Author: Trish

Happy Bestiality Follow-up

Trish

Lucky got lucky. The Florida guide dog whose owner was arrested for sexually abusing it (see previous post) has been adopted.

The yellow Lab was being held at the Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center since being voluntarily relinquished by its previous execrable owner.

Tallahassee Democrat:

“He seemed so sad, but as soon as he got on a leash he was excited and bouncy and ready to get out of there,” [Lucky’s new owner, Stacy Cintron] said.

She adopted him that day.

“He’s fine,” said Cintron, who will study clinical exercise physiology and sports administration. “He is very playful; he’s 9 years old, but he seems like a puppy.”

The court date for Alan Yoder, Lucky’s abuser, is Aug. 2. I hope area animal activists turn out in droves to let him know how they really feel about him.

Supreme Court Announcement: You’re Getting Sleepy, Very Sleepy

Trish

Team Bush is out of ways to deflect the Rove scandal. Not.

Tonight’s Supreme Court announcement will leave reporters and the public scrambling for details. Tomorrow’s papers will relegate Karl & Ko. to page 2 – or worse, to the abyss where the Downing Street Memo vaporized – and we’ll all have something else to talk about.

The big question in the days that follow is not what Bush will do, but how the press will respond. Will they drop Rove like a hot fried tater tot and go scampering off as directed, or will they stay on the job, sniffing out the truth? Will White House Spokestool (thanks, WTF Is It Now) Scott McClellan begin loving his job again, or will he continue to have good reason to phone it in?

The answer will tell us whether Bush’s recent troubles are a passing setback from which he will emerge stronger, or if they signal a true sea change. I’m cautiously optimistic that for Bush, the bad times are here to stay.

Dying to Be Pure in Florida

Trish

Florida has a higher incidence of cervical cancer than the nation as a whole. About 10.8 Florida women per 100,000 are diagnosed annually, as opposed to 9.2 for the country. More Florida women also die of the disease – 2.9 per 100,000, compared to 2.7 for the rest of the United States.

Yes, these so-called Christians count on fear. Fear of death. Fear of eternal damnation. Too bad they don’t fear ignorance and foolishness.

Science is close to a vaccine that, if administered before exposure to the sexually-transmitted virus that can cause the deadly disease, would protect women from ever getting cervical cancer. Florida’s legislature recognized the importance of pursuing such a vaccine, and through statute, enacted the Cervical Cancer Elimination Task Force two years ago.

But Jeb Bush this month vetoed $30,000 for administrative costs for the task force. Why would Jeb eliminate a lousy $30,000 from a $63 million budget? Family values.

Palm Beach Post:

Two vaccines now in clinical trials face opposition from religious conservatives who believe inoculating children against a sexually transmitted virus would encourage premarital sex…

A spokesman for the governor cited financial reasons for turning down $30,000 in administrative costs for the cervical cancer elimination task force. But state Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, who asked for the money, said the veto had more to do with fear of criticism from the religious right wing of the Republican Party.

“We have this great opportunity to eradicate cervical cancer, but these wackos think it could make teenagers have sex,” she said. “It’s so discouraging to have to fight this right-wing stuff on what should be a public-health issue.”

That’s right. The folks who brought you the Terri Schiavo fiasco are back. This time they are so concerned with morals and virtue that they’d just as soon your kids die if they have sex.

[…]

Parents Run, Don’t Walk, to this Site to Keep Your Kids Off the List

Trish

Pensito Review recently reported on a group of Florida parents asking a school board to make means to “opt out” of military recruiting more widely available on campus.

Here is a web site where you can opt out of both the Pentagon’s database and the schools’ military recruitment lists:

LeaveMyChildAlone.org

Parents, since these lists are being compiled on kids beginning in middle school, and since recruiters begin contacting them that early, don’t wait to sign up.

Your Brain on Drugs Looks a Lot Like Rush Limbaugh

Trish

Rush Limbaugh is looking more like the poster child for today’s drug addict. A recent study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that the type of drugs Rush enjoy(ed) are the drugs of choice for more Americans than all others combined.

The 15.1 million Americans abusing controlled prescription drugs exceed the combined number abusing cocaine (5.9 million), hallucinogens (4.0 million), inhalants (2.1 million) and heroin (.3 million).

Among the most popular are OxyContin and Vicodin, Valium and Xanax, and Ritalin and Adderall. The study found that between 1992 and 2003, there was an 81 percent increase in abuse of these drugs by adults (18 and over), and a startling 212 percent jump among 12- to 17-year-olds.

“Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse and addiction,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s chairman and president and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. “While America has been congratulating itself in recent years on curbing increases in alcohol and illicit drug abuse, and in the decline in teen smoking, abuse of prescription drugs has been stealthily, but sharply, rising.”

Availability of these drugs – which are so much more alluring to the Rushes and Noelle Bushes of the world – online has a lot to do with their popularity, the study said. If only they had figured out how to buy online, the pair might not have been busted for doctor shopping.

Bestiality A-OK in Florida

Trish

Florida, which has laws against gays adopting children, oral sex between adults of either gender, and erections that show through a man’s clothing, has no law whatsoever against people having sex with animals.

The recent arrest of a blind Tallahassee man accused of forcing sex on his guide dog highlights this egregious shortcoming.

Tallahassee Democrat:

…Alan Yoder, 29, originally was charged with felony animal cruelty, but court records show that charge was dropped last Friday and replaced with a misdemeanor – disorderly conduct.

Yoder now is charged with a “breach of the peace, by engaging in sexual activity with a guide dog,” according to a court document.

Wouldn’t you think, with all this attention to non-reproduction inspired sex, on people who have non-reproduction inspired sex, and on never, ever seeing evidence of one of the two components needed for reproduction inspired sex, that someone would have thought to outlaw frickin’ bestiality? Not in Florida.

The article doesn’t give the kind of details you’re looking for but it does tell how the asswipe got arrested.

…Yoder, who lives in a local apartment complex, last month asked a female acquaintance to join him in a sex act with the dog, a male yellow Labrador named “Lucky.”

She demurred, but later told a friend about it. That person called a social worker, who called police.

Investigators spoke to Yoder on June 16, who admitted performing certain sex acts with the dog, even going into detail with them, but denied doing others. He was arrested and booked June 22, charged with animal cruelty.

It’s not like this has never come up before. Florida’s had plenty of time to get its act together.

Last year, an Ocala man pleaded no contest to felony animal cruelty after being charged with having sex with his then-fiancee’s female Rottweiler, according to the Pet-Abuse.com Web site.

A judge withheld adjudication and ordered five years of probation and a psychological evaluation. He also prohibited the 27-year-old man from “owning pets of any kind while on probation and from having unsupervised contact with other people’s pets,” the site said.

I can’t begin to think what would make any man (in both cases) do this to any animal but how horrible is it in the Tallahassee case to do to a service dog — a dog that has been trained to do nothing but help, be loyal and trusted, and keep its lousy, rotten, disgusting owner out of harm’s way, even at its own peril?

In Florida, a 19-year-old who has sex with a 17-year-old has to wear a GPS unit for life, be pictured in the paper with every relocation, and not live within however many feet of a school, park, etc. But we do absolutely nothing to protect animals from deviants who are beyond the pale. I’m pissed.

Huggies and Wings Crook Gets Odd Sentence

Trish

The woman convicted of putting the Huggies and Wings on the Clinton administration’s tab was sentenced today, and it’s a bizarre sentence at that.

Ogilvy & Mather advertisng agency executive Shona Seifert was found guilty of overbilling the Clinton Administration’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) by shifting billing time from other accounts to the government. Handwritten notes to her assistant that said, “Put Huggies and Wings time on ONDCP” sealed the deal.

Ad Age Online:

A federal judge today sentenced Shona Seifert to 18 months in prison and ordered her to pay a $125,000 fine for her role in the Ogilvy & Mather scheme to overbill the goverment on its national anti-drug ad account. The judge also ordered her to develop a written code of conduct for the advertising industry.

Is it me, or is this kind of like asking Ken Lay to draft up a code of conduct for shareholder reporting?

The code of conduct is due to Judge Berman by Oct. 15, but it’s unclear what will he will do it.

Put it in the trash would be my advice.

Gonzales Could Save Us From Martinez, But Work Less Than Bush if Appointed to Supreme Court

Trish

Alberto Gonzales might be [more] useless if he’s appointed to the Supreme Court, according to the Washington Post.

White House officials weighing the nomination of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to the Supreme Court are considering whether a federal ethics law would require him to sit out cases of critical importance to the Bush administration once he was on the court…[H]e would have to disqualify himself whenever issues he worked on in the Bush administration came before the court.

…Anytime a justice recuses, there is the possibility of a 4 to 4 tie, automatically affirming the lower court’s judgment.

…Much of the White House review focuses on anti-terrorism policy, of which Gonzales was an architect while serving as White House counsel. But social issues Gonzales has dealt with as attorney general, such as assisted suicide and abortion rights, are also at stake.

Hey, it’s not like he’s duck hunting with the Vice President while the veep’s case is coming before the Court or anything.

This should make Bush’s other favorite inside Latino look better. The horrifying idea that Florida Sen. Mel “Do Nothing and Blame It on Aides the Few Times You Do” Martinez be considered for the post came up shortly before O’Connor’s announcement.

June 29, 2005 St. Petersburg Times:

When leaders of the Senate began talking about nominees for a possible vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, a familiar Florida name popped up: Mel Martinez.

The freshman senator was one of four people Democratic leader Harry Reid said he mentioned to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Martinez learned about Reid’s comments midafternoon when reporters began calling his staff for comment. The suggestion was laughed off…

Reid offered Frist four suggestions: Republican Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He called Martinez “a skilled trial lawyer.”

I’d be laughing too if it wasn’t so awful to contemplate. The only funny part is how hard Mel tries, in popular GOP fashion, to avoid that “trial lawyer” label. Aren’t they the root of all evil every time a Republican runs for office? Lord, save us from these morons.

Jeb Says Rove Couldn’t Have Done It

Trish

A report from a Florida news service today quotes Jeb’s take on the party line, including the requisite “if’s” and “who cares” and “what’s the big deals.”

Capitol News Service:

“If it’s illegal to out a covert operator, then Karl didn’t do it and he’s not a target of the investigation.”

How’s that for logic? If it’s illegal (a question only bandied about on FOX News), then Karl didn’t do it. If it’s not illegal, well now, it could be Karl after all. Wait, there’s more.

“But it’s really kind of a symptom of the putrid nature of Washington D.C. to pile it on without any facts. There’s a special prosecutor doing this investigation. Karl’s not a subject to that probe. I don’t think…I think it’s much to do [sic] about nothing, but we’ll see. Let the process work.”

Yeah, it’s just those D.C. types hitting a man when he’s down. And it’s not very important anyway.

It’s gratifying that so far, Bush and his Brain (does that make Cheney his Dick?) aren’t getting away with it this time. I mean these guys made a gay male prostitute in the White House briefing room disappear, so I figured they’d ooze their way of this one too. Heh.

Law, Constitutional Amendment Proposed to Ban Democrat Similes, Metaphors

Trish

Reacting to the latest in a series of unflattering comparisons by Democrats – this one by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton comparing Pres. Bush to Mad’s Alfred E. Neumann – a group of Republicans in Congress is introducing legislation to ban both similes and metaphors in any speech, public or private, by any Democrat.

Republicans seek to forbid future comparisons of Bush to cartoon characters by banning Democrats’ use of similes, metaphors, analogies and symbolism.

“We’ve had it with these apt comparisons,” Sen. Bill Frist (R-Sanctimony) said. “No more. If a law won’t get it done, we’ll start a petition for a Constitutional amendment.”

Rep. Tom Delay (R-Hypocrisy) added the method of likening one person or thing with another is distracting from the public’s business.

“We’re running out of ways to appear righteously indignant,” he said. “They’re just wearing us down. That whole thing with the Gitmo gulags – it was tough parsing out the fine distinctions of why that was an outrage. We’ve got to have some relief.”

Asked why the law, which will include analogies and symbolism, as well as figures of speech, would only bar Democrats from making contrasts, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Freakazoid) said such a question was the equivalent of a personal attack.

“That’s like asking why we want religious freedom, but only for Christians,” he said. “It’s like asking why it’s O.K. for Americans to torture prisoners but not for insurgents to. It’s like asking why Bill O’Reilly can have phone sex but not Bill Clinton. It’s like saying gay people are screwing dogs. Wait, that was me. But what are you, like a Communist?”