Tea Bagger Fail

From here:

Gee, I suppose that the Republicans would whine if we called the latter sign “un-American” or if we pointed out that calling President Obama a Nazi was not only stupid but grossly inappropriate.

St. Louis, PM, 12 September

The clinic was interesting; I’ll post my photos. Basically, my “trouble” leg (the right one) was 99 percent straight; straight enough to pass by the judges but I’d get cautions.

But part of this was my going at a pace I didn’t practice at. My posture is a complete mess; not sure as to if that will ever get better.

Barbara did ok; she’d be half way decent if she ever trained.

In St. Louis, 11 Sept. 09

We got to St. Louis for the racewalking clinic.

Some things just aren’t clear cut, are they?

After South African runner Caster Semenya came out of nowhere to zip past a track of world-class athletes in the women’s world 800-meter race in Berlin last month, spectators starting speculating that the muscle-bound 18-year-old was no lady. Her low voice and broad shoulders raised eyebrows and suspicions.

Now, newspaper reports from Australia say testing has determined that the running star has both male and female sexual organs – in other words, that she’s a hermaphrodite, and likely didn’t even realize it.

That’s why, these days, the proper word is “intersex,” a recognition that there are a range of conditions between rigidly “male” and “female” and that gender is as much a product of society and self-perception as it is a matter of what gear you have or chromosomes you possess.

An intersexed condition can arise in a variety of ways, from a number of syndromes, but so called “true” hermaphrodites are often chimeric. In other words, instead of having cells with 46 chromosomes that include either an XX pair in women or an XY pair in men, they possess both 46XX and 46XY cells. Some may have one testicle and one ovary, or what are called ovo-testes, combo gonads comprised of both ovarian and testicular tissues. True hermaphrodism is thought to be rare, but according to the World Health Organization, no prevalence data is available.

In Semenya’s case, the Australian report says she has no ovaries and instead has internal testes, which produce large amounts of testosterone, explaining her muscular physique. It’s likely she and her family may have been unaware of the condition because the male organs are on the inside. In many cases of the intersexed condition, the external genitalia appear to be female.

11 September 2009 (am)

Workout notes 2000 yard swim: 500 warm up, 10 x (25 drill, 25 swim), 5 x (50 paddle, 50 free), 5 x 100 IM.

Easy effort.

What’s on tap this weekend: a racewalking clinic with Jeff Salvage.

Posts: light blogging; this Eugene Robinson article caught my eye:

Anyone who watched Wednesday night as President Obama explained his health-care reform proposals to Congress saw a chief executive making what sounded like a genuine appeal for bipartisanship — and his opponents behaving like a bunch of spoiled first-graders. Obama should ignore them, even if they hold their breath until they turn blue.

House Republicans were particularly ostentatious in showing their disrespect not just for Obama but for the office he holds. The outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina — who shouted “You lie!” when Obama said his plan would not cover illegal immigrants — was only the most egregious display of contempt. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House minority whip, fiddled with his BlackBerry while the commander in chief was speaking. Other Republicans made a show of waving copies of their own alleged reform plan, which isn’t really a plan at all.

And Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas waved hand-lettered signs at the president, as if he thought he were attending one of those made-for-television town-hall meetings rather than a solemn gathering of the nation’s highest elected officials.

I never remember President Bush being treated this way.

I do remember reading about this though:

So you think yelling “You Lie!” at the President of the United States during his speech to Congress is bad?

How about this – a member of the House of Representatives once entered the Senate chamber and savagely beat a senator from Massachusetts into unconsciousness.

The folks at Universal Hub found this interesting bit of history on the U.S. Senate web site:

It’s called “The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner.”

According to the Senate records, on May 19, 1856 Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts antislavery Republican, addressed the Senate “on the explosive issue of whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state.”

During his speech Sumner insulted two Democratic senators – Stephen Douglas of Illinois and Andrew Butler of South Carolina.

Douglas, who was in the chamber, was called a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator.”

Butler was not there.

But Sumner reportedly accused him of taking “a mistress . . . who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight.”

Those words didn’t sit well with Rep. Preston Brooks, who, like Butler, was from South Carolina.

Three days later, Brooks entered the Senate chamber and “slammed his metal-topped cane onto the unsuspecting Sumner’s head.”

Here’s how the Senate site described the attack:

“As Brooks struck again and again, Sumner rose and lurched blindly about the chamber, futilely attempting to protect himself. After a very long minute, it ended. Bleeding profusely, Sumner was carried away. “

“Brooks walked calmly out of the chamber without being detained by the stunned onlookers. Overnight, both men became heroes in their respective regions.”

Brooks survived a censure resolution, then resigned. But he was reelected, and then died a short time later.

Not much has changed, except that the neo-Confederates are now in the Republican party.

We Have Morons in Illinois Too…

Yes, this is the southern part of Illinois; the 19′th Congressional District. This is the person who represents it in Congress:

This is Representative John Shimkus. Yes, he walked on on the Presidential address:

Joe Wilson wasn’t the only Republican acting like a five-year-old at the President’s address of Congress last night. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), stood up and walked out in the middle of it. As the Swamp reports:

“Congressman Shimkus was frustrated that the president was not offering any new ground and left with just minutes remaining in the speech,” spokesman Steven Tomaszewski said today in response to our question about the late-speech walk-out.

Frustrated? Heck, I am frustrated people like this are representing Americans in Congress:

Why, why, why are imbeciles like this in Congress? Oh wait…that is representative Democracy.

sigh….

A word to some of my fellow liberals:

I read this at Daily Kos:

President ORomney pushes his Republican plan

Last year I voted for Barack Obama, who proposed a health care plan that had a public option and no individual mandate nad no tax on premiums. He looked like he won the election. But last night, a guy who gave a speech with the skill of Obama laid out Mitt Romney’s health care plan, slighly modified with aspects of John McCain’s. It’s a windfall for the death-by-spreadsheet industry. Maybe the guy on TV was one of those pod people; the Body Snatchers may have taken away Obama. Since the pod person sounded so much like Mitt Romney, I’ll call him ORomney. And it was a neat touch of the Rethugs to heckle him, just to make the ruse more credible.

Just one thing to say: Fuck off.

I swear, some of these people seem to think that the President has some sort of magic wand that he can wave. How many critics of this type have ever held any elective office at all, or have tried to work with a committee which had people of very diverse opinions?

I swear; we have our moronic “tea bag” types too. Grrrrrr…

President’s Speech on Health Care Reform

You can read the CNN poll here; evidently people actually like what the hear when they hear the truth. That is why the Republicans lie so much, even when they are yelling out that the President is a liar.

Fortunately, some Republicans (e. g., Senator McCain) denounced such tactics. Unfortunately, what Rep. Wilson did will, more than likely, be popular in his district.

The time to move forward is here. I don’t know what we will get, but I for one want:

1. to ensure that everyone has access to affordable coverage, no matter how poor, sick or employment status. Of course people should be expected to contribute. By access I don’t mean “going to the emergency room when things are horrible.”

2. to ensure that insurance companies actually pay what they are supposed to pay. This doesn’t happen now.

I am not a “line in the sand” type person; if there is a bona-fide proposal that does this, great. I agree with the President in that the goals are important, not the mechanism.

And yes, negotiate “tort-reform” with the Republicans and pass that separately if you have to; sure the bad or negligent doctors should face consequences, but the expectations that the public has of them is ridiculous.

9 September 09 PM

Why I am not a UU.

Basically, UUs more or less have many of the social values that I have. But there is a tolerance of nonsense. Reason is welcomed, so long as it is used in deriving private spirituality. But it is not welcomed if one uses it to judge/weigh the beliefs of others; for example saying that, say, “dousing is nonsense” would be a faux pas there.

Nate Silver: does a detailed analysis of where the public option is likely to be supported, and supplies a cool electoral style map.

Jerry Coyne: hilarious cartoon about how “intelligent design” works.

Space telescope: back on line…and doing its job! Surf there to see a cool image.

Social Conservative Family Values!

Workout notes I still have a cough, so I took it easy and just swam.
5 x 100 on 2 (easy), then 1000 in 16:29 (4:09/4:07/4:06/4:07); stayed steady. This was my fastest 1000 since January 23 (ok, I’ve been pretty slow) and in line with what I was doing last fall.

Republican Family Values

More here:

SACRAMENTO–Freshmen legislators arriving in Sacramento receive advice from veteran
 politicians about the intricacies of working in California’s capital. One of those tips is to remember that microphones broadcasting legislative debates can also capture embarrassing, career-ending personal admissions if a politician isn’t careful. Michael D. Duvall, Orange County’s 72nd Assembly
District representative, must have forgotten the warning.

In July–two days after Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and Republican leader Sam Blakeslee put Duvall on the Rules Committee that oversees member ethics–the second-term, conservative, Republican assemblyman sat in a public hearing and vividly described lewd details about his trysts with a female lobbyist whose clients had business before another committee on which
 Duvall sits.


Duvall, speaking to a relatively mum Republican colleague seated to his left, apparently had no idea his dais microphone became live beginning about a minute before the start of a cable-televised committee hearing. He was captured in the middle of recounting portions of an affair.


“She wears little eye-patch underwear,” said Duvall, who is married with two children. “So, the other day she came here with her underwear, Thursday. And
 so, we had made love Wednesday–a lot! And so she’ll, she’s all, ‘I am going 
up and down the stairs, and you’re dripping out of me!’ So messy!”

Yes, this clown is a full “family values”, protect the sanctity of marriage moron.

During his political career, Duvall has unabashedly espoused conservative
 principles and is known as a partisan Republican with a knack for theatrics:
 He has noisily driven his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to functions. In 2008, 
Duvall blasted efforts to condone gay marriage. Legislatively, he has 
proposed bills to aid the insurance industry and government contractors 
feeding off the state’s massive transportation kitty.
 He has offered a law to alter the First Amendment rights of Americans by
 banning anti-war activists from putting the names of fallen soldiers on 
T-shirts with messages such as “Bush lied” on the front and “They died” on the back; he observed that the dead soldiers fought to protect freedom, and “opportunists” should not be allowed to “exploit” the sacrifices with political messages opposing war.


Such thinking impressed certain constituencies. Earlier this year, the man who never graduated from high school received “100 percent” approval scores 
by the California Republican Assembly, the state’s leading conservative outfit, and the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), a fierce guardian of traditional family values.


Health Care Videos…short and sweet

Health note: the cough persists though it is slightly better. I’ll swim later.

Oh yes, watch Tancredo call someone a “goofball”. Pot, meet Kettle.

Education: people talked about President Obama’s speech, which as generic and actually quite good when it came to telling students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also gave an education speech:

SECRETARY CLINTON: I am so happy to be here today. And I thank your principal for that wonderful introduction. And I’m so pleased that I had a chance to be here with you on the first day of school for the Manhattan Charter School. I know tomorrow all the students from PS142 will be here, and this building will just be filled with boys and girls who are ready to learn a lot.

And it is exciting for me to have this chance to come here today to talk with you and answer your questions. Now when I walked in, one of the boys here said, “I have a question for you.” So I hope a lot of you have questions for me because – oh, I see the papers (inaudible). I want to talk with you about what is on your mind.

But first, let me thank your principal. Thank you so much Principal DePolo for your leading of this school, all of the faculty and staff of the Manhattan Charter School. I also want to thank the board of the school which is here. I want to recognize Mike Mulgrew from the UFT, and so many others who really work hard every day on behalf of the education of our children – Christina Grant, Ira Greenberg, William Colavito, Michelle Lewis, Jonas Chartock, Paul O’Neill – and all of you who are part of making sure that every boy and girl has a chance to live up to his or her God-given potential.

Now, I would imagine that many of you are thinking about what this year is going to be like, what are you going to learn, what plans are you going to make, what you believe you’re going to be learning and doing and (inaudible) as the year goes by. Well, there is somebody who really does care a lot about what happens to our young people, and that’s our President, Barack Obama. And he is going to give a message to students all across the United States later today. And he’ll talk about how important it is what our teachers and our students do, because ultimately, how much you learn, how you feel about yourself is really up to you. And so President Obama wants to talk with you about his own experience and about what he hopes that each of you can achieve. He asked me to come today to speak personally with you because your education is so important to our country.

Now when I was your age, I think I was in fifth grade. Are there any fifth graders here? Oh, good. When I was in fifth grade, we had a president by the name of President Eisenhower. Now President Eisenhower gave us a very important message when I was a fifth grader. He basically said that he hoped that the boys and girls of America would study more math and science because our country needed people who could help us send a man to the moon, help us have breakthroughs in new kinds of scientific discoveries. And my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Kraus, came into our classroom one day and she said, “Boys and girls, the President of the United States wants you to learn more math and science.” Well, I was pretty excited to think that the President of the United States, way over in Washington, D.C. in the White House, was hoping that we would learn more.

Well, President Obama hopes that each of you will learn more. Now, I was never great at math or science, but I felt like it was important that I try my best. And that’s really what President Obama and I want each of you to feel, because there are so many opportunities for those who get an education.

How many of you want to grow up and graduate from high school? How many of you want to go to college? That’s wonderful. Well, I hope that all of you understand because it’s important not only for yourselves, but for each and every person in our country that our young people like you get the very best possible education you can. Your parents and your grandparents, your big brothers and sisters and everybody knows that it’s important that you’re here today. And I hope that this year will be the most exciting year that you’ve had.