RIP Teddy Kennedy

Beautiful, beautiful piece on Teddy Kennedy by RJ Eskow, at HuffPo.


Obama's speech at Teddy Kennedy's funeral, here.



And here's some nasty business from the so-called "pro-life" crowd, criticizing Cardinal Sean O'Malley.

Compassion-Free Con Coburn: No Help for You and Your Suffering Hubby, Lady

So, lady, you say you can't get health care for your husband who has a traumatic brain injury?

Stop whining. Go hold a bake sale.

Bio Mom Dumps Newborn in Porta-potty Tank

Let's guilt-trip more moms into having kids they don't want.

Ted Kennedy Dies at 77

Great senator, great sailor.

Department of I Feel Sure I Warned You About the Timid Centrist Thing, Did I Not?

At Corrente, thrill to Vast-Wing Conspiracy's miraculous take on Teh New Miracle of Matt Taibbi.

Department of I Believe in Miracles: Calley Apologizes for My Lai Massacre

Better late than never.

No, really.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, "I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."

News for Fetal Sentimentalists: Mom's BF Tortures Five Year Old in Dryer (Among Other Things)

One is working long hours at the trauma industry factory, and is hard-pressed to blog thoughtfully and depth-fully these days. So if one has any blogging time at all, a sure-fire hit is to Google "child abuse" and "news" because there are always lots and lots of grownups torturing the postborn!

I heard this story last night on the local news. And the funny thing was -- when I Googled "child abuse" and "news" this morning, the story didn't come up. Nor when I Googled "child abuse" and "news" and "New Hampshire."

It finally came up when I Googled "New Hampshire" and "dryer."

Manchester – A man is accused of choking and punching his girlfriend’s 5-year-old daughter and putting her in a clothes dryer . . . In court, police prosecutor Lt. Robert Cunha sought to maintain the high bail set following Zawadzki’s arrest, saying the photos of the child’s injuries showed “an egregious assault on a 5-year-old girl."

The affidavit supporting Zawadzki’s arrest said the child’s mother had left her in the care of her boyfriend Monday night and the boyfriend’s explanation for the child’s injuries were that he had to slap her for being fresh and that the child had fallen in the shower when reaching for a shampoo bottle.

According to the affidavit, police spoke with the child after her mother reported the assault yesterday. The girl said Zawadzki became angry with her and choked her with his hands around her neck, lifting her from the floor as he did so. She said he hit her in the face and head and punched her in the legs before putting her in the clothes dryer and spinning the tub with his hands.

In court today, Cunha said the physician who examined the child said the injuries were the worst she’d seen. Police described the injuries as bruising to the child’s face, shoulder, legs, buttocks and vaginal area, as well as a swollen upper lip.

But still, let's save our compassion for the preborn, shall we? Because, you know, there's never enough compassion to go around.

Barney Frank Slam's Rabid Rightists' "Vile, Contemptible Nonsense"

Barney Frank says arguing with wingnut "like arguing with a dining room table."



Great job.

Dump Glenn Beck -- It's About Time

It's about time people objected to the vitriol-speech of Glenn Beck, one of the many loudmouth fire-in-a-theater screamers that Reagan's Un-Fairness Doctrine produced. He's losing more advertisers. May he lose more. He's like Fred Phelps, but using the public airwaves.

HuffPo Sexism Spree Rages On: Today's Derision Target -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

I am sure HuffPo will be running a poll on John Roberts' silly old eccentric wardrobe any day now. Clarence Thomas' too.

The Third-Worlding of America: GOP Runs Death Panels for the Working Poor

RAM usually goes to help the poor in Africa.

But, after 8 years of Bushist fascism, America is the new Africa.

The new third world is here at home.

Oh lookee! Working adults with no access to health care, weeping because they find, having waited in line for days to receive charity health care, that they have high blood pressure.

But they can't afford a doctor. And they can't afford the pills.

In the wealthiest country in the world.

Ain't that a shame?

Hey, Joe -- can you play a few bars of "Serfin' U-S-A"?

Sec'y Clinton Tells It Like It Is Re: Bush v. Gore' Puts Pundits' Panties in Big Fat Twist

Yes, it's a funny funny thing about our Secretary of State: when she tells the truth, or sets limits with questioners, some blowhards find it really upsetting.

And when the other Clinton tells the truth, some so-called libruls get their panties in a twist. Why is that? Is it Bush = Gore all over again?

Like T.S. Eliot Said, "Hurry up, please. It's Time" --- for --- NETROOTS NATION IN SECOND LIFE

Now's your chance, you proud Luddites. Hey, look. You can stay proud. You can stay Luddite. You can, as buddhists do, regard your coming to SL so very lightly -- as being like a dream, a flash of lightning, a bubble in water, a magician's appartion.

Impermanent. Not truly existent. Like a rainbow, like the disappearing dew on grass, like mist, yes, I could go on all day, but don't you really want me to stop?

Yes, it's true, time is passing, and now it's time for Carpe Diem time. Yes, I am now actively actually recruiting people to Teh Second Life lifestyle. No, srsly. This means *you.*

It's free. It's Green. It offers tangos. It transcends space. It's so durn super-progressive it would make Orrin Hatch weep,well, it would if he *had*tears.

What's not to love, eh?



Here's your portal to the portal to: NETROOTS NATION IN SECOND LIFE

Main Blames Cat For Kiddier Porn

A thousand images of child sexual abuse were downloaded into Keith R. Jensen's computer. Jensen, a Florida resident, claims his kitty did it.

No, really.

Family Friend Babysitter Causes "Severe Internal Injuries" to 4 Year Old

PORTSMOUTH - Police are seeking a man who is accused of causing severe internal injuries to a four-year-old boy.

It was determined that the juvenile suffered severe internal injuries and minor external injuries. . ," Doyle said.

Lorenzo R. Clark, Sr., 26, of Channing Avenue in Portsmouth, VA, is wanted on a charge of felony child abuse, Doyle said.

"Mr. Clark was a family friend and watching the child when the injuries occurred," Doyle said.

It's just a crime, not a scandal when a caregiving adult causes "severe internal injuries" to an actual 4 year old.

While millions prefer to weep for the notborn.

Alabama Mom Drags Kid By Leash Through Store

Yes, sure, it's cruelty to children.

But America's compassion begins with preborns. And ends there.

Found Art: From the The Other America

Question:

One can never start instilling the concept of "winners" and "losers" too soon, can one?

Answer:

Nope.

Tremonton City Days: Royal Babies

Not to mention instilling the serial notion, 1, 2, 3, and so on. An early appreciation of one's place in the hierarchy is crucial to child development and misplaced parental sense of self.



Hat-tip to Jesus' General' and his hometown paper.

Child Abuse Du Jour: Say More About How Kids Need Mommies & Daddies, K?

This five year old kid's mommy punished him by locking him up alone in a sweltering attic, naked, covered in feces. Did his mommy like being a mommy, you think?

The worst part was listening to the TV talking heads interviewing two adult males, the mommy's own daddy and her uncle, who seemed to think that mommy was doing a swell job of mommying, and that this tortured kid really was a handful who just needed some control.

The police report said that when officers unlocked a door at the top of the stairs leading to the attic they found the boy "completely naked, covered in feces from head-to-toe crying to "go downstairs.''

The room was covered in human feces and there were several children's finger markings along the wall, made with feces, that appeared to have been there for a considerable amount of time, the report said.

When interviewed on TV, the kid's grandfather and uncle were complaining about all this negative attention, insisting that this treatment is not child abuse, and that the mommy had been trying to get help, but nobody would help her, boo hoo, which is patently false. This happened in Lowell, MA, home of MassHealth, and home of child protective services that are available on a voluntary basis--overwhelmed parents need only pick up the phone.

But you know, so much for the postborn, let's save our worry for the feti, shall we?

Child Abuse Du Jour: List Incomplete

1. How about a little boy beaten to death in California, where they just cut funding for child protective services?

Really, screw the damn six-year-old tattletales. Kids should fend for themselves.

2. How about a daddy belt-beating his two-year old (with the metal end of the belt -- I always ask 'which end?') so hard the kid had a seizure?

3. How about a 23-year-old Omaha man charged with beating a 4 month old infant till she was critically injured?

It takes me about one google to come up with a passel of cases. But, you know, once the innocent preborns turn into postborns, who gives a shit?

Dirty-Diaper Fetishist Vitter Defends Southern Values

"Southern values"?

Is that what they call it these days?

[coughcough].

Virtue Is Its Own Reward But Pays No Pottersville Bills

Exemplary blogger JurassicPork of Welcome Back to Pottersville could benefit from a deeper appreciation of his work. Quickly.


Do do what you can.

Child Abuse/Neglect No Priority for GOP Gov Ahnold

I don't know if Arnold is a fetus-firster. I do know that he has just slashed funding for the department charged with dealing with child abuse and neglect.

I continue to be horrified by the upsurge in fetal sentimentalism, while the job of actually protecting actual kids from abuse and neglect remains so, well, neglected.

Feh.

Lindsey Graham Complains That Sotomayor Asks "Tough Questions"

I never said that playing the shrew card, calling a female temperamental, argumentative, and tough was sexist.

I never said that Lindsey Graham was a pussy, either.

Waterboarding Without Permission

Sure we tortured in 2002 well before we cooked up some lame excuse to justify doing it.

Whut's yer frickin' problem, pussies?

Via BBC interview: former CIA Agent John Kirakou pinpoints use of torture as early as the end of May/beginning of June 2002, well before the notorious Bybee memo.

All the Lonely People -- David Brooks' Groper Edition

So, here's an adult male who is being groped in the general genital area by a lonely male Republican politician who is so powerful that columnist David Brooks does not dare to tell the Senator to take his hand off Brooks' inner thigh, but allows the Senator to leave his hand on said inner thigh all during a dinner?



Which Senator might it be? Nominations?