TITBTIESOTI(T)

This Is The Best Thing I've EVER Seen On The Internet (Today)!

Every day I usually find something interesting or noteworthy on the internet, so I decided to post one today.

Here's 25 seconds of fairly cool, followed by 5 seconds of sheer awesome!

Air Santa

Yes, it's my video from a million years ago of me putting on a red suit and jumping out of a perfectly good plane for a bunch of kids.

Merry Christmas and all that.

I'm working for FedEx for one more week before I start a new job. Doing the delivery thing for the holiday season was fun and challenging; and for the first time during a December I've actually LOST weight!

But I'm looking forward to starting training for a good field service job early next month. I can always exercise and diet to lose weight rather than work 70 hours a week jumping on and off a van and heaving packages about all willy-nilly! (I don't really do that)

Enjoy!

"Dear Leader" croaks

The guy didn't look all that healthy to me anyway, so this is no big surprise.

Kim Jong Il died suddenly of a reported heart attack yesterday. His son, Kim Jong Un is the likely successor. Because, in brutal dictatorships, it's often the son of the leader who takes control of the nation upon his leaving office. For example, see Papa Doc/Baby Doc Duvalier, Augustus and Tiberius Caesar, and G.H.W and G.W Bush.

That's a joke.

On several levels.

Anyway, the thing I'll remember the most about Kim Jong Il is that he was so very very lonely.



(Don't be surprised if Youtube pulls this video quickly for copyright infringement)

UPDATE: Best Tweet of the day from @PatFrmMoonachie :

Kim Jong's dead??..I didn't even know he was Il.

Lowes caves to anti-freedom-of-religion wackos

I was wondering about that word. "wackos". I tend to want to spell it "whackos", but I've seen it written the former way a lot, so I'll yield to conventional wisdom in this case. Although personally, I still prefer "whackos". Oh well...

Now that we got that out of the way, here's a video of Chris Murphy (CT-05), speaking to Congress about the cowardly decision by Lowes to pull all their advertising from a new reality show/documentary about Muslim families in America.

Congressman Murphy reminds us that the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion is sacred to our nation, and the vocal hysterics of a tiny minority shouldn't affect that. Lowes displayed a lack of courage in their decision to pull the ads. I hope enough Americans agree with that and give their business to Home Depot, or better yet, their independent hometown hardware store. I still mourn the loss of Harrison's Hardware in downtown Milford several years ago...there was something comforting about walking down the aisles and hearing the old wooden floorboards creaking. You don't get that experience in the giant big-box stores.

Justice is served...now what?

Okay, so Joshua Komisarjevsky (yes, I had to copy and paste his name...nobody but his family and his lawyers can possible spell it without looking) has been sentenced to death, same as his home invasion partner Steven Hayes.

Now what?

Let's put aside the moral implications of the death penalty for now, as many of you already know my position. What about the practical issues?

The way the death penalty statute stands in Connecticut, it's pretty much assured that should Komisarjevsky and Hayes decide to fight against their sentence, they'll likely die of natural causes (like old age) behind bars before they'll ever have to walk to the death chamber. That's because there are multiple procedures and safeguards built into the law that gives the accused a reasonable chance to appeal his conviction and sentence.

There are obviously cases where an innocent person has been put to death. "You can't get pardoned from the grave," as Juan Melendez-Colon stated at a recent talk in Connecticut. Melendez-Colon spent over 17 years on Florida's death row and was pretty much out of appeals before finally being released upon discovery of his innocence.

It is demonstrably impractical for the state to kill an innocent man. Yet just this week I was astounded when I heard an interview with John Walsh, the host of the TV show "America's Most Wanted" (and the father of a murdered child) admit that while there have been innocent men who have been executed he is still in favor of the death penalty. This is obviously the price of his own humanity that he is willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of vengeance.

But the practical issue here is that the state has to burden itself with the costs of both the prosecution and the defense of every single appeal, along with the increased costs of security for the defendant. These costs far exceed the expense of housing a convict for life in a maximum security prison. And as taxpayers, we're ALL footing the bill for this "justice".

That is exactly what will happen anyway should Komisarjevsky and Hayes refuse to accept their sentence. If they should decide to drop their appeals, they will eventually be put to death, just as serial killer Micheal Ross was in 2005 after dropping his appeals in favor of death.

And that still took a decade of expensive legal wrangling to accomplish.

For what was basically a state-assisted suicide.

The fact of the matter is that sooner or later the death penalty will be abolished in Connecticut. The state legislature put a repeal bill on Gov. Jodi Rell's desk a while back, but she refused to sign it. Governor Malloy will almost certainly approve a death penalty repeal should it cross his desk...I say "almost" because I've learned through painful experience that what a candidate promises is too often the exact opposite of what an office-holder does.

So obviously it's time to rewrite our law to make it "life without any fucking possibility of parole" (and I'm going to push for that exact wording in the law) for anyone convicted of a capital crime.

That way the state saves tax dollars, and the families of both the victims and the defendants (often the overlooked victims of the crime) are spared countless appeals and court appearances.

Playing politics with women's health

Fresh off the surprising and disappointing decision by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to reject the Food and Drug Administration's conclusion that the Plan B One-Step pill was safe enough to be placed on pharmacy shelves without an age limit, President Obama chimed in with his own opinion.

“The reason Kathleen made this decision is that she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going to a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could have an adverse effect,” Mr. Obama said to reporters at the White House.

I truly despise the implication of remarks such as these that we're all complete fucking idiots. I know it's an election year and the Republicans are going to bring every possible issue to bear, but for fuck's sake, this is a serious stuff!

The "Plan B" (or "Morning After pill") is quite literally equally or less dangerous than many hundreds (or thousands) of unrestricted OTC medications that can be legally purchased by anyone of any age who can successfully complete a transaction of money for medications. To have the president casually say that he wants to protect children from potentially ingesting a single medication for potential thrills(?) or from simple stupidity, while deliberately ignoring all the rest of the OTC drugs is ridiculous and beyond acceptable!

I've become used to this sort of obvious bullshit from eight years of George Bush and twenty-plus years of Joe Lieberman, but to hear it a guy whom I hoped was far above that level of political hypocrisy makes me literally want to vomit. Is it a recent prerequisite to totally sell out once you attain the Oval Office?

It bugs the hell out of me that Sebelius and Obama, two candidates who strongly supported women's health issues when campaigning, have made this disastrous judgment that will directly impact the lives and families of many women, and will also have far-reaching implications in the ongoing struggle to protect a woman's right to choose.

Jesus! To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, how fucking low do you have to stoop to be President?

Manchester paper backs Gingrich!

Oh, thank you, Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, thank you for throwing your vast editorial weight behind my favorite 90s-era politician name, Newt Gingrich!

This will make it much easier than if they had gone the moderate route and chosen New England favorite Mitt Romney, whom I still perceive as the greatest threat to President Obama's re-election next year.

Thankfully, the extreme right will never allow someone who even faintly resembles a moderate to be nominated, and even if they find someone who is slightly left of Benito Mussolini, they'll manage to mold him into their image of a upright conservative; see John McCain's flip-flop on the topic of torture in 2008.

McCain was the single most anti-torture candidate in the Senate, having suffered miserably while a POW in Vietnam, but he came around to the party's radical leadership when they dangled the chance for him to be their nominee. There is NO stance too solid to change when offered a chance to carry the GOP's torch in a presidential election, apparently.

The Union Leader is the state's largest newspaper, and the fact that New Hampshire is holding the first primary (a week after Iowa's caucus; see my 2012 Primary Calendar for more info) will often set the tone for the following primaries and caucuses.

Having the Union Leader go against Mitt Romney is sure to fire up the radical right of the party. Gingrich is a born loser, and I'm hoping to see him finally get the nod after a vicious knock-down fight for the nomination. Obama will dispatch him with ease, and then we'll see what a president can do in the next four years without the hassle of having to run again.

The first thing I'd like to see is the definite expiration of the Bush tax cuts in 2013. The super-wealthy have enjoyed their free ride for 12 years...it's time to pay the piper, even if it does come down to just a few percentage points.

Occupy Thanksgiving

I don't blame the turkey one bit for being angry. The guy in the red suit is always trying to grab ALL the attention. Can't he wait his turn?

Please keep in mind that the tryptophan in turkey can make you very drowsy, so don't eat and drive! Another helpful safety tip from CT Bob!

2012 Primary Calendar

(UPDATED: November 20, 2011)
This is the latest version of the GOP Primary/Caucus Calendar for 2012.

The race to decide who will be the Republican challenger to Barack Obama begins immediately after the holiday season. Already candidates are spending plenty of time in places like Iowa.

January
January 3, 2012 Iowa (caucus)
January 10, 2012 New Hampshire (primary)
January 21, 2012 South Carolina (primary)
January 31, 2012 Florida (primary)

February
February 4, 2012 Nevada (caucus)
February 4–11, 2012 Maine (caucus)
February 7, 2012 Colorado (caucus), Minnesota (caucus)
February 28, 2012 Arizona (primary), Michigan (primary)

March
March 3, 2012 Washington (caucus)
March 6, 2012 (Super Tuesday)
Alaska (caucus)
Georgia (primary)
Idaho (caucus)
Massachusetts (primary)
North Dakota (caucus)
Oklahoma (primary)
Tennessee (primary)
Texas (primary)
Vermont (primary)
Virginia (primary)
March 6-10, 2012 Wyoming (caucus)
March 10, 2012 Kansas (caucus), U.S. Virgin Islands (caucus)
March 13, 2012 Alabama (primary), Hawaii (caucus), Mississippi (primary)
March 17, 2012 Missouri (caucus)
March 20, 2012 Illinois (primary)
March 24, 2012 Louisiana (primary)

April
April 3, 2012 Maryland (primary), Washington, D.C. (primary), Wisconsin (primary)
April 24, 2012 Connecticut (primary), Delaware (primary), New York (primary), Pennsylvania (primary), Rhode Island (primary)

May
May 8, 2012 Indiana (primary), North Carolina (primary), West Virginia (primary)
May 15, 2012 Nebraska (primary), Oregon (primary)
May 22, 2012 Arkansas (primary), Kentucky (primary)

June
June 5, 2012 California (primary), Montana (primary), New Jersey (primary), New Mexico (primary), South Dakota (primary)
June 12, 2012 Ohio (primary)
June 26, 2012 Utah (primary)

The Democratic Primaries are still on some calendars, but I'm not going to bother to list them here. President Obama will definitely be nominated again at the convention so there's no point in wasting time dealing with the primaries.

The real contest is going to be watching how the Republicans try to out-crazy each other. My prediction is that the nominee is eventually going to be Mitt Romney. He will appeal to the less-nutty faction of the party, which I think actually represents the majority.

Ben Blake inauguration this Monday

Milford's first Democratic mayor in 20 years will be sworn in on Monday, November 21st at 7PM in Milford's Parsons Complex auditorium, 70 W. River St. (the entrance to the auditorium is actually on West Main St). Also, City Clerk Linda Stock will be sworn in for her 2nd term.

Be there for the festivities!