Last Call

Hey, it's always news in baseball when the rarest of the rare happens:  a perfect game.

Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game Saturday in a 4-0 win over the Mariners in Seattle.

Only 20 other pitchers have tossed perfect games, in which no opposing batter reaches base, in Major League history, according to MLB.com.

It was the first no-hitter of the 2012 season.

Humber threw 96 pitches, 67 for strikes, and struck out nine. The last batter he faced, Brendan Ryan, nearly spoiled the perfect game when he struck out but had to be thrown out at first when the ball got past Chicago catcher A.J. Pierzynski.

Until Humber's gem, Philadelphia's Roy Halladay had the most recent perfect game, on May 29, 2010, against Florida. Oakland's Dallas Braden had the American League's most recent perfect game, on May 9, 2010, against Tampa Bay. The last White Sox pitcher to throw a perfect game was Mark Buehrle against Tampa Bay on July 23, 2009.

Pretty good if you ask me.  They play 2,000+ games in a season, and MLB's been going for over a century.  Only 21 perfect games, too.   Restores my faith in humanity, if only just a bit.

Edmonton, We Have A Problem

Stop me if this sounds familiar to you:  rich energy company interests are backing a young, female former media personality to lead the charge to the hard right on a platform that the federal government is immoral, that local government should have all the power, that natural resources should be exploited no matter what the environmental consequences are, and that climate science is a cruel hoax.  They've even managed to round up the most conservative, liberatarian elements of the anti-war left, too.

Such a winger insurrection at the state level is annoying, but in the Canadian province of Alberta, the parliamentary system means their version of the Teabaggers, the province's Wildrose Party, is leading in the polls and set to inflict some serious damage on the country.

The Wildrose Party, named after the province’s official prickly flower, was formed in 2008 amid growing disaffection with the Tories over fiscal and social policies, judged to be straying from its libertarian roots.

The scion of the ruling Progressive Conservatives was able to capture seven percent of the popular vote in elections that year, but failed to win a single seat in the Alberta legislature.
Four years on, the Wildrose Party is back, led by former journalist Danielle Smith and leading by seven percent in the polls.

The battle lines were drawn at the height of the last recession when the current Progressive Conservative government proposed hiking royalties paid by companies exploiting the oil sands, the third largest oil reserve in the world and a key energy supply to the United States.

“Well, what happened then, we saw all kinds of money from big oil and gas companies going to the Wildrose Party, big donations,” political scientist Bruce Foster of Calgary’s Mount Royal University told AFP.

The rest, as they say, could be history.

In the dying days of the election campaign, the Wildrose has faced a backlash in the media over racist, homophobic and bigoted public comments of its candidates, as well as ridicule over its platform debunking climate change science.

But it’s unclear if this has affected voting intentions.

Wildrose leader Smith responded to critics by saying that she is personally pro-choice on abortion and supports gay marriage, and vowed that a Wildrose government would not legislate on “sensitive moral issues.”

Sure.  Not until they get into power.  And Alberta becomes Texas overnight.

A Nun-Issue

(Reuters) - A prominent U.S. Catholic nuns' group said on Thursday it was "stunned" that the Vatican reprimanded it for spending too much time on poverty and social justice concerns and not enough on abortion and gay marriage.

In a stinging report on Wednesday, the Vatican said the Leadership Conference of Women Religious had been "silent on the right to life" and had failed to make the "Biblical view of family life and human sexuality" a central plank in its agenda.

It also reprimanded American nuns for expressing positions on political issues that differed, at times, from views held by American bishops. Public disagreement with the bishops - "who are the church's authentic teachers of faith and morals" - is unacceptable, the report said.

In other words, shut up and do what the men tell you.  Not a surprising statement, considering the source, but maybe the nuns will come together and be heard.

Nuns spending too much time actually doing something to make the world a better place aren't falling into line, and that is a major problem.  They haven't stopped producing good works to jump through the hoops their superior men wish they would.  They dared to think instead of repeating what they are fed by their superiors.

That they were judged failures for failing to dive into human sexuality and family business says all I need to know.

While I'm not Catholic, I have known a few nuns in my life.  Each one was an awesome woman in her own right, balancing faith while keeping true to being a person just like any other.  Of course there are nun horror stories as well, but I want to say directly that I respect those women a lot for what they do, and what they put up with from the world in general.  The few nuns I have personally known were committed to working to bring goodness and demonstrate compassion by example.  Merely disagreeing is deemed unacceptable, imagine what might happen if these women tried to actively told the bishops to shove it up their pious little arses.

Crappy Day At School

WASHBURN, Mo. -- A mother is upset over over a classroom incident that left her kindergartner embarrassed.   A 6-year-old girl had an accident in her classroom, and her parents are pushing for policy changes.

"They told me that the teacher had asked her to go to the restroom before testing time," said mother Lisa Skidmore.

Skidmore says asking a young child to go to the bathroom on demand is next to impossible.

"You can't do that to a 6-year-old."

That's why, when her kindergartner told her teacher she had to go to the restroom during the test and wasn't allowed, Skidmore couldn't believe it.  Her little girl couldn't hold it.

It wasn't even a real test, it was a practice.  In order to prepare this poor child for the real thing, the teacher declined to let her use the restroom.  Un-freaking-believable.

I don't want to heap any more shame on this poor child and her family, but I want to emphasize a few things.  When she did have the accident, they still didn't do anything about it.  They gave her a trash bag to keep from making an even bigger mess.  I don't care what pop psychology says, that's the sort of thing that is humiliating for the rest of one's life, but especially right now.

How does a person in elementary education not understand that a six-year-old's control is limited, as is their ability to gauge when they will need to use the restroom?  Imagine how hard she must have tried to put it off and avoid the inevitable disaster.

There is also the health concern of sitting in feces for the better part of an hour.  I won't go too deeply into that, but it's valid and could lead to painful repercussions for her.

I'm so angry.  Normally I'm not one to call for someone to lose their job, but the teacher who said no should be gone, and never be responsible for a child again.  Anyone with such a gross misunderstanding of where priorities lie simply cannot be trusted with children.

This story has gotten national attention, but a shout out to KY-3, one of the last stations that gives a damn about reporting news, for bringing this out.

Bundle Of Trouble

Why Jon Corzine is still on the list of President Obama's fundraising bundlers, I have no clue.  The guy's basically responsible for billions in Wall Street fraud.

Corzine, according to the Obama campaign, has once again helped raise more than $500,000.

(He was likewise named a bundler in January, when the Obama campaign last released the names of their money men.)

"MF Global and its brokerage sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a $6.3 billion bet on the bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations prompted regulator concerns and a credit rating downgrade. Corzine quit MF Global Nov. 4," Bloomberg reported.

As ABC reported, "President Obama once hailed [Corzine] as an 'honorable man' and one of his 'best partners' in the White House." Since that time, Obama has tried to distance himself from Corzine, who at one point was considered for the treasury secretary slot.

But apparently Obama is still willing to use campaign funds from the embattled Corzine.

No.  The Weekly Standard has every right to call the Obama Campaign out on this one, it's completely moronic that Corzine is anywhere near this.  He's a scumball crook, and there's no conceivable way the Obama guys taking money from him is not going to totally bite him in the ass.

Toss this idiot off the rolls.  Give the money back.  Do it now, do it publicly, lance the boil and get rid of the stench.

EPIC FAIL, Team Obama.  Sorry.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Officials in Pakistan report no survivors in a commercial jet crash that killed 127 near Islamabad on Friday.
• Scientists have created a new artificial type of genetic material more stable than natural double helices, dubbed "XNA".
• President Obama has declared a National Monument of Fort Ord, California, where hundreds of thousands of WWII era soldiers trained in the mountains, hills and beaches.
• Disney film division head Rich Ross has resigned in the wake of the failure of "John Carter", the largest money-losing film of all time, cost the studio nearly $200 million.
• Several Canadian lawsuits have surfaced in the continuing e-book price-fixing wars between Apple and several publishers.

Last Call

Orange Julius and the rest of the House GOP have a new game of chicken to play this month:  attaching the Keystone XL pipeline to the highway bill in order to force the President's hand.  What they got out of it?  Enough Dems for a veto-proof margin, apparently.

Defying a White House veto threat, the House on Wednesday passed legislation that extends transportation program funding through September and mandates construction of a controversial oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

All but 14 Republicans, with support from 69 Democrats, voted 293-127 for legislation that falls far short of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) earlier plan to move a sweeping five-year, $260 billion package.

But Boehner’s retreat serves two crucial tactical and political purposes for the Speaker. It sets up talks with the Senate on the highway bill and keeps the Keystone pipeline — a centerpiece of GOP attacks on White House energy policy — front and center ahead of the November election.

Republican leaders hailed the bipartisan vote  as a rebuke of President Obama.  Two senior Democrat leaders, Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.) and John Larson (Conn.), approved the measure.

The wingers are sensing a win in the Senate too, possibly even a veto-proof one.

Then there is the Senate. Democrats are using the filibuster to stop the pipeline, which means 60 votes are required to pass it. (Some Democrats who bitterly opposed the filibuster when Republicans used it against Obama initiatives are notably silent these days.) In a vote last month, 11 Senate Democrats stood up against Obama to vote in favor of the pipeline. Add those 11 to the Republicans' 47 votes, and the pro-pipeline forces are just a couple of votes away from breaking Harry Reid's filibuster.

"We're right around the corner from actually passing it," says a well-informed Senate source. "Two-hundred-ninety-three votes in the House is a gigantic number. People want this thing."

People want the highway bill, not the pipeline.  Byron York there completely fails to mention that the Keystone XL pipeline is tacked on to the Federal Highway bill, which is yet another example of why he's a hack working for the DC Examiner and not, you know, an actual news outlet or anything.
It turns out in an election year when jobs are the number one priority, voting against the highway bill is pretty much suicide for your average House member.  There's a bit more leeway in the Senate, but even so, it's looking like as with the horrible JOBS Act (also passed with an overwhelming veto-proof margin) that the Senate is going to go along with anything that even remotely sounds like they're doing something and leaving President Obama to be attacked for anything that happens as a result.

So of course, I fully expect the Dems in Congress to cave here, put the President in an untenable position, and then having to listen to the Purity Police tell me that there's no difference between Obama and Satan again and why I'm a moron for voting at all.

This is a fight the Republicans are going to at least do some serious damage with.  How much damage depends on how many Dems are going to leave the President at the tender mercies of the GOP.  At this rate, you have to ask if the Dems aren't trying to lose on purpose so they can stay out of power.

Cry Meh, And Let Slip The Blue Dogs Of "I'm Not Sure"

West Virginia Dem Sen. Joe Manchin isn't sure if he's going to even vote for President Kenyan Melaninson at this point.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who has done more than any other Democrat up for reelection this year to distance himself from President Obama, said he does not know if he will vote for Obama or presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney in November.

“I’ll look at the options,” Manchin said this week. The last three years “have made it pretty rough” for his state, he said.

That stance is at odds with almost every other Democrat who is up for reelection this year or is from a state that Romney is likely to win. And it’s an indication of the unique effort Manchin has made to establish his independence from Obama and other Democrats. The senator has regularly used floor speeches and closely watched votes to, as he puts it, “respectfully” highlight differences with Obama, especially on environmental issues. He said Obama has never called him or sought a one-on-one conversation.

Manchin said his own vote will depend on how his constituents view the contest.

At this point, Manchin should just switch parties and be done with it, except in West Virginia (like Kentucky) he'd immediately be primaried by somebody even more insane.

“I am just waiting for it to play out. I am not jumping in one way or another,” Manchin said. “I’m worried about me. I’ve said it’s not a team sport. You need to go out and work for yourself.”

Translation, screw the black guy.  I've got serious energy lobbyist dollars to harvest in a state where being black is only good if you're a cart full of coal, and I'm in it for myself.  Any questions?

Somehow I Don't Trust These Guys

The latest round of Americans Elect nonsense is at CNN.com this weekend as a technocrat appeals to the iGeneration about voting, the Sensible Centrist Austerity way.  Now with technology!

This digital revolution is more than just innovating for convenience. Something deeper and more significant is at stake: the integrity of our consent, the underpinning of our government's legitimacy and authority.

"Consent of the governed" only exists if it can be expressed, and that is an increasingly difficult task. When we vote for president, we don't simply vote for the best candidate; we vote for the best candidate who has previously been ratified by one of two political parties.

This creates a philosophical "blackout" space in which no candidate, because of his or her beliefs, will ever be elected president (see Jon Huntsman). This blackout space should concern all of us, because of its appeal to the general electorate, who will never get that option. What's worse is that this space is growing with each cycle. It's not clear that either Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton would get through their primaries today.

That's why the Americans Elect innovation is so exciting -- because it relieves us of anachronistic structures that harm our political system. It's the iTunes of politics.

Status quo apologists and those who benefit from partisan gridlock might pooh-pooh this idea, particularly if the candidate doesn't get to Ross Perot levels in November. But these critics miss the point. Americans Elect is not just about running for the White House in 2012. It's about electing our leaders in a new way so that the governed are truly consenting.

Right, because removing the political party middlemen from the traditional process of the rich buying our elections makes it that much better solely on the purity factor, except for the fact that they are lying about doing it.  Primaries are for suckers, now engage in our primary!

That particular cargo shipload of manure up there was written by Nathan Daschle.  You know, son of former Dem Senate Leader Tom Daschle.  Just a reminder that it's not just wealthy, obnoxiously centrist Republicans flogging the Throw Your Vote Away movement here in an attempt to make the "reasonable" case for crushing austerity amid tax cuts for the one percent because it's our duty, being good serfs, to pay for our lords.  It's feel-good political euthanasia, designed solely to put down resistance to the status quo of "We're your betters, now here's what you need to do for us."  To help you remain tranquil in the face of almost certain electoral death, smooth jazz will be deployed in 3...2...1...

Daniel Larison nails these guys to the wall:

There is a powerful case to be made that a two-party system that operates within the very narrow confines of bipartisan consensus on many major policies is harmful to the country. Americans Elect isn’t making that case or anything like it. What the Americans Elect project represents is an effort to produce the distilled essence of everything that is wrong with the current two-party system and then pretend that it is an exciting, new alternative.

S'truth right there, folks.  By comparison, Paul Ryan is at least somewhat honest about his plans to Soylent Green us all.  And let's remember that there's nothing Centrist about the GOP.

Sleep Stupidity

We have made some advancements in stupdi... er, sleeping.

We have a programmer who learned that staying up late didn't boost his productivity.  In fact, he learned that by sleeping until he naturally woke up increased his production in less time.  He also mastered the trick of making a list of things to resolve before sleep, and in the morning had resolved some of his problems.

For what it's worth, I've done something similar.  When I code too much, I find myself dreaming in code. I will literally write the commands (including inventing variables on the fly) that allow the event in the dream to take place.  I know it sounds crazy.  I've also learned that if I wake up at 4 a.m. and allow myself to doze, I will resolve any problems that are lingering while I drift in and out of sleep.

Lack of sleep has been linked to heart disease, obesity, diabetes and stroke.  We try to juggle so many things in our busy lives that it makes sense to dip out of our snooze time, but that often backfires.

For those who want to try some different techniques, play with different ways to engage your brain before, during and right after sleep.  And if you are willing to spend a few bucks to try it, you can try masks that improve lucid dreaming, which allows you to take control of your dreams by becoming aware that you are in a dream state.

Stupidity Runs Rampant

The Anti-Defamation League wants an apology from Peoria's bishop following a recent homily comparing President Barack Obama's policies to those of despots Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

During the message at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria, Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky contended social services for Catholics could be eliminated if Obama's directive to include contraceptives in health insurance continues. Jenky went on to compare the actions to past cultural wars against the Catholic Church.“

Clemenceau, nicknamed ‘the priest eater,’ tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century," Jenky said. "Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care."

"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama, with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path,” he said.

 

So let me see if I get this right.  Michele Bachmann makes a tar baby reference and there is little to no outrage from the right.  Then this jackass compares Obama to Hitler and Stalin because he wants to make sure women's prescriptions are treated the same as the fellas.  It's radical and pro-abortion to give women a choice about their bodies.

But Obama says he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and Mittens flips out because shit's getting real.

Is that really what we have here?  God help us, I think it is.

What In Tar Nation Is She Doing?

The Bachmanniac strikes again.

During a recent interview with the blog Shark Tank, Bachmann insisted that new legislation wasn’t necessary because Obama “already has the tools and he knows it.”

“So, if there is a problem then president Obama is the problem for failing to utilize these tools that he has,” she continued.

“This is just about waving a tar baby in the air and saying that something else is the problem. I have never seen a more irresponsible president who is infantile in the way that he continually blames everybody else for his failure to, first, diagnose the problem and, second, to address the problem. It’s always everyone else’s fault.”

Bachmann concluded: “The president is a complete and utter fraud and a hypocrite on this issue, with all due respect to the president.”

With all due respect, Congresswoman Bachmann, you're a sad, pathetic, attention-seeking airhead who is a blight on the people of the great state of Minnesota where I once had the privilege and honor of living and working.  The people there are kind, honorable, intelligent, hard-working and honest, and you are the complete opposite of that.

You do them a disservice daily.

Oh, and I'm being far nicer than ABL.

Whatsoever You Do To The Least Of My Brothers

As I've said time and time again, the Republican pro-life position ends on the day of your birth.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Thursday dismissed criticism from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), falsely claiming the group did not represent all Catholic bishops.

Referencing Matthew 25, the USCCB called on Congress to put the poor first in budget priorities and rethink cuts to programs that benefited the least among us.

“These are not all the Catholic bishops, and we just respectfully disagree,” he said on Fox News after being questioned about the bishops criticism of his budget plan.

The USCCB later responded to Ryan’s comment, informing The Hill that they represented “all of the U.S. bishops on key issues at the national level.”

Ryan has said that his Catholic faith helped shape his budget plan. But Catholics have questioned his admiration for the libertarian novelist Ayn Rand, who advocated the “virtue of selfishness” and called Christianity the “the best kindergarten of communism possible.”

Ryan’s House-approved budget for 2013-2022 would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food stamps, by $133.5 billion over the next decade. Approximately 2 million individuals would be cut off from the program entirely, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. Another 44 million would see their benefits cut.

So, I wonder if the bishops will lay into Ryan and all the Republicans who voted for a plan to take food out of the mouths of 46 million people the way they went after President Obama for actually providing contraception for women, including the poor.  Somehow I doubt it.

That's the main reason I don't take the bishops seriously politically.  They rail against the President, but give death-penalty happy and austerity-crazed Republicans a pass.  It's ridiculous.

StupidiNews!

• Florida lawmakers and other state officials will meet in a task force appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to consider the state's "Stand Your Ground" law.
• Vermont becomes the third state where lawmakers have passed resolutions calling for the federal government to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United campaign finance decision.
• A new route for the Keystone XL pipeline is being proposed as House Republicans and the President continue to battle over the project's fate.
• Rumors that Apple's iPhone 5 could be on the way as early as this October is pushing the tech giant's stock up...for now.
• An Estonian man charged with leading a ring of computer botnet crooks faces a maximum 85-year sentence if convicted in an Manhattan court.

Last Call

And with Romney the nominee in all but name, the wingers are of course predicting the End Of Liberalism Forever.  First into the future files?  Daily Caller contributor and conservative author Mike Leahy.

Conservatives across the nation should be of good cheer, however. The United States remains a center-right nation. This November, voters will choose common sense over fiscally reckless extremism in what will be a landslide conservative victory. Republicans will retain the House, gain the Senate and win back the presidency with a 2-to-1 Electoral College margin.

The most recent Rasmussen poll shows Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama, 48% to 44%. Obama’s support has softened significantly since 2008, and opposition continues to grow on all sides. In that election, Obama defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin in the popular vote. Since then, as the Rasmussen poll demonstrates, Obama has lost the support of 9% of the voting population. Much of that loss is permanent. Defectors include disappointed voters under 30 who supported him by a 2-to-1 margin in 2008 but can’t find a job in today’s lackluster economy, disaffected Catholics turned off by his high-handed tactics and virtually every small business person in the country, to say nothing of disillusioned Democrats opposed to his individual healthcare mandate.

But the polls are missing one key ingredient: the intensity of feeling and the level of determination among the 28% of American adults (66 million people) who consider themselves part of the tea party or are supportive of it. To these people, 2012 is not “just another election.” It is the defining political battle of our lifetime.

Most of these 66 million tea partiers will vote in November. But they will do much more than vote. They will also make unprecedented personal sacrifices in time and money to help get out the vote. To a person, these 66 million Americans believe that if Barack Obama is re-elected, the constitutional republic as we know it will be destroyed. They are determined not to let this happen on their watch.

Enough e-mails of President Obama dressed as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose and Michelle Obama in a chimpanzee enclosure will make their message of hatred cause their votes to count a whole extra zero percent more than normal.  Bonus points for these fanatics actually believing that everyone in America secretly believes exactly what they believe.

That's all they have, of course.  Mitt Romney will do, say, and lie however and whatever it takes to win, including to the Tea Party.  When they figure that out, November's GOP losses will be exquisite.