We are not amused.

A few weeks ago, we bunnyproofed Kate’s room and started letting Ruby in. She immediately established the spare bed as her favorite chillin’ spot. At first I thought it was for the view from the window, but then it occurred to me: Camouflage.

P1000724

She spent the first week or so beating the crap out of all the stuffies, butting and nibbling and doing her bunny-punch (a surprisingly effective move, not to be confused with the rabbit punch). Now that she’s established herself as the dominant doe of the warren, she can rest in regal peace, which is what she does up there for hours on end. She will accept your tributes now. Make them leafy and green.

Overnight, my illness has taken a turn, and I’m off to find something called Buckley’s. It’s on the recommendation of one of our student journalists, who says, “You will curse me when you take it and bless me later.” Hmm. Well, I’m out of Nyquil and Dayquil now, anyway. I’ll try anything.

If I don’t find it in the first three U.S. pharmacies I try, I’ll head downtown and cross the border. (It’s Canadian, and you will not be surprised to learn that one of the first businesses you see when you emerge from the tunnel is a pharmacy. Gee, I wonder why?) If nothing else, adding eight bucks in tolls and an international excursion will guarantee that I feel better tomorrow, on the same theory that says the food comes right after you light a cigarette, the funny sound disappears when the mechanic is listening, etc.

A little bloggage to start the discussion:

The double-chinned doughboy behind this story — Marc Thiessen — was on the Daily Show last night. You know someone is a bastard when even my mild-mannered husband starts jeering at the TV.

While we’re on the subject, no doubt Jihad Jane will be today’s talking point at Fox News. She is said to have made her al-Q connections through that covert website, YouTube. I haven’t seen a mugshot that screams CRAZY this loud since, um, Amy Bishop.

(By the way, has “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” become a catch phrase in your household, too? It just seems to work for so many domestic situations.)

OK, then. Exit, coughing weakly.

Posted at 9:35 am in Same ol' same ol' |
 

34 responses to “We are not amused.”

  1. Randy said on March 10, 2010 at 9:42 am

    Buckley’s is a staple in our Canadian household. The slogan – “tastes awful, and it works”.

    Have a tablespoonful is like swallowing something from a homemade still. It burns down your throat and it makes your forehead tingle. And then you feel better. But I do think it’s to cold symptoms what Agent Orange was to forest defoliation. Just my opinion.

    353 chars

  2. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 9:59 am

    I had a little correspondence with Marc Theissen before he was rewarded for his atavistic attitudes with a column. My e-mail chided him for wanting to throw away our national morality in a fit of pants-piddling fear and reminded him that he had a better chance of being struck by lightning, winning the Powerball lottery, and scoring with Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron on the same day as he did of being hurt by a terrorist. He responded that he had lost friends in the WTC on 9/11. This distinction apparently is what has turned him into Dirty Harry.

    569 chars

  3. MichaelG said on March 10, 2010 at 10:10 am

    Jeff, call me back when you have Elisabetta Canalis on the list.

    64 chars

  4. brian stouder said on March 10, 2010 at 10:19 am

    On the subject of “We Are Not Amused”, and speaking of Marc Thiessen and the intersection (or dead-man’s curve) of conservative politics and law, consider today’s story from msnbc, with the header “Chief justice: State of Union scene ‘troubling’”. This made me think he was concerned about his colleague’s behavior at the speech, but NO – the subhead is “Annual speech has ‘degenerated into a political pep rally,’ says Roberts”

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35790685/ns/politics/

    Another excerpt, that made me inhale a little:

    “To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there,” said Roberts, a Republican nominee who joined the court in 2005. Roberts said anyone is free to criticize the court and that some have an obligation to do so because of their positions. “So I have no problems with that,” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court — according the requirements of protocol — has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.” (emphasis added)

    But indeed, the setting and symbolism is exactly right. These UNELECTED people at the pinnacle of one of the three co-equal branches of the United States government can damned-well come off their mountaintop and join the elected president and elected congress once a year, and put up with an environment that they don’t control – if’n you ask me.

    1621 chars

  5. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 10:34 am

    Rock on, Brian. I agree with every word. These nine people wield enormous influence and power over our lives without any fear of repercussions. And this pathetic candy-ass, who clearly lied about his devotion to precedent and settled law during his confirmation hearings, is whining because his feelings were hurt? Piss off, Roberts. What is going to hurt is watching oceans of money from corporations domestic and international flooding our electoral process thanks to you and your doctrinaire friends.

    For all their bullshit macho posturing, conservatives seem to have skin as thick as onion paper and Roberts’ must be thinner than that.

    642 chars

  6. Jenine said on March 10, 2010 at 10:44 am

    Pet rabbit beating on the stuffed animals. The pecking order will assert itself.

    80 chars

  7. JT Thomas said on March 10, 2010 at 10:45 am

    Why is there a State of the Union anyway? The Constitution does not require a speech, just a report. From Thomas Jefferson through William Howard Taft, the President sent a written report.

    It is just a pep rally, and a rather boring one at that. End it, don’t mend it.

    And, if the Justices are there, and are going to be subjected to this kind of pressure, don’t get all wee-weed up if one of them mouths a few choice comments along the way.

    449 chars

  8. brian stouder said on March 10, 2010 at 10:55 am

    But JT – the the ideal conservative tableau that we want to symbolically represent at the State of the Union address is of an agenda-setting chief executive, an attentive (or even disagreeable!) congress, and an impassive and fair-minded judiciary. In other words, “sitting there like a bump” is PRECISELY what the Supremes are ideally supposed to do. They may well ‘read the polls’, but they also have to dispassionately apply the laws, even as the president and the congress passionately contest the correct way forward.

    No?

    536 chars

  9. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 10:57 am

    JT,

    Roberts certainly has the right to mouth off. So does the president after an egregiously awful decision like Citizens United, which both conservative and liberal Americans are united in thinking was a terrible decision. In fact, Citizens United is one of the increasingly few topics on which the vast majority of Americans agree.

    I think we’re chuckling more at the sense of entitlement of our delicate chief justice, who is clearly such a sensitive soul that criticism is deeply wounding. Hopefully, Congress will install a few fainting couches for he and “Strip Search” Sammy Alito before the next State of the Union. We don’t want the poor dears feeling embattled or anything.

    689 chars

  10. MarkH said on March 10, 2010 at 11:02 am

    JT, YOU rock on. I agree with every word you say. So, Jeff, Brian, we should dismantle the constitutional make-up because of SCOTUS decisions you don’t agree with? Roberts has a right to be concerned with the “pep rally” atomosphere that has permeated the SOTU. She didn’t say anything, but it was accurately pointed out that Sonya Sotomoyor looked none to comfortable during Obama’s innaccurate summation of “a century’s worth of campaign finance law” and the reaction of those in attendance. And lest you all lambaste Roberts too harshly, it was Roberts himself who conspicuously got out of the way of DC’s gay marriage law.

    626 chars

  11. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 11:11 am

    MarkH,

    Settle down, man. Who has even broached dismantling our Constitutional makeup? Am I pissed off about Citizens United? You bet. Is there anything I can do about it? Nope. Hopefully, Congress will take up legislation to address the genie SCOTUS has unleashed upon us. Meanwhile, let Roberts carp. Let Obama carp. Where is it written that a chief justice can’t whine about his feelings? Where is it written a president cannot register disgust with an activist court?

    And the pep rally element, Mark? I guess there was none of that during the last administration, or the Clinton administration, or the first Bush administration. . .There’s always been an element of that to every state of the union, man.

    714 chars

  12. Jason T. said on March 10, 2010 at 11:11 am

    It’s Cana­dian, and you will not be sur­prised to learn that one of the first busi­nesses you see when you emerge from the tun­nel is a phar­macy. Gee, I won­der why?

    Nancy: Obviously you haven’t heard that the American health care system is the greatest health care system in the world.

    I’m pretty sure they need all of those pharmacies in Canada because Canadians are in such poor health.

    P.S.: Get well soon. Don’t cough on the bunny.

    P.P.S.: Randy, does Buckley’s make anything to suppress partisan fevers and relieve political headaches? We need some of that.

    610 chars

  13. alex said on March 10, 2010 at 11:29 am

    I get it now. All the fireworks stores along Indiana’s borders are rigged up for detonation in case of terrorist invasions from the liberal states of Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.

    178 chars

  14. coozledad said on March 10, 2010 at 11:40 am

    Roberts owes his position to an idiot who got suckered by the Pasdaran into invading Iraq. Let his closeted ass bleat about the uppity negro. He’s a clueless fuck who’d overturn Brown vs. Board if he thought he could swing it.
    Thiessen is bad seed. One day, with proper genetic counseling, couples will be able to to avoid the pain and stigma of saddling the world with a such a dollop of excrement.

    400 chars

  15. Peter said on March 10, 2010 at 11:42 am

    Jeff, your Marc Thiessen story bugs me to no end, although I should be used to this behavior by now.

    A lot of people lost friends on 9/11. So that allows you to be a basket case? He ought to grow a pair.

    You know, a lot of people were killed by the Japs and Nazi’s during The Big One. Sure, there were plenty of examples of naturalized citizens being hounded in retaliation, but the vast majority of Americans buried the hatchet and bought VW’s and Toyotas.

    466 chars

  16. paddyo' said on March 10, 2010 at 11:49 am

    Cooz, brilliant. I’m going to play the Trifecta this Kentucky Derby on Brown vs. Board to win, Ass Bleat to place, and Dollop of Excrement to show.

    147 chars

  17. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 11:58 am

    Peter,

    Amen, brother. Watching the videos of that day is still hard for me. It was a terrible, cowardly act of violence by backwards, insane religious fanatics who live in caves. But the plainly stated goal of terrorism is coercion, to force others to alter the way they live out of fear. The way you stand up to it is by emulating the British during the Blitz: Remain Calm. Carry On. You do not throw the rule of law out of the window and embrace the kind of actions usually limited to banana republics and dictatorships.

    In my reply to Theissen, I noted that more Americans had been killed or wounded in Iraq, an unnecessary war he helped promote, than had been killed or wounded on 9/11. I’m still waiting for his answer.

    730 chars

  18. moe99 said on March 10, 2010 at 12:23 pm

    And the US has responded brilliantly to terrorism:
    http://www.salon.com/news/torture/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/03/09/waterboarding_for_dummies

    We make Josef Mengele look good–at least he didn’t pretend to be something else.

    238 chars

  19. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 12:34 pm

    Moe,
    That is very disturbing reading. God, Dick Cheney is truly an awful, evil man. . .and so, too, is his daughter, Liz. A vile family indeed.

    144 chars

  20. beb said on March 10, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    It was on Yahoo yesterday and BoingBoing today….Detroit to downsize!
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/09/detroit-looks-at-downsizing-to-save-city/

    Here are three reasons this won’t happen:
    1. Money. It costs money to bulldoze houses. Even more to find their rightful owners. Money the city doesn’t have.
    2. Crime. Tell drug dealers there’s a section of town the police will stop patrolling and they’ll move in.
    3. Toxic Waste. Only fools and idiots would eat food grown in reclaimed Detroit land without it first being tested for lead, asbestos, mercury, cadmium and cyanide. Also PCB, PBB, Benzene and gasoline.

    634 chars

  21. rfs said on March 10, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    Peter, I agree with most of what you say, but if the “vast” majority of Americans had actually bought VW’s and Toyotas we (Michigan and the US) would be in real trouble – and not just from the increase in accidents.

    215 chars

  22. KLG said on March 10, 2010 at 2:49 pm

    More on Amy Bishop:
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n05/adam-shatz/short-cuts

    71 chars

  23. MichaelG said on March 10, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    Eagles Quarterback and noted dog lover Michael Vick was one of 32 NFL players to receive the Ed Block Courage Award. The award is presented to players who exemplify commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage.

    Somehow this fits right in with today’s comments.

    277 chars

  24. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    Oh.My.God. Yeah, nothing says sportsmanship and courage like slaughtering dogs for the amusement of others. What organization gives out this award, Michael?

    156 chars

  25. Kirk said on March 10, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    The Ed Block Courage Award Foundation, affiliated with the NFL, presents such an award to one player from each of the 32 NFL teams. The players vote. Vick’s teammates elected him unanimously.

    191 chars

  26. Dexter said on March 10, 2010 at 5:06 pm

    I don’t have anything on-topic, but I wanted to drop this in , just in case anyone has been away from the planet for a couple months and missed the story that the Hendrix estate has released a new album of previously unheard Hendrix music. It’s great, of course…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5K5dDuMAI

    309 chars

  27. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks, Kirk. If Mr. Vick were a wiser man, he would have thanked his teammates and declined.

    93 chars

  28. Kirk said on March 10, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    No kiddin’. I’m with you on Vick, not of a mind to be forgiving of such twisted behavior.

    89 chars

  29. Jeff Borden said on March 10, 2010 at 5:54 pm

    I guess his teammates wanted to stick it to the NFL. I can think of no other explanation. Then again, given all the violent s.o.b.’s in the NFL, including those who have assaulted men and women, perhaps they figure a guy who got his rocks off by watching dogs tear each other apart isn’t so bad.

    295 chars

  30. Dexter said on March 10, 2010 at 6:06 pm

    Antonio Cromartie is an example of vaunted sainthood compared to Vick.
    Still, an eyebrow rises as you read Cromartie goes 7-6-5. That’s seven kids, six women, five states.
    But even a pro football salary can’t feed all those hungry mouths; he just signed a contract with the NY Jets, because the Jets agreed to kick in an immediate half-million dollars for diapers and baby food. Those women were breathing down his neck. Now everything is all peachy keen and the babies got milk and shoes. Ain’t life a bowl of cherries?

    527 chars

  31. deb said on March 10, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    cooz at 14: awesome, dude. is there any chance you’re channeling the late great ashley?

    87 chars

  32. coozledad said on March 10, 2010 at 6:57 pm

    deb:I never put much stock in the whole collective unconscious thing, but I was reading “The Solar Anus” by Georges Bataille, and wondered “What the hell is he on about?” Then I saw a clip of Thiessen.
    Makes you think.

    219 chars

  33. brian stouder said on March 10, 2010 at 10:49 pm

    Another thing by which ‘we are not amused’

    http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20100310/LOCAL0201/303109991/1002/LOCAL

    the lead –

    The sign on the door at Ricker’s City Laundry at Calhoun Street and Rudisill Boulevard was blunt and shocking to some, at least to those who could read it.

    “For Sanitary Purposes, There Are No Burmese People Allowed.”

    How long the sign hung there isn’t clear, maybe a week, maybe a little more, and apparently no one said a word, possibly because some Burmese couldn’t read it, and possibly because everyone else figured, “I’m not Burmese, so why worry?”

    One of Mr Gray’s better efforts follows

    673 chars

  34. Denice B said on March 11, 2010 at 1:17 am

    The Walgreens at Mack and Moross has Buckley’s.

    47 chars