What Would Jack Do

‘Assburgers Syndrome’ Tops Google With Confused Searches For ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’. No, you can NOT have fries with that. Don’t even ask….

Conservative Catholic League President Bill Donohue Defends Beck: Many Of His Critics Are ‘Phonies’. Man, if you’re reduced to having to own up to the reality that Bill Donohue is one of your most vocal supporters….you’re thoroughly hosed.

Woman tries to shut down Large Hadron Collider over apocalypse fears. Then again, if you’re worried about Assburgers, then we might have something to talk about….

Israel Moves To Change Law After Biden ‘Mishap’. Translation: We’re still going to build settlements in places we previously agreed not to; we’re just not going to announce it when Joe Biden’s in town.

Thiessen’s Inconsistency Undermines Claim That Detainee Lawyers Can’t Be Compared To John Adams. How ‘bout we just skip the preliminaries and go straight to the reality that Marc Thiessen is a mental midget and a knee-jerk neoConservative…which, in this case, is thoroughly redundant.

Irony: Tea Party March In DC To Collide With Actual Circus Parade. The question, of course, is how anyone in the DC press corps will be able to differentiate between the circus parade from the Tea Party march?

Virginia Lawmakers Vote to Block National Health Care Overhaul. You can have our health care when you pry it from out cold, dead fingers. Before that, though, we’re gonna vote to outlaws them there gays so they can’t recruit our children with their Homosexual Agenda.

ACLU will sue high school that canceled prom to stop lesbians from attending. You might just be a redneck if: You’re school districts cancels the prom to keep two lesbians from attending. WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN????

Americans and their lawmakers are dramatically out of sync on health care, with large majorities of people looking for bipartisan cooperation that’s nowhere in sight. A new Associated Press-GfK Poll finds a widespread hunger for improvements to the health care system, which suggests President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies have a political opening to push their plan. Half of all Americans say health care should be changed a lot or “a great deal,” and only 4 percent say it shouldn’t be changed at all.

Listen to Republicans, and you’d be forgiven for coming to believe that evil, nefarious Democrats are trying to force health care reform on an American public that just simply doesn’t want it. Period. End of story. It’s crap, and they have to know it at some level deep in their black hearts…yet that’s the narrative, and one that damn few Democrats- save for Alan Grayson- seem of a mind to counter.

The reality is that the health care debate is much more complex than the caricatures and sound bites those on the Right would have us believe. It’s not about the evils of a “government health care system” (Medicare, anyone??). No, what it’s really about is a system that cares more about profit than patients. Insurance companies care more about their balance sheet and stock price than they do about health care. They deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and they cancel customers whose health status makes them no longer profitable. While I understand the realities of a free-market system, I simply can’t get past the reality that life and death shouldn’t be based on profitability. I don’t deny the right of insurance companies to make a profit; that’s why they’re in business, after all. But their business, which at it’s most basic IS life and death- should not be treated in the same cold, calculating manner as a company that makes staplers. When your core business is life, death, and human well-being, conventional profitability concerns simply cannot and should not be the be-all and end-all.

The reality is that our health care system is broken, and it’s not a simple matter of applying a few simple fixes here and there. There is simply no human, defensible reason that every American shouldn’t be guaranteed quality, affordable health care. If Canada, France, England, and Norway can accomplish universal health care, then why can’t the most powerful economy on the face of the planet do the same thing? The answer is ridiculously simple, of course: money. Too many politically powerful and entrenched interests make money off the status quo…and they have too many Congresscritters in their pockets. Changing health care in this country would no doubt involve rearranging the economic order in the health care sector. To think that the talented, capable, and dedicated capitalists who run insurance companies couldn’t adapt is absurd. American capitalism is all about innovation. Adapt or die. It’s a simple concept, and businesses from coast to coast deal with this reality every day. Why should insurance companies and health care providers be any different?

A truly great nation would commit to providing quality affordable health care for ALL citizens. After all, if we can fund and conduct two wars halfway around the world, and if we can maintain the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear armaments, a reasonable person could expect that we possess the wherewithal- and the will- to provide health care for every American. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s time for Republicans (AND Democrats) to stop hiding behind lies, propaganda, and talking points as they defend their well-heeled benefactors in the health care industry.

Nancy Pelosi is a coward.

WE DESERVE BETTER.

America the Peevish: When Debate Descends to Name-Calling. When you have no cogent argument to make, rage and name-calling are ALWAYS good choices, no?

Number of millionaires in America increased 16 percent in 2009. Recession? What recession??

Tea Partiers Should Be Picketing the Corporations That Dominate Our Lives. That would mean actually taking concrete, constructive action. It’s SO much easier to simply rage and scream about perfidious, evil Liberals, eh?

Beck: The Census Is The Government’s Attempt To ‘Increase Slavery’. The Dumbest )&^%$#@ Human Being On The Face Of The Planet ©… how is it that someone so clearly intellectually challenged and off his medication has a high-paying gig on cable news? It’s not as if he has anything of any value to share…and yet he has legions of drooling, knuckle-dragging fans. We’re a nation of morons….

Archidioscese responds to controversy over its decision to kick children with lesbian parents out of school. Sometimes, trying to justify a bad decision based on ignorance and prejudice only makes you look that much smaller and more hateful. Thus, the Catholic Church is as much about the teachings of Jesus Christ as I am about the Green Bay Packers.

Six Reasons Barack Obama is Still the Odds-on Favorite in 2012. Uh, because all that any Republican has to offer is fear and propaganda??

Jon Stewart Embarrasses Liz Cheney Fan/Torture Apologist Marc Thiessen. It was pretty interesting watching Stewart decimate Thiessen, who had nothing to offer in his defense except “fear and smear”. How said is it that the single most hard-hitting journalist of our time is a comedian?

Colbert Blasts GOP Over ‘Death Panels’ And Other Insane Euphemisms. Remember, it’s not about what you’re saying. It’s about what they’re hearing.

There comes a time when you just have to put the rumors to rest. Despite whatever reports you may be hearing or reading in the media, I’m not- repeat, NOT- having an affair with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Jeez, sometimes people just start rumors because…I don’t know, it’s almost like they’re just trying to attract attention. Losers, all of them. For the record, I’ve never even been to Paris. ;-)

To say that Weir is “not family friendly” would be a clear jab at his perceived sexual orientation. Weir is extremely involved with his family. He is putting his younger brother through college, and supports the family financially because his father’s disability prohibits him from working. Weir’s dedication to his family can be clearly documented in the Sundance series, Be Good Johnny Weir, which follows him and his family and friends through his life and career as a championship skater.

Someday we’ll live in a world where it simply won’t matter who one loves, only that one does love. People will be valued and appreciated for who they are and what they add to humanity. One’s lifestyle simply will not matter, because society will come to understand that in a free society one is and should be free to live and love as they see fit. Discrimination based on lifestyle and/or sexual orientation will be illegal and thoroughly beyond the pale. People will be treated as unique, valuable individuals…not denigrated for who they are, who they love, or how they live their lives. That will happen someday…just not any time soon, and likely not in our lifetimes.

Johnny Weir is a three-time national figure skating champion, a gifted athlete, and recently finished sixth at the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, none of that is enough for the fine, upstanding citizens who run Stars on Ice…who apparently believe that Weir is just too gay for their traveling ice show. That Weir has never come out as gay (and why should he?) seems completely beside the point. The fact that Weir has a large LGBT following and is known for his flamboyant style and flashy costumes seems to mean only one thing to Stars on Ice: he’s as gay as the day is long, and therefore not “family friendly” enough for Stars on Ice.

Really? So the (alleged) sexual orientation of a talented athlete- who’s never publicly addressed his sexuality- is enough to disqualify those concerned about our poor, impressionable children? Gee, if you wanted to use sexuality (or abuse of same) as a disqualifying factor, then one could reasonably argue that Ben Roethlisberger should be banned from the NFL and Tiger Woods from the PGA Tour. After all, we’re talking documented (albeit for the most part alleged) sexual abberation with Roethlisberger and Woods. Weir hasn’t even publicly discussed whether or not he prefers girls or boys…and yet he’s not good enough for Stars on Ice. Then again, no one has ever argued convincingly that discrimination is based on anything except ignorance and prejudice, eh?

Personally, I could care less what Stars on Ice does; I’ll buy a ticket to one of their shows about the same time I’m elected Queen of England. What does bother me is the idea that we still live in a world where a talented athlete can be discriminated against simply because of what a few ignorant troglodytes perceive his sexuality to be. Well, he might be gay…he LOOKS gay…so, he’s not “family friendly”. WTF??

Perhaps if he started hanging with Tiger Woods and got busted by TMZ for sleeping with the Swedish Bikini Team….

On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice…. “I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them … are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

My pet name for Glenn Beck has long been The Dumbest )&^%$#@ Human Being On The Face Of The Planet ©. While there can be little dispute that Beck is as bat-s—t crazy as anyone else at Fox Noise Channel, he’s truly outdone himself. His latest assault on reason is truly one the dumbest diatribes I’ve ever had the misfortune to be exposed to. Just thinking about it, I can feel brain cells dying as I try to contemplate how anyone in their right mind could seriously have any issue with the idea of social justice, particularly if it means having to compare those things to Communism and Nazism. There simply is no logical means by which any rational mind can tie those loose ends together into a closed circle. Yet, I’d wager that a significant portion of Beck’s loyal, knuckle-dragging fan base are now absolutely convinced that he’s right…and are actively looking for a Church completely devoid of Christian charity and compassion as we speak.

I have to wonder…when did Beck last crack open a Bible? Considering that his theological base would seem to make the Old Testament look like a kindergarten warm milk and cookie break, I’m guessing the parishioners in his Church all show up for Sunday services wearing brown shirts and Sam Browne belts.

How Beck can possibly weave social and economic justice together with Communism and Nazism is something I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. This travesty represents a descent into something far closer to insanity than anything I really care to explore. My fear is that if I get to a place where I can actually explain Beck’s argument in rational terms, the question will then become which one of us is actually insane? Even more disturbing is the reality that millions of knuckle-dragging troglodytes treat Beck’s every utterance as if it’s Gospel. Only in America can you make millions for being so thoroughly bats—t crazy, eh?