A stupid choice

German man found with 1200
uncaged parakeets in small feces
and feather strewn apartment.

Thanks Bubblehead. My eye surgery went well and is a great success. In fact, to me it borders on the miraculous. Having been terribly nearsighted all my life I can now see better than I ever could before. I originally went to this ophthalmologist to have cataracts removed. I had been told by another doctor only three or four years ago that surgery would not completely correct my vision because it was so bad. Little did I know how far these guys have come in the last few years. I not only got rid of the cataracts, I had what is called intraocular surgery, in which they actually insert new lenses right in your eyes. And even more miraculous to me is the fact that this is done on an outpatient visit and takes only somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. So, having had my teenage years ruined by having to wear glasses, and having to struggle with contact lenses for about fifty years, I now have perfectly normal sight (you might say, now that it is too late, if you were adequately cynical). Of course there was 17” of snow in Spokane last night and trying to get home was a nightmare. But my wife is fearless.

Anyway, on to other things. I have been and remain an Obama supporter, and I have real hopes for the future now that we will be rid of Bush/Cheney and their Hole-in-the-head-gang. I have watched with interest while Obama has picked his cabinet and others. While I have had some doubts about some, and wondered about others, I never thought he had done something stupid – until now. His pick of Rich Warren for his inauguration I believe is so atrocious as to be fundamentally stupid. Warren is an active homophobe, but worse than that, he doesn’t believe in evolution or stem cell research, contraception, (or even science, apparently), and believes that non-Christians should not be permitted to hold public office. In short, he is nothing but another right-wing bigot who has been as divisive as Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, or any of the others of that ilk. When challenged on this mistake Obama said, “it’s the American way to reach out to others.” I must say I do not agree that it is the American way to reach out to right-wing bigots who are so uninformed and doctrinaire they don’t even believe in science. It’s one thing, perhaps, to be merely homophobic, but to compare homosexuals to incest and other vicious practices is beyond the pale of decency. Reaching out to him is not only a mistake and divisive at this moment in time, it is just plain STUPID.

But if Obama’s choice here was stupid, it pales into insignificance when compared with Bush’s latest policy, Right of Conscience. I have mentioned this before, but I must repeat that I believe this is probably the single stupidest policy I have ever seen. It just emphasizes once again that Bush probably doesn’t have a brain at all, or if he does, he never uses it for anything other than trying to please his completely nutty evangelical base. This is a policy so broad and so stupidly conceived that it will allow anyone who works in the health industry at any level or in any way the power to individually decide who will get health care and who won’t. If a similar right of conscience was given to any other industry it would immediately be seen as insane. But as it is primarily aimed at abortion, contraception, and such, he was able to get away with it (actually, he won’t ultimately get away with it as it will be rescinded very quickly under a new administration). In any case, this policy elevates stupidity to an entirely new level.

Dick the Slimy is sticking to his “right to torture” theme. He now says, with an illogic virtually unmatched previously by anyone, that it would have been immoral, unethical, and irresponsible not to torture. In other words, it was right to break our laws, and international laws, to use a technique that was known to be useless for anything other than causing unnecessary pain and suffering because it would produce information that was useless and, in fact, worse than that, because it led us off on all kinds of unnecessary investigations that were basically no more than wastes of time. I don’t think Cheney, like Bush, is stupid, merely evil personified.

LKBIQ:

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
Woody Allen

TILT::
My wife believes she is the only person on earth who knows how to drive. All others are idiots. However, in her defense, I must say she is an excellent driver and is unfazed by even the most hazardous weather conditions. It took us well over an hour this morning to drive the 32 miles from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene. Interestingly, once we were back in Idaho conditions improved.