DIFFERENT, Chapter 3,645,234

Via Roger Ailes, (no, not that one, silly - the non-evil one) comes yet another example of the staggering hypocrisy of the GOP leadership:

In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old widowed mother, recalled in an interview last week. "There was no way [Charles] wanted to live like that. Tom knew — we all knew — his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When his father's kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. "Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated," said his medical report, citing "agreement with the family's wishes." His bedside chart
carried the instruction: "Do not resuscitate."

On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch "expired with his family in attendance.

""The situation faced by the congressman's family was entirely different than Terri Schiavo's," said a spokesman for the majority leader, who declined requests for an interview.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,5710023.story?coll=la-home-headlines

The Bitch is back, baby.

After a l-o-n-g absence, one of my personal favorites, the Misanthropic Bitch, weighs in on the Terri Schiavo fiasco.

Good luck putting that genie back in the bottle, JimmyJeff

From World O'Crap comes this NY Times Magazine interview with everybody's favorite gay escort, JimmyJeff Guckert-Gannon. It's certainly easy to understand why JimmyJeff is so popular with gay men, because you'd have to have an absolutely enormous set of brass balls to say something like:

"I would like people's personal lives to be behind the barrier once again, like they used to be."

You mean like they used to be before you and your fellow wingnuts dragged (no pun intended) Bill Clinton's personal life into the public domain?

How can JimmyJeff say something like that with a straight (no pun intended) face? Talk about having absolutely no shame.

The shit hits the fan bigtime

Remember my earlier post about how you knew you were really fucked when Pat Buchanan was the voice of reason?

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/11202675.htm

"To simply say that the 'culture of life,' or whatever you call it means that we don't have to pay attention to the principles of federalism or separation of powers is certainly not a conservative viewpoint," said former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga.

I think I'm going to go lie down for a while now.

Why not just give Terri to her parents?

I've heard a few reasonable-sounding inquiries lately that ran something along the lines of "why not let Terri Schiavo's parents take care of her as long as they're willing to pay for it?"

So I thought I'd make a stab at answering that question.

They can't "take care" of Terri because they don't really have her best interests at heart. They don't want what's best for her. There's something sick and disgusting in the way they want to keep her alive - keep this brainless lump of flesh breathing as long as humanly possible - so they can pretend she's still there.

There's an old saying about cats - if only they could stay kittens or somthing like that. Well, that's Terri. She'll be a baby forever, cooing and gurgling, never sassing or answering back. She'll never turn away in anger, or refuse a caress.

The perfect "pet" for anyone cold enough to inflict such a fate on their own child. But this is a human being we're talking about. Should a human being - even one as broken and battered as Terri Schiavo - be someone's toy? Someone's plaything - even if that someone is a parent who supposedly loves her?

I don't think so. Would you want to live if you were in Terri Schiavo's shoes? If it was merciful to allow Sun Hudson to die - and based on what I've seen so far, it was - then it's also merciful to allow Terri Schiavo to die. And no, her parents can't have her to play with - they're just going to have to get used to the idea that she's gone.

I sincerely admire Michael Schiavo for his dedication to his wife and his fight to see her wishes carried out, especially since the right-wing whackjob contingent got involved and began trying to smear him. A lesser man would surely have given in faced with such overwhelming odds. His perserverance inspires and warms me, making me feel - if just for a moment - less of a stranger among my fellow humans.

Little Green Fuckwads

lgf: Google News High Standards, Exhibit N for Nazi

. . . Google News has now added the unspeakably vile neo-Nazi white supremacist web site National Vanguard to their index of "legitimate news sources.”

And LGF has been turned down. Twice.

Well, I think you guys should try for three. Not because I think you'll make it this time, but just because I really enjoy the thought of the humiliation you'll feel when you're turned down yet again. Particularly after the Nazis made it.

Why did the Nazis make it while you didn't? Maybe it's because the Nazis are at least honest about who and what they are, and will tell you all about it up front while you guys regurgitate every piece of right-wing bullshit that comes down the pike, and have to be bludgeoned repeatedly with the truth before you'll even begin to turn loose of it.

(thanks to S.Z. for the pointer to this goodie)

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And thermonuclear war.

Yahoo! News - Document: Bin Laden Evaded U.S. Forces

If only Osama had been selling bongs on the Internet, he'd be in the slammer this very minute.

Review: Ximeta NetDisk 120 Network Attached Storage Device

In a nutshell: save your money. The combination of proprietary LPX protocol and extremely buggy drivers make this a losing proposition for your valuable data.

At first, I thought I got a pretty good deal on this puppy: $150 PPD for 120 gigs of network-attached storage. It's about the size of a standard hardcover novel, can be plugged directly into ethernet or USB. (but not both simultaneously) Requires a 100 BaseTX ethernet switch - it won't work with a hub or with 10 BaseT devices.

Unfortunately, even when you give it what it wants, it doesn't work very well. The setup routine installs Ximeta's proprietary LPX (lean packet exchange) protocol and a "NetDisk Administrator" applet. Once I'd entered the serial number and write-enable code from the sticker on the bottom, the drive appeared in "My Computer" as a normal hard disk.

Trying to use the drive was an entirely miserable experience. If you left a PC mapped to it, the PC would lock up. It worked fine when you first connected to it and as long as you kept it doing something. But if you let it sit for a few minutes and then tried to use it again, whammo - your PC would lock up. I thought at first it was some kind of power saver hosing everything up, but I couldn't find anything in the docs or on Ximeta's support site.

I've been using it as USB lately, but even that seems buggy and prone to disappear on reboot occasionally, much more than the Iomega USB drive my wife uses. The Iomega has worked pretty much flawlessly, especially compared to the Ximeta.

Bottom line? Don't waste your time or your money on this loser. I've had good luck with most of the major brands of USB drives on the market. The low price on this one should have warned me to watch my ass.

This is all over the Web, but since it bears repeating . . .

I'll repeat it.

Whenever conservatives try to say the Terri Schiavo fiasco is about the sanctity of life, point them here:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3073295

or here:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3087387

and ask them why Sun Hudson's life wasn't sacred enough to save. How come Spiro Nikolouzos doesn't get his own law rammed through Congress? Wrong color? Wrong gender? Wrong socio-economic group? Or just wrong place - wrong time?

Terri Schiavo - Patron Saint of Euthanasia

"Court-appointed physicians testified her brain damage was so severe that there was no hope she would ever have any cognitive abilities."

If you learn nothing else from this sad little episode in human history, learn this: make a living will stating your wishes should you ever wind up in a situation like Terri's. Make it today, because tomorrow may be too late.

Marijuana is not a dangerous drug. Period.

No one - ever - has been killed by smoking too much weed. You can OD on aspirin, which is sold over the counter - to kids, yet. You can OD on most of the pills you can buy at your local pharmacy. But you cannot OD on weed - it's one of the least harmful substances on the planet.

Wanna see a real dangerous drug? Here ya go . . .

Spreading the Word, one dumbfuck at a time

Via Wo'C comes the Rev. Mark H. Creech, whose passionate arguments for sending more juveniles to meet their maker (published on a site with the balls to call itself "Agape Press") prompted the little lovenote below. It will be interesting to see how - if - he responds.

Feel free to click on Rev. Creech's name to e-mail him your own comments.



I'd just like to say "thanks" Rev.

Every time a fine, upstanding religious leader like yourself runs his mouth in support of executing juveniles or something equally despicable, it makes my life a lot easier.

You see, my - I suppose you could describe it as a calling - is convincing people that pretty much all religious teachings are complete and utter BS. I believe that religion is one of mankind's all-time worst inventions, right up there with child molesting and the McRib sandwich. Religion doesn't enlighten - it enslaves. Its leaders are mostly charlatans and con-artists. In my opinion, the world would be an immensely better place if there were no religion.

You might call what I do "counter-evangelism" since it's intended to prevent the innocent and naive from falling into the traps laid by you and your fellow believers.

So thanks - you create more unbelievers with your hateful rants than I could ever convert with my meager arguments. Much appreciated.

-real

Tonight on Hannity and Doormat . . .

I'll admit it - Alan "Thank You, Sir - May I Have Another?" Colmes really pisses me off.

If Alan had lived during the American Revolution, he'd have been a Tory. If he'd lived in 1940s France, he'd have been a Nazi collaborator. The one thing you can count on people like Alan for is that they will wholeheartedly and unceasingly suck the dicks of those in power, whoever they may be.

The only person on the left who pisses me off more than Alan is Joe Lieberman, although it's certainly a close call.

You mean there's a difference?

Salon.com

"Audiofile A new free single from either the next hot Brit import or obnoxious, overhyped poseurs (you decide)"

Bush's plan would probably work a lot better

Yahoo! News - Senator to Propose Raising Retirement Age

"President Bush (news - web sites) plans to travel across the country this week as part of his 60-day push to persuade a skeptical public to support personal retirement accounts."

If he didn't restrict access to his "town hall" meetings to those who already agree with him.

The Littlest Neo-Con - a parable for our times

Once upon a time, there was a little neo-con. She was afraid no one loved her, and to be honest, she had good reason to fear.

You see, the little neo-con had never found anything she could do particularly well. It seemed all her neo-con friends had special talents of one kind or another. Some of them could make up funny stories about liberals. Some of them could make funny pictures of liberals. Some of them could even write funny songs about liberals.

But the little neo-con couldn't do anything! There was nothing special about her, no job for which she was obviously suited in the Great Conservative Crusade. Whenever her friends talked about how loser liberals lived off welfare, the little neo-con would get a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew that without a job, she wasn't much different from the loser liberals. If she could only find her calling!

Then one day, the little neo-con was listening to the great and wise Sean Hannity on his radio program. She always enjoyed hearing Sean give the liberals hell. As long as he wasn't giving them hell about welfare, anyway.

On this day, Sean said something that changed her life. He was talking about how important it was to support the President, and while the little neo-con remembered a time when Sean hadn't seemed to think it was at all important to support the President, that was a different time and a different president, and besides, 9-11 changed everything.

Suddenly it struck her: THAT was her calling! She might not be able to make anything or produce anything, but she could LOVE AMERICA!

And she was right - anyone can love America! No matter how stupid or worthless or untalented you are, you can still wave a flag. If you've got $1.99 for one of those stupid magnetic flag ribbons down at the Quick-E-Mart, you can join the club. You don't have to do anything, think anything, give anything, or care about anything - all you have to do is run your mouth once in a while. Where are you gonna get a better deal than that?

The Jeff Gannon Scandal reduced to two links.

The right's position:

http://www.jeffgannon.com/

The left's position:

http://www.mykeru.com/features/notgannon/index.html

Take yer pick. I'll take Door Number Two, Monte.

Ask Tom Daschle or Max Cleland about cooperation.

Yahoo! News - White House Makes Social Security Appeal

The White House appealed Sunday for bipartisan cooperation to overhaul Social Security

I imagine either could give you a good description of what happens when you try to cooperate with a snake.

Update on Dell Spyware

Yesterday's Dell laptop adventure proved to be even more of a challenge than I initially suspected. After formatting the drive and reinstalling XP Pro, I discovered that this model apparently doesn't come with a Resource CD like previous Dells my company purchased.

No big deal, except for one thing - all the drivers for the machine are on the Resource CD. So I got to spend an hour or so downloading all the drivers from Dell's site and burning them onto a CD so I could get the laptop working properly. No big deal, just time-consuming and annoying.

For a non-technical person, however, this problem would make it difficult (if not impossible) to reload the machine and get rid of the spyware without considerable technical assistance. Yeah, I did it - but I work in IT and have the necessary skillset to handle a problem like this. Joe Six-Pack probably doesn't.

Anyway, I made a Ghost image from yesterday's laptop and used it to load the other two, so it all worked out okay, I guess. It still bugs the shit out of me that Dell would pull something like this, though. Idiots.

Dell Computers - now with PRE-INSTALLED spyware!

The place I work received three Dell laptops yesterday. While setting up one of them this morning, I discovered something called "MyWay Search Assistant" in the Add/Remove Programs control panel. I'd never heard of that particular program, so I Googled it hoping to find more info.

I wasn't entirely surprised to find that it's spyware, so I used the control panel to remove it. However, one of the posts I saw was from someone who tried the same tactic and was not happy to find that the program put itself back into the control panel after a reboot, minus the "Remove" button that would allow uninstalling it again!

They were right - it did replace itself in Add/Remove Programs and no longer had a "Remove" button.

So I'm currently formatting the drive of a brand new laptop so I can reinstall Windows from scratch to get rid of Dell's spyware crap. Can you tell I'm not very happy about this?

Up until today, I was a big fan of Dell's computers. No more - I will never again recommend a Dell to anyone. I hope whatever money Dell got from MyWay will offset all the business they're going to lose once this starts getting around.

Like corporate IT departments don't already have enough spyware problems without vendors PRE-INSTALLING the fucking shit. I can't believe Dell was stupid enough to pull this.