Tim zings USA Today!

Boom goes the bubble gum. The Affordable Care Act has now met the original prediction of 7 million sign-ups on the private insurance exchanges.

Here's an amusing little story I intentionally sat on for months - because I knew there'd be better days ahead to spring it.

Back in November - during the darkest throes of The Media's complain-a-thon against the ACA website - USA Today ran an article titled "Obamacare credibility going up in smoke." I responded to it, saying, "I think USA Today's credibility just went up in smoke."

Who's laughing now? Not USA Today. The government had originally predicted 7 million private insurance enrollees. This was a forecast, not a requirement, but it was perceived as a goal to measure the law's success. Later, the prediction had to be scaled back to 6 million, because the right-wing media squandered the entire first month of the exchanges' rollout by incessantly whining about it. But now it's reached 7 million after all, and may reach 8 million once all the sign-ups are counted.

I knew the day would come in which I could rub USA Today's noses in their own fetid excrement. I had absolute confidence in it. This must be humiliating for them.

I still hope the next step is single payer health care. Remember, the ACA was a disappointment when it passed - only because it didn't go far enough.

It's the Cincinnati Reds playin' basteball again!

Now that the bleeding from Friday has halted for now, I went to the Opening Day parade in Cincinnati today!

Dave Concepción was there, and his presence brang back a fond memory of the 1988 Reds season. That was when Concepción became so angry during an away game in San Francisco that he uprooted first base and threw it. Following his tantrum, Concepción said of his own actions, "I think a lot of people enjoyed it. I think a lot of people think it was a classic."

Celebrity look-alikes abounded today. During the course of the parade, I saw people who resembled Glenn Beck, Morgan Freeman, Debbie Harry, Abe Vigoda, and John Edwards. I'm pretty sure a couple of the aforementioned celebrity look-alikes had been sighted at other events like this.

Also, I saw 2 people who were in such a festive mood that they bubbled.

Archie ruins a mink

Since many folks don't seem to understand anything on this blog that doesn't have to do with TV shows in which a valuable object gets destroyed in a hilarious manner, I thought I'd oblige.

I was told a long time ago that there was an All In The Family episode in which an expensive mink cape got ru by spaghetti sauce. I later confirmed that this was indeed a real episode. But you still don't believe me, so now I'm presenting the proof...



That episode first aired in 1972. I can't help but notice that Archie Bunker strongly resembled an old man who lived in the house next door to me when I was growing up.

The ruinment of Edith's mink resulted in an absolutely uproarious argument between Archie and a houseguest! That might be even funnier than the actual destruction of the mink, if you can believe that! You've got to see that part!

And yes, the magic word does get used a couple times in that episode.

Hitler preferred the Brossart era

This is uproarious!

I've spent much of the day on the johndola because of a personal health issue, so I didn't have time to do a Lawn Chair Quarterback. But I found something on YouTube that's just as funny, and folks from Campbell County who are familiar with the Tea Party's statism will adore it...

Tea Party defeat brings good press to Cincinnati

You may remember the days when Cincinnati was the subject of more bad publicity than any other American city, but the Occupy coalition has helped restore the city's good name. The 78% to 22% defeat recently of a Tea Party-backed pension referendum has resulted in the most positive attention the city has had since the Big Red Machine...

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/3/cincinnati-pensionreformteaparty.html

The piece is titled "How Cincinnati Beat The Tea Party." Twenty years ago, this would've been the equivalent of seeing an article called "How Alexandria Shut Down Brossart."

The CIA-backed Tea Party is so extreme that even Cincinnati's hyperconservative business community feared what Team Tyranny's pension referendumb might do. It's pretty bad for the Tea Party when even such a corrupt and oppressive corporate culture has abandoned them. Who does the Tea Party have left to support them?

If Cincinnati can break the fascist Tea Party's back, any other big city can. It's strange that Oakland had a Tea Party group that formed just to try to shut down Occupy, when Cincinnati can defeat Team Tyranny by a 3-to-1 margin at the polls.

Kentucky GOP's slasher budget

Lately, we've seen one far-right power grab after another by the Republican-led Kentucky Senate.

These chortling sore losers have tried expanding the official reach of the legislative branch - which already has disproportionate power in Kentucky. They've pulverized a popular measure that would've restored basic voting rights to people convicted of nonviolent crimes who've served their sentences. They've gutted an effort to let schools more easily make up snow days. They haven't even acted on a bill passed by the Kentucky House months ago that would raise the minimum wage. And they've tried to mandate the teaching of creationism in public schools, and have jeopardized a bill that would settle the Tea Party's frivolous library lawsuits.

Now the Senate GOP has passed a budget that slashes funds for community colleges. At the same time, it retains funds for the state's increasingly right-wing universities - presumably because of the universities' propensity for hiring officials who spend their time hobnobbing with the Tea Party instead of treating the movement as the sick joke it is.

The budget also threatens community colleges' building program. It would even slash inspections of coal mines by two-thirds.

Everybody else is talking about progressive ideas like guaranteed employment, single payer health care, eminent domain reform, green energy, the continuing rise of Occupy, and the community rights movement. But the Kentucky GOP slogs along and embarrasses the whole state. It's not just in the state legislature. It's at the county level too. Take Kenton County, for instance, where county government won't even accept responsibility for maintaining roads in Latonia Lakes. Instead, county officials keep arguing with residents about whose responsibility it is.

If only they were more like the "ZZ Top Republicans" of the late 19th century, people might actually give a shit what they think. Instead, the modern GOP chooses to be a party of unmitigated fucking nonsense.

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/03/25/3161123/kctcs-president-shocked-that-senate.html)

Religious fanatic sentenced for beating boy

John Kelley - a Cincinnati area man - has just been sentenced to 3 years in prison for repeated beatings of his adopted son, who was 9 when the abuse occurred. The prosecutor said it was the worst case of physical abuse he'd ever seen.

It turns out that Kelley is a religious fanatic who was encouraged to beat the boy by other members of his church. When he was arrested, Kelley arrogantly declared, "You have to spank a child until you see the resistance is broken." Kelley had also taken the boy to a Kroger supermarket and made him wear a sign saying, "I pee on my family if I don't get my way."

Why did any adoption agency place the youngster with a man like this? I don't know if they knew of the man's background, but the unfortunate fact is that many agencies favor zealots like this. Religious extremists are a privileged class in the America of today.

Religious liberty is a constitutional guarantee. But this doesn't give anyone the "right" to abuse children. Adherents of churches that condone outright child abuse should be automatically barred from adopting kids. It's that simple. The well-being of children should be of utmost importance.

We're now seeing the results of a media and government that for many years has willfully mollycoddled extremism. There is blood on the hands of talking heads and public officials who have allowed child abuse to take place.

We are at war. A war against right-wing extremism. A war we cannot afford to lose. We are naturally endowed with the obligation to fight this war at all costs.

In the meantime, I hope John Kelley is beaten bloody in prison.

(Source: http://www.local12.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/father-sentenced-beating-9yearold-son-9696.shtml)

Knox County GOPer indicted

The party of wire fraud strikes again.

Because this is a day in which the sun rose in the east and will set in the west, we have another new story about a scandal stinking up the Republican Party of Kentucky.

David Jorjani is a Republican former county attorney in Knox County who is now seeking that office again. But yesterday, Jorjani, his wife, and one other individual were indicted for tampering with physical evidence. The indictment says the trio knowingly submitted faked evidence for an official proceeding.

Oops.

This is the party that thinks it's owed control of both houses of the Kentucky legislature - and has a friendly media that's always happy to help 'em.

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/03/21/3153625/candidate-for-knox-county-office.html)

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Meet Me In St. Louis"

Tim talks about last weekend's roadmeet in St. Louis and the bunker blasts that came with it...

Fred Phelps dead at 84

Fred Phelps Sr. - the far-right Topeka-based pastor known for picketing funerals of celebrities and soldiers - died last night at the age of 84. Details here:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2014/mar/20/fred-phelps-founder-westboro-baptist-church-died-w

Amazing roadmeet, shitty bus service

If Greyhound had pulled a stunt Saturday like they did yesterday, it would've ruined a roadmeet 14 years in the making. Indeedity-doodledly, it would've spoiled what may be the greatest Roads Scholaring session in the hobby's long history. And there would've been unshirted hell to pay.

On Saturday, I attended the nationwide roadmeet in St. Louis, which drew almost 30 people. Nobody but nobody disputes that it was one of the best roadmeets ever - for a variety of reasons.

I arrived early enough to roam around downtown St. Louis for hours. But the actual meet began with a luncheon at 11 AM. When I read beforehand that baked beans would be on the menu, I had a hunch that one of the highlights of the roadmeet would have nothing to do with roads. I wasn't disappointed. Two silent-but-deadly bunker blasts were reported during lunch.

That wasn't even flatulence's first cameo of the day. An SBD had also wafted that morn at the Indianapolis bus station - where I also noticed that someone had thrown a penny in a urinal. (I dared not remove the coinage, for fear of a hepatitis outbreak.) In fact, an SBD was reported even before I left for the meet: Another Roads Scholar notified me that a stinker erupted on his flight to the event.

Oh yes, the roads. Roady highlights include a bumpy, forgotten street near the St. Louis riverfront, a spang-new I-70 span, and the Chain of Rocks Bridge. Decent all. This turned out to be a "choose your own adventure" event, for several cars in our motorcade opted to deviate from the itinerary.

But the air biscuits weren't done wafting yet! Someone let loose with a loud-and-proud during dinner. Another LAP trouser sneeze bombarded the premises right when I was getting ready to go home.

The unprecedented success of the meet itself contrasts with my experiences with Greyhound - which were miserable both to and from the meet. If someone had cracked a loominsky on the bus from Cincinnati to Indianapolis, nobody would have noticed, because the stench of the restroom filled the coach all the while. Worse, I got no sleep whatsoever on the trip there - primarily because a sleeping passenger next to me on the route from Indianapolis to St. Louis seemed to slowly conquer my seat. Also, this bus was late arriving in St. Louis.

That was nothing compared to the unmitigated disaster that defined the trip home. The departure of my first Greyhound bus home was initially delayed 2 hours, even though the bus was idling at the platform long before it was even supposed to leave. The reason for this was never explained, as there were no weather delays whatsoever. After we got moving, we made it 20 miles outside St. Louis when we noticed the heater in the bus was broken - which forced us to return to St. Louis for a different bus. This wosted another 40 minutes - plus another half-hour waiting at the terminal for the replacement bus, even though it was sitting there the whole time.

We got to Indianapolis 3 hours late. Then there was another half-hour wait - even though the scheduled layover had already been completely eaten up by the earlier delays. After the bus to Cincinnati got moving, the driver told us we were being rerouted through Dayton, Ohio. For no apparent reason.

I got no sleep on the way home, because by this point, I was so angry that I was just too animated to sleep. Most of the other passengers felt the same way. I haven't heard so much cussing in years. The only sleep I got during my outing was a couple brief snoozes as we gathered right before I went home. (Does this trip count as a mish because these unplanned naps were on the floor of a hotel room? I'm going to have to consult the mish judges.)

When we got to Dayton, the bus let us off. Greyhound then said it would be another 4 hours, then a different bus would take us to Cincinnati. I decided I was better off calling a family member who lived near Cincinnati to pick me up in Dayton.

Greyhound tried to put a diaper on my trip, but even the hopelessly delayed route from St. Louis to Indianapolis yielded some amusement. Other passengers kept complaining because there was no toilet paper in the restroom on the bus - on a 4-hour route, no less. A young woman on the bus stood up and gave a speech about her personal health problems - and appeared to be ready to drop her pants in front of everyone to underscore the point. Also, the scent of a bunker blast was detected - which was so strong that other riders were heard discussing it. Since the bus was moving, I can only conclude that we drove into a fart.

But nobody bubbled.

Have no fear, the March ish is here!

The Last Word is back! (Circus Vargas, Circus Vargas!)

That's right, peoplefaces. The March edition is now pub, and it talks about these amazing topics...

• A Catholic elementary school's support of far-right websites.

• The decline of Brossart's approval ratings.

• The coolness of old cartoons.

• A sheriff's ongoing erratic behavior.

• People eating supermarket food without paying for it.

• The best cities for Road Scholaring.

• The bugs that afflicted Atari BASIC.

So beep, meep, and oggle-peep...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/211493145/The-Last-Word-3-2014

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Be All That You Can Be!"

Tim lampoons an old Army advertising campaign...

GOP politician forces store to remove "left-wing" magazines

The spirit of Hitler is coming to life in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska, where a Republican member of the borough assembly is forcing stores to remove magazines he disagrees with - especially Ms.

Fascist assemblyman Lance Roberts has pressured Fairbanks Co-op Market into removing these publications from its shelves. Roberts gloats in his newsletter that the store "had some left-wing political magazines they were selling", and that they have apparently stopped selling them after he turned up the heat.

Ironically, one of Roberts's articles is titled "The Absurdity Of Government Trying To Be Your Parent."

Some folks have proposed fighting back by buying Ms. at another store and depositing it in the magazine stand at Fairbanks Co-op.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/05/1282417/-Alaska-GOP-Official-Ms-Fires-Wants-Extreme-Magazine-Off-Shelves)