Ever just want to start bitch-slapping someone until the skin on your knuckles wears off?

A Republican lawmaker on Monday poured fuel on the fire of Capitol Hill's heated spending debate, calling high spending "economic child abuse."

"We cannot continue this out of control spending. It is basically economic child abuse," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during an interview on Fox News."

PS: Having gone to the Tenn well twice today, I feel compelled to say again: I have no Google Alert or something like that tripped to email me when stories about The State of Insanity appear. They just find me.

How's this for a metaphor?

Garbage will pile up in the streets of the capital, the Statue of Liberty will close and astronauts will stay home if the Congress fails to reach a budget deal and the government shuts down.

Every now and then, I like to quote what Roger Ebert says when he thinks a movie sucks

Because it's usually good fun and also underlines some things I take pride in avoiding in my own work. Case in point: Your Highness; the female characters therof:

I mentioned boobs. Yes, there are a lot of boobs in this movie. But not much interest in women. Zooey Deschanel plays the intended bride of Franco, the son of the king. She's brought onstage, quickly kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, spends a good deal of time as a captive in his lair, is rescued and lives happily ever after. She might as well be a mannequin, for all she's given to say and do. This intelligent, nuanced actress, standing there baffled. Used as a placeholder.

Natalie Portman is the Xena clone, a fierce warrior, laid on for anime fans who seem to regard such characters as masturbatory fantasies. She too has no personality, although she has more dialogue, all of it expressing cliches of steely determination.

The story to which Facebook doesn't want me to link

I was just trying to post a link on my Facebook wall to this story:

Christie Calls Teachers' Union 'Thugs'

My riff was going to be to cite this quote:

"I believe the teachers in New Jersey in the main are wonderful public servants and care deeply. But they're union – their union are a group of political thugs."

Emphasis mine.

Then I was going to say, "I like a story about criticizing teachers that ends up showing the need for good ones."

(I'm on a grammar kick today.)

As I say, that's what I was going to do. But when I tried, I got:

This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error.

Now, I don't know if it was the use of the word "thugs" or just that in combination with "political." But I feel like it's got to say something about something that a U.S. Governor is using language you're not allowed to use on Facebook.

All in order of criticizing people for having the temerity to expect a decent wage and respect in the workplace for educating his constituents. Why wouldn't the GOP want the U.S. to have an educated populace?

Oh, right. ...right.

No comment.*

Tennessee House Passes Bill That Lets Teachers Question Evolution In Science Class

*I mean, I tried to come up with some sort of riff on Dolby's "Science," but it's really early.

This is beautiful.

A painting by French Impressionist Paul Gauguin that was attacked by a visitor to the National Gallery of Art in Washington is back on exhibition.

The painting, "Two Tahitian Women," went back on display Tuesday after conservators determined that the painting, which was covered by Plexiglas, sustained no damage after a visitor attempted to pull it off the wall and hit it Friday.

The woman charged in the attack, Susan Burns, of Alexandria, Va., is expected to appear in D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday.

Sigh...wouldn't you just know she'd be from Virginia? (My mother comes from there.)

According to court documents, Burns told investigators: "I feel that Gauguin is evil.

Um...no, Gauguin was an artist. And while I don't know enough about his life to say whether he was a moral man personally-and I suspect my definition differs from hers...doesn't matter. We're talking about one of his paintings, which can be neither evil nor virtuous.

He has nudity and is bad for the children.

Look lady, there's a little thing called context. Not all nudity looks like it comes from the pages of Playboy.

He has two women in the painting and it's very homosexual.

As we all know, two women = homosexual. It's just the way it works.



Just as any combination of six men and women leads you to an omni-sexual orgy:



Oh BTW, this is the painting:

You can clearly see how in this case, the work is not just homosexual, it is very homosexual.

I was trying to remove it. I think it should be burned. I am from the American CIA and I have a radio in my head.

You know...I'm beginning to think this woman just may be crazy.

I am going to kill you.

I can see I was wrong.

The Star Wars Meme Trilogy: Episode One

This is derived from a long meme I found on Becca's blog. She answered all 30 questions in one post; I think the original idea was to answer one a day for a month. I'm shooting for something in-between, breaking it down into three parts...which seemed appropriate.



1. All-time favorite character in Star Wars

Yoda. According to one of those quizzes (which as we know are never wrong) he's the Attack of the Clones character I'd be.

2. Favorite member of the Rebellion

Luke Skywalker. Or Leia Organa. Or Han Solo. Or C3PO...this is hard!


3. Favorite member of the Empire

I suppose I can't say Galen Marek, can I? He was Vader's apprentice but never actually a...so, ooh, Juno Eclipse!



4. Favorite Jedi

Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi. Honestly it's a toss up between him and Yoda for all-time favorite or favorite Jedi.

5. Favorite droid

R2D2

6. Favorite type of ship, or specific ship

X-Wings



7. Favorite planet

Kamino. I like a watery world, so it was either this or the Gungan part of Naboo, and that was never going to happen.



8. Favorite movie in the original trilogy

Empire Strikes Back



9. Favorite movie in the prequel trilogy

Attack of the Clones

10. Favorite photo that’s related to Star Wars
The Yoda-Buddha!