Month: April 2010
Fla. GOP Invokes Loyalty Oath in Case Crist Jumps Ship
The Hotline reports that the Republican Party of Florida is reminding members that in the event that Charlie Crist should run for U.S. Senate as an independent, they can’t support him, work for his campaign or vote for him, plus they have to request the return any campaign contributions they gave him. If they break their loyalty oath to the party, then all kinds of bad things will happen to them.
Verbatim
Through the great banking houses of Manhattan last week ran wild-eyed alarm. Big bankers stared at one another in anger and astonishment. A bill just passed by both houses of Congress would rivet upon their institutions what they considered a monstrous system of guaranteeing bank deposits. Such a system, they felt, would not only rob them of their pride of profession but would reduce all U. S. banking to its lowest level. They saw their deposits which they had spent a lifetime to build up and protect with their good names confiscated by the Government to pay for the mistakes and dishonesty of every smalltown bankster.
— Time magazine, June 5, 1933.
— Time magazine, June 5, 1933.
Bisexual State House Candidate Outed as Straight
Philadelphia politics just got really weird. Democratic State Representative Babette Josephs claims her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, is masquerading as a bisexual to pander to the GLBT vote, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Josephs made the allegation at a fundraising event where her comments were surrepticiously recorded and provided to the newspaper:
Finally – a Good Use for Cows
Here’s how to stop climate change in two easy steps: First, stop having so many babies. Next, stop eating cows. We won’t hold our collective breath waiting for either of those things to happen, but, for now, a woman in Malibu, of all places, has found a new use for cows that is beneficial to the environment — it “heals the soil” — and could save cows from the slaughterhouse.
Former screenwriter Denise Ritchie and her husband rescued a dairy cow from a slaughterhouse, named her Bu, and gave her a contented life in a pasture at the coast outside Los Angeles. They use her manure to produce an organic fertilizer that could help save the planet.
Via the Los Angeles Times.
Last October, the Ritchies and Colum Riley, a business partner, began producing Bu’s Blend, now carried in 50 nurseries in California. Master gardener Spitz became a customer of the pricey fertilizer after studying various approaches to gardening and concluding that biodynamics “was the purest, healthiest and cleanest system.” Every seed she has planted using Bu’s Blend, she said, has sprouted and grown “big and beautiful.”
Malibu Compost pays organic dairy farmers an average of $10 a ton for manure. The payments provide a little cash flow for farmers, and the manure — piled in rows on Gena Nonini’s Fresno biodynamic farm — keeps Malibu Compost bustling.
Lapdogs of Loyalty
Like ignorant medieval oafs,
To their party Fla. Repugs are betrothed.
Even if they wished,
They couldn’t back Crist,
‘Cause they took a loyalty oath.
Americans Don’t Want Reagan on $50 Bill
A North Carolina Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would replace Ulysses S. Grant’s image with Ronald Reagan’s image on the $50 bill. A Marist poll found that 79 percent of Americans think it is a bad idea while 12 percent say it’s a good one and 9 percent are unsure. Even among Republicans, 71 percent oppose the change.
Chickens for Checkups Solves Health Care Issues
There’s been no shortage of derision for Republican Nevada Senate candidate Sue Lowery, who recently said that instead of reforming the health care system, patients should simply offer to barter live chickens or home paint jobs for medical services. On Twitter, a search for #LowdenCare returned hilarious results, with people wondering how many chickens to trade for heart transplants, what to do if they run out of chickens, how to meet insurance premiums that call for a pig along with chickens, and more.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a web site, “Chickens for Checkups,” that helps users send a letter to Lowery asking them to find a doctor who uses her system. One drop-down menu offers a selection of illnesses to ask Sue for a doctor to treat, all from the golden age of health care she references. Rickets, scurvy, ill humours, the vapors, bloodletting, consumption, and lumbago are included. People can also choose what they’d like to offer the doctors in exchange for treatment, including five pairs of overalls, three calf-cow pairs, and their best ranch hand. Check it out. If you have some livestock and a medical condition, you’re golden.
Verbatim
We had two recent tea party demonstrations in Washington, one a week before the health care vote drew about 1,000 people. The tax day rally, by the organizers’ own estimate was 1,500 people. If I organized a rally for stronger laws to protect puppies, I would get 100,000 people to Washington. So I think the media has blown the Tea Party out of proportion.
— Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendall (D), in an interview on Meet the Press, demonstrating an uncanny ability to keep current events in perspective.
Big Decisions
Charlie Crist is deciding these days
Whether he leaves his party or stays.
But Charlie has proven
In politics and lovin’
That he’s prepared to swing both ways.
