Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Get the facts about the stability and security you get from health insurance reform | Health Insurance Reform Reality Check.

Don’t Need To Be a Rocket Scientist | TPM.

So it’s come to this… the facts truly no longer have a place in the debate, at least on the Right.

Then again, did they ever?

Incidentally, those two medications, Lapatinib and Sutent? Sutent was rejected by the UK because it costs too much. But many US insurance companies also refuse to pay for the drug, or have obscene copayments for it – largely because it is so BLATANTLY overpriced! One year of treatment for one person costs about £24,000. That is roughly $40,000. And that’s the price for the UK’s national health service. For an oral medication. I’m not saying an extra year of life isn’t worth it – maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, depending on the patient’s own view of his/her condition. But in addition to restructuring our national health system, I think it’s also critical for us to think about what is a reasonable price for the medications these massive pharmaceutical companies are developing. I understand that it takes money to research and develop these medications. I also understand that these companies are making profits we can’t even imagine. Profits are important, but you can produce on a smaller profit margin and still have an incentive to keep going. So even as we think about what insurance companies should cover, maybe we also need to think about whether $40,000 for one year of medication for one person is a reasonable price to charge in the first place.

And while we’re on the subject… raise your hand if your private insurance has refused to cover something WAY freaking cheaper than $40,000, or has required a copay that really struck below the belt? You can focus on random examples of ways in which certain countries’ national health systems are deficient, but when it comes down to it, Americans are still getting screwed on a daily basis by their private insurance companies, which get away with a hell of a lot more.

Horses being killed in South Florida — for their meat? – CNN.com.

That is supremely fucked up. I don’t care what culture you’re from – you don’t kill and butcher other people’s pets. If you want to trade in black-market horsemeat, raise your own damned horses. It’s not “hunting” when you kill other people’s domesticated animals, and on their property no less. Not that I’m saying people should be killing horses at all, but for god’s sake, how would you feel if somebody came into your house and cooked your family dog? It’s just plain sick.

Bill Maher: New Rule: Smart President ? Smart Country.

A Missing Culprit, but Culpability All Around – Forward.com.

p.s. This was no nightclub shooting.

Think Progress » Freshman Democratic lawmaker ‘physically assaulted at a local event’ by activists.

Not to mention the email forwards going around about how shooting liberal lawmakers is the answer to the healthcare problem, since prison will provide health care to elderly murderers.

This, my friends, is why I strongly believe that the Democrats should NOT be attempting bipartisan deals right now. The Republicans are not interested in bipartisanship; they’re interested in sinking the ship altogether, staging fake rallies and protests and then claiming people are just so gosh-darned passionate about it that they can’t contain themselves. You just wait until a Democratic lawmaker is shot by one of these mobsters, at the Republican Party’s urging. They’ll say they did not incite the violence, but with language of “delay and kill” and constant refrains of “They want to euthanize Grandma,” how long will it be before somebody takes their bullshit rhetoric seriously enough to do something about it?

The Republicans are not acting in good faith. You make a deal with the devil and there will be consequences.

CNN is reporting 2 dead, 11 injured at a Tel Aviv club Saturday night. They called it a “gay club.”

“Gay club”? Try community center for gay youth. Way to get the facts straight, CNN. These were kids who were targeted, not night-clubbers. Not that a night club attack would be any less horrific, but come on, try to at least act like you care.

Jeff Vrabel: Leave the mermaids alone, senator – Norwich, CT – Norwich Bulletin.

Last week, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and the dark side of Neptune and 2008 presidential candidate for exactly 24 minutes less time than Fred Thompson, just in case you were worried that was impossible, introduced legislation banning the creation of terrifying-sounding ANIMAL-HUMAN HYBRIDS, such as mermaids, or Perez Hilton.

Umbridge what?

Gettin’ Weirder and Weirder | TPM.

And now — and here’s the kicker — Coburn is saying that he won’t answer questions about this from the Ethics Committee or anyone else because his conversations with Ensign are constitutionally protected since he was providing counseling as a physician and a Church deacon.

Ummm, yeah. Coburn is an OB/GYN… so unless John Ensign was pregnant… counseling him to pay off his lover and her husband somehow seems like sketchy medical advice.

Two gay men kicked out of Chico’s Tacos restaurant for kissing (5:07 a.m.) – Las Cruces Sun-News.

De Leon said he and his friends left the restaurant after an officer threatened to issue a citation for “homosexual conduct.”

Does Texas just not believe in teaching its law enforcement officers the actual law?

YouTube – California Tax and Regulate ad from 2009.

Things that are more harmful and dangerous than marijuana but still manage to bring in healthy tax revenue: Porn. Alcohol. Pharmaceutical drugs. Gambling. Cigarettes. McDonald’s. Processed sugar. Shall I go on?

By the way, did you know that cannabis is California’s biggest cash crop? It’s a $14 billion dollar industry. Currently only about $200 million of it is subject to sales tax, because it is distributed by legal medical dispensaries.

The next largest commodity is milk/cream, whic brings in about half that amount.

Shouldn’t California be reaping a fair share of a fourteen BILLION dollar industry?

Gawker – Brian Kilmeade Would Like Species and ‘Ethnics’ to Remain Pure – fox & friends.

Now I wonder – as a Jew, do I fall into the “other ethnic” category, or do my horns place me squarely in the class of “other species”?

Black Kids Kicked Out of Pool | Slog | The Stranger.

Unbefuckinglievable, Take II! It’s like these organizations are in a competition to see who can commit the most abominable act.

Joe. My. God.: Hypocri$y Inc: Catholic Church Selling “Historic Prop 8 Desk” Of Suspended Priest.

Unbefuckinglievable. If I believed in a conscious god, I’d remind the Church that they can’t hide from omniscience. Karma is a bitch.

Palin to Resign as Governor of Alaska – The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com.

So either she has absolutely no sense of responsibility, or she’s, oh, let’s see, trying to cover up a massive scandal by resigning *before* the ethic violations are exposed…

Rob Thomas: The Big Gay Chip on My Shoulder.

A civil union has to do with death. It’s essentially a document that gives you lower taxes and the right to let your faux spouse collect your insurance when you pass away. A marriage is about life. It’s about a commitment. And this argument is about allowing people to have the right to make that commitment, even if it doesn’t make sense to you. Anything else falls under the category of “separate but equal” and we know how that works out.

Dem Congressional Candidate’s Event Raided By San Diego Sheriffs | TPMDC.

Well clearly somebody must have grabbed an ass somewhere along the line.

OR NOT.

When’s the last time YOU heard of the cops breaking out the pepper spray for a noise complaint – at a fundraiser, no less? Please. Yet another example of raids for the sake of raids.

Fort Worth Police Statement Concerning “Rainbow Lounge” Raid – KDAF.

Gosh. Drunk people. In a bar. Who knew?

I love how “sexual advances” are always presented as an excuse for violence and gay bashing. Can you imagine a woman getting off on murder or battery charges because the guy complimented her ass? Anyway, despite witness accounts denying that such things were said, even if they were said, that wouldn’t warrant the kind of behavior demonstrated by these officers.

Also, let’s play the Police Statement Decoding Game: “Was placed on the ground.” Policey-speak for “was thrown to the ground with such force that he has a cracked skull and is bleeding in the brain.” Something got lost in the translation, I guess.

Been reading more about People v. Jackson (Michael Jackson’s molestation accusations). Interesting stuff. I’ve always assumed that whatever his mental state, he actually did what he was accused of doing. But I never really followed the cases closely, and never knew a lot of the details that suggest that he may simply have been an easy target *because of* his mental state. After reading this I feel even more strongly what I’ve also always believed about Michael Jackson, which is that he really never grew up psychologically.

If you see Jackson as a fully-grown man, the circumstances surely suggest he was a pervert and a pedophile – how many middle aged men who *aren’t* pervs like to share beds with little kids?

But think of him as somebody who never developed into an adult at all, and who never really developed those filters about the lines between adulthood and childhood and between adults and children, and suddenly things really start to fall into place. A lot of people, myself included, believe that psychologically, the guy was either permanently a child or desperate to be one again. (See also: Michael Jackson on the Couch.) The facts that *were* proven at trial and by admission (as opposed to the allegations of which he was acquitted) make a lot more sense in that light, and you could see how he could have behaved in the way he did without there being a sexual component – and how disgruntled ex-employees and a “professional plaintiff” could have had a field day with that behavior, given how it looked to the world.

That’s not to minimize the severity of the accusations against him. Regardless of his intentions, actions, or psychological state, he should not have been so unsupervised with young children, especially other people’s young children – because regardless of his own motivations, kids should not be sharing beds with unrelated adults, and shouldn’t be learning that it’s okay for adults to act like children in certain contexts, e.g. sleepovers. If those lines couldn’t be drawn internally, they should have been imposed. And if he was guilty, he certainly should have been held accountable and incarcerated or institutionalized (depending upon diagnosis), and not had his actions indulged as celebrity eccentricity.

But as far as his moral character goes, especially in light of his acquittals and the circumstances surrounding his accusers (not to mention the fact that Michael Jackson was what the world made him), I can only quote “Wicked” and say, “There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities, so we act as though they don’t exist.”

Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him – CNN.com.

Hey, CNN, newsflash: The celebrities DID die in threes again. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on Thursday, and ED MCMAHON earlier this week! How could you forget him?!?!?

Got $100? Welcome to your new Detroit home – CNN.com.

Racist e-mail aimed at Obama raises hackles in Tennessee – CNN.com.

So… translation: “Oh, shit. That was supposed to go to the people who would find it funny and not racist. OOPS. I apologize. I made a mistake.” Kind of like when Jerry Falwell pseudo-apologized for blaming teh gayz, et al. for September 11 on “The 700 Club”: “Oh… did you see that appearance? Sorry. That was only supposed to be seen by people who would agree.”

Commentary: Chastity, ‘Good luck, brother’ – CNN.com.

Before the word "transsexual" had been coined in English, an intrepid young person whose family belonged to the British nobility set out to transform herself from female to male. He received a medical school education, obtained hormones — relatively new substances that were poorly understood at the time, and independently began living as a man in the early 1940s. Read more….

Obama on DOMA: He IS Keeping A Promise

Daily Kos: Obama on DOMA: He IS Keeping A Promise.

I don’t know how I feel about this whole mess. But before people start condemning Obama, I’d like to point out that when our AG refused to defend Prop 8, we got Kenneth Star instead. I’m thinking of Aesop’s “The Fox and the Hedgehog” right about now.

Terry Says Obama Makes Attacks Inevitable; Also Serves Beer, Wings | TPMDC.

So what I’m getting from this is… if you disagree with federal policy and you can’t change it through peaceful protest… you should definitely start shooting people, because morality is on your side. Excellent.