Ghost Hunters Always On

Every time I walk downstairs and past the room with the TV, I have to hear that blasted "Ghost Hunters" show. My wife is a big fan.

A while ago she was in the kitchen and I walked in like normal and it scared her. Thanks to the idiotic "Ghost Hunters."

C'mon, there can't be that many ghosts, infesting everything and every place. If there's so many ghosts, how come I've never seen or heard any? Believe it or not, I'm a spiritually sensitive person, intuitive, all that.

These guys walk into any building and something makes a noise, the building settling or something, and they're going, "I just want to be close to you, could you make that noise again?" Always looking for that cause and effect, responsiveness and compliance.

Bah! Focus on the living. They're much more interesting.

The Palin/Sarkozy Summit

We need a summit meeting of Sarah Palin and President Sarkozy of France, since he's in the country.

They famously spoke on the phone in the heat of the 2008 campaign, which unfortunately for her turned out to be a faux Sarkozy playing a trick on her.

Now that the real thing is there, maybe they could get together and he could tell her what a gorgeous woman she is, etc.

(I know, true beauty depends on inner beauty, and Sarah Palin in that department is putrid.)

I Have Way Too Many Possessions

Now that I'm moving, getting boxes packed, and it seems like an endless process, I've made a resolution, that I will thin down in the years to come as far as my possessions go. That is my vow.

As it is now, I'm thinning out. I probably have 40 boxes of books and other stuff that I'm going to be getting rid of. And I know I have more to go. The problem is there aren't enough thrift shops to get rid of it all, assuming they have an upper limit of what they will accept. I don't know. I feel embarrassed to show up with a ton of stuff.

Some of it I hope to sell. Not really for the sake of the money. But for the sake of someone else hauling it out of my house. That'd be worth money to me right there, and if I can get them to pay me a pittance for the stuff, so much the better. I'm not pricing it anywhere what it's "book value" would be, because I need to get rid of it.

And the stuff I'm packing and taking with me, like I said, I vow to get rid of much of it in the years to come. Bit by bit. I hope I can be frugal about buying more stuff. How much happier and lighter I would surely be if I didn't have the albatross of a stuffed moving van around my neck all the time. And I'm not happier for having a million different things.

You could really get injured moving boxes of books and records and things around. My back hurts, I'm tired, my hands are sore from grasping the handles on boxes, and I'm saying Never again. Some higher power will help my in the future to thin down ... or my name isn't D.B. Kundalini!

When it comes to possessions, I don't know who's possessing whom?

Nature Abhors A Vacuum

And I'm not too crazy about them either.

Crummy vacuum cleaners that break down and stay behind forever as a corpse. I have one in my basement, which I'm presently cleaning out.

I was down there for some hours today. I have managed to scratch the surface and actually go beyond that.

Among the junk is an old vacuum cleaner that quit working within the last couple of years. Now I have to make some kind of arrangement for disposing of it. It's not obvious how you're expected to get rid of stuff in our town.

I have a guy, though, who's going to help me on Friday.

Tea Party Activists On The Public Dole

Good grief, live up to your principles!

LOL, don't rail against the government and health care reform while taking federal disability checks!

Either you're for these benefits or against them. If you're against them, frankly it doesn't look good for you to take them.

The Past Catches Up With The Pope

The graphic is via the Huffington Post linked to an article at the NY Times. It concerns everyone's least favorite pope, Pope Benedict, not exactly a model of righteousness.

This is serious stuff. The pope, before he was pope, has a record of ignoring sexual abuse cases, of protecting and accommodating predators. It's disgusting, disgusting stuff. And there he still sits!

That headline's a real indictment. "NO ONE WOULD LISTEN. Deaf Boys Tried For Decades To Tell Of Priest's Sexual Abuse." If he had heard even a peep about a priest (or anyone) sexually abusing children, that should've been the end of that guy's career, assuming the facts checked out. The article mentions 200 boys, so that sounds like more than a peep.

There's a chilling photo at this link, showing an old picture (1960) of one of the main perps in this Wisconsin case. There he is with his hands piously together while boys are lined up below. You have to wonder what's going through everyone's mind in that photo. I bet it wasn't good.

The future pope, Joseph Ratzinger, had something to do with this guy's case ... and essentially nothing happened. The guy shouldn't be pope. That much is clear.

Did John Edwards Burn Down A Courthouse?

Here's one I wasn't expecting, which in my mind raises more questions than can be answered presently. But we can make some very good educated guesses!

The short story is that a courthouse in North Carolina, the very courthouse where they were keeping the John Edwards sex tape, was destroyed by fire. Officials aren't saying for sure what might have happened, but they're checking John Edwards for signs of smoke odor. And match DNA on his fingers. If they make a match they'll find out where the match was. In his hot little hand!

The speculation here -- my own -- is that something terrible happened. My own suspicion, and I have no more facts at my disposal, is that Edwards probably had something to do with it. That there's something on that sex tape, if nothing more than the sex act itself, that he doesn't want us to see. But is he willing to burn down an entire courthouse? My guess is an unqualified yes.

One, simply to burn the office where the tape was kept would be too obvious. As it is, though, the drastic measures he must have taken -- torching the whole place -- is also very obvious. He might be thinking he'll get off on account of reverse psychology, that since it's so obvious he did it we won't believe it to be true. There is something to that. Because even though I'm certain he did it, I still have to wonder, Did he really?

Did he really? That's the question. Would it be worth it to him to burn down a courthouse to destroy one sex tape? Because there's probably nothing on the sex tape that we haven't all seen a million times. Body parts are interchangeable. Just because they're his in this instance doesn't make them unique. The whole thing is ho-hum. Really, sex is the same as shaking hands, you're just using different organs to get the job done. Whether it's John Edwards or Hugh Hefner, what's the big deal?

The fact is, John Edwards better pray that that courthouse had insurance, or he's going to be out a hefty fine. Plus, no one likes a firebug.

UPDATE: Thankfully the tape survived, despite Edwards' best efforts. But even if it hadn't, we can all guess what it showed. The actual tape can't be any worse than our imagination, in which we can picture the scene in its entirety, from its tentative beginning to the satisfied collapse at the end.

President Obama At The Bookstore

Wow, this is cool. The president at a bookstore in Iowa City. I love to see this. It's fun to watch it.

How interesting that he'd buy books by Mitt Romney and Karl Rove. I personally would not do that but he's in a position where that might come in handy down the road.

Another Crazy Senate Rule

Now the Republicans are obstructing the work of the Senate through exercising a little known rule that no committee can meet after 2:00 p.m. without a specific daily vote to dispense with the rule.

Leading me to cry once again, "Arrrrgggggghhhhh!"

How many more poison pills are there hidden in the Senate's rule book to keep things from happening there? The Senate has to be the most ridiculous institution I've ever heard of.

And why weren't the Democrats gumming up the works when the Republicans were in charge? It seemed to be hitting on all cylinders in those days.

When Will The Republicans "Get It"?

Is this really tough stuff to get? The idea that statesmanship is still possible in this country, and desirable.

There's no reason to be such enemies that we have to have death threats, cut gas lines, children being targeted, and all the other outrageous things that the Tea Party activists, mostly aligned with the Republicans, have been doing.

John Boehner just the other day suggested that a particular Democratic congressman wouldn't be able to go back to his district or he'd be "a dead man." That kind of language is the same as inciting violence. And at Boehner's level of power and responsibility, you'd think he'd know better.

We need to get back the concept of "the loyal opposition," where we accept that we're all Americans with different opinions in some cases, but that shouldn't mean we're trying to kill one another. Good grief, have the Republicans so lost their moral compass that they can't get this simple, basic truth?

Remember, they used to be called the party of law and order! Those were the days!

If this other thing, the way of violence and hatred, is what they've decided to carve out for themselves, then they need to be dealt with through the law and prosecuted. Make an example of a few of them, and perhaps the others will finally get the message.

The Differences Between Democrats And Republicans

In the whole health care reform debate and the way it's worked out, we've clearly seen the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats are the ones who want decent, responsible social progress and well-being. Republicans are the ones who are content to fatten the fat cats and deny Americans the things of basic well-being.

It is a disgusting picture, but thankfully they've made it all so obvious to us. Anyone looking can see those who are looking forward, trying to make the country better, trying to include more people in America's blessings. Then there's the Republicans, whose mantra of "No" tells their side of the story.

It was a proud moment to see the President today and all the others, bringing this progress to our country, to so many who've been kicked down so many times. It would've been better, in my opinion, if some of the Republicans would've had the decency to show up and join in the celebration. But they made their bed and have chosen to lie in it.

One side is responsible, the Democrats. The other side refuses to rise above the level of social vandalism. One side holds out a promise to all people. The other has nothing but catcalls, ethnic slurs, idiotic signs, and spitting on their fellow Americans.

I don't believe America supports the Republicans' despicable vision of the way things should be. We want progress and decency instead.

Obama To Sign HCR Bill Tuesday Morning

That dirty fascist. How totalitarian of him. Baby killer.

LOL.

It's A Happy Day

I'm happy that the House of Representatives did the right thing and passed health care reform. Now they have some tinkering to do with it in the Senate, but even if they don't get that right, we still got something definite.

Big marks for President Barack Obama, who succeeded in getting this accomplished for the American people! It was great to hear the Democrats chanting "Yes We Can," reminding us that we can make good progress in this country.

It's just a pity that the Republicans time and time again have to put themselves on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of right. Fortunately, with the removal of pre-existing conditions clauses, maybe we'll at long last find a cure for the missing chromosome. Some of the Republican hayseeds in Congress -- the ones with the more snake-like look -- look like they might be able to take advantage of this chromosome therapy, if indeed that's what the problem is.

I missed Boehner's speech -- drat. I went upstairs to do something, can't remember what. The announcer was saying he might go on to the middle of the night, which I wasn't hoping for. So I wasn't gone very long and by the time I got back, he was done.

I saw a snippet of his insane remarks on the internet today. It's really giving me pause, the whole idea that our elected officials can be such baldfaced liars, and get away with it. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, "No you can't!!!!!!" or some such idiocy. The man has to be a deeply unhappy person. Or maybe a better word would be a Republican favorite, "flawed." He's a deeply flawed person. Where do we get these nitwits?

Anyway, it's a very very happy day. One, I can't stand the Republicans. Even when they win they're still losers. How much better when they simply lose. Two, it's good to have progress in this country. The health care system we've all suffered under has been a global disgrace. To think a country this great would have a health care system this despicable, it boggles the mind.

Big kudos to our great president, Barack Obama, and the House leadership. And we hope we can have good things to say about our Senate leadership very very soon. Of course we'll never like some of them, like the execrable senator from Nebraska, Ben Nelson, and a few others.

OK, They're Going To Get It Done

I like the sound of things. It sounds and looks like the Democrats have the 216 (plus) votes to pass the health care bill.

I also like the sound of what that means for the future, that the Democrats will get the credit for actually getting something done that will do America some good. The Republicans, on the other hand, will get no credit, only the blame for doing nothing and voting no.

It's a terrible scene, what the Republicans have encouraged in all these Tea Party wackos, where every third person to them is Hitler, LOL, or someone out to end their "way of life." As to what "way of life" that is precisely, they seem fairly miserable, so maybe good riddance to it!

I'll tell you, if we end the "way of life" of pre-existing conditions, the "way of life" of being canceled when you get sick, the "way of life" of endless premium increases, and the "way of life" of no insurance and people dying early because of it ... then certainly good riddance to it!

This stuff ought to be a no-brainer. Except it was the Republicans who were the ones who had no brain. Maybe something in the bill will provide a way for them to get a brain transplant. We know they have a major pre-existing condition, since you'd like to have something to work with. But, hey, even Dr. Frankenstein had to start somewhere.

The rabble is threatening violence, they're calling out the N word, calling people faggots, and they've probably got the kerosene on their brooms by now. They want us to think they're the true American people. Ha, that's a laugh. If anything, they're traitors to this country. They don't embody our values and aren't seeking what the Constitution calls a "more perfect union."