F16’s Don’t Kill People, 500 Lb. Bombs Kill People

I’ve never really felt comfortable driving a Volvo. Now that it is getting quite old, I’m thinking of giving it a home paint job. Problem is, I can’t decide between bright green and yellow (in a nod to John Deere Tractors) or purple with yellow hot-rod flames. I dunno, whenever I see a Volvo I think hot-rod flames, don’t you?

Goes to THIS guy.

I finally wised-up and asked my pharmacy what the price is for purchasing my medications three months at a time without submitting it to the insurance. Turns out to be cheaper than three months of co-pays. I’m so glad I’m paying for insurance.

Anyway, heads-up if you think this might work out well for you.

In other news, I seem to have lost over fifteen pounds since my last yearly visit to the doctor. I haven’t been dieting, so I’m attributing it to butter-rich home baking. I think I have a new slogan for the cooking blog:

Strudel-The New Diet Soda!

There’s this guy I know, he’s a State Senator in the Nebraska Unicameral, and yeah, he’s kinda cute. Anyway, he told a friend of a friend of my friend who works for public radio that smoking pot causes depression and will turn you into a larcenous tweaker. He also said I can get pregnant from a toilet seat or kissing a boy while wearing a two piece bathing suit. I’m not really sure what to think. I tried the Coke and asprin thing once but I didn’t get taken advantage of…that I can remember!!!!! Please help!!!!

How terribly interesting that the media is first reporting that anti-depressants don’t work for most people. You’d think this was some sudden revelation based solely upon this most recent study. Well, that’s interesting because I’ve been posting about similar research going back to 2003 at my old blog. What is it about this study that suddenly seems so much more credible than all the others?

Still, on the same page at MSNBC with the story about how useless the drugs are for most people, we get an article urging people to not stop taking their drugs-because they might need them. Eh? Oh wait; they interviewed a psychiatrist at a university (no mention if the Dr. is a paid researcher for a drug company). Even more surprising is not a single mention of the horrific withdrawal symptoms people experience with these drugs. Yes, I agree-do not stop taking these drugs abruptly, not because you may go into a severe depression, but because you may go clear out of your mind from things like auditory hallucinations and feelings of electric shocks in the head (aka "brain zaps"). Those anti-depressants are addictive because the withdrawal is so unspeakably awful that people will do anything, endure the sickening side effects of the drugs-anything, not to have to go through withdrawal from what are (in an oversimplification) stimulants.

I suppose the study might be good news for the people who are being forcibly medicated by the state, though seeing how they have very little protection in respect to civil liberties already; they may be out of luck anyway.

Know what’s sickening? In all these articles over the past couple days since this study came out, no one is addressing the millions of lives impacted by these powerful, mind-altering drugs that have more than a few suicides to their credit-no one is blaming the bastards that manufacture this poison and then push it on doctors and patients. I’ve met street drug dealers with more integrity. But no, it isn’t that all these useless (yet still, dangerous) drugs were sold to make a huge profit-it was because patients and doctors were looking for "a quick fix in these days of managed care." Oh really? Rubbish. That is such a dishonest argument. Who sold patients and doctors the idea that everyone who was just the slightest bit blue was really harbouring a "real disease" that required immediate treatment? Gee, who could that have been? You know, those commercials during the nightly news telling everyone they had "chemical imbalances" that don’t exist? Gee, remind me again who was that?

Pissed off yet? Well you would be if you were trying to withdraw from an anti-depressant drug. A drug you probably didn’t need to begin with. Isn’t that depressing?

I have a commentary posted at Unknown News, if you feel like reading it.

As I had no intention of voting for any of the candidates currently running, my going out and casting a ballot for Ralph Nader probably won’t mean much to anyone but myself. Oh, but I intend to. I’d rather vote for someone I admire that has no chance of winning than vote for someone I do not respect that can win. I’d rather not participate than vote for Clinton or Obama. At least I can make a principled vote this time.

When Danny was born people were suggesting we send a birth announcement to the White House so we’d get a letter for the baby book. My husband thought it would be better to send an announcement top Ralph Nader-because he should have been president. No, it’s never going to happen, but damn, I’d love to hear him debate these jackasses. I’m sure the DNC people are busy screaming "traitor", but Ralph Nader isn’t a traitor to the Democrats-he was never theirs-how can he betray a party that abandoned anything close to his principles ages ago? I won’t spend another moment refuting it because it’s idiocy-people who will vote for Ralph Nader aren’t having their votes dragged away from someone else. It’s really pretty insulting to suggest it. Believe me, I wasn’t going to vote for Al Gore-I’d have simply stayed home.

Just keep in mind when they start spewing lies about Ralph and his "ego", the source of the accusations. I challenge you to show me a more decent, moral, intelligent person that’s run for the presidency in …oh God, what? Forty Years? I mean maybe McCarthy in ‘68, but I still doubt he was as "clean" as depicted, and really, Humphrey wasn’t that bad, (I can’t believe I just typed that, but hindsight does strange things to a person). But go on, show me someone as un-motivated by personal gain, someone as dedicated to making this country better, someone who is looking out for your ass (you think Detroit cared if your head went sailing through the goddamned windshield?) as Ralph Nader. Go on, name one-and don’t even think of using Jimmy "MX Missiles" Carter. Go on, I’ll wait. Yeah, I didn’t think you could.

You Go Ralph!

I don’t cross-post that often, but THIS was too good not to share.

If you’re not reading, I Am Livid; you should be-he’s my mother, reincarnated. Well, without the blonde hair, big earrings and garish clothing of course. Still, it’s downright spooky how similar their responses are to life’s daily idiocy. I rather think she’d have enjoyed blogging for the opportunity to have her art criticism reach a wider audience.

The linked post brought back fantastic memories of selling a home. The elderly couple that had purchased it bargained to an absurdly cheap price and being bad economic times, I agreed. They were already receiving a tremendous bargain. The day we sat down, lawyers ready to sign ownership titles-they try to get the price reduced by Twenty Five US Dollars (I shit you not) because there was a light bulb flickering in the kitchen and there were a couple coat hangers in the front hall cupboard.

Look, I understand that these people exist. I spent a couple years side-lining in the antique business on Cape Cod and I realise some people have a compulsive nature that makes them believe there’s something necessary in getting a price reduced to keep the Earth spinning properly on its axis. I do not understand the why of this phenomenon, but I do understand the existence of it.

Ordinarily, I shrug people like this off and I suppose they were expecting as much, the money being a fairly inconsequential amount. I don’t really know what it was that created my reaction but I called bullshit and refused. They tried arguing that they’d have to replace the light bulb and hire a cleaning service to toss-out the three coat hangers in the front cupboard. Mind you, back then the electric company actually gave away light bulbs when you went in to pay your bill (and heaven help you if mother wanted 75 watt bulbs and you came home with 100). We had bags of them that would end up being tossed-out before ever being used. Surely, they had a few light bulbs at home as well?

I was fully prepared to pay the lawyer for extra time rather than give one additional cent to those scheming pensioners. Finally, when it became obvious that I was serious, and not going to play along with the extortion game that apparently everyone tries to engage in when selling a home (how was I to know?) the lawyers and real estate agent agreed to pay the money from their own pockets-just to be finished.

I’ve often thought about sending them deliveries of light bulbs and coat hangers but they’d probably try to sell them on Ebay.

Talk about Livid.

Oh people, come on. You shouldn’t need me to point out the obvious-watching celebrity television chefs will not teach your children to cook. It will teach them to be obnoxious, pretentious, little creeps that have discovered a new way to be demanding and disrespectful to their parents.

Of course children should participate in the kitchen. Yes, include them in the marketing (Though be a bit considerate-no one wants to spend twenty minutes waiting for your precious little one to select green beans one at a time) and preparation of meals-within limits. I read blogs (not naming names here, no need to shame the stupid) where children just shy of their first birthday are being held over stoves to stir whatever is on the menu. They’re not getting anything from the experience, really. Yes, in some cultures very young children are charged with preparing the family’s meals-but they’re stitching soccer balls and weaving rugs whilst chained to looms. Yeah, that’s a generalisation, but I think you get my point. Geez, I don’t feel like getting up to go look in our library for my old paperback copy of Dubliners but isn’t there a story about a young child left to cook dinner for the raging-alcoholic old man…and he gets beaten for letting the fire go out? I mean, sure it’s fiction but that’s the mental image I get when the wee ones are left to themselves in the kitchen, though Joyce’s little rugrat probably wasn’t complaining to his ma that the balsamic vinegar was inadequate and the saffron she bought was all yellow threads.

I’m a take-away-privileges kind of parent, generally speaking but I must tell you, if any child of mine proclaimed my kitchen is "not equipped" with pistachio foam and truffles so he may cook as he desires, the kid is getting a swift kick in the behind, and a trip to the nearest Catholic Worker community for a nice lesson in reality.

The parents in the article seem to be fully aware of how obnoxious it is; yet they indulge the children with trips to very expensive establishments. Hell, I’d like to dine at Canoe, much less tour the bloody kitchen. Actually, I’d just like to take a holiday-how bad can Toronto be in March, I wonder? I probably couldn’t get a table-maybe the well connected twelve year old could put in a word for me.

Mind you, Danny has spent the better part of his three years in the kitchen with me. I wouldn’t dream of letting him loose with actual cooking, though I have no problem with simple tasks that will result in learning actual skills (yes, I suppose creating pistachio foam is a skill of sorts, but not one that’s likely to come up in our kitchen as often as learning to sort beans). One must learn the basics before unleashing their um, creativity. I suppose I’m a terrible parent for this, but I am not about to heap praise on a concoction of Kool-Aid, Jujubes, and peanut butter-no matter how enthusiastically it was prepared. There’s something to be learned from reading measuring cups (I do take a certain satisfaction that my son can hand me the appropriate sized dry measure cup and measuring spoon) and following a recipe. Our kitchen lessons are less about creating visually spectacular dishes (as anyone that’s been to my cooking blog lately can see) than understanding the science of how and why it works. I don’t need to let a toddler loose with a Kitchenaid to accomplish this (besides, they always want to dump too much flour in at once).

I get the impression that were these children not consumed with one-upping their parents with their cooking skills it would be sneering at them for their inability to appreciate some genre of literature or art form. We all did this to some degree, right? Went off to college and came home assuming the parents were just barely beyond brain damaged in ability to comprehend the world about them. Most of us kept these thoughts to ourselves, or complained to our friends, but wouldn’t dream of actually uttering these thoughts to them directly. These little beasts in the article haven’t learned the politesse that’s associated with being a truly opinionated youngster-they’re just obnoxious amateurs.

"Not equipped to cook as he desires." Oh, vomit.

Though I’m not sure I’d agree with the description of him as:

“not necessarily a guy you’d want to be friends with.” (Says who? Speak for yourself).

-Brilliant. Just go read her comics. Now.

The Norman Invasion one is pretty funny.

Even an old baker can learn new tricks. I think THIS is possibly the very best bread I’ve ever baked (and I’ve been doing this for years).

Now, to keep from eating both loaves tonight…

As I type, me wee Danny is in his darkened bedroom staring out the east window at the very big, bright moon. We’ve just started the first stage of what will be a total lunar eclipse this evening. Danny has this toy telephone he’s rather fond of, and was jabbering away whilst looking out the window.

"Who are you talking to sweetie?"

"The man in the moon."

"Mr. Moonie?"

"Yes."

And with that he turned away from me and back to the window. Looking up at the corner of the moon starting to darken, I hear him say into the telephone in the most matter-of-fact voice:

"Well, good luck with everything tonight."

Interesting, So Associated Press is known shilling for the pharmaceutical industry and the various front groups associated with it? Go on, have a look at THIS article.

Scared yet? Oh noes! The scary psychos aren’t taking medication and are going to kill everybody! Quick, pass legislation to force people to keep taking pills or something to ensure market share.

It’s interesting how this latest school shooter in Illinois is being painted as an unstable psychotic off his medications while the people around him are saying the exact opposite. There’s absolutely no mention whether the medications might have made him suicidal-only that the rampage happened after he stopped taking the magic pills. I like how this particular article glosses over the risks of anti-depressants causing suicidal ideation by stating that the drug maker didn’t think that is accurate. Hey, that’s some really great reporting there-must be the same person covering the White House when the president announces, "We don’t torture." OK great, guess that’s that, and print the story. Good heavens, you get more thorough reporting from middle-school newspapers.

Just keep taking the pills people, the drug manufacturers say it is OK. Nothing to see here, move along please. Stay suitably frightened. Thanks for playing.

Just in case you haven’t read anything today to make you cry-take a look at THIS article.