Asshole Fuckface Roundup #80
You know, people said that the federal response was slow. Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed
Thank you!
Very appreciated.
Gracias!
Eternally grateful.
Indebted.
Wish you were staying!
Missing you already.
Much obliged.
Seriously, thanks.
Praying for you, as always.
FearTheReaper is a writer, actor and stand up comedian. Check back each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for more from FearTheReaper and read his blog, Stop All Monsters.
Karl Rove Overdoses On His Own Kool-Aid
Today is the day that Washington finally flushes a turd that's been stinking America up for years. Yes, Karl Rove is leaving the White House and today he celebrated by gazing into his crystal ball and writing an opinion in the National Review about how history will view Bush. It's probably the single most detached-from-reality piece of work I've ever read. It's existence scientifically proves the existence of other dimensions, this one written from a far away realm named the "Bush White House". Karl has only been funnier while rapping. Of Bush and his policies, Rove writes:
America, he said, will not wait until dangers fully materialize with attacks on our homeland before confronting those threats.
More "Iraq attacked us". Classic!
The president gave the nation new tools to defeat terrorism abroad and protect our citizens at home with the Patriot Act, foreign surveillance that works in the wireless age, a transformed intelligence community, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Karl, what about the domestic spying programs? Aren't you proud of those? He busted my gut with this one:
And this president saw the wisdom of removing terrorisms cause by advocating the spread of democracy, especially in the Muslim world, where authoritarianism and repression have provided a potent growth medium for despair and anger aimed at the West. He recognized that democracy there makes us safer here.
As with everything else in Turd Blossom's love letter, nothing could be further from the truth. Democracy for Iraq, is far from assured:
The National Intelligence Estimate, released on Thursday, casts doubts on the viability of the Bush Administration strategy in Iraq. It gives a dim prognosis on the likelihood that Iraqi politicians can heal sectarian rifts before March, when US military commanders have said that a crunch on available troops will require a reduction in the US presence in Iraq.
Bush's brain would rather focus on the positive:
President Bush will be seen as a compassionate leader who used Americas power for good. While the world dithered, America confronted HIV/AIDS in Africa with the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has supported treatment for more than 1.1 million people worldwide, over one million of them in Africa.
Karl didn't mention that much of the money spent by the US is for abstinence programs that don't work. Or worse, put more lives in jeopardy.
Nobody can be wrong all the time and Karl is 100% correct when he states:
The outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan will color how history views the president.
Ain't that the truth...but don't forget New Orleans!
History demands much of America and its leaders and I am confident it will judge the 43rd president as a man more than worthy of the great office the American people twice entrusted to him.
Arguably, he wasn't elected even once. Even republicans have had enough of Bush. A Former Reagan official has a slightly different take on Bush. Paul Craig Roberts writes:
Bush has discarded habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, justified torture and secret trials, damned critics as anti-American, and is responsible, according to Information Clearing House, for over one million deaths of Iraqi civilians, which puts Bush high on the list of mass murderers of all time.
HOOFAH!...to be fair, I'm not sure if Roberts is still a republican after years of Bush. Roberts lays it on:
"The war criminal is in the living room, and no official notice is taken of the fact," Roberts writes. "Lacking US troops with which to invade Iran, the Bush administration has decided to bomb Iran 'back into the stone age.'"
Oh yeah, Iran. One of the more interesting ideas floating around Rove's resignation is that he was actually an internal administration voice that was against air strikes on Iran. After losing that struggle with Darth Cheney, it was time for Karl to "spend more time with the family". (Incidentally, in this supposed scenario Tony Snow decided he didn't want to deal with the questions of bombing Iran, so he retired to make more money to fight his cancer.) Interesting indictment of the American health care system, no? The President's very own mouth piece can't afford to work for him, live comfortably and fight his cancer.
Unfortunately, we're cursed to live through interesting times. Worse still, dissent has been practically equated with treason. Say what you will of Karl Rove -- nobody can ever make the case he's not a bright guy. I think he's pulling a "Costanza" leaving on a "high note" (If only). Adios, Turd Blossom. You will not be missed.
Bill Moyers puts a nice bow on the end of the Rove era:
FTR was sick with the flu today, so it fell to Gerry to send Karl on his way.
In Case of Emergency, Kill Patient
Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding caused innumerable problems in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Homelessness, destruction of businesses, lack of potable water and food, lawlessness. Even lack of proper care for pets. What doesn't immediately come to mind as a problem but created an even more complex dilemma than a lack of availability of basic needs was how to deal with very sick patients in hospitals, even terminal ones. Airlifting every single patient from area hospitals was not exactly pragmatic, and they couldn't just be pushed out into the watery street. So some hospital staff decided to take matters into their own hands, and euthanized four patients who didn't have much hope of recovery. They're currently being processed until charges can be filed against them.
"This case has much bigger significance than just becoming a battle about euthanasia," says Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "It's about what we're going to expect doctors to do in [a pandemic of] avian flu. It's about what we're going to expect nurses to do in the face of bioterror .... It has to do with professional duty, professional responsibility, and what we expect healthcare workers to do in the toughest of circumstances."
[...]
While many ethicists condemn mercy killing without permission, some say disaster conditions create an environment in which physicians may deliver a lethal dose with patient consent. Military ethicist David Perry, for instance, says the conditions at Memorial Medical may have resembled those in which a field medic "recognizes there's no way this person is going to survive, and so it's just a matter of how soon and with what sort of suffering or lack of suffering."
Although the military prohibits mercy killing under all circumstances, Mr. Perry notes that in cases where death seems imminent, "it might be worse to let this person die of starvation or suffocation or drowning if the person didn't want that ... than to do something more actively."
It's an interesting twist on the more standard debate concerning euthanasia that tends to involve the consent of the patient or the patient's family when a terminal illness has been recognized from which there is no recovery. The hippocratic oath binds doctors to "do no harm" to their patients. And if a patient cannot consent, or there is no way to immediately contact the patient's family to obtain consent, the prospect of a "mercy killing" becomes even more dubious. But what about an extreme case like what was encountered during hurricane Katrina? Is it doing less harm to the patient to quietly and painlessly allow them to die than to leave them to possible death to starvation or dehydration?
Louisiana state law explicitly forbids assisted suicide, but makes an exception for a physician who " Prescribes, dispenses, or administers any medication, treatment, or procedure if the intent is to relieve the patient's pain or suffering and not to cause death." What if the only way to relieve pain or suffering (and in the case of a dehydration or starvation induced death to an ill patient, it's considerable suffering) is death itself? It's a complicated ethical question, and not one with any readily available solution. Pay close attention to this case, it's sure to be appealed repeatedly, and will hopefully garner the consideration of some of the country's more prominent legal minds.
Needled News: Marisa DiMattia's Tattoo Revue
With this post, I mark my first weekly round-up of tattoo news for SuicideGirls, and theres plenty to talk about.
Case in point, blogs were buzzing this past week over rumors that Eddie Murphy and Scary Spice, a frightening new It couple, are so enamored that theyve tattooed each other's names on their hips what is known in the tattoo community as the kiss of death in any relationship. Blessed be the tattoo cover-up, as Heather Locklear has recently attested to.
Angelina Jolie has also learned her lesson and become savvier in her choice of tattoos. She has lasered Billy Bob from her bod and replaced him with the latitude and longitude coordinates of her adopted childrens birth places. Shes come a long way from tattoo dragon flash to traditional hand tapped Thai art, as chronicled in one blog this week. [Note her tattoo-baring fashion: couture not cut-out.]
Decidedly not couture but tattoo fashion nonetheless is Tommy Lees new clothing line incorporating designs inspired by his skin art. The line, called PL for TL (People's Liberation for Tommy Lee), will mostly consist of jeans, T-shirts and hats oh, but not trucker hats as Lee thinks they are over, unlike the classic wife-beater you usually find on this fashion forward rocker.
Thankfully, this is all the latest celebrity tattoo news. It may be a guilty pleasure of mine, but like all vices, one must not overindulge.
My true passion and the primary focus of my blog, Needled.com, is actually the artistry rather than the celebrity of tattoos. A custom work of art in harmony with the body makes me tingle. Finding custom body art positively touted in the news makes me hot. Needless to say, my husband was very happy when I spied a profile on LA tattoo artist Roni Zulu in the UKs Observer yesterday. Zulu takes a spiritual as well as artistic approach to tattooing and the results can be quite intense and engaging. His work is also featured on the cover of the September issue of International Tattoo Art, perhaps the first time a US tattoo magazine has featured an African-American woman on its cover.
Spiritual tattoos, specifically Christian body art, was also part of this weekends news as the Detroit Free Press looked at young people wearing their sacred hearts on their sleeves and backs and chests. The article presented the debate among Christians on whether biblical teachings ban body art, quoting both sides of the issue:
[
] Pat Bullock, director of the Wichita, Kan.-area association of Southern Baptists, said he believes that tattoos fall under displeasing the Lord.
Scripture teaches us that your body is the temple of God, and you are not to desecrate the temple, he said.
Bullock also referred to Leviticus 19:28 ("You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you") as scriptural evidence that tattoos are wrong.
Kistler, the Christian missionary, said the scripture referring to tattoos is "old law" intended for people who would scar their bodies as a sacrifice for dead family members. He sees no harm in getting tattooed.
And what's more, he said, his tattoos have helped him grow in his faith. "How can you ever turn against Christ if you have him there on your arm?"
Organized religion, however, does not hold a monopoly on spiritual tattooing. The Maori Moko has sacred origins and communicates the ancestral and tribal messages of the men and women who wear them. Because of the importance of the facial tattoos, Maori heads were often preserved after death. These heads became a hot commodity in the West, beginning in the early 19th century, and have wound up in museums as well as private collections around the world. In the news this week, the National Museums Liverpool will return three heads and other Maori human remains to the National Museum of New Zealand, which will then identify the origin of the heads and return them to their tribes.
Just as the Maori marked their families, place of origins and battles on their skin, so have survivors of Hurricane Katrina, as noted by the Associate Press. According to local tattoo artists, more than 1,577 Louisiana residents have requested Hurricane Katrina-related images. One resident tattooed a storm symbol on the back of his neck and is quoted, I'll always have a hurricane at my back. I never want to have one in front of me again.
Marisa_DiMattia is a lawyer and editor of Needled.com, a blog on tattoo art and culture, which includes profiles on tattoo artists, news, book reviews, event listings, and shopping guides.