Grumpasaurus.com

Watch as Keith Olbermann destroys Bloated Drug Whore Con Sex Tourist Asshole (new phrase: OxyMoron), and the best part is he destroys Limbaugh with Limbaugh’s own actions – they show the actual video of Limbaugh ridiculing Fox for Fox’s mannerisms. Who needs words or arguments when OxyMoron is doing just fine hanging himself?

Watch it.

Of key importance to note is that Parkinsons sufferers when off their medication move less not more. Also, Fox’s ad for (R-PA) Arlen Spector is somehow not manipulative. Go figure.

That said, Sam Seder was horrible – his one liners and quips detracted from his main point (which was OK). Namely, that Rush’s job is to insulate his listeners from reality. To give them not only an excuse, but the means by which to render impotent that which challenges their worldview.

Also… looks like the benefits of OxyMoron’s gastric bypass are no longer working. You know how much you have to eat post-bypass to put on the weight like he has? Like entire sides of buttered cow dipped in chocolate-much.

Update: see also, Olbermann’s takedown of Bush regarding the attempt to send the phrase “stay the course” down the memory hole.

Take that Count Chocola!

How anyone could be against stem cell research is beyond me. Check that, I know why they say they’re against it, but it’s so illogical and poorly founded that the belief set is criminally stupid.

To add to the Bloated Drug Whore Con Sex Turist. Somehow asshole doesn’t seem sufficient.

His body visibly wracked by tremors, actor Michael J. Fox appears in a political ad that was the subject of widespread discussion on Monday after conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh claimed Fox was “either off his medication or acting.”
…
“I think this is exploitative in a way that’s unbecoming of either Claire McCaskill or Michael J. Fox,” Limbaugh said on his syndicated show.

On his Web site Tuesday, Limbaugh appeared to back away from his accusation.

“All I’m saying is I’ve never seen him the way he appears in this commercial for Claire McCaskill,” says Limbaugh. “So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act, especially since people are telling me they have seen him this way on other interviews and in other television appearances.”

“As you might know I care deeply about stem cell research,” says Fox, who has struggled with Parkinson’s disease for more than a decade. “In Missouri you can elect Claire McCaskill, who shares my hope for cures.”

Here’s the ad with Michael J. Fox:

I never knew Fox got an American citizenship. Cool.

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race

To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our earth isn’t the center of the universe but merely one of billions of heavenly bodies. From biology we learned that we weren’t specially created by God but evolved along with millions of other species. Now archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.

At first, the evidence against this revisionist interpretation will strike twentieth century Americans as irrefutable. We’re better off in almost every respect than people of the Middle Ages, who in turn had it easier than cavemen, who in turn were better off than apes. Just count our advantages. We enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history. Most of us are safe from starvation and predators. We get our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat. What neo-Luddite among us would trade his life for that of a medieval peasant, a caveman, or an ape?
…
While the case for the progressivist view seems overwhelming, it’s hard to prove. How do you show that the lives of people 10,000 years ago got better when they abandoned hunting and gathering for farming? Until recently, archaeologists had to resort to indirect tests, whose results (surprisingly) failed to support the progressivist view. Here’s one example of an indirect test: Are twentieth century hunter-gatherers really worse off than farmers? Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, “Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?”

While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a bettter balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen’s average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size. It’s almost inconceivable that Bushmen, who eat 75 or so wild plants, could die of starvation the way hundreds of thousands of Irish farmers and their families did during the potato famine of the 1840s.

A 1987 article by Jared Diamond before he became Jared mofo’n Diamond!!!! (Guns, Germs, & Steel; Collapse).

I have nothing substantive to add, just that it was an enjoyable read and an interesting take on ideas that he’s expanded on in his later works.

And now, a message from Howard Dean on part of the reason why this decision makes Bush the worst president in US History

Today George Bush chose political posturing over human life, denying hope to millions of Americans, their families and loved ones who are affected by debilitating diseases.

He used his first-ever veto to stop the discovery of new cures for diseases like juvenile diabetes, leukemia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and many others. More than 70% of Americans from every walk of life — whether in the faith community, the science lab, the hospital or at the bedside of a sick relative — and majorities in both chambers of Congress disagree, but that didn’t stop him.

The bill he vetoed wasn’t a sweeping change — it was a small, practical measure that would have made a big difference for medical research based on sound science. But the consequences are sweeping: the proposed law would have allowed research on excess embryos generated during processes like fertility treatments — embryos that would otherwise simply be discarded.

Now is the time to speak out. Send a message to your representatives letting them know that you support cure discovery now:

http://www.democrats.org/curediscovery

More at the link. I think this veto will be overturned, thus showing Bush to be ignorant and foolish… but it might not be if you don’t act.

NASA engineer quits over needless mission… but the domestic policy-driven Busheviks say the show must go on!

A 30-year NASA veteran and one of the agency’s top shuttle engineers has reportedly angrily resigned only five days before Saturday’s Discovery launch.

Charlie Camarda had been director of engineering at the Johnson Space Center and played a major role on NASA’s Mission Management Team that is preparing for this weekend’s launch.

Unidentified sources at NASA told ABC News Camarda has been feuding with Wayne Hale, the manager of NASA’s space shuttle program, and NASA Administrator Mike Griffin about treatment Camarda’s engineers received when they raised concerns about the upcoming Discovery launch. Some engineers believe more substantial changes need to be made.

In a Tuesday email to his colleagues at Johnson, ABC News said Camarda reaffirmed his disappointment with NASA officials.

“I cannot accept the methods I believe are being used by this Center to select future leaders,” he wrote. “I have always based my decisions on facts, data and good solid analysis. I cannot be a party to rumor, innuendo, gossip and-or manipulation to make or break someone’s career and-or good name.”

I know this has been discussed before, but this is infuriating. The shuttle crew, the best and the brightest, are sacrificial lambs on the alter of domestic policy choices made by the Busheviks. As every arm of our government is further politicized and turned into partisan arms of the GOP, people are dying, We, the People, are being harmed, and our country is lessened. And it’s entirely the fault of this administration.

The FCC, the FDA, the SEC, FEMA, and now NASA.

You thought Katrina was a failure of leadership? Just wait until we have 7 dead astronauts because some Bushie decided that we needed a glorious rocket launch, and damn the science or those querrulous technicians! These people are sickening.

That said, it takes integrity to quit your job over something like this. My hat is off to Mr. Carmada.