When I was driving back home from my sister's last weekend, I was daydreaming that I had the opportunity to give a speech to congress. I talked for about 30 minutes in my car, but the gist of it was this:

In the long run, the people of this country don't give a flying cooter if it's a Republican or a Democrat that fixes the problems that face us and helps our people and makes our country a better place. In the long run, we just care that it was actually fucking done.

And now I have a picture of flying cooters in my head....

I'ma get that Bella Swan Womb lately to knit one.

You worship your flying thing and I'll worship mine.

If you need a cooter that flies, check [link] Last time I was there they featured a lot of crafty vajayjays.

I can state with absolute authority that non-parents have NO IDEA how much sleep deprivation newborn babies cause unless they've been in Gitmo. It really is that bad.

God, yes. YES. Not enough YES in the world. Wasn't there even an article somewhere in the last year comparing the behavior of parents of poorly-sleeping very young children (because Lord knows it isn't just the newborns) to that of people who'd been through "enhanced interrogation"? Though I may well be misremembering due to the staggering sleep deprivation and all.

I like the idea of single-payer health care (puts everyone in one pool, gets employers out of the health care business and makes it easier to change jobs and start your own business, should reduce the cost of what the government currently subsidizes (again, by pooling everyone)) even though it flows more money through the government.

I was wondering about this this morning, and why it isn't being sold as an idea (maybe because in many places the primary industry IS healthcare). It seems like it could only help the economy-- also I (and many other artist-craftsman type people) would be way more likely to leave my job and earn money making furry costumes or what have you, freeing my job for someone else!

And me, I'll take "enhanced interrogation" (and that is NOT torture, despite the hype) over another 9/11. (Torture is pulling out fingernails, not sleep dep, but let's not digress. If sleep dep is torture, I have a bone to pick with my children.)

And I'll take chocolate pudding over another Columbine but thats just as false a choice.

No matter how long a baby keeps you awake s/he is not continually threatening to kill you, rape your mother, or burn down your village. Not a single infant ever.

Saying things as if they're facts:

"enhanced interrogation prevents terrorist attacks"

"sleep deprivation from someone who loves you is just the same as being in fear of your life from interrigators"

doesn't make them facts.

Cutting unnecessary spending would be dead simple if politicians (on both sides) were willing to take the risk of pissing off their lobbyists.

Mandatory spending + defense spending alone puts the budget in deficit. Eliminating education, hud, health and human services, homeland security, state department, and everything else in discretionary spending won't do it.

Well, at least we're no longer spending as much on our military as the rest of the world combined. Now our military spending is about 40% of the world's total.

But seriously, there's no reason for it to be even that high.

And me, I'll take "enhanced interrogation" (and that is NOT torture, despite the hype)

Sleep deprivation (as practiced by the US) is torture. What happened is the Bush administration attempted to redefine it, with much success in the US media.

From Sullivan:

Here's proof positive that what was once considered routine to call torture in the pages of the New York Times has now been changed, to accommodate the Bush administration. An obit, obviously written before Bill Keller decided to take his editorial cues from Dick Cheney, describes the torture undergone by an American Korean War airman at the hands of the Communist Chinese. Not the most sadistic or comic book type of torture - just open-ended solitary confinement in a damp, cold cell, with meager food and regular piercing alarms to enforce sleep deprivation. No one, including the NYT, called this anything but torture - until they had to accommodate the US government's attempt to torture prisoners without moral accountability or legal authority.

[link]