Microphilanthropy: Help Mike Young

Dear friends and readers,

I am trying to help my friend Carolyn pay the mounting bills, and ease the worry that comes with her philanthropy. They are only asking one or two dollars, but certainly if you can give more, I'm sure that would truly make their day. Lord knows they coul use some surprises...

I'll just let Mike share his story:

I'm Mike Young
I am 46 years old. I am Mentally Challenged because of a hunting accident when I was 14 years old. I was shot in the head
and spent over a year in the hospital. During my recovery I underwent many surgeries and rehabilitative therapies.
I have lived and been cared for by my Aunt Carolyn since 1995 and she does a GREAT job. My mom and dad passed away within months of each other. My mom, on her death bed asked her sister (Aunt Carolyn) to care for me before she died. Being close sisters and always there for each other my aunt Carolyn did not think twice about saying
yes. With hardly any financial support she has been taking care of me.

READ MORE

Please give what you can.
-Dave

Colbert wins Culture War with Bill O'Reilly

NIGHT OF THE COLBERT


The chivalric Steven Colbert slices and dices...using only his tongue and wit. Meanwhile the arrogant, self-obsessed bully still hasn't learned to speak in moderated tones, but instead keeps trying to start a civil war here at home.

Each appeared on the other's show. Colbert brought uncontrollable laughter to O'Reilly's otherwise moribund show. And he took their microwave. (You'll find out.)

On Colbert's show, Steven prepared us all with a description of the outcome of the thinking of people like himself. A world turned to Hell.

The first thing O'Reilly had to do was to point out that Colbert was a French name, because the demographic of "people who hate" is among his largest. After wasting time on ridiculous misanthropic generalizations, he tried to paint his as a backwoods imposter. Just one petty attempt after another to besmirch his name.

Apparently he hasn't heard of Claudia Colbert.

In the end it turned out to be a rather friendly exchange. People left of center
prefer love and peace over hate and war, truth and caritas to spin and deceit.

Colbert, last night, showed the path.
Now is no time to be in war mode. In no way can we afford it.
Time to heal, mate!


[tags] detumescent dirigible O'Reilly Colbert champion[tags]

Arianna to attend important gathering of minds, visionaries, leaders

The page will bring together and organize blogs, videos, photos, news articles, and reader comments related to Davos. Plus, the page will attempt to connect the voice of the people with the voice of those gathered at the conference through a video bridge that will allow anyone in the world to submit a video question to a Davos participant -- and, perhaps, get a video reply. - AR

Davos Notes: HuffPost Brings You Your All-Access Pass
(HATTIP TO the supreme cogitatrix)

Bush needs 2 more years of killing so he avoid responsibility

One would hope that the doctor is hoping for a quick healing.
Thank God George W. Bush is not a doctor, because he is praying that the illness of war gets worse, and gets worse...for years. The opposite of a doctor. The opposite of a healer. The opposite of peacemaker. Behold "The Prince of War". No Jesus.

To save his one ass, Nojesus is willing to sacrifice a million others, most of whom are higher quality people. But will the new congress stop this madman? Or will they prove themselves to be madmen?

Shiny Happy People

North Carolinian

My philosopher/nurse nephew, The Philoblogger, enjoys a day in the mountains.



Shiny, Happy People enjoying the Cone Estate.

Visitors to the North Carolina mountains should not miss the estate of Moses Cone. One can rest the head and feed the mind and stomach at nearby Blowing Rock.

Secrets of Heathen Time-Keeping and other discoveries of Garrick Wells

Secrets of Heathen Time-Keeping and other discoveries of Garrick Wells

Charlotte-based intellectual, Garrick Wells (also known as the literary character, Ammonium) will not let your mind rest. Indeed, he will not let his own mind rest, so why give you that luxury? We are fortunate that he focuses on unusual matters...

Mr. Wells, founder of the Charlotte Astronomical Society, writes:

Conclusion: I have reconstructed the extinct calendar of the heathen that astronomical and historical evidence seems to substantiate and without any need for the Roman calendars. The calendar explains the enigmatic old Winter's day and the once lost thing period. I have illustrated the religious purpose of the calendar.
I have introduced the Golden Latitude.
This might explain why some major cities founded by Northmen exist where they do. The great heathen center: Lejre in Denmark is on this latitude.
Today anyone can make a runic calendar stick and restart this ancient calendar by finding the years of the closest full moon to 2/8 or 11/1. Actually 2001 had a full moon on 11/1, so the golden number is 1. For the Odinic rite, the last holy year was 2004 and the interval will continue octennially.

Prelude to a Blogger President: Edwards & the Democratic Future

The Future is your Friend...



Read more about John Edwards at these fine resorts in the blogosphere:
Iddybud Journal
Benny's World
Random Thoughts from Reno
The Real Paul Jones
skippy the bush kangaroo
Blue Girl, Red State
Bark Bark Woof Woof
Edwards 08
Billy the Blogging Poet
The Nation blog
Exile on Jones Street



(Thanks to Bora at Science & Politics for these, and the other great work he is doing, and Jude for her continuing to dazzle us with her astute observations.)

It's Official! John Edwards is in the Race!

"He is one we've been waiting for."



The Real Deal


Odd that on a day when we remember President Ford who is now dead, we say hello to a gentleman not unlike Gerald Ford in his demeanor and athleticism. So maybe it's not so odd. Maybe John Edwards will, like Ford before him, serve to heal the nation of harshness and corruption, and set an example of how like Atticus Finch is the true character of Americans.

We've got to change the face of America. John Edwards is a good start.

Reopen the World that The Bush hath clamped shut with his Americo-
and Texocentric policies and other intellectual poverties.

Welcome to the Neo-Edwardian Age.

Democrats want to thank the Republicans who stayed at home

Sometimes the best way to get something done is to do nothing at all. And I have heard from quite a number of Republicans who made a political statement by simply staying at home this voting season, and others who voted for the Democrat. Sometimes this is necessary, especially when those in power are micranimous and self-serving. For these folks I especially hope the Democratic congress earn your vote. I also hope they don't succumb to arrogance, greed, ambition or blind obedience to custom. As Deepak Chopra once wisely said: One experiences a sea-change when one shifts one's orientation from "What's in it for me?" to "How can I help?"

May the Democrats prove truly and universally helpful.

Nixon or Haggard?

SUPERTELEVANGELISTIC SEX-AND-DRUGS PSYCHOSIS
Parody of
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

(thanks to Sir Rah Bourbon)

See Rock City AND the new Iddybud Journal

Iddybud hanging out with General Wesley Clark

Iddybud Journal

LET us vote then, you and I

LET us vote then, you and I,
When the evening news is spreading lies
to the patients etherised upon a fable;
Let us go, through a certain half-deserted mind,
The muttering unkind
A mindless knight in one-night crack-ho tails
And cornpone restaurants with taco-shells:
Sheep that follow like a tedious dittohead
Of insidious portent
To feed you all a dose of healthy koolaid...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and drink this sh*t...
From the boom we men come aglow
Walking from Los Alamo.

The yellow blog that wipes its back upon our window pains,
The yellow news that rubs our nose in blue dress stains,
Licked its lips upon the money of the evening news,
Lingered upon the fools that stand to gain,
Let fall upon his face the pretzel that falls from skies,
Slipped by the congress, made of sullen lies,
And seeing that it was a soft September morn,
Turned around the plane, and fell to Sleep...

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow dust that billows down the street,
Wiping its ass upon the window-panes;
There will be Time, there will be War-
ner,
To prepare a place to meet the presses that you meet;
There will be time for Russ and Rush to bloviate,
And time for all the worthless ways of glands
That lift and drop a dollop on your fate;
Time for Dick and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred distortions and revisions,
Before making toast of Cheney.

In the gloom the warmen come aglow
Talking of Guantanamo

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I care?"
Time to turn my back and nude-descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my chair--
[They will say: "How his chair is growing thin!"]
My morning coke, my dollar mounting firmly to boy Ken,
My bolo is immodest, but inserted by a marking pen--
[They will say: "But how his arms of war are sin!"]

Do I dare
Destroy the universe?

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minuteman will reverse.

For I have blown them all already, blown them up:--
Have known the evening, mourning, darkest noons,
I have mangled up my life with cocaine spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying thup!
Beneath the building from a farther plume.
So what should I consume?

And I have known the ayes already, known them all--
The ayes that fix you in a formulaic phase,
And when I am formulaic, scrawling with a pen,
When I am penned and scribbling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit on all the but wholes of my days and ways?
And who should I consume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are daisy-cut and grossly unfair,
[Caught in the gunlight, downed without a care!]
Is it blue stains on a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie are sold at table, with talk of shock and awe.
And should I then consume?
And when should I begin?
. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gunned at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the ruins
Of lonely kids in tatters, pouring out of windows...

I am just a pair of ragged shoes
Scuttling across the floors of silent news.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, creeps so peacelessly!
Scorched by hot zingers,
Asleep ... wired ... or country singers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you Cheney.
Should I, after koolade, coke and icees,
Have the strength to force the world to its crises?
But though I'm inept and blasted, inept and crazed,
Though I have seen many heads [grown slightly shorn] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and I'm no mad hatter;
I have seen the speeches of that city slicker,
And I have seen the eternal Bushman hold my coat, and Snicker,
And in shorts, I was DeLayed.

And would it have been worth it, after Oil,
After the kegs, the candy bar, the T,
Hugging the porcelain, a lonesome walk with you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have snapped at the batter with a towel,
To have squeezed the universe into a booger
To roll it toward some overstating question,
To say: "I am Nazareth, book of the dead,
Come back to sell you all, I shall smell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not how I vote at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the fun set and the shipyards and the wrinkled sheets,
After the novel, after the hiccups, after the nose that trails along the floors--
And Kos, and Media Whores--
It is impossible to know just why I'm mean!
But as if a manic slattern slew the pervs on ladders in a screed:
Would it have been with child
If one, settling a pillow or throwing up on call,
And turning toward the window, should spew:
"That is not it at all,
That is not how I vote, at all."
. . . . .
No! I am no ham omelette, nor was meant to be;
Petrol attendant, bored, one that will screw
To stifle progress, start a war or two,
Advise the Dick; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to disabuse,
Lunatic, caustic, and supercilious;
Full of false sentence, can't define "obtuse";
The times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
I am, for you, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I prefer my money rolled.

Shall I kiss your left behind? Do I dare to be impeached?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and strut upon the stage.
I have heard Travolta singing, to my age.

I do not think that he will sing of me.

I have seen them hiding leeward in the caves
Bombing the dark hair of the slaves blown back
With my thoughts forever white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the star
By star-whores wreathed with seafoam green and crown
Till human votes awake them, and we drown.

War Song of G. Dubya Bushrock
(reprinted from November 2004)

Neocons cut and run...from the President and his legacy of incompetence.

Ask Perle, Adelman or Frum what they think of the competence of the Bush White House, and you will no longer get happy talk. They failed, and thus the Neocons also failed. Now they have cut and run from both Iraq, and the man who put us there.

Looking for a Swiftboat

When the GOP is in need of a lifeboat...it purchases a swiftboat. At the moment, they are swiftboating Harold Ford.

Purple Heart's Kerry Reddens Faces with Anger, While Bush Reddens Faces with Blood

Who is worse? A bad jokester who tells an inconvenint truth, or a bad president who sends American soldiers to their deaths in a war that should never have happened?

Kerry made a goof and apologized. Bush made a goof and keeps on making the goof over and over. The causes for war turned out to be non-existent...and yet our killer president keeps throwing our sons and daughters into the fire just to save his political ass, and keep him from seeming less cowboy. He is an idiot, and an evil one at that. I mean...600,000 people is a lot to kill...don't you think?
Even worse than screwing up a joke...

Real Men Can Handle the Truth : Soldiers ARE dropouts, killers and rapists.

American soldiers are on the top shelf of humanity. They are your Gandhis, your Martin Luther Kings, your Immanuel Kants. They are as great as Rumi and Lao T'se. They invent things, write great novels and compose the world's greatest symphonies. They have PhDs from Harvard and Berkeley and Chapel Hill. They are the world's greatest healers. No one is smarter than an American Soldier. No one has a bigger heart.

On the other hand, there are always anomalies. As such there are also American soldiers who are the opposite of the above. Only recently did the military discuss lowering the standards and accepting drop-outs. Largely because of fact that people are less willing to walk into a fire (unless of course you are a Hero...who can also fly, stop time and so on) recruiters are accepting lower standards, thus, themselves, perpetuating the egregious lowering of standards. But the standards were sadly low from the top and beginning. It's what they call "trickle-down" or "drink this".

Kerry was stupid because, unlike the more clever George, he didn't simply say, when service called, ""Could you take care of this for me?", leave the task to willing dupes like the great Prince Albert Gore Vidal Sassoon, and his evil-twin Osama bin Franklin Roosevelt Greer Garson Kanin Abel Baruch...Sassoon, of course.

Limbaugh, on Cloud 1, claims to have not parodied Michael J. Fox.
Apparently he didn't realize that in becoming, temporarily, someone clearly superior in every way, Rush got to raise his Being significantly before having to go back inside the bowling alley bar of his Mammonical and selfish little life of Me, Me, Me.

I Ching say "Ego take wrong message and run wrong way."

Rush Limbaugh admits to being a nothing, yet lectures Senator Kerry (a veteran and a somebody) on military service

The Fat Man's Messiah, the drug and lie addict, the dropout cut and runner, Rush Limbaugh is hyperventilating with such desperation today that one gets the feeling that many of his listeners have dropped him for the vastly superior Michael J. Fox. I guess you can't fool all the people...

The best Rush can do is to say that he has a cousin who attended and taugh at West Point. Yet he thinks that gives him the diploma to lecture Kerry.

The sounds, nay squeaks, of decline.

Why Republicans Suck at Government

The Republicans take the reins of government, drag it to it's knees, rob it of money, and make a supreme mess of it...and then say: "See, I told you government is no good."
But they can't be trusted with business either.
I personally think that much of their problem is egocentrism. Greed, bragging, and so on. Many Democrats are involved in ego-transcendence. Governments work better when they are altruistic.

"Can I use my 30 seconds?" : Dole's Swan Song?

While the Sunday talk shows try to outbore each other -- Tim wasting his hour on state senate debates, George forgetting to invite the truly bright Robert Reich, Chris... just another Bill Krystol -- risible nuggets of pregnancy cannot help but be extruded when it comes to politicians. And yesterday Elizabeth Dole was one of the shining examples. (There were yet others.) I like Mrs. Dole alright, but either she, or her handlers, are, well, whacked out...and may require medical attention. Here is what happened:

Dole, representing the Republicans, was to (sort of) debate Senator Shumer, representing the Democrats. During almost every exchange, Dole monopolized the time, and, as is often the case with Republicans (sorry, but it's true -- much to the chagrin of Democrats who really want to know) answers with whatever she wants to convey, instead of answering the question proffered. But the piece de resistance was when Chris admonished them both to answer the next (and final) question within 30 seconds.

Mr. Shumer used his full 30 seconds. Mrs Dole, much like this sentence, and using the English language, decided, or was told, that it was more important to attack Harold Ford (as I recall) and forget answering any question asked by one of her juniors...who, to his credit, contradicted her -- feeling apparently confident that it is now smart to fly Democrat -- and then, after a minute or two, the now ludibund Mrs Dole, after being cut off by Mr Wallace says: "Can I use my 30 seconds?"

I guess this is what happens when a regime is crumbling.