Thank You

A Humble Request

Dear Readers,

I have had ongoing medical problems for some time, and have reached a point medically where doctors are recommending a treatment I hope to avoid.  I have no reason to believe my doctors are wrong in their opinions, but am looking for an alternative solution.  This requires that I locate a specialist who would be willing to pursue that solution (if such a thing exists).  I have tried, and am currently trying, to find such a person myself, including through my current doctors and HMO, via internet/library research and speaking with family and friends, so far without luck. (For my sins, I have read my Evidence of Coverage cover-to-cover.)  I will keep trying. If anyone has any suggestions about how to navigate such waters, I would be most grateful if you could contact me via e-mail (at rogerailes - at - hotmail.com) with any advice.  Please be assured I will in no way seek to impose on you further than recieving your suggestions with unqualified gratitude.

So as not to confuse, this is not a request for medical advice but for an answer to the question "how does one find someone who may not exist to discuss a medical solution which may not exist?"

To everyone, I apologize for the vague, secretive and annoying nature of this post.  I'm not dying (any more than everyone else is), or anything close to it, nor do my complaints deserve special consideration. Believe me, if I knew what else to do, this post would be a gag about Mickey Kaus or some other asshole. 

Thank you.

"Roger"

Dog Fellates Man

Breaking: Mike Allen is a slap-headed whore.

Which is why he fits right in on "Morning Joe."

I made the mistake of turning on that clusterfuck this morning.  In between the plenteous plugs for Banjo Boy's latest book, a human centipede comprised of Mike Brzezinski, Harold Ford Jnr., Donny Deutsch Jnr., Mark Halperin Jnr. and Nicole Wallace pretended that Brzezinski's high-school-aged daughter had raised a $100K for some charity, zero dollars of which derived by means other than Mika's shakedown of dolts looking for facetime on Morning Joe.  (Ford Jnr. and Deutsch Jnr. acknowledged their shakedowns on the program.)  Brzezinski's attempt to create the next Luke Russert/Peter Doocy was even more revolting that Brzezinski's standard insipidity.

Grand Old Police Blotter: Fort Myers Vice Edition

The latest Republicriminal to be arrested was caught enjoying a refreshing combination of tea and coke:

U.S. Rep. Trey Radel, the tea party freshman Republican from Fort Myers, was arrested Oct. 29 for cocaine possession in Washington D.C, Politico reported.

Radel, who faces a maximum of 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, was charged Tuesday in D.C. Superior Court with misdemeanor cocaine possession and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said the agency has no record of Radel's arrest; the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined comment. Radel couldn't be reached.  [Try Rob Ford's place -- R.A.]

If Radel had been arrested in his home state for cocaine possession, he would have faced far more-serious consequences than in Washington. The crime is a felony in Florida, where Radel would have lost his voting and other civil rights had he been convicted in state court.

Another contrast between DC and Florida: If the congressman had been a state worker, he would face termination under Gov. Rick Scott, who wants to drug test state employees.

If the anti-choice "libertarian" falls, the FL G.O.P. has another Tea Party favorite ready to take his place in the War on Women on Drugs, time off for good behavior permitting:

A Florida judge on Tuesday set bail for George Zimmerman at $9,000 and ordered a number of conditions for his freedom -- including that he not possess weapons -- while he awaits trial on charges he pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend.

He was released from the John E. Polk Correctional Facility on Tuesday afternoon. He didn't speak with the media.

Zimmerman was arrested Monday at his girlfriend's Apopka home, four months after he was acquitted of murdering teenager Trayvon Martin.

A prosecutor revealed a new allegation against Zimmerman while trying to argue for a higher bail -- that Zimmerman tried to choke his girlfriend a week and a half before Monday's alleged shotgun incident, and that Zimmerman had talked about suicide.

Sing us out, Elvis!

R

Sead more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2013/11/report-tea-party-rep-trey-radel-busted-for-personal-cocaine-possession.html#storylink=cpy

The Teabaggers' Salman Rushdie

Dylan Davies received a hand-delivered death threat, but unwisely forgot to smash the courier's face in with his rifle.

Consequently, the man of action is unavailable to substantiate his all-true tales of derring-do untl further notice.

Logan Buries The Lede The Truth

CBS' 60 Minutes tells a truth about its lies:

“We end our broadcast tonight with a correction,” Logan said this Sunday. She used Jones’s real name, Dylan Davies. when an incident report surfaced. It told a different story about what he did the night of the attack.” Davies, she said, “insisted the story he told us was not only accurate, it was the same story he told the F.B.I. when they interviewed him.” When “60 Minutes” learned on Thursday that, in fact, the F.B.I. report “was different from what he told us, we realized we had been misled, and it was a mistake to include him in our report. For that we are very sorry. The most important thing to every person at ‘60 Minutes’ is the truth. And the truth is, we made a mistake.”

This is, in many ways, an odd statement and an understatement. To say that the incident report “surfaced” and told “a different story” isn’t quite adequate: Karen DeYoung, of the Washington Post, obtained it, and it was apparently already among the papers turned over to Congress. The discrepancies extended to Davies’s location that night: he was not in the compound at all but, rather, in his “beach side villa.” (“We could not get anywhere near,” the report read.)

"After the broadcast, she said, 'questions arose about whether his account was true....'"

Exactly so. 

So eager was CBS to spread Davies' conservative bullshit that it performed no investigation into whether that account was true. CBS and Logan never raised any questions before broadcasting Davies' fairy tale.

And who exactly would raise questions about Davies' account on 60 Minutes BEFORE HE APPEARED ON THE FUCKING PROGRAM AND GAVE THAT FUCKING ACCOUNT? People who had never seen that account because they didn't have access to the interview foorage, or the bullshit book CBS was publishing?  If you're going to broadcast bullshit, saying that no one called you on your bullshit before you broadcast it is neither a defense nor an apology.  It's an admission of gross incompetence.

60 Minutes preferred to turn a doughy-looking mope into an action hero just to keep the Benghazi lies alive. Until they clean house, 60 Minutes is no more credible that NewsBusters or Breitbart News.

When Is A Jury Trial Not A Jury Trial?

Dan Abrams' right-wing media website Mediaite (aka NewsBusters for Profound Dummies), declares that a jury acquitted Sam Donaldson of a DUI charge via verdict:

Verdict Reached in ABC Reporter Sam Donaldson’s DUI Trial

A jury on Friday acquitted veteran ABC anchorSam Donaldson of DUI charges filed against him late last year.

The Delaware trial reportedly lasted five hours and, following his acquittal, the veteran reporter strode over to the officer who’d arrested him and told her: “You did your duty as you saw fit. I bear no animus toward you whatsoever.

Not really.

GEORGETOWN — A Sussex County judge dismissed charges against former ABC political correspondent Sam Donaldson, who last year was arrested in Lewes and charged with driving drunk.

Judge Rosemary Beauregard said the arresting officer’s report was incomplete and a failed sobriety test was improperly administered.

Donaldson appeared Nov. 8 in a nearly empty Sussex County courtroom. The state would call only one witness – arresting officer Katie Couchman of Lewes Police Department. Couchman testified she stopped Donaldson about 8 p.m., Dec. 1, 2012, because he was driving on the shoulder of the road, to the right of the westbound lane.

You'd think that Dan Abrams would employ people who could rewrite articles accurately, if not actually understand and/or distinguish between complex legal concepts like "judge" and "jury."

Confidential to A Head Case

These people, assuming they exist:

Like Bridget Jones’s “smug marrieds,” the “smug insureds” — friends who were covered through their own or spouses’ employers or who were grandfathered into their plans — asked why I didn’t “just” switch all of our long-term doctors, suck it up and pay an extra $200 a month for a restrictive network on the exchange, or marry the guy I’m dating. How romantic: “I didn’t marry you just to save money, honey. I married you for your provider network.”

Were just rubbing your nose in this:

At their core, they pose one of the most complicated, painful, and pervasive dilemmas many single women are forced to grapple with nowadays: Is it better to be alone, or to settle?

My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)

See. They're only concerned about your happiness.

(Apparently "contributing editor at The Atlantic" doesn't come with health benefits.)

Happy 10th Anniversary

Happy 10th Anniversary to Echidne of the Snakes!

Tin, aluminium or bitcoins make appropriate gifts.

Logan's Rum

Another Teabag fairy tale exploded:

The correspondent for the disputed “60 Minutes'’ segment about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year apologized on the air Friday morning, saying it was a “mistake'’ to put on a security officer whose credibility has since been undermined by his diverging accounts of his actions that night.

The reporter, Lara Logan, said on “CBS This Morning'’ that the news division was misled by the officer, adding, “We will apologize to our viewers, and we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night.”

The apology followed disclosure by The New York Times on Thursday evening that the security contractor, Dylan Davies, had provided the F.B.I. an account that contradicted a version of events he provided in a recently published book and in the interview with “60 Minutes,” which was broadcast on Oct. 27.

Mr. Davies told the F.B.I. that he was not on the scene until the morning after the attack.

For those unfamiliar with Davies, this sums him up pretty well: "Davies['] motivation to lie presumably has something to do with the fact that he is coming out with a book about alleged warnings that he gave the U.S. government about security flaws before the attack."

Let's go behind of the scenes with the crack investigative news team at 60 Minutes, which is not at all similar to the late Mike Levey's "Amazing Discoveries" (since Mike's financial conflict of interest was blatantly obvious, rather than concealed)": 

“He denied that [incident] report [to his employer],” Ms. Logan said, “and he said that he told the F.B.I. the same story that he had told us. But what we now know is that he told the F.B.I a different story to what he told us. And, you know, that was the moment for us when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source. And that we were wrong to put him on air.”

That magic moment!

You can't put anything past Logan, if someone else does her job for her after the fact.  What we now know is that the CBS News division is infested with right-wing hacks.

Will Logan be axed?  I Rather doubt it.

But if she is, Breitbart News is hiring. 

Like Father, Like Scum

The Paul family has an interesting relationship with the hired help.

1.  Ron Paul hires racists to ghostwrite the racist "Ron Paul Newsletter," then claims ignorance of the newsletter's content and asserts he's not responsible for the work of his ghostwriters.  Of course, Paul keeps the money from the sale of his racist newsletters.

2. Rand Paul hires the racist "Southern Avenger" to ghostwrite his book, The Tea Party Goes to Washington and work on his Senate staff, then allows the racist ghostwriter to resign when his past is revealed.  Of course, Paul keeps the money from his book sales.

3.  Rand Paul has his Senate staff ghostwrite his second book, speeches and Moonie Times column using plagiarized material.  When he's caught, Paul plays the victim but refuses to fire the responsible staffers, presumably because they would reveal the extent of Paul's personal involvement in the theft of intellectual property.  Of course, Paul keeps the money from his book sales, speeches and column.  

I'm sensing a trend.

Trotter Ends His Run

Being remembered for this must be something of a mixed legacy:

Dishes from the final week of menus included poached white asparagus with charred broccolini, manchego cheese and red pepper essence and root beer leaf ice cream with vanilla cremeaux and birch syrup-infused meringue.

Better than being remembered for this, I guess:

In August, almost a year to the day after the restaurant closed, [Charles] Trotter kicked out high school students who had been invited to showcase their artwork from an after-school program in the former restaurant. One student said Trotter "went ballistic" when their instructor declined the chef’s request that they sweep floors and clean toilets.

The Hayes Code

Charlotte Hayes, last seen being struck by a sedan in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, wishes to deliver a spanking to Rush Limbaugh, Chris Christie, Bill Bennett and Ted Cruz:

Obesity, the product of a lack of discipline, sloppy dressing, loud and intimate cellphone chats broadcast to a captive audience and foul language nonchalantly uttered in the ATM line are all forms of this “self-expression” [i.e., "White Trash"ism].

What really cheeses Char off is that it's white people who are letting it all hang out. She only attacks pale peckerwoods, aka, "White Trash," and not their darker cousins. She believes either that non-whites are beyond reproach, beyond salvation, or not an appropriate subject for discussion in polite society. What gives the game away is that she truly believes there was a time when whites weren't trash.

Students of Arnold Toynbee, the English historian, will recognize what is going on here. In a chapter of his “A Study of History” entitled “Schism in the Soul,” Toynbee argued that it is a sign that a society is disintegrating when it takes its cues for manners and customs from the underclass. He describes such societies as being “truant” to their own values.

Toynbee is the guide to what we see all around us today.

And students of veterinary science will recognize horseshit when they read it.

Last year, “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” which features a cornucopia of social ills, was TLC’s highest-rated show, attracting more cable viewers than the Republican National Convention, which had the misfortune to share the time slot with the charmers from Georgia. The show’s matriarch, June Shannon, has four daughters by four men, one of whose names she can’t recall.

TLC's ratings were 47 percent higher, if I'm not mistaken.

In addition to loud-bodied fatties and public-space vulgarians, Hayes lays into stamped tramps, including one presumably easily-identifable slapper who showed up for Heritage Foundation cocktails sporting Chi Omega ink.  

My young friend wore a “bespoke” tattoo, which means it was designed in consultation with an “artist.” In my mind, it bespoke volumes.

800 words in the N.Y. Post just to shame one hep-C deserving slut. Now that's uberclassy!

Has A Man Ever Delivered A Baby?

Top three (polite) responses, survey says:

Yes.  I was delivered by a man, or so I'm told.

Has a baby ever been conceived without a man?

Has a woman ever contracted testicular cancer?