I am baffled.

Last night, Ann Coulter was a guest on Hannity.  During her appearance, in typical Coulter fashion, she made the over-the-top claim that she was just fine with "death panels", which in her interpretation sound more like execution panels, so long as she was a panel member.  Oh, and she apparently has a list of people she'd like to kill, Zeke Emanuel being among them.  Watch:

Yesterday, I blogged about Sarah Palin's fear of "death panels" (which sounds like some kind of Indiana Jones booby trap, you know the kind that always impale his intemperate Indian/Arab assistants). In the post, I quoted from the Christian Anti-Defamation Committee website which in turn quoted from an Investors Business Daily editorial. Did you know that the IBD is a hotbed of right wing paranoia?

Obama is Literally Hitler

So should we call him Obitler? Hiltama? Seriously though folks, this is funny stuff.

www.savethewords.org

Credit where credit's due: Sarah Palin knows how to capture headlines. She also knows how to speak the language of America's most persecuted demographic: white Christian conservatives. Many in her audience believe in a secret plot by liberals to enact a radical secular agenda, and they view all progressive policies through the lens of this alleged conspiracy.

Sarah Palin on the health care plan:

Obama is about to hold his first town hall meeting to help sell his health care reform plan. Will it be a more controlled affair than the disasters that have taken place in other similar meetings throughout this great nation of ours?

When I saw what happened in my own hometown city of St. Louis last week, where protesters shouted down a town hall meeting being held by Russ Carnahan, it made me sick. You can't even hear the politicians talk, and the shouters from the audience are just as incomprehensible. It ended in arrests and scuffles.

In Washington on Tuesday, Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor announced that the GOP would hold a banquet in September to honor outstanding Americans for their contribution to public debate.

Said Cantor, “The President gets to hand out the Presidential Medal of Freedom to whoever he wants. Just this week, President Obama handed out the medal to two dead guys. Our award will have much stricter eligibility requirements.”

Inaugural award nominees include:

When I want to learn about something, I generally start with my good friend, the Google. Depending on how much I want to know, it can stop there, or lead me to the local public library. Sometimes, when I want to know a lot about one particular thing, I even head for one of the university libraries in town.

“Greed: A word commonly used by liberals, low achievers, anti-capitalists and society's losers to denigrate, shame and discredit those who have acquired superior job skills and decision-making capabilities and who, through the application of those job skills have accumulated wealth.” Neal Boortz

So apparently, the U.S. Postal Service is in a peck of trouble. Despite raising postage fees numerous times during the past couple of years, the USPS announced earlier this week that it had lost $2.4 billion between April and June and would be $7 billion in debt by the end of September.

Are you kidding me? $2.4 billion in losses in 3 months?? Are you sure the USPS isn't making cars or selling subprime mortgages?

I just want to take this moment to thank John Hughes for some of the most indelible movie moments of my childhood. The director died of a heart attack while taking a walk in NYC, where he was visiting family. He was 59.

Congratulations to Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Hers was the first nomination of a progressive judge since Bill Clinton appointed Stephen Breyer fifteen years ago. In the national debate over her nomination, we saw a preview of what's to come in future nomination battles. Given the ages of the judges, we will likely see from one to four appointments before Obama leaves office.

Oh, how I disdain the Ad Council and their stupid commercials. Just look at these. Few things boils my blood more than seeing our government piss away our tax dollars. Our hard earned capital is routinely spent on frivolous endeavors that benefit few while burdening the majority. While I think government spending in certain areas is absolutely necessary, spending money on stupid stuff is deplorable. An awesome example of horrible government spending is the Ad Council. While the organization itself is not a governmental agency, it accepts millions of dollars in public funds.

As much as I hate the over-simplification of the liberal/conservative dichotomy (which feeds into the "with us or against us" mentality), a discussion I had recently with a friend left me thinking about how we often not only use those distinctions, but also use finer grained distinctions that are equally misleading. (Specifically we were talking about how the free trade vs. protectionism discussions combines disparate camps from both sides.)

Will wonders never cease?

Last week, Congressman Mark Souder, a conservative Republican from Indiana's 3rd district, voted--with 12 of his conservative Republican colleagues on the House Education and Labor Committee--for an amendment that would allow states to opt out of the federal health insurance reform plan as long as they set up a single payer system in their state. The amendment was sponsored by uber-liberal Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

A while ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of the "null fish". It's the atheists response to the Jesus fish. I know what you're thinking - don't we already have the FSM "fish", the Darwin fish, and the Evolve fish? Well, first of all the FSM fish technically advocates belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and I don't think you can be an atheist and believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm pretty sure s/he qualifies as supernatural. As for the Darwin/Evolve fishes, they're not really particular to atheists, are they? I mean, several Christians et al.