Meanwhile, across the DMZ...

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Iran: Voldemort not a Murderer

JK Rowling fans throughout the West raised an uproar this week after a conference on the existence of dark wizards held in Tehran, Iran, claimed that Lord Voldemort did not murder James and Lily Potter. According to presenters at the conference, the much-maligned Voldemort is the victim "of rampant historical revisionism on the part of Harry Potter and his cronies." And that the world's acceptance of this "myth" would allow Potter and his alleged "good" wizards to unfairly dominate dark wizards all around the world.

The theme of the conference sited that this trend of practicing hegemony over dark wizards, who are already in the minority due to their xenophobic need to only interbreed with other "pure blood" wizards, has been growing steadily ever since Harry Potter began planting the seeds of historical doubt when he turned eleven and entered parochial school.

David Duke, a grand wizard himself and a presenter at the conference, asserted that Lord Voldemort was little more than a face on the back of a mediocre wizard's head, and couldn't have murdered the Potters because he didn't have hands necessary to use a wand.

Bush's State of the Union Word Counts

NYT has a great page that lists word counts for all of the inarticulate first monkey's state of the union addresses.

Want proof that the Republican party has been hijacked by people with no ideas, no solutions, only fear, uncertainty and doubt? Try these counts:

Terror: 145 mentions
Iraq/Iraqis: 124

Compared with real threats:
North Korea: 8
Deficit: 10
Climate Change: 1
New Orleans: 2

New Orleans had two mentions? Please join me and NEVER vote Republican again. It's time for real thinkers to leave the party and start a new one that isn't mired in the personal agenda of the religious and radical right who obviously don't care about their fellow Americans.

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Progressive Talking Points: Universal Healthcare

Here are some talking points on universal healthcare, whether your goal is to educate fellow progressives or shut down wackos from the radical right who don't know what they're talking about.

 

Why is this relevant for my next cocktail party?

Every Democratic candidate for president is expected to float proposals for universal healthcare this election. Senator Clinton and Senator (soon to be President) Obama have already announced those intentions as well as Dennis "Totally Hopeless But I've Got Heart" Kucinich. A major tactic from the right will be to spread confusion and fear about this much like they did with Iraq and terrorism. They have no ideas of their own, so they can only attack with nonsense and fear-mongering.

 

Progressive Arguments for Universal Healthcare

 

It's the moral thing to do. There are over 46 million of your fellow citizens who are uninsured. That number is too high to simply include workers and families in transition. It our moral responsibility to care for each other in a democracy.

 

Healthcare is too expensive. The only people benefiting from these unaffordable premiums are greedy insurance companies. You are directly hurt by higher premiums and costs every time an uninsured patient shows up at a hospital or clinic and cannot pay. To compete for labor, most businesses offer healthcare and must pay these exorbitant premiums. This is hurting businesses and thus our economy. Businesses will have more money to invest in plant and equipment that results in productivity gains rather than making insurance companies rich. It will actually stimulate the economy while helping our citizens – even better than a tax cut.

 

Doctors can focus on their calling. I worked for a couple of doctors while I was in college collecting payments from insurance companies. These companies would do anything to get out of paying a claim for their own customers who had been paying them regularly. By leveling the playing field in coverage, more doctors would be paid and could spend time learning medicine and not learning how to bill correctly across 100 different insurance contracts.

 

Preventative care will save lives and money. The uninsured end up going to the emergency room for everything. They wait for emergencies or abuse the system because they have no other options. We all know that prevention is the least expensive option. Even greedy insurance companies offer wellness programs, and believe me, it's not because they care about you, it's because it saves them money.

 

Combating the Radical (and Largely Incoherent) Right

 

"Do you want your healthcare run like the DMV?"

I hear this argument all the time. It is the most ridiculous red herring in the conservative arsenal. No one is saying that universal coverage means government run medicine. We're talking about extending insurance benefits and it would probably work much like the system does today.

 

"We can't afford universal healthcare."

We could afford a $1.2 trillion war that ended in failure, I think we can afford to help our fellow Americans. It's a matter of getting the priorities right, not about raising taxes. Besides, see above for reasons why universal healthcare is not only affordable, it will probably save us money and stimulate the economy.

 

"Free market economics are more efficient."

This is a faulty argument in a number of areas. There currently is no real free market in America for health care. Your insurance is picked for you and greedy insurance companies who don't care about you are the ones choosing your doctors and hospitals for you. Universal healthcare would actually improve your choice and make healthcare more competitive, not less (isn't that the argument that same conservative hypocrite uses for school vouchers?).

 

"People are going to abuse the system if it's free."

It's not really free. What does a doctor visit look like today? Several hours of work time lost, you're probed and prodded, injected and constantly told "you've got to stop your drinking and carousing, Turner and Phelps." That's no fun. I'm not singing up for more than an annual physical just because it costs less. Heck, don't you have insurance now, Mr. Conservative Wacko? Are you abusing the system?

 

"It's not right for the (healthy, employed, productive) to pay for the (infirm, unemployed, lazy)."

That's what we're doing in Iraq and other places. Why can't we care for our fellow Americans first?

Microwave Sterilization

The University of Florida is releasing the following informational document after news reports about a study that found microwave ovens can be used to sterilize kitchen sponges sent people scurrying to test the idea this week -- with sometimes disastrous results.

---

What NOT to Sterilize in Your Microwave Oven
A University of Florida Public Information Document
(Go Gators!)

1. Dry kitchen sponges. (Kitchen sponges should be wet before sterilizing in the microwave.)
2. Grandma's dentures.
3. Kitchen knives. (Or any knives, unless they are made out of microwave safe material.)
4. Dogs. (Dog sterilization should be left in the hands of a competent vet.)
5. Cats. (Cats should be wet before sterilizing in the microwave.)
6. Kerosene lamps.
7. Jeb Bush's Exploratory Committee for a 2008 presidential candidacy (Jeb Bush's Exploratory Committee for a 2008 presidential candidacy should be wet before sterilizing in the microwave.)
8. Cellular phones.
9. Grandma's soiled diaper.
10. Pamela Anderson's implants. (Implants should be wet -- and glistening -- before sterilizing in the microwave.)

---

Jaded Sailor 6

Coming Soon: s.m.p.h.

What is SMPH?

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If I Did It

Did you hear that Newsweek picked up a chapter of the OJ non-confessional, If I Did It? I've seen snippets and it's ugly. It contains details that perfectly match some of the smallest details of the prosecution's arguments. More chilling are the emotional and angry comments about Nicole Simpson.

 

What you may not know is that the book has inspired a string of copy cat publications like the following.

 

If I Read It

By George W. Bush

"Condi wouldn't let up about the Baker Report. I told her I didn't like books without a lot of pictures, so she tricked me and read it to me over lunch. I didn't understand most of it, but just out of spite I decided to do the opposite of what it (and most US Generals, and the American voting public, and my daddy) suggested. I decided to actually boost the troop count, but not by enough to really make a difference. Take that, you people who can read good and stuff."

 

If I Back-Dated It

By Steve Jobs

"What do you care if I did? I gave you the iPod you ungrateful tiny-brains. How about the iPhone? You'd still be watching your movies in HD on those crummy giant flat screens if it wasn't for me. You'd still be able to discern the difference between crystal clear high sample rates and heavily compressed music if it wasn't that Bono thought I was so cool."

 

If I Boiled It

By EZ Jones

"What was that sound? Bang! Bang! BANG! I had left the pot boiling and now there were eggs everywhere. Hard boiled eggs on the ceiling and walls. It smelled as if Beelzebub himself had paid a visit to my bathroom."

 

If I Did Her

By Bill Clinton

"Yep. I had relations with THAT woman. And that woman too. And you look awfully familiar come to think of it. The president has certain needs and he likes the ladies."

 

If I Cloned It

By George Bush, Sr.

"Barbara was so concerned with our (the CIA's) little monkey-cloning experiment. I told her nothing could go wrong. An army of half-man half-monkey soldiers would be the answer to our military needs without having to impose the draft. You have to remember, cloning was new, and this was long before the RNC made me pretend to be against science. She said, "if you think it's such a good idea, why don't you name Subject A10 after yourself? Why, with all of your influence, he could go to Yale. He could even be president one day." I know she was being sarcastic, but to prove a point, I went ahead with the experiment and her suggestions. I have some regrets."

Your Tax Dollars at Play

NYT has a great piece by David Leonhardt titled What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy. You read that right -- the current estimates of the price tag for Iraq are now $1.2 trillion. Here's what Leonhardt says we could've spent it on instead of getting Bush re-elected so that his cronies can make even more money through Halliburple and sweet, sweet oil.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.

And, TGOT, don't event think about posting a "freedom costs" comment -- I feel 10 times less safe with Bush's policies than I ever did, and wiretapping and torture doesn't make me more free.

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Is Fox's "24" Another Tool to Keep Us In Fear?

Did anyone catch Keith (the Anti-O'Reilly) Olbermann last night? He floated the idea that the Fox drama 24 is really just another effort by the neo-con puppets at Fox to keep us in fear.

As much as I love Olbermann -- he's typically the sanest voice in the media next to Jon Stewart -- I'm not sure this is true. It pains me to defend Fox, but haven't the Repubs figured out by now that America is on to the whole code-orange alert thing? I think that having plots about terror in America is simply, and unfortunately, a very relevant story line for our times. It isn't any more of a conspiracy than Will and Grace, or The Brady Bunch, or my personal favorite, Lidsville. Then again, all three of those shows promoted gay drug culture, didn't they?

Olbermann had filmmaker Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed) on and that was a hoot. Greenwald called it "propaganda," and "a neo-con sex fantasy." Gotta' love us lefties even when we get it wrong. We're a lot more fun than conservatives.

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Barack Obama Makes is Official

It's official today, Barack Obama has thrown his hat into the ring, formally announcing his run for the presidency in 2008. It's kind of like the Beatles arriving in 1964, isn't it? Politics aside, the worst part about having Bush as a president in my opinion was the fact that by touting his faith he made millions of Americans believe that Christianity was synonymous with greed and warfare. Well maybe not the worst. Maybe lying about WMDs was the worst. No wait, maybe needlessly killing and maiming thousands of people in an unnecessary war was the worst. No, I think spying on your own citizens... well, who knows. Bush is the worst president in the history of our great country.

When Obama is our president, it will be nice to see a man of faith truly living the progressive values of Christianity, love, hope and charity.

Jaded Sailor 2

New Years Resolutions

George Bush New Years Resolutions
1. Get new friends
2. Learn to read
3. Speak a language good-like
4. Start drinking again -- blame it on uncooperative Democrats
5. Screw up the Iraq war even more than I already have
6. Invade Iran and bring on the end of times

Dick Cheney New Years Resolutions
1. Eat fewer kittens (they’re so fattening)
2. Clean and organize secret location
3. When hunting with old lawyer friends, really finish ‘em off, don’t just scar up their face
4. Use more gasoline
5. Destroy the Constitution

Republican Congressional Leadership up for Re-election in 2008 New Years Resolutions
1. Distance ourselves from Bush
2. Show how we’re different from Bush
3. No really, we're really, really different from Bush
4. Be independent thinkers – we’re no George Bush
5. Break from the pack – Bush is acting alone
6. Distance ourselves from Bush

Hillary Clinton New Years Resolutions
1. Change name to Hillary Rodham-Obama
2. Create a committee to uncover the top ten reasons why people don’t like me and then assign another exploratory committee to plan ways to implement the top three ideas without offending anyone in Ohio
3. Distance myself from Bush

Rudy Giuliani New Years Resolutions
1. Downplay my outrageous playboy lifestyle for conservative wackos
2. Find new ways to relate to those country bumpkins outside of Manhattan – maybe watch Newhart reruns before the New Hampshire primary
3. Start looking for a new, younger wife
4. Play up my accidental heroism, play down my long and checkered law career
5. Distance myself from Bush

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Why is Turner Drawing Cartoons?

I know, it's a little like Phelps playing the piano in a seedy downtown bar. I don't claim to be a good cartoonist, or even all that funny, but my three-year-old is starting to doodle and so I draw with him in the evenings. It's kind of therapeutic, because I have no preconceptions about being any good whatsoever. And since I took the time to draw them, I figured I'd inflict them on all seven of you loyal TP readers.

My apologies to my two fave artists, Phelps and Dennis Culver.

And why are all the drawings called "Jaded Sailor?" Because I went to a random name generator and that's what it spit out.