Polly's Got The Flu

this is from the washington post; i couldn't even begin to make up shit like this:

"Speaking at a flu summit meeting in Wyoming Friday, Mike Leavitt, the president's health and human services secretary, said that Americans can't expect the federal government to take care of them if a pandemic strikes. His advice: Stockpile food in your bedroom.

"When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed," Leavitt said. "When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk, put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food. And that's what we're talking about."

this asshole doesn't say how long he thinks we should stay inside, hiding under our beds ..... why, this shows the same kind of far reaching attention to detail that tom ridge showed, way back when, he encouraged americans to "tape their windows" so the anthrax wouldn't get 'em .....

at least they're consistent in the message that "shopping is the best way an american can fight terrorism ....."

other than, of course, letting the government monitor your phone calls; track your purchases; keep records of your travels; watch you fuck your partner .... and, like god, watch you masturbate .....

hey, god? is that sparrow falling falling because you smote him for touching himself impurely?

or does he have the flu?

sandra day o'connor gave a speech last friday, in which she cautioned--in no uncertain terms--against what she sees as a slide into dictatorship .... did you hear about that? i know our media gave endless reportage to alito's wife bursting into tears when it was suggested, albeit tangentially, that her husband might be a racist, sexist, revanchist pig ..... and oh ..... oh, there was a lot of coverage about another teen who disappeared .... but nothing about sandra day o'connor talking about the united states as a potential dicatatorship .....

hmmmmm .....

excuse me ..... there's a heavy knocking on my door at 3 a.m. ..... wonder who it could be .............

speaking of republican health care in america, here's the new york time's bob herbert:

"How bad is Mississippi? In the papers compiled by Children's Rights for its lawsuit is a reference to testimony by a key official of the Department of Human Services, who said the state would "not necessarily investigate" whether sexual abuse had occurred if a "little girl" contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

In 2001, Sue Perry, the state's director of family and children's services, warned top state officials that "the crisis needs to be addressed by whomever has the power to rectify the situation - before a tragedy occurs." She quit the following year, saying in a letter to then-Governor Ronnie Musgrove that the system was starved for resources and had deteriorated so badly that protecting the children had become "an impossible task." At the time she wrote the letter, Ms. Perry was being directed to abolish 88 additional full-time positions. She told the governor that Mississippi's children had been placed at such great risk that some would die. "I am sorry to inform you," she said, "that this has already happened in DeSoto County. A 19-month-old child was brutally beaten by his stepfather in a case known to this agency."

Warnings don't get much louder, but the honchos in Mississippi were in no mood to listen. These were poor kids, after all. What claim did they have on the state's resources?

Two years after Ms. Perry resigned, Gov. Haley Barbour acknowledged that the state's Department of Human Services had "collapsed for lack of management and a lack of leadership." Collapsed. That was the governor's word. Was he serious? Was he planning to do something about it? You must be joking. He made the comment as he was announcing additional budget cuts for the agency."

This is, of course, the red-state Mississippi that is getting funds for Katrina rebuilds that blue-state Louisiana just can't seem to find.

gosh, if only they were fetuses, they'd get some fucking service, wouldn't they?

the march 12 new yorker has an article, "Political Science," in which it states that "Merck has applied to the FDA for a license to sell a vaccine developed to protect women against the human papillomavirus, the most common sexually transmitted disease in the U.S., and the primary cause of cervical cancer. It kills nearly five thousand women every year." This vaccine is described as being staggeringly effective .... it works, if its administerd to young girls before they become sexually active .... unfortunately, girls, you won't see it ..... "The Bush Administration, its allies on Capitol Hill, and the religious base of the Republican Party are opposed to mandatory HPV vaccinations ..... many abstinence supporters argue that eliminating the threat of infection would only encourage teenagers to have sex. [italics mine] "I personally object to vaccinating children when they don't need vaccinations, particularly against a disease that is one hundred per cent preventable with proper sexual behavior," [said] Leslie J. Unruh, founder and president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse."

i guess "proper sexual behavior" is none at all ..... the best way i know to prevent sexual behaviour in teenagers?

kill them ....

i'll just quote one more snippet from the new yorker: "Steve Hyman, the provost of Harvard University and a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, was appointed to run the National Institute of Mental Health during the Clinton Administration and remained in his job after Bush took office." he is quoted as saying, "The first inkling that things were different under Bush was when I put in a slate for my National Advisory Council. I got a call from one of the people I had nominated and he said, "Steve, is this normal? I was just called by somebody saying he was a White House liaison to the department of Health and Human Services. He asked me whether I made political donations, and if so to whom, and who did I vote for."

Hyman's commentary continues, and it is equally--if not more--appalling, as he describes administration interference with needle exchange, a surefire way of minimizing the spread of AIDS, and he goes on to talk about an anti-abortion lobbyist sent, as an American emissary, to the World Health Assembly in Geneva .... Hyman states, "As a scientist, [the answer has to be] I believe in data."

i'll be right with you ..... i just need to ..... urururssdgdhblorga blorga BLORGA aasfgghkGGHSDAEHAGHHH ..... puke some blood into this here wastebasket ......

now ..... i've had letters from some of you fine folks saying how much you've enjoyed my short (and presumably) humorous little "news releases," and how much more palatable they are than my rants, tirades, and fulminations ....

gosh, i sure am sorry ..... BUT ..... nothing in this week's news that is remotely humorous .... oh, you think the u.s. health and human services saying that buying a can of tuna fish as prophylaxis for bird flu is funny? hey, five thousand women are going to die from cervical cancer .... gosh, that really cracks me up! how about all the poor kids who are taking it, literally and figuratively, in the shorts from budget rollbacks? that just cracks me up ..... and every day i roll on the ground, barking like a dog, at the frothy good humour of eighty bodies cropping up in iraqi morgues ..... and another handful of soldiers killed by "insurgents ...." while bush staggers around saying bold leaderlike things like "stay the ..... course ...." ....... and rumsfeld, a man whose with and wisdom we all cherish, says things like ..... "stay the course ......."

profound policy, guys .... there's leadership ..... and statesmanship ..... for you .........

and here's your fucking "culture of life ...." well, you scumbags .... i've got your fucking culchur of life, right here .... culchur this, you sanctimonious, mass-murdering, genocidal fuckpigs .....

please: let's not have this tired old "mommy said it isn't nice to get angry .... only dick cheney can get angry ..... dick can do it but i can't ..... dick's a professional in anger management .... only christians can get angry ..... i can't do it and be a nice person" charade again ..... it's okay to be angry .... don't let the republicans tell you that you can't be angry .... you should be angry .... you'd better be angry .... you should be insensate with rage and you should be harnessing that energy ...... you should be badgering your senators to support the censure resolution forwarded by russ feingold and tom daschle ..... you should be demanding that your newspapers give sandra day o'connor coverage when she talks about america sliding into dictatorship ......

and you should know damn well that this is an election year and that it's critical .... and you should know damn well that any democrat that hasn't, by now, come out against this fucking war, is not a democrat and doesn't deserve a vote that puts them into or keeps them in a position of power .....

i'm going to go make myself a tuna fish sandwich ..... it's under my bed ...... with the duct tape ........

next week: dr. pete tapes the windows