* RNC Chairman Reince Priebus compared the President to Captain Schettino, the cowardly cruise ship captain up for manslaughter for mismanaging the ship, the disaster, and fleeing rather than helping passengers escape. Rather than apologize, he was out on FOX "news" claiming that the President campaigning is totally the same thing. It's so vile, I have no words. Did he call W. a coward and a criminal for campaigning? How about Reagan? Every president does this, yet somehow, only President Obama is attacked this way.
* Sarah Palin accused the “Republican establishment” of using Stalinesque tactics on Newt Gingrich. I do not think that word means what you think it means, Ms. Palin.
* Haley Barbour pardon Realization: CNN can't find any actual experts agreeing with his claim that murderers who commit a "crime of passion" are less likely to reoffend. (It also turns out that at least two of the guys freed didn't fit that definition, one being premeditated and the other having happened during a robbery.) In the absence of actual statistics and expert opinions, it occurred to me that Haley Barbour is like quoting
the Shawshank Redemption as "expert opinion." O.o Whether he's doing it deliberately or subconsciously, I can't venture a guess.
It's reminding me of all those Republican politicians under Bush citing the fictional TV Show
24 as "proof" torture works while simultaneously claiming Democrats can't tell fiction from reality since they were citing actual interrogation experts instead of a fictional TV show.....
* I want to thank Senator Merkly, and the others pushing the bill to ban Congressional Insider trading. Sure, it would be better if they simply couldn't own stocks while in office outside of a blind trust, but this is an excellent and worthwhile law. I hope it makes it all the way through. This sort of legislation isn't glamorous, but it's important.
* There was a horrible highway chain reaction crash caused by a forest fire and people being too stupid to slow the fuck down when they saw the smoke ahead, so they kept crashing into the already crashed cars, and the highway being reopened too soon. (Hint: If you can't see the hazard lights of the cars ahead of you, pull the fuck over). It was both directions of a highway and ten people died, 18 were seriously wounded. The 911 call is horrifying. It was like: "Here comes another one. They're going to fast." Horrible crash sounds in the background. "I think that was a bad one. I can here people crying."
They had ones like that in Oregon before they finally outlawed the field burnings. It's just terrible.
* Re: the girls developing tics and seizures in Pennsylvania at a certain school. It sure looks biological to me. I'm betting they aren't testing for or aware of the contaminant causing it. After all, there is a mysterious substance oozing up from the ground at the athletic field of their schoool, and a train derailment of TCE that was never cleaned up from the 1970's, neither of which have been tested for or ruled out, along with other plausible theories.
Back when I was researching Freud in middle school (know your enemy), they had found biologic causes for 98% of the illnesses he had labelled "psychosomatic." Expert opinion at the time was that they would likely find physical causes for the rest of them. I haven't seen current figures, but I'm betting if it's not the case by now, it will be soon. I am, as a result, deeply skeptical of the psychosomatic and conversion labels. I also grew up during the era of Vietnam vets spending decades fighting for help for agent orange exposure since the government didn't want to pay out, so they labeled it psychosomatic. I was an adult with military friends during Gulf I, after which the government tried to pretend that Gulf War Syndrome was psychosomatic and not a result of experimental injections and chemical weapon exposure. Do not start me on the bullshit heaped on folks with Fibromyalgia by doctors and the government who insist it's imaginary. No one has proved conclusively that psychosomatic illness exists, but I've seen lots of evidence of folks with a vested interest in labeling it "all in their heads" (Surprise!) labeling it psychosomatic and thus withholding appropriate treatment for real physical ailments.
* Florida lost half their delegates for moving up their primary. It's tomorrow. Looks like Romney's back ahead of Gingrich in the polls on the strength of aggressive campaigning for months. Florida is an early voting state, which favors Romney; corrupt in favour of establishment republicans, which favors Romney; and as I mentioned last week (I think) has a really complex electorate, which means they can swing in strange directions, which in this case can make it a bit unpredictable. In this case, I think the first two will far outweigh the third.
* Nevada caucus is Saturday, and is hard to predict between the fall of John Ensign taking down a lot of the establishment infrastructure and the tea party take over leading to them running the likes of the chicken for health care lady and Sharon Engle, best known for calling for "second amendment remedies" if they lost the election (IE: assassination and/or armed rebellion). Which they did. Anyway, Nevada right wing politics being a mess, and caucuses being more likely to concentrate "passionate" voters, it's pretty much random.
* In St. Louis on Saturday, they held the first thank you/welcome home parade for returning Iraq veterans.
* A++:
http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/16784694193/to-protest-a-bill-that-would-require-women-toThe only problem I see is that those procedures are actually helpful and a good idea, unlike the one they are foisting on the women.
* Today was an exhausting and complicated trip downtown. I discovered when I got home that not only did the substitute nurse give me the wrong dose of my meds, but I failed to drop off a book I was supposed to when I hit the library. *facepalm*
* I am so sick of the trope where a woman gets supernatural powers and is all emo because "I want to be normal." Why can't women in Supernatural books/TV/movies want to be exceptional? Why is it that only men are allowed to view their new powers with delight?
* I was disappointed that they didn't even try to make the "mystery" a mystery tonight on
Lost Girl.
( Spoilers: ) ...And I'm rapidly losing interest between the tired tropes, the -isms, and lazy storytelling.
* This thing on clumsy allies in the media is pretty much how I feel:
http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/16796162371/why-does-it-make-you-crazy-if-you-dont-mind-my* I love these cookies and they work well even if you modify for cholesterol free.
http://www.bpal.org/page/cookbook.php/_/lavendar-shortbread-r91* This talks about various non-fondant icing techniques and has cool cake examples besides:
http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/1/29/sunday-sweets-fun-and-fondant-free.html* The Clutch:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
