Archive for March 27th, 2011
A little song to get us ready for Obama’s speech tomorrow night on our “Kinetic Military Action” in Libya
(h/t Constitution Club)
I read this on Iowa Hawk this morning and had to share. It’s very clever.
(this song is sung to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”)
Overseas-Contingencies-Kinetic-Aliocious
In trying to explain himself when bombing foreign lands,
It behooves a modern president to keep his prose in hand.
One little slip in lexicon accounting for the rubble
Will end up in congressional investigative trouble.
Ohhhhhh!
Overseas-contingencies-kinetic-aliocious
I must admit the messaging is really quite atrocious
But if you say it soft enough, you’ll always sound precocious,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!
Um-diddle-diddle-um-diddleye
Um-diddle-diddle-um-diddleye
In olden days they called this thing a stale three-letter word
But in this new millenium I find that quite absurd.
My unabridge-ed thesaurus is dog-eared through and through,
One syllable seems pitiful when thirteen more will do!
Ohhhhhhh!
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious,
When you put it in that way it won’t seem so ferocious.
Gargle first with Listerine in case of halitosis,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!
Um-twiddle-diddle-um-twiddle dee
Um-twiddle-diddle-um-twiddle dum
Unlike Bush adventurism, there’s no “war” to fear
It’s um… it’s er… it’s uh… it’s mmm… let me be crystal clear
In days not weeks we cease it all, for “peace,” or as you know,
Suoicilacitenikeicnegnitnocsaesrevo.
Ohhhhhh!
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious
A neologic tailor-made for media hypnosis
If you hear it long enough you’ll drink until cirrhosis,
Overseascontingencieskineticaliocious!*
I’ll be humming this all day.
ADVICE NEEDED: How to confront a regular drunk driver to get her to stop
I am currently in a living Hell, helplessly watching someone I love make the same reckless, dangerous decision, night after night, without any way to get through to her.
A friend I will call Cassie works in a bar in Boystown. As a woman working in a place that’s 95% gay guys, she never feels like she fits in and thinks she is teased and marginalized a lot at work.
After the bar closes, the employees all get a drink on the house…and whatever shots the bartenders want to pour as they are closing up. Cassie feels that she can’t turn down these drinks or she will be made fun of…so she takes all the shots she is given.
Cassie lives 40 minutes away from Boystown and drives home from work.
After drinking all those shots, rapid-fire.
I have been to dinner with Cassie and one glass of chardonnay gets her buzzed.
Last night, a coworker filled her full of Jeager…knowing she was going to get behind the wheel and drive.
But, he kept giving her the Jeager anyway.
Cassie is 30, and yes she should know her limit. I am 33 and know I can have at most three beers when out…and I never touch shots because they are too potent for me. I politely refuse shots when they are offered…and I walk home from the bars. I just don’t feel safe drinking that much and making the trek home, since I know muggers have been working the neighborhood for the last few years.
I would not DREAM of getting behind the wheel of a car when drunk, but Cassie has been doing this almost every night for the last month (and this is just what I have been aware of).
Last night, Cassie was so drunk that when she got back to her apartment she couldn’t work her keys so she slept in the hallway.
She made a joke about it on her Facebook, which prompted me to call her and ask what’s going on.
She just keeps saying that she is a good driver and that she feels like she can’t turn down the free drinks at work afterhours…or she can’t say no when her co-workers ask her to join them at Little Jim’s or the Closet (the 4am closing late bars in Boystown) after her shift is over.
I have been praying and praying on this because it gives me nightmares. Cassie is a dear friend whom I love, and I can’t shake the image of her getting into a serious accident late one night because she was too scared (and stupid) to tell her co-workers she can’t take all those shots.
Today, I prayed on this again, because after getting off the phone with Cassie she still didn’t understand how dangerous drunk driving is.
Clearly, hearing me talk about this does not get through to her.
I am hoping that putting this problem out there someone who reads this can give me advice on how to make Cassie reevaluate what she is doing.
I know that only Cassie can help Cassie, and that SHE needs to see she has a problem.
But this is just eating me alive.
She is going to kill someone if she keeps driving drunk every night. She is going to hurt herself.
How would you intervene in this situation if Cassie was your friend?
Full disclosure: I have had to tell Cassie in bars that she had enougb that night…and I have taken her keys away and made her sleep it off on my couch before I let her drive in the morning. She gets mad and doesn’t talk to me for a few weeks, but that’s fine with me…so long as she was safe those nights, she can be as mad as she wants at me.
But the problem is that I am not Cassie’s babysitter and can’t watch her every night.
She needs to stop this from happening herself.
How can I nudge her to that decision?
++++++
UPDATE: I really appreciate all the advice that is coming in on this…it backs up what my heart tells me to do anyway.
I should have thought to do this before, but I think it would help if I printed these comments out and gave them to Cassie to show her I am not the only person telling her this…but coast to coast people feel this way.
Can you post directly to Cassie and tell her what she should hear?
How exactly would you confront her and what would you say?
I am going to make her read all these comments, every last one, tomorrow night as I have convinced a few friends to help do an intervention.
Your help on this means more than I could ever say, as we are trying to stop this behavior before our friend Cassie hurts someone.
Christopher Hitchens, world famous atheist, seeks cancer treatment from unlikely source
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens, the world-famous author, journalist and vowed atheist is dying of esophageal cancer and at the moment, has a grim prognosis. Hitchens is the author of the book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He has done many lectures and talk shows on the subject of atheism…yet he is seeking a miracle cure to his devastating cancer from an evangelical doctor named Francis Collins. Dr. Collins is part of a team that has mapped out the entire human DNA sequence and he is the former director of The National Human Genome Project. He is also a devout evangelical christian and the author of the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
Dr. Francis Collins
( The Blaze) “It is a rather wonderful relationship,” Hitchens says of his friendship with Collins. The two have publicly debated religion before and are good friends.
How will this experimental procedure work? First, Collins has already mapped out Hitchens’ entire DNA sequence. Then:
On each sample six billion DNA matches were run, in order to catalogue the mutations in the cancerous cells which had given Hitchens cancer of the oesophagus.
Then in the New Year Dr Collins found a mutation and went about tackling the DNA directly.
He discovered that a drug already existed to treat the particular mutation and now Hitchens takes just one tablet a day, rather than undergoing grueling chemotherapy.
“These are early stages, but in theory it should attack the primary site of the tumour,” Hitchens said.
For the sake of Hitchens–and the world of cancer treatment at large–here‘s hoping that Collins’ therapy works.
I like this story.
It’s something to give us hope on this Sunday.
Sunday Open Thread: March 27th, 2011
(h/t Moonbattery)
What’s on your minds this Sunday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
