October 22, 2017

Why is breast cancer the rock star of cancers?

Today, another run, walk, whatever for breast cancer. Ball games, for breast cancer. The NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA teams all don pink uniforms for breast cancer, but scant few, if any, of the players will contract the disease. I have pink hats, ribbons and a lite up tie all supporting breast cancer causes (and women's causes). The Susan Komen thing. . So many events supporting breast cancer causes.

I've never seen a colon cancer thing. (2 friends including my ex wife died from this in the ladt year and one of my BFFs has a recurrance) Or an esophageal (what I just hopefully beat). Or all the other cancers that seem to get stuffed in the general cancer bag, while breast cancer and its charities are billion dollar enterprises. I know many women who have survived BC, and a couple that didn't, but I know a lot of people that have, had, or surely are going to have, all kinds of cancers.
Is the incidence of BC so much higher to warrant the disparity?

October 20, 2017

Robt Reich: Trump voters in KY and Tenn...

Today I'm in Tennessee (I just met someone who knows Dolly Parton but that’s as close as I've come to my idol).

Kentucky and Tennessee voted for Trump. In my free-floating focus group over the last couple of days in both states I’ve spoken with nearly 20 people who said they voted for Trump. Almost all of them told me this:

1. The reason they voted for Trump is they “hated Hillary” or “wanted to shake things up” in Washington, or "thought we needed a businessman."

2. They don’t like the job Trump is doing as president. (“He’s embarrassing,” “makes me ashamed,” “behaving like a child,” "chronic liar.&quot

3. Every one of them told me they regret voting for him (“never would have if I’d have known what an as*hole he is,” one told me).

4. They said their own personal economic position hasn’t changed from what it was last year, and Trump’s policies favor the rich (“he just cares about wealthy folk,” “said he’d drain the swamp and the swamp is worse.”)

5. Most are worried about Trump's mental capacity (“I don’t think the man has all his marbles,” “he could get is into a goddamn nuclear war,” "weird as hell,” “crazy as a loon.”)

6. Most don’t think he’ll finish his first term (“he’ll be impeached,” “kicked out,” “removed,” “he’ll resign.”)

7. Most don't trust him ("hasn't got a goddamn thing done," "blowhard," "huckster," "conman.&quot

8. Most would support a Democrat in 2020, if it was the “right” candidate ("both parties are rotten to the core," "sure, I'd vote for a Democrat," "used to be a Democrat but party got too liberal.&quot

9. Most said they’d support someone who “cleaned up the mess in Washington,” “got big money out of politics,” “made the system work for ordinary people.”)

10. Several of them told me that they'd support Medicare for all, or any system that lowered their health insurance costs. ("Spending a fortune for insurance," "insurance companies are the worst," "can't afford to insure my family.&quot

11. Several put education at the top of their list.

12. Not one of them supported spending money on a wall along the southern border of the U.S. ("stupidest goddamn idea I ever heard," "plain dumb," "guy ever heard of airplanes?&quot

More to come.

October 18, 2017

When RWNJs mention the D's and Weinstein show

Them this. (R)ape culture is male culture.

#rapeculture
“Some girls rape easy.” - Rep. Roger Rivard (R-Wi)
“Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” - Clayton Williams, R-former Texas gubernatorial candidate
“From what I understand...If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” - Todd Akin (R-Mo)
"You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” - Foster Friess (R-megadonor behind Rick Santorum Super PAC)
“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman? At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.” - Lawrence Lockman (R-Me)
“In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits, where a woman can get cleaned out.” - Jodie Laubenberg (R-Tx)
“I would hope that when a woman goes into a physician, with a rape issue, that that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage, or was it truly caused by a rape." - Chuck Winder (R-Id)
“What did they expect?” Liz Trotta (FOX pundit, referring to women who are raped in the military)
“Rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” - Rick Santorum (R-former presidential candidate)
“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
-Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock
“He also told me one thing, ‘If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry. Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.’ All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, ‘If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape.’ So the way he said it was, ‘Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.’
-Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard
“We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life? I have spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”
-Kansas State Rep. Pete De Graaf, saying that women should plan ahead to be raped.
“The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.”
-North Carolina Rep. Henry Aldridge
"Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
-Texas Gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, March 1990.
“The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.”
-Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephen Freind
“Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”
-Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee

October 17, 2017

What does The Dotard have on Mitch?

Everyone knows his wife (Commerce Secty, Elaine Cho) company has been investigated for drug shipping. https://www.thenation.com/article/mitch-mcconnells-freighted-ties-shadowy-shipping-company/

So that can't be it. Its got be bigger, huger, the biggest of the big.. Nobody would sit through that garbage last night unless he was severely compromised.

October 15, 2017

California burns, where's the President?

As raging wildfires devour the lives, homes and dreams of Californians in an unprecedented scale, one voice has been conspicuously mute through day after day of crisis: President Trump.

This is not a man who is reticent to let Americans know what is foremost on his mind. He is also someone who should have learned by now — after devastating hurricanes and the Las Vegas massacre — that Americans expect their president to step forward with empathy and resolve in moments of national trauma.

Yet Trump has offered no more than a few perfunctory words about the Wine Country fires that have left at least 40 dead, consumed thousands of structures and stretched the physical and mental mettle of the dedicated firefighters and medical professionals to the edge of exhaustion.
http://m.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-California-burns-Where-s-the-12278654.php

October 15, 2017

Gov Kasich on MTP

Man, stop cutting your hair yourself. Worst hair cut in history.
He's not a happy R.

October 14, 2017

Napa fire evacuee: Its time to say this. Trump has not

tweeted or shown any compassion to victims of the California wildfires

FROM FACEBOOK

John Ehrenfeld, nature photographer, political activist and writer, was evacuated from his Napa home five days ago. He’s one of 100,000 people under mandatory evacuation in the devastating North Bay fires in California.
John posted this today on his Facebook page:
We are safe in a hotel for another night. Well, those who know me knew my silence on the politics involved here would not last long. If it bothers you, I understand, but it’s time to say this.
I just watched a man describe how his wife died in his arms in Santa Rosa and a mother in tears recounting her son succumbing to the flames in their driveway while trying to escape. People have been burned alive. A woman who barely survived the carnage in Las Vegas lost her house. A woman in a wheelchair was waiting to die until a brave sheriff’s officer risked his life to save her. Rescuers are finding bodies burnt beyond recognition; other reduced to bones and ash. So far, 36 people have lost their lives, 100,000 people have been evacuated trying their best to find shelter and almost 6,000 structures have been totally destroyed. People are enduring unimaginable circumstances. Also, there is no telling how many pets and wildlife didn’t make it. No one can really imagine what this hell is like.
Not that I really care what he says or does, but Trump has not tweeted one word, made a speech, or shown any compassion at all to the victims of the California wildfires. Nothing. Zero. Worthless liberal heathens that we are and not as deserving as the dead red states of Texas and Florida. Are the dead in California less dead? Are their destroyed homes homes not a big deal? Are 100,000 refugees just a statistic? Others do care what the president says and his silence is deafening. If nothing else, the incredibly courageous and selfless firefighters, police, pilots, doctors, nurses and other civil servants deserve thanks and acknowledgment.
Finally, anyone who respects the educated professionals whose lives have been devoted to studying the earth and it’s climate, understands that the warming earth and oceans increases the severity of nature’s worst tragedies. Like fires, hurricanes and tornadoes as any American could see with their own eyes this year. Warm waters, torrential rains, overgrown brush, excessive heat, severe droughts and hurricane force winds are all a result. This is going to happen again and again as the Trump administration and their GOP and corporate enablers continue to dismantle all efforts aimed at slowing or reversing climate change. This is the new reality.

October 14, 2017

Watch an aerial view of St Thomas, US VI

Wow. They are talking about power around Christmas.

http://viconsortium.com/featured/watch-an-aerial-view-of-hurricane-irmas-devastation-on-st-thomas/

October 14, 2017

Wait a minute, wait a godamned minute (Vegas)

I'm watching the news, ABC. They say police are saying that the Vegas shooter shot at the large gas tanks nearby. But didn't hit them. WTF? How could you miss? Them things are huge, and VS had high powered weapons. He had to at least have some experience with shooting (where did he go to shoot anyway? A range?).
They went on to say he was targeting first responders. But the two statements don't jibe. Either he is an incredibly bad shot, or not.
Did he hit those tanks and they are keeping it quiet for reasons of public safety? I'd imagine that those tanks would be hard to fix.

October 12, 2017

Should we give the Dotard credit for hostage release?

Seems this might a positive development