News

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Is Your Vacation Killing You?

TIME Magazine is the latest to kill your summer vacay buzz.  They report on an interactive map  from the American Trauma Society that allows you to determine how quickly you could access potentially life saving trauma care.  As this helpful article points out, the areas suffering a dearth of trauma centers encompass a bunch of popular vacation destinations.

Actually the article is mostly about disparities in care in urban and rural centers, particularly with high risk emergencies – not just accidents, but strokes, heart attacks, etc.  It’s sad that to make this point, we need to appeal to wealthy vacationing urbanites and their fears of not being able to access emergency care.  Too often, we forget about the folks that live in our favorite vacation spots year round  – often in near or outright poverty.

And now I’ve killed your buzz too.

Don’t Make Me Defend Michele Bachmann

Maybe making Crazy Face is a migraine trigger?

Yesterday, we learned at Michele Bachmann suffers from debilitating migraine headaches.  According to people who work for Mitt Romney unnamed sources, Bachmann’s headaches are so severe that she is unable to function during severe migraine attacks and occasionally requires trips to the emergency room.  The disclosure of Bachmann’s condition is a pretty obvious attempt to create concerns about her fitness to assume the presidency.  Can she run the country if she’s curled up in bed, crying into her pillow and clutching a giant bottle of Advil, her silent tears freezing on the three ice packs she has strategically placed on her head and neck?  What if the Soviet Union tries to move nuclear weapons to Cuba and the X-Men are nowhere to be found and President Bachmann is locked in a bomb shelter since it’s the only place she can find where the sun won’t bother her eyes during a particularly bad migraine?  What will happen then??? Continue reading →

Wendi Deng Murdoch Will Cut You


 Today, during the hearings before the British Parliament during which Rupert Murdoch, his evil (yet slightly hot) spawn James, and precious Rebekah Brooks said nothing testified about the shameful phone-hacking scandal, a man in the public gallery decided to throw a pie of shaving cream at Rupert. What I’m guessing is that this man, identfied as Jonnie Marbles aka Jonathan May-Bowles, didn’t count on was slight woman sitting just behind Dr. Evil to be his greatest foe. As the attacker approached, Mrs. Murdoch, Wendi Deng, rose faster than nearly everyone else in the room, cocked her right arm back to yesterday and then proceeded to land a fierce head-correction slap to May-Bowles’ forehead. Point: Tiger Mom. Watch and learn, after the jump. Continue reading →

Texas Official Compares Section 8 Voucher Stampede to Buying the New iPad

Ahhh, Texas. Just when you think Florida and Arizona are the last bastions of deep fried insanity, along comes Texas with its own can of hobo beans.

In a story that will make you weep for humanity, officials in Dallas last week sat back and watched as thousands of desperate applicants found themselves in a human stampede to get Section 8 housing vouchers on the waiting list for Section 8 housing vouchers. More than 21,000 people applied for 5,000 vouchers. The DMN story shows how most of the people who showed up are workers with low-paying, minimum wage jobs or are older, handicapped and unable to support themselves.  Continue reading →

Tuesday Morning Headlines

Do you know what those damn cats did to me today?   They conned me out of two breakfasts.  First the Papa-Kitty came home from his overnight shift, and fed them.   Then the little fuckers woke me up with their sad, plaintive meows, and I fed them, not knowing the Papa-Kitty was home.   This, after yesterday’s Drug Incident, where it looked like the Buster and Amelia downed one of my anti-seizure pills, a medical emergency that wound up costing me $125.00.   This is why I have to work.   So here are your headlines.    Continue reading →

Watching the Murdoch House of Cards Crumble

(Editor’s Note: Since ThereWillComeSoftRains did this excellent update on all the goings-on of Murdochageddon, I’m making this your open thread for all things News Corp.-related. Uncle Rupert is scheduled to appear before Parliament this morning. The fun begins at 1 p.m. GMT on BBC Parliament. ~Bots)

Week two of the News Corp. fiasco continues

Have you resigned yet? No? Well you just aren’t keeping up with the latest fashion trends coming out of London. So many people have now resigned in the phone hacking scandal, UK unemployment has been pushed up to 95%. Nobody is left to run the country; we’ve had to become an absolute monarchy again. Until next week when the Queen is caught hacking Kate Middleton’s phone trying to find messages from her hairdresser revealing the secret of her shiny locks and she quits as well. The only thing left for us now is to give the whole country back to the druids, which is why I have built a large wicker man in my front garden (well that is what I am going to tell the police should they ask).

It’s all coming tumbling down

So it’s been two weeks since the NOTW scandal broke and for some it has dominated the news since then, which to the ADHD-suffering UK media makes it the greatest epic since the Iliad, starting, as sagas are wont to do in medias res, years after the initial accusations. But it has proven to be the Marmite of news; Continue reading →

How Not to be a Jerk at Comic-Con

Comic-Con how-to guides for what to see and where to go abound.  A lot of them will give you great advice for food, clothing, sights and sounds. This is not that kind of guide.

You see, one of the things people never address is the behavior of some of the convention goers.  The vast majority of the people at Comic-Con are excited fans and are genuinely enthusiastic about the presentations given. Continue reading →