Heartless Bastard Gets Heart

I need more information to properly evaluate this, but at a glance, if there are over 3,000 people waiting for a heart how do you give one to Dick Cheney? He says he's 71 but I have a feeling he's much older, like some of those Cuban baseball players who say they are 30 but are actually 50.

Plus Cheney is still having problems even though he's had surgery and God only knows what kind of blood changing voodoo he's gotten over in Switzerland. If Keith Richards is getting new blood, and Frank Sinatra was regularly injected with the blood of young boys to stay young, can you imagine what Cheney's been getting? He's probably eaten a few children along the way to survive.

Finally, and most obviously, why does Dick Cheney need a heart anyway? He's done fine so far without one.

Doctors say it is unlikely that former Vice President Dick Cheney, who is 71, got special treatment when he was given a new heart that thousands of younger people also were in line to receive.

Still, his case reopens debate about whether rules should be changed to favor youth over age in giving out scarce organs. As it stands now, time on the waiting list, medical need, and where you live determine the odds of receiving a new heart - not how many years you will live to make use of it.

“The ethical issues are not that he had a transplant, but who didn’t?’’ Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Health in La Jolla, Calif., wrote on Twitter.

Cheney received the transplant Saturday at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., the same place where he received an implanted heart pump that has kept him alive since July 2010. It appears he went on the transplant wait list about that time, 20 months ago.

He had severe congestive heart failure and had suffered five heart attacks over the past 25 years. Cheney has had countless procedures to keep him going - bypasses, artery-opening angioplasty, pacemakers, and surgery on his legs. Yet he must have had a healthy liver and kidneys to qualify for a new heart, doctors said.

“We have done several patients hovering around age 70’’ although that’s about “the upper limit’’ for a transplant, said Dr. Mariell Jessup, a University of Pennsylvania heart failure specialist and American Heart Association spokeswoman. “The fact he waited such a long time shows he didn’t get any favors.’’

Cheney, who was vice president to George W. Bush from 2001 until 2009, was recovering in the intensive care unit Sunday. As part of his recuperation, he will have to take daily medicines to prevent rejection of his new heart and go through rehabilitation to walk and return to normal living.

The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation said in 2006 that while patients recommended for a heart transplant should generally be 70 or younger, carefully selected patients older than 70 could be considered. In 2008, about 12 percent of heart transplant patients were 65 or older.

More than 3,100 Americans are waiting now for a new heart, and about 330 die each year before one becomes available. When one does, doctors check to see who is a good match and in highest medical need. The heart is offered locally, then regionally, and finally nationally until a match is made.

[boston.com]

America's Hidden Plea - "Keep It Shallow"

This really speaks for itself, but I'm wondering what is wrong with a few meaningless relationships? We all have them, right? The only stunning thing about the evolution of Facebook and our society is that we are now getting to the point where ALL relationships are meaningless.

Otherwise this is a great summary of everything that's worth hating about Facebook, and it will make absolutely no difference at all to anyone who's already on there. Facts don't matter. Neither does science or any goofy study.

People have an endless appetite for posting pictures of their cats playing with string, they don't know who their Congressman is, and as I'm sitting here sweating through March in the beautiful Northeastern United States Rick Santorum is calling global warming a liberal conspiracy. I did not know the liberals could do anything this effectively. Warming the entire Earth. My only question is, will the global warming slow down the zombie thing, or speed it up. Otherwise, power to the people!

Enjoy your day.

For the average narcissist, Facebook is tool that may promote anti-social behavior.

Facebook "offers a gateway for hundreds of shallow relationships and emotionally detached communication," according to study by Western Illinois University professor Christopher Carpenter.

The study was published this month in Personality and Individual Differences, the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences.

In the study, Carpenter defined narcissism as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance," according to a press release from the university.

Using a Narcissistic Personality Inventory, Carpenter and his students surveyed 292 people - most of whom were college students - to measure "self-promoting" Facebook behavior, such as people posting status updates, their photos, updating profile information; as well as "anti-social behaviors," including seeking social support more than providing it, getting angry when others do not comment on status updates and retaliating against negative comments.

People who score higher on the inventory promoted themselves more on Facebook - by tagging themselves and updating their newsfeeds more frequently, and by having more friends on Facebook, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.

The study concluded that grandiose exhibitionism correlated with anti-social behavior on Facebook. Self-esteem was negatively related to self-promotion and anti-social behaviors on the site.

"In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter," Carpenter said.

Social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter, have long been criticized for being vehicles for meaningless relationships, and have recently been mentioned in connection with making bullying easier and more pervasive.

[ABC News]

My Way Of Life Is Over, On To The Void

When I was a child, before I went to sea, a man came to our door and sold me dad an encyclopedia. That's how we learned. Book reports. And the Encyclopedia. Honestly my dad could not afford the Brittanica, which was the really good one, so we got the Encyclopedia Americana. My neighbors upstairs had the Brittanica, and I always borrowed it to ace what I wanted to. And the difference today is the quality of the contributors? Duh-hey! What?

So now it's all online. I'm sure these kids today will turn out smarter. Right?

The end of serendipity, as we know it.

Leafing through the world's knowledge, alphabetically, will become am obsolete tradition. The oldest English-language general encyclopedia -- according to, of course, the Encyclopædia Britannica -- will abandon foolscap once and for all.

"For 244 years, the thick volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica have stood on the shelves of homes, libraries, and businesses everywhere, a source of enlightenment as well as comfort to their owners and users around the world," reports its blog. "Today we've announced that we will discontinue the 32-volume printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica when our current inventory is gone." That inventory includes 4,000 in its warehouse -- about 8,000 sets have been sold at $1,395 a pop. (Seven million sets have been published in its storied history.)

Digital afterlife

While the move is acknowledged as "momentous," the blog also points out that the Britannica already has a digital presence. Also, those weighty printed sets (the New York Times measures the 32-volume set at 129 pounds) only account for less than 1 percent of the company's sales.

Then again, a Britannica Online subscription costs $70 a year or $1.99 per month for its app. (In honor of its print dissolution, the online service is free for one week.) That hasn't been an easy sell in the days of search engines and Wikipedia. Still, the company plans to polish up its digital offerings and even add "social connections," according to CNN Money.

What distinguishes Britannica from its Wiki-counterparts has been its expertise: Contributors have included the likes of Sigmund Freud and Marie Curie to Bill Clinton and Tony Hawk. What Wiki might lack in quality, it atones for in quantity: The Guardian reports that Wikipedia English brims with 3.9 million articles, while Britannica has 120,000.

Encyclopedic mourning

Wordsmiths twit-mourned this shift in encyclopedic erudition.

"NCTCopyDesk is in mourning. Unbelievable! RT @cnnbrk Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing. on.cnn.com/x3tZXw." Some reminisced about their childhood education through its tomes: "My family's used set got me through 12+ years of school :( >> Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books zite.to/x79v0w

Others lashed out, looking to cast blame for its demise. "Wikipedia and the Internet just killed 244-year-old Encyclopaedia Britannica tnw.to/1DeWE by @thatdrew." Another noted, "Blaming 'modern bloody wogs and mau-maus' Encyclopaedia Britannica ends print edition. FT:ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7…"

[yahoo! news]

Impose Your Will On The World

First downer is how successful this guy is. Santorum is winning primaries left and right. Granted he is running against Romney, a clueless rich boob who can't get out of his own way, but still, he is WINNING. Just the other day he called global warming a liberal conspiracy. I read a study that said over 3 million people in the U.S. live in areas that will be "inundated" with water someday soon. They see it happening, but they can't give you an exact date. Would President Santorum blame the liberals as the sea comes crashing through Florida, turning Miami into a modern day Atlantis? We will have to wait and see.

In addition to the arrogance reflected here, the guy is also just flat out wrong. There is no federal law requiring a state to declare English as their official language. It occurs to me that I've written about this combination of arrogance and ignorance before. About Donald Trump! Republicans seem to love this combo. It might make a great new word for the dictionary. Ignogance. I'm going to submit it to Webster's today.

The writer makes an excellent point about Santorum doing this deliberately. It's hard to imagine waves of Puerto Ricans coming out to vote for Santorum. But telling the Puerto Ricans to get in line and speak English will play well with Santorum's core supporters who love his ignogant stand on the issues. If I were listening to this I would have asked Santorum to extend his position to its logical conclusion. Why stop at Puerto Rico? Maybe the French would give up their language so France could become a state? That may solve their problems once and for all. And they wouldn't be able to prattle on about "stupid Americans" anymore because they would be....Americans! If we made this option available I bet half the world would take us up on it. Santorum may be able to use English to succeed where aspiring world conquerors from Alexander the Great to Napoleon have failed. We may need another title beyond PRESIDENT to address him. All hail Santorum!

Campaigning in Puerto Rico, Rick Santorum doesn't show any signs that he wants to pander Wednesday, telling voters (erroneously) that they must declare English their only official language to achieve statehood.

You'd think Santorum would want to butter up Puerto Ricans a bit more deftly, given the fact that Mitt Romney's victories in American Samoa and Hawaii last night actually won him more delegates than Santorum grabbed with his Alabama and Mississippi wins. Yet according to Reuters, Santorum told El Vocero, a local newspaper, "Like any other state, there has to be compliance with this and any other federal law ... And that is that English has to be the principal language. There are other states with more than one language such as Hawaii but to be a state of the United States, English has to be the principal language."

As Reuters helpfully points out, there actually isn't a federal law mandating English as the national language, though some states have chosen to pass one themselves. Putting aside the fact that Santorum made a mistake, he also seems rather unstrategic in a territory in which both English and Spanish are listed as official languages and where people are pretty attached to their Spanish-speaking heritage. Meanwhile, Romney, who's probably very aware the the territory has 20 delegates he can use for his growing lead, had a line we think Puerto Ricans will like a bit more, saying simply that he'd help them if they chose to pursue statehood. Santorum's "English as the national language" issue probably wasn't intended for Puerto Rican newspaper readers though, as it tends to play well among the more culturally conservative voters he's reaching for these days. It may have seemed like a gaffe, but maybe it was a strategic one -- or maybe he's already thinking ahead to the general election.

[the Atlantic Wire]

Shut Up Already

On the one hand, it's good that he's getting out of the apocalypse prediction business. I vowed to stop listening to him as soon as I heard him speak. On the other hand, since he's been wrong every time, maybe NOW there WILL be an apocalypse, or at least an apocalyptic event. Would it be too much to ask for a meteorite to strike just close enough to Harold Camping to startle him? I wouldn't want it to FLATTEN him, just humble him a little.

I'm still betting on talking dogs and zombies, plus whoever will collaborate with them. That seems to be the most likely scenario.

Preacher Harold Camping is leaving it to the Mayans. The 90-year-old head of Family Radio incorrectly predicted the Rapture would take place on May 21, 2011, and when that didn't happen he aimed for Oct. 21, 2011, which also failed. "We have no new evidence pointing to another date for the end of the world," Camping said in a statement on the Family Radio website. His bad timing on the Rapture became a huge media event, mostly to mock him, but some of his followers quit their jobs and donated their life savings ahead of the event. Camping said he has sinned by promoting May 21 as Judgment Day and says he has no plans to ever predict the date again.

[msn.com]

Genius Is Its Own Reward

I was away at sea for awhile and just got back. I was tuned in to the stock market channel and the pundits were saying that Apple stock was cheap and could go as high as $1,000 a share. So the first thing is that nobody in the financial community cares about any of this awful news coming out of China. Neither do the Apple stockholders. I would say the users of these products don't care either. It would be great if there was a new "app" that would subject iPad users to searing pain periodically so they would have some inkling of what goes into making these important gadgets that are ruining our society.

These are not petty allegations. Children forced to spray screens with neurotoxins. If you're hand gets crushed they fire you. If you complain you are blacklisted.

The other great thing about this is that apparently it will not put a dent in Steve Jobs' reputation as a genius. Is it genius to generate huge profit margins by using child labor? If Apple made its products outside of China and they made less money would Steve Jobs still be a genius? Could Apple squeak by on a little less money? All depends on who you ask. If you ask ME, I'd say using child labor is a crime. If you ask your broker, he'd probably say "buy Apple you dunce." This is part of why I'm not rich.

In addition to "genius is its own reward" I'm reminded of the great quote by Balzac.

"Behind every great fortune is a crime."

I'm sponsoring another contest. Send in an example of someone who has amassed a great fortune without at least touching on criminal activity, in their own work or in the manufacturing or sales process.

If this goes anything like my other contests I don't think I have to name a prize, because nobody ever sends in an entry, which is a DOWNER for me, on top of the downer lifestyle these workers are subjected to. Today is a double downer to make up for my time off at sea. Enjoy!

We love our iPhones and iPads.

We love the prices of our iPhones and iPads.

We love the super-high profit margins of Apple, Inc., the maker of our iPhones and iPads.

And that's why it's disconcerting to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads — and the super-high profit margins of Apple — are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.

And it's also disconcerting to realize that the folks who make our iPhones and iPads not only don't have iPhones and iPads (because they can't afford them), but, in some cases, have never even seen them.

This is a complex issue. But it's also an important one. And it's only going to get more important as the world's economies continue to become more intertwined.

Last week, PRI's "This American Life" did a special on Apple's manufacturing. The show featured (among others) the reporting of Mike Daisey, the man who does the one-man stage show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," and The NYT's Nicholas Kristof, whose wife's family is from China.

You can read a transcript of the whole show here. Here are some details:

The Chinese city of Shenzhen is where most of our "crap" is made. 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a little village on a river. Now it's a city of 13 million people — bigger than New York.

Foxconn, one of the companies that builds iPhones and iPads (and products for many other electronics companies), has a factory in Shenzhen that employs 430,000 people.

There are 20 cafeterias at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant. They each serve 10,000 people.

One Foxconn worker Mike Daisey interviewed, outside factory gates manned by guards with guns, was a 13-year old girl. She polished the glass of thousands of new iPhones a day.

The 13-year old said Foxconn doesn't really check ages. There are on-site inspections, from time to time, but Foxconn always knows when they're happening. And before the inspectors arrive, Foxconn just replaces the young-looking workers with older ones.

In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old (along with plenty of older ones). Daisey estimates that about 5% of the workers he talked to were underage.

Daisey assumes that Apple, obsessed as it is with details, must know this. Or, if they don't, it's because they don't want to know.

Daisey visits other Shenzhen factories, posing as a potential customer. He discovers that most of the factory floors are vast rooms filled with 20,000-30,000 workers apiece. The rooms are quiet: There's no machinery, and there's no talking allowed. When labor costs so little, there's no reason to build anything other than by hand.

A Chinese working "hour" is 60 minutes — unlike an American "hour," which generally includes breaks for Facebook, the bathroom, a phone call, and some conversation. The official work day in China is 8 hours long, but the standard shift is 12 hours. Generally, these shifts extend to 14-16 hours, especially when there's a hot new gadget to build. While Daisey is in Shenzhen, a Foxconn worker dies after working a 34-hour shift.

Assembly lines can only move as fast as their slowest worker, so all the workers are watched (with cameras). Most people stand.

The workers stay in dormitories. In a 12-by-12 cement cube of a room, Daisey counts 15 beds, stacked like drawers up to the ceiling. Normal-sized Americans would not fit in them.

Unions are illegal in China. Anyone found trying to unionize is sent to prison.

Daisey interviews dozens of (former) workers who are secretly supporting a union. One group talked about using "hexane," an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.

Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned.

One former worker had asked her company to pay her overtime, and when her company refused, she went to the labor board. The labor board put her on a black list that was circulated to every company in the area. The workers on the black list are branded "troublemakers" and companies won't hire them.

One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him. (Fortunately, the man was able to get a new job, at a wood-working plant. The hours are much better there, he says — only 70 hours a week).

The man, by the way, made the metal casings of iPads at Foxconn. Daisey showed him his iPad. The man had never seen one before. He held it and played with it. He said it was "magic."

[yahoo! finance]

Sad But True

I love when a "study" comes out that confirms what everybody with eyes can see in a heartbeat. Wealthy people have no ethics or scruples to match their greed. People who drive expensive cars are the most arrogant pricks on the road. Large sums of money give people feelings of greater entitlement. Earth shattering.

My favorite part is the end here, where it says they can't figure out if being wealthy brings this bad behavior to the fore, or if people become wealthy because they are miserable bastards without any regard for others to begin with. Kind of a "chicken or the egg" argument.

Conclusion? It seems like a vicious cycle.

No shit.

At last, an explanation for Wall Street's disgrace, Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme and other high-society crimes and misdemeanors: A new study published in the Proceedings of that National Academy of Sciences found that wealthier people were more apt to behave unethically than those who had less money.

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley analyzed a person's rank in society (measured by wealth, occupational prestige and education) and found that those who were richer were more likely to cheat, lie and break the law than those who were poorer.

"We found that it is much more prevalent for people in the higher ranks of society to see greed and self-interest … as good pursuits," said Paul Piff, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate at Berkeley. "This resonates with a lot of current events these days."

In the first of two studies, researchers found that those who drove more expensive cars (an admittedly questionable indicator of economic worth) were more likely to cut off other cars and pedestrians at a busy San Francisco four-way intersection than those who drove older, less-expensive vehicles.

In other experiments, wealthier study participants were more likely to admit they would behave unethically in a variety of situations and lie during negotiations. In another, researchers found wealthier people were more likely to cheat in an online game to win a $50 prize.

Greed is a "robust" determinant of unethical behavior, according to the study.

"This has some pretty clear implications," said Piff. "Inequality is very much on Americans' minds, and the potential effects of severe inequality on individual levels of behavior are major."

Large sums of money may give people greater feelings of entitlement, causing those people to be the most averse to wealth distribution, Piff continued. Poorer people may be less likely to cheat, because they are more dependent on their community at large, he said. In other words, they don't want to rock the boat.

"People in power who are more inclined to behave unethically in the service of gains and self-interest can have great effects on society as a whole," said Piff.

And it's difficult to say whether richer people get to the top because of their unethical behavior or whether wealth causes people to become this way. "It seems like a vicious cycle," he said.

[ABC News]

Fun For The Whole Family

I often read about videos gone "viral" and this is one of the best ones I've ever seen. The headline of this article says "DERANGED MAN GETS SHOWERED WITH PEPPER SPRAY AT DISNEYLAND." Sometimes when people describe videos as "viral" I think that means people aren't really watching what is going on.

If you click the link at the bottom you can go to the page and watch the four minute video yourself. A few observations. At the beginning, the guy punches a security guard of some type so I can't criticize the initial hit of pepper spray. What is up with that white fedora-type hat? Is this what security guards wear? It looks odd to me, and maybe the "deranged" guy thought he was talking to a Disney character of some kind rather than a security guard.

Next you can see the guy is laying on the ground, helpless, and the guy in the white hat continues to pepper spray him anyway. He seems to really be enjoying it! Then the guy gets up and he's just wiping his eyes and otherwise recovering. The white hat guy is directing him to sit down and the guy is just standing there. Then the white hat guy pepper sprays him again! HE'S JUST STANDING THERE. What was that saying, "sticks and stones can break my bones...?" The guy was just TALKING and he gets another blast in the face. Seems excessive, and this sets the guy off all over again.

Finally when the white hat guy knocks him down, THEN the bystanders get courageous and join in pummeling the guy, no doubt anticipating some Disney driven reward for helping out. Even though this is happening at Disney World, there are no kids to be seen, only young slackers who can stand around goofing on the guy instead of having real jobs or doing anything useful with their lives. Despite the absence of children, you can hear a woman on there shrieking about children being around. SHE should've been pepper sprayed as well, just to shut her up.

All in all a powerful statement on where we are as a nation today. A drunken pepper sprayed mess, rolling around on the ground while being ridiculed by unemployed bystanders and screaming moms.

A 53-year-old man went berserk outside the Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim this past weekend and repeatedly got pepper-sprayed, temporarily providing an attraction called, "What Happens When You Get Drunk at Disneyland and Throw Punches at Security." The four-minute video shows a pretty pathetic scene that includes commentary from one guy who speculates on the man's drink of choice, and a loud woman who lays on some thick moral outrage. "There are kids here," she yells. "Does this guy not get that? You’re in Disneyland!" Surprisingly self-aware, Glenn Horlacher, the man who's been booked for assault and battery, shouts, "I know where I am at!"

[New York Magazine]

More Adventures In Idiocy

Saw this on Fox Sports. Kite surfing is a sport now? I put it up there with bungee jumping. I suppose real life lacks excitement for some people. It's funny to read something like this and think about whether the person would've been better off doing some binge drinking? Plus what if this idiot crashed through a window and hurt someone? How is this legal?

I'm sure the police were "complaining of pain" as well. As in "pain in the ass." Thank God the building wasn't hurt.

A kite surfer was hospitalized Sunday after losing control in the air and colliding with a building in Palm Beach, Fla.

The surfer, who has not been identified, was swept into the lakeside one-story building as strong winds gusting as high as 31 mph buffeted the area, The Palm Beach Post reported.

A West Palm Beach police spokeswoman said the surfer was taken to nearby St. Mary's Medical Center after complaining of pain.

There was no damage to the building, the spokeswoman added.

[foxsports.com]

Truth In Advertising

I usually stay away from stories involving actual illness and death, but this one was too good to let go. Usually the problem is that advertising is all about lying, misleading people, and creating fear. This advertising is none of the above. Says "Heart Attack Grill" and the guy had a frigging heart attack. This is actually brilliant - you can't even sue. They are flat out saying what they serve is bad for you. If you're dumb enough to eat it, you're dumb enough to keel over and die. Figures that in America this place would be a big success.

It really fits with Vegas because it's all about excess, but I've never associated Vegas with GLUTTONY or overeating. Who goes to Vegas to do this? I haven't been there in awhile but I thought Vegas was all about other forms of overindulgence. Time for me to change my thinking. Again. God I'm tired.

LAS VEGAS - Laughing tourists were either cynical or confused about whether a man was really suffering a medical episode amid the "doctor," "nurses" and health warnings at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, a restaurant owner said Wednesday.

"It was no joke," said Jon Basso, who promotes himself "Doctor Jon," his scantily-clad waitresses as nurses and customers as patients.

Basso said he could tell right away the man in his 40s eating a Triple Bypass burger was having trouble. He was sweating, shaking and could barely talk.

Paramedics were called Saturday night, fire spokesman Tim Szymanski said, and the man was hospitalized. His name and information about his condition weren't made public.

Giggles can be heard on the soundtrack of amateur video showing the man on a stretcher being wheeled out of the restaurant where patrons pass an antique ambulance at the door and a sign: "Caution! This establishment is bad for your health."

Eaters are given surgical gowns as they choose from a calorically extravagant menu offering "Bypass" burgers, "Flatliner" fries, buttermilk shakes and free meals to folks over 350 pounds.

Basso said he hopes the man is OK, and added that he felt bad for him because tourists treated his misfortune like a joke.

"We would never pull a stunt like that," he said.

[Associated Press]

Less Is More, Except On This One Particular Issue

The funny part is reading about Romney changing his mind on an issue that is usually in the forefront of political debate. I guess he's forgotten about that close family relative who died. Maybe they weren't that close after all?

The downer part is that we have a group of politicians clamoring for "less government." They want the government out of our lives and off the backs of business. But here, when it comes to abortion, they want the government to tell you what to do.

You can almost hear the gears grinding in Romney's head. Santorum...winning...he is...pro-life...so I...must be...pro-life. For all the talk of progress in the world let's imagine which one of these guys could hold a candle to any of the Founding Fathers, in terms of ideals and political eloquence, if there is such a thing? Even the bad ones?

WASHINGTON — From the moment he left business for politics, the issue of abortion has bedeviled Mitt Romney.

In 1994, as a Senate candidate, he invoked the story of a “close family relative” who had died after an illegal abortion and insisted that abortion should be “safe and legal,” though he was personally opposed. In 2002, while running for governor of Massachusetts, he sought the endorsement of abortion rights advocates, promising to be “a good voice” among Republicans, one advocate said.

In 2005, Governor Romney shocked constituents by writing an opinion article in The Boston Globe that declared: “I am pro-life.” Running for president two years later, he struggled to explain that turnabout. “I never said I was pro-choice, but my position was effectively pro-choice,” Mr. Romney told George Stephanopoulos of ABC during a Republican debate. “I changed my position.”

Now, with the nation’s culture wars erupting anew, Mr. Romney has plunged headlong into abortion politics.

He tangled with President Obama last week over whether religiously affiliated hospitals should be required to provide free contraceptives — “abortive pills,” Mr. Romney called them. And when a breast cancer group pulled its financing from Planned Parenthood, Mr. Romney called on the federal government to follow suit, saying, “The idea that we’re subsidizing an institution that provides abortion, in my view, is wrong.”

The comments reflect Mr. Romney’s evolution from abortion rights advocate to abortion foe; gone was any trace of the candidate for governor who, 10 years ago, answered a Planned Parenthood questionnaire by saying he backed “state funding of abortion services” under Medicaid.

Today Mr. Romney is working hard to convince his party’s skeptical right wing that he is “adamantly pro-life,” especially in the wake of his embarrassing loss in three states last week to Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania and a stalwart of the anti-abortion movement. Yet the more Mr. Romney courts social conservatives, the more two of his Republican rivals, Mr. Santorum and Newt Gingrich, dredge up his past to attack him as a flip-flopper.

Meanwhile, Democrats and their allies are painting Republicans, including Mr. Romney, as “a radical bunch when it comes to women’s health” who are “going backward on birth control,” as Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in an interview last week. If that message sticks, it could hurt Mr. Romney with women and independents, a critical voting bloc in a general election.

[New York Times]

Litany Of Failure

I write these downers and this website is not that popular, which is a downer.

Donald Trump is talked to like he is a statesman, which is a downer, and he is still around on his own without Palin, which makes it double downer. Hilarious that Trump thinks his endorsement was the key factor in Romney's victory in Nevada, but somehow between Nevada and today the Trump magic wore off? Maybe someone should've asked Trump if it just took a little time for his endorsement to really hurt Romney? Listening to Trump talk about a role in the Romney administration is moving into new downer territory. That we live in a world where Trump talks this way without anyone slapping him and telling him to shut up. An epic vortex that will suck us all in.

Santorum won a few primaries. He believes climate change is a scheme concocted by the radical left to take over your life. In 2008 Santorum endorsed Romney. It's a downer, but for Santorum it's not that much of a downer even if he loses because he's making over a million dollars a year as a consultant for industry interest groups and corporate director fees. If he wins it's just gravy but probably a downer for the rest of us.

Romney lost but is still worth over $100 million. You can't really put "lost" and "worth over $100 million" in the same sentence now can you? If Romney is elected it may be a downer for the rest of us but you can't really call it a downer for Romney because he still has the $100 million. This is a super downer if you don't like Romney because he's impervious to your dislike. If he loses he's loaded and if he wins he's loaded and he gets to tell you what to do. If he lost he would probably be failing UP because he can make more money without anyone bugging him about ethics and taxes. Win win for Mitt and down down for me.

Before the results came in for Tuesday night’s sweeping victory for Rick Santorum, real estate mogul and reality television star Donald Trump did not give the former Pennsylvania senator much thought on his impact in the Republican field.

On Wednesday, Trump noted Santorum's last Senate race where he lost reelection by a wide margin, saying it was like failing a test and then applying to the Wharton School of Economics.

“I don’t get Rick Santorum,” Trump said on CNN’s Early Start. “I don’t get that whole thing.”

Before the Nevada primary, Trump came out in support of Mitt Romney, and has since taken credit for Romney’s showing in the Silver State. Although it is not as stunning as Herman Cain’s Department of Defense dreams, the Donald offered his own take on what role he would serve in a Romney administration.

“Maybe a position where I negotiate against some of these countries because they're really taking our lunch,” he said.

[National Journal]

We Are All Idiots And This Means You Too

Here are government officials, and every day they tell you about trimming the budget. Cutting costs. Laying people off. Ruining lives. But hey, wait a minute, the Giants won the Super Bowl! So now we have money for parades and all this crap. In addition to the Canyon of Heroes (and resulting overtime cleanup, which New Yorkers can afford, as long as they don't pay for schools) there will be ANOTHER party in New Jersey, and I'm sure Christie found room in the budget for it, all the while pontificating about fiscal responsibility.

What a douche this guy is, he has to be in with Joe Six Pack on the Super Bowl, while he is not making any payments into the State Pension, which is in arrears for billions. So you workers who are going to retire and discover a big fat zero in your account, eff off, you socialist! Clean up that ticker tape. You're LUCKY TO HAVE A JOB (this is the mantra of America today).

Christie is going to be down with the GIANTS. And you, New Jersey citizen, you can pay for it, because I said so. In your face, common decency!

Like the Empire State Building or Central Park, a Super Bowl ticker-tape Giants parade is meant only for Manhattan, a poll released Friday says.

The survey of nearly 1,000 New Yorkers found 75% believed a Big Blue bash belonged in the Big Apple, compared with just 14% who supported a romp in the swamps of New Jersey.

“With apologies to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ... New Yorkers want Mayor Bloomberg to host a ticker-tape parade if our New York Giants win the Super Bowl,” said Maurice Carroll, direction of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“Of course, Mayor Mike can always invite Gov. Christie to join us — if he pays his toll.”

The support crossed all age, gender and borough lines, with widespread backing for a Canyon of Heroes repeat of the 2008 celebration that greeted the champion Giants.

Christie had loudly lobbied for a Garden State parade to honor Big Blue if they can defeat the Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl showdown

.[Daily News]

Don't Get Sick Unless You Have Money

Personally I can't afford to get sick. But this is too much. People pay for iPads because they want them, not because they are going to die if they don't get one. And where does $900 equal $1,000,000?

The article points out that Santorum is the father of a child with a genetic disorder, but it SHOULD say Santorum is a guy with MONEY who is the father of a child with a rare genetic disorder. That's a different ballgame than what this lady and her kid are dealing with.

My question is...does this help Santorum's candidacy? That he can look a sick kid in the eye and tell him to get lost? Or does it hurt him? If I'm his campaign manager I would lock him in a closet and tell everyone he was sick, but I don't know how long that would work. And then what? You'd have to let him out someday. Or would you? Hmmmm.

GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies.

Santorum, himself the father of a child with a rare genetic disorder, compared buying drugs to buying an iPad, and said demand would determine the cost of medical therapies.

"People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad," Santorum said, "but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with - it keeps you alive. Why? Because you've been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it."

The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.

[ABC News]

Saint Rose of Lima - MTM

Radical idea - women have their own lives. Nothing to do with men. Discuss.

In recent months the name Mary Tyler Moore has been bandied about with unexpected regularity bordering on reckless abandon. This is not just because she recently made her first TV appearance in many moons on pal Betty White's show "Hot in Cleveland" or because she proved at last month's televised fete for White's 90th birthday that she can still rock a white pantsuit or even because she is receiving this year's Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award on Sunday.

Instead, Moore's name keeps coming up because 42 years after she helped create the single-gal comedy genre, a slew of female-centric shows hit the networks, raising hopes that a new version of the classic and still-resonant "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" would emerge. (It hasn't.)

By midseason, critics were blatantly holding up the new to the old. "No Mary Richards" was how several chose to characterize the fictionalized version of comedian Chelsea Handler in her new show, "Are You There, Chelsea?" Well, no, obviously not, since Mary was a well-dressed, carefully coiffed professional woman trying to balance a career and a meaningful personal life and Chelsea's show is centered on a bartender/drunken skank.

If anyone involved hopes Moore herself is watching, I'm here to tell you that's she's not. "Oh, I don't watch any of them," she said recently from her office in New York. "Why would I? That story has been done, and I think we did it pretty well. I don't need to watch another version."

Perhaps to see the new gals break a few taboos?

"Taboos?" she asks with a laugh, "there aren't any taboos anymore."

It's difficult to argue with her when "2 Broke Girls'" Max (Kat Dennings), the character who may come closest to Mary Richards (she is hard-working, talented and yet insecure), insists on saying "vagina" so often one assumes there is a special bell that rings in the writers room every time she does. And who wants to argue with Mary Tyler Moore, who at 75 has broken more ground than Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso?

She may have been surprised with the Life Achievement Award — when SAG President Ken Howard called, she says, "I thought he was going to ask if I would present something to someone" — but it's difficult to imagine anyone else was. Between "The Dick Van Dyke Show's" Laura Petrie and Mary Richards, Moore helped create two of televisions most influential and indelible roles — there's a statue depicting the famous Mary hat toss in downtown Minneapolis. How many other television characters have their own statue?

[LATimes.com]