Is Foaming at the Mouth a Symptom?

Our friends at worldnetdaily.com continue to propagate a particular extreme right-wing ideology that promotes end time beliefs, jingoism, racism, and over the counter pills to combat the maladies of old age. When you peruse their various entries or links, it is often self-parodying. The headlines appear to be written by some born again P.T. Barnum. "The World May End Tomorrow! "Still Time to Join WND's Next Caribbean Adventure"

This one caught my attention:

"Liberals Clinically Mad, Concludes Top Psychiatrist"
Eminent doctor makes case leftist ideology is a mental disorder

Dr. Lye Rossiter asserts, "a social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do."

Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:

-creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;

YES, I HAVE BEEN VICTIMIZED BY EIGHT YEARS OF INCOMPETENCE, POLITICAL EXTREMISM, FAILED POLICIES, AND ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR. NO WONDER I FEEL A TAD BIT LIKE A VICTIM.

-satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;

YES, THERE HAS BEEN A CONTINUING PERIOD OF ENTITLEMENT AND INDULGENCE. THE TOP 1% OF THIS COUNTRY'S EARNERS OWN 33.4% OF ALL THE WEALTH. THE TOP 10% OWN NEARLY 70% OF THE OVERALL WEALTH AND NOT SURPRISINGLY, THE LOWEST 50% OWN ONLY 5%. THE GAP BETWEEN THE WEALTHY AND THE POOR ONLY HAS INCREASED DURING THE EIGHT YEARS OF BUSH ECONOMICS. THIS PERIOD OF GROWING DISPARITY BREEDS A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT AND INDULGENCE AMONG THOSE WHO CONTROL THE WEALTH IN THIS COUNTRY. AS A LIBERAL MY ONLY RECOURSE IS TO RESORT TO INFANTILE BEHAVIOR-SUCKING MY THUMB.

-augmenting primitive feelings of envy;

AS A CARD CARRYING MEMBER OF THE POLITICALLY INSANE, I MUST ADMIT THERE ARE TIMES I AM A BIT ENVIOUS. NOT OF THOSE WHO HAVE LOST MILLIONS OR BILLIONS DURING THE WALL STREET MELT DOWN. I AM STILL RESENTFUL THAT WE SQUANDERED ALL THE GOOD WILL AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT AFTER 9-11.

-rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.

DR. LYLE HELP ME! OR MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TO HELP YOURSELF. I HAVEN'T REJECTED THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. MY GOV'T. HAS TAKEN THAT AWAY BY PASSING THE PATRIOT ACT AND BY IMPLEMENTING INDISCRIMINATE EAVESDROPPING OF AVERAGE CITIZENS' PRIVATE PHONE CALLS. USING THE FEAR OF "THE OTHER," THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS STRIPPED AWAY MANY OF MY CONSTITUTIONAL FREEDOMS. YES, I AM MAD AND INCREASINGLY PARANOID BUT THAT IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF MADNESS THAT THE GOOD DOCTOR NEEDS TO ADDRESS IN HIS NEXT TREATISE.

Dr. Rossiter concludes his very cogent argument with, "the roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,"

I guess other than a few crazies who read and digest worldnetdaily as gospel, the 53% of the electorate who voted for Obama are insane. That translates to about 66.7 million voters who may be foaming at the mouth.

Pretty Classy Faux News

I really don't believe in kicking a horse when it is down. The revelations about Sarah Palin's over the top shopping and general lack of knowledge about NAFTA and world geography just makes me wonder about Little Johnny Be Good's lack of judgement. Why in the world did he pick her as a running mate?

I wanted to share little snippet from our friends at Faux News. Only two days after a milestone election, they can't help themselves.



No grace period for Obama. Let's once again attack Obama using the Rovian, Schmidt, Atwater guilt by association technique. I know its a stretch, but if your only talking heads are Freddy Barnes and Sean Hannity, video snippets are probably the best Faux News can do right now!

There Will be Long Lines at Staples Too!

Yes, this is the day that we have been waiting for a looooong time. Election officials expect 80% of eligible votes to exercise their right to cast ballots today. There will be long lines at many polling places. It may be a bit frustrating.

Just remember, there will be another long line tomorrow waiting for Staples to open up in the Washington DC area. Middle level Republican hires in key Bush administrative posts will be buying extra paper shredders There will be lots of paper to shred before Obama's team takes over. Its one thing to to be a true believer in Bush's failed Presidency. You just don't want to get indicted for it!

Republican Sour Grapes

Although Johnny B. McCain charged in the final presidential debate that ACORN's voter-registration drive "may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history" and may be "destroying the fabric of democracy," I keep waiting for the next shoe to drop. Where are the examples of voter fraud that are destroying American democracy? Other than a few right wing bloggers known for wearing tin foil under their baseball caps, the mainstream press has not found any systematic examples of voter fraud affecting the outcome of the elections. By now you would think that a few of the talking heads for Little Johnny would be on Faux News screaming about the rampant voter fraud they have found. So far, the silence is deafening.

As I wrote in this blog previously, sloppy voter registration tactics do not lead to voter fraud. It takes a very sophisticated and diabolical plan to create large numbers of fictitious registrations that would translate into individuals voting using those fake personas. The attacks on ACORN and the brouhaha about alleged voter fraud are just another set of earworms packaged by the Republican operatives to resonant with many of our deeply rooted prejudices. The poor, the dispossessed, the ignorant and other Democrats who live off of federal handouts are stealing the election!

And now, this is the new iterative of the earworms that we will hear from the right wing pundits and Republican congressional leaders after Nov. 4th.



It’s OK to submit an absentee ballot if you have a legitimate excuse. However, early voting encourages more of the poor, the dispossessed, the ignorant and other Democrats who live off of federal handouts to participate in the process. This is not for good democracy or Republicans. I would not be surprised some of the more crazy right wing nuts go further and assert that only white males landowners are truly qualified to vote. Wasn’t that the original intent of the authors' of the Constitution?

It is still insane that we hold election days on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. We should have elections, as do many of the European countries, over the course of a weekend to ensure everyone can get to the polls.

Just wait. The perils of early voting will soon be the cause celebre’ on Hannity and Colmes, talk radio and post mortem blogging after November 4th.

Predictions for Nov. 4th Elections

Fatboy Tom Predicts:

Obama will win 53% of the popular vote and 338 electoral votes.

The Democrats will win 20 Senate seats including North Carolina, Alaska, and Minnesota giving them a majority of 58.

The Democrats will win 248 seats in the House of Representatives.

The New Right Wing Wing Nut Narrative

From the Rush Limbaugh Radio Program: "We know that technological advancement is going along at light speed. And yet during this period of time, whether it be the last 57 years or be it the last 20 years, it seems that a majority of the black population has remained angry, frustrated, and behind. They've been left behind. They are acting like they've been left behind, and of course we've heard that this is because of racism, natural systemic institutional racism in America, that we are unfair, that this country is just horrible and rotten.
...The federal government became the father. The father didn't have to hang around in order for the kids to be okay, depending on how you define okay. But as you study more and more of this ACORN stuff, you find that it has been part of an entire movement that has been going on for two, maybe three decades, right under our noses.

We thought that it was just liberal welfare policies and all that that kept blacks from progressing while other minorities grew and prospered, but no, it is these wackos from Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright to other anti-American Afrocentric black liberation theologists with ACORN, and Barack Obama is smack dab in the middle of it, they have been training young black kids to hate, hate, hate this country, and they trained their parents before that to hate, hate, hate this country. It was a movement. It was a Bill Ayers, anti-capitalist, anti-American educational movement. ACORN is how it was implemented, right under our noses. It has been a movement, it has been a religion, and Obama and Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers were all up to their big ears in it."

I'm surprised that he didn't throw in Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton.

The other narrative in attempt to rationalize the failure of unbridled, unregulated economics is also emerging. You hear bits and pieces in various right wing sound bites. When confronted with a reality that is diametrically different that one's belief system, one must find someone to blame, particularly someone who one does not like very much. It is also very convenient to find a culprit who may reinforce your most negative prejudices. Grandson of Atwater and son of Rove.

Here goes.....

The failure of the credit markets, investment banks and insurance companies is due to the Democrats forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to offer mortgages to poor black people who defaulted. Additionally, the Community Reinvestment Act jammed through Congress again by Democrats required commercial lenders and banks to make bad loans to inner cities businesses and residents that also failed. It all started with Clinton and ends at Obama's doorstep. It really isn't important to remind folks that over 85% of sub prime mortgages that defaulted were offered by commercial lenders and not Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

The other parallel narrative among the blind and stupid neanderthals is that ACORN has registered so many illegal aliens, phantom voters and comic book characters that this will ensure an Obama victory in all the key battleground states. Not surprisingly those corrupting the sanctity of the vote are poor and black.

Voter registration fraud does not translate to voting fraud. Just because someone turns in a list of new voter registrations with Mickey Mouse as one does not mean that someone claiming to be Mickey Mouse can actually go into a voting booth and vote.

Faux News, talk radio and even representatives of the McCain campaign have used pieces of these two narratives to rally the base in the Republican Party. Stupid is as Stupid does.

Tuck-Pointing Makes for Lasting Relationships

Last weekend at a community event, a neighbor asked me “What the heck are you doing to your house? There is yellow scaffolding in the front." I paused for a moment before answering. I thought why is there scaffolding in front of my house? It took a moment to remember that members of our tuck-pointing family came by a few weeks to continue tuck-pointing our house. The scaffolding has been there for a couple of weeks and will remain there until who knows, Christmas?

I am very accustom to having scaffolding, bricks, ladders, mortar and other utensils of the bricklayer’s trade stacked in our basement, alongside our house or taking up most of the front façade. Living in a brick house that was originally built in 1896 has many interesting features and challenges. One is that, as with all old houses, it is a money pit, we are constantly remodeling, fixing, or changing something.

Old brick houses built on hillsides have their own special challenges. First, they are slowly falling down the hill. Gravity over time does funny things to anything built on a slope. Second, the mortar that holds the bricks together slowly disappears. This was very apparent when we bought our house in 1999. The house had many broken bricks and major gaps between the bricks where the mortar once lived. We were determined to find someone who knew how to repair masonry.

Being new homeowners of a brick money pit, we had no idea how expensive it is to find someone or someone(s) proficient at bricklaying or tuck-pointing. We called a few companies and soon realized that if my wife and I cashed in our annuity and took evening jobs, we then may be able to afford someone to repair our house. Ladies and gentlemen, the cost of tuck-pointing could bankrupt Bears Stearns!

We were at an impasse until another neighbor told us about a couple of masons who work for a company but do some tuck-pointing on weekends for extra cash. My wife gave them a call. They promptly came over and gave us a bid to repair the most damaged and exposed brick wall on the west side of the house. The only caveat is that they work on weekends when they have some free time. At the time it seemed like the best possible plan of action. We didn’t need to cash in our annuity nor did I have to don a Wal-Mart vest to greet people.

This is where our tuck-pointing journey began. Our tuck-pointers did a great job. They replaced bricks, sealed various cracks and replaced mortar on the most damaged part of our house. Normally they would arrive about 8:30 AM on a Saturday. We would invite them in for coffee and some danish. They would work a few hours and leave for day. They would also eat my wife’s wonderful chocolate chip cookies during their mid morning breaks. It was a good relationship.

Not surprisingly, we got know the tuck-pointers as we moved from the west side of the house, to the south side and finally to the east side. We learned about their families, their health issues, their various ups and downs. We sold them a car, exchanged Christmas gifts and went to UC football games together. When they had time, they came to work. When we had some extra money, we paid them.

The special part of our relationship with our tuck-pointers is that we never know exactly when they will appear. They may stay away for a couple of months but suddenly appear on a sunny Saturday. We only have the front north façade of our house to complete. In many ways it is the most tedious and complicated due to the masonry features and brick front porch.

Somehow the intermittent Saturdays evolved into intermittent months and finally to seasons. It was just part of any longstanding relationship based on mortar and sand.

To our surprise, our masonry friends appeared at our house a couple of Saturdays ago bound and determined to finish their work. Naturally, we invited them in for breakfast and our normal chat. It was like the good old days. As a normal courtesy, I asked one of the tuck-pointers about his son who loved football. I remember that he played in a peewee league. Don, the tuck-pointer, responded, “He’s having a great year. He is the starting safety on his high school football team.” Jeff, the other partner in crime chimed in, “You know Tom, Don’s son is 6’3” and weighs 225 lbs.”

I had a moment of clarity at that point in the conversation. I soon realized that the tuck-pointers have been working on our house since Don’s son was 7 years old. He now is 16 and soon to graduate from high school!

It is increasingly apparent why I stumbled in responding to the neighbor’s inquiring about the scaffolding. My wife and I have become so inured to having masonry equipment stashed in or near our house. Over 9 years it has become invisible. Scaffolding? What scaffolding? It’s an extension of our home.

When we bought our Queen Anne Victorian, we were told, ”When you find good craftsmen, hold on to them. They are like gold.” Well, we did. We have traveled together through heart surgeries, AA meetings, carbon monoxide scares, and hundreds of chocolate chip cookies.

Perhaps they will complete tuck-pointing our house when Don’s son finishes college. Or maybe not.