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The Best Monte Cristo Sandwich EVER!

Cravings sometimes strike when you least expect it.  

The other day, while doing my grocery shopping at my local Trader Joe's Market, I was suddenly hit with an intense craving for a sandwich I hadn't had since I was a teenager.  

It was 1970something and Disney World had only recently opened.  My dad had taken the entire family there on vacation.  We stayed at the Polynesian Resort where I had a Monte' Cristo sandwich at their restaurant.  To this day I can recall how delicious it was, how positively sophisticated to a Midwestern girl raised in a town where Uncle John's Pancake House ruled supreme.

And there I was in the middle of Trader Joe's and I had to have one!

I bought the necessary ingredients - ham, turkey, swiss, eggs - and a loaf of Challah, which I figured it would be good with since Challah makes the best French toast ever.  

I got home, unpacked and checked my favorite sites online to seek out recipes.  Epicurious.  Cooks.com.  A simple google search on Monte Cristo ...

Some Monte Cristos were baked, some pan fried and some deep fried.  Some used a simple French toast/egg batter, others used an all out batter with flour and eggs.  Some had just turkey, some had just ham.  

I picked the best of a number of recipes and made my own.  It was sublime.

Presenting here, the best Monte' Cristo sandwich EVER:

• 2 thick slices of challah per sandwich
  
• 1 slice ham/per
  
• 1 slice turkey/per
  
• 1 slice swiss (I like Jarlsberg)
  
• Trader Joe's Garlic Aioli Mustard Sauce
  
• Butter
  
• 2-3 eggs
  
• 1-2 tablespoons of half and half
  
• 1-2 tablespoons of flour
  

Butter the outside of each slice of bread.  Butter the inside of one slice and slather on the Garlic Aioli Mustard to taste.  Layer the ham, turkey and cheese and top with the other slice of bread. Make a nice batter by beating the eggs, half and half and flour together.  Dredge your completed sandwich thoroughly. In saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of oil, add 1-2 tablespoons butter.  Fry over medium to medium high heat until golden on both sides.  Finish off in a 375 oven for 5-10 minutes to thoroughly heat through.  Serve with a side of maple syrup for dipping ... inhale!

ARGH!!!! WHERE IS SCRABULOUS (most recently known as Lexulous)???

I will confess.  I am an addict.

Food?  No.  Prescription painkillers?  No.  Shopping.  Again, no.  

What I have is a relatively harmless addiction to playing Scrabble online.  As far as addictions go, it could be worse.  My addiction is basically harmless.  Merely a time-waster.

It started when I discovered the Agarwalla brothers' game,  Scrabulous, back in 2007 .  

The Scrabble word game had been a favorite of mine since early teens.  I'd tried "officially sanctioned" by Scrabble sites to play the game, but found they weren't at all worthwhile.  They were all horribly glitchy, static and boring so I didn't pursue it further.  But Scrabulous ... Scrabulous was seamless (even on my Mac, Firefox browser), quick, safe (very rarely did one find any hostile folks posting either in the various rooms or in an individual game) and oh, so much fun!  

I played folk from all over the world, including Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, India, Africa ... even my own back yard.

I scored my highest word ever, a triple/triple seven letter which included the letter "Q" and brought me around 168 points!

After seeing the Michael Moore movie, Sicko, I was curious about our perception of Canadian health care.  Moore noted in his film that Americans had been fed quite a bit of propaganda about how bad health care was in Canada.  I played the game with quite a few Canucks, so I took to querying every Canadian I played (well over 100) about their experiences with the Canadian health care system and learned that Michael Moore was right - they love their system and it works well for them.

During the election I played with many Obama supporters ... and some non supporters.  

All were friendly and respectful though and it's rare that I've had a bad experience playing Scrabulous or, later on, Lexulous.

Alas, over these many months apparently a lawsuit has been going down between Hasbro and the brothers (hence the name change to Lexulous).

I thought that all was settled.  Lexulous seemed like a dumb name but, hey, if I had my game I was happy.

Then ... tragedy of epic proportions struck.

(From Wiki)  On December 2, 2008, Lexulous announced the fact that users might notice "minor changes" in the game, which would be explained later.  The score multipliers have changed in layout from Scrabble (including a 4x multiplier for the first time) and the point scores for the tiles no longer match those of Scrabble.  Every player is given 8 tiles instead of 7.

Talk about cold turkey.  I've been depressed for days ... I'm livid at Hasbro AND Mattel (what a DUH lawsuit ... any idiot could tell that Scrabulous was luring all kinds of young, newbie players who promptly bought board games) and angry at the brothers for changing the game.

What is a Scrabble junkie to do?!

Obama's Acceptance Speech - Brilliant, Absolutely Brilliant

Tonight, for the first time in many years, I am proud to be an American.

Tonight, for the first time in many years, I feel hopeful.

I was born a Democrat, raised a Democrat, spent months out of my fourteenth year pounding the pavement for George McGovern and worked for the Democratic Party for ten years.

But my loyalty has been tested the past 15 or 20 years.

It seemed like even when the Democrats WON, they lost.  Look at what they've done - or rather NOT done - since taking control of the house and senate.  

It's been hard to call myself a Democrat anymore, particularly when my views harken back to the days of Bobby Kennedy.  Particularly when I subscribe to "liberal" notions, like a quality education for all and health care for all.

The Democrats had moved so far right of liberal that I had trouble identifying anymore.

When it appeared that Barack Obama would secure the Democratic nomination I thought to myself  "well the Democrats have gone and mucked it up again."

With our nation's media in the secure stranglehold of the Republican Party I could just imagine the field day they'd have with Obama.  

I was wrong.  

Here is a brilliant man with fresh ideas and a new way of looking at challenges.  Here is someone who inspires with hope rather than pandering to fear.

Here is the one person who CAN take us out of the quagmire into which we've sunk as a nation and restore our credibility throughout the world.

The Ebay Scam

It's no surprise that eBay's shares recently fell 13.8 percent.  They've been on a downward spiral since before current CEO Donahoe, harkening back to Republican businesswoman extradinaire Meg Whitman who seemed hell bent on using the same Wal-Mart-like tactics to squeeze and squeeze every last penny of profit out of eBay without taking into account sellers, buyers, the origins of the company or long-term prosperity.

Indeed, as a seller, I was recently charged well over $100 for eBay services that I had cancelled months ago (and eBay acknowledged that I had, in fact, cancelled these services months ago but I have yet to see a dime in refunds).  They've used the same tactic with many, many other sellers in an attempt to bolster their sagging numbers with shareholders.

eBay = Greedbay.

Death of a Hamster

I never expected to be so devastated by the death of a hamster.

A little over a year ago my youngest daughter, Abbey, begged me for a hamster. In stereotypical fashion she promised to care for it, including feeding, cleaning out the cage and giving it plenty of loving attention. In just as stereotypical fashion she didn’t. Whenever I visited, for Abbey lives with her dad about a mile away, Munchkin, so named because the box he came home in resembled a Dunkin Donuts Munchkin carrier, seemed rather starved for affection – gnawing on the bars of his cage and climbing to the top only to drop off as if in suicide mission mode. One weekend when Abbey spent several days she brought Munchkin with her and he ended up staying.

To be honest, Abbey didn’t seem to miss him in the slightest. And me? Well I grew mighty attached to the little yellow furball.

Munchkin’s personality was enchanting – sweet and joyful, yet with a decidedly stubborn streak if he didn’t want any part of what you wanted him to do. He loved roaming the house in his ball, but even better he loved those rare occasions when the ball’s lid would fall off and, for a few brief moments until I discovered the empty ball, he would have utter freedom. One such occurrence happened when I was playing Scrabble online and completely forgot that Munchie was enjoying his ball. When I came downstairs it was to find his ball in the living room, empty, and the cat batting away beneath the refrigerator.

When I sold a vintage tin dollhouse on eBay, I got the idea of using Munchkin in the photography. He loved running from room to room, peering out the windows.

Munchkin also loved treats. I hadn’t known that hamsters had pouches until one day when I was feeding him cashews. At first I thought that he was simply a little piggy – one after another he stuffed the cashews in. Then, when he began to resemble Marlon Brando in the Godfather, I realized that he was storing them. Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds – Munchkin loved it all. He had recently had his first taste of fresh pineapple and his relish of that tiny cube of fruit was a delight to watch. Seeing him store an entire spear of cooked asparagus in his pouch was a sight I will always remember.

I’d been quite upset to learn that hamsters generally have a lifespan of only two years. So when I went to check on him yesterday morning, when he’d been with us only a little over a year, I was more than a little distressed to find that he’d passed in his sleep. He had one of those little plastic hamster beds, the kind that look like dollhouse beds. From the moment it was put in his cage, lined with fluff and tiny vintage flannel blankets, he knew what it was for and slept nowhere else. At first I thought that he was asleep and would peek his head out, in usual fashion, when I called his name. When he didn’t and I went to stroke him, I found him stiff.

He had a send off befitting the joy he spread ... a viewing where he was placed, still in his bed, within an elaborate Victoria's Secret box marked, fittingly, "Angel" on the front. Surrounded by candles and fresh flowers, my daughter's ipod played "Into Dust" while we recalled the charming mannerisms that had made up our beloved yellow rodent, Munchkin. And then he was buried beneath the new small tree in the back yard.

Already I miss our morning routine, when I'd awaken Munchkin for his treat of a fingerful of yogurt, some blueberries or a small handful of nuts. And when I slip into my hot pink terrycloth bath robe after my morning shower, I recall how Munchie liked to ride in the cozy pocket, snuggled up against me and occasionally climbing up to peer out.

Even the cat seems to miss Munchkin’s exuberant ball chases around the house. He was a special little hamster indeed. Rest in peace, Munchkin.

Obama is not Muslim - he is, however, the wrong choice for the Democratic Party

The rumor mills have been grinding.  Particularly amongst folk like those single digit IQ Americans who populate online spots like the AOL message boards.  That means, of course, that FAUX “News” has also picked up on the rumor.  What is it?  Why the rumor that Barack Obama has ties to radical Muslim and doesn’t pledge allegiance to the flag. 

Oooooooh – scary! 

The facts is that Obama was not "raised as a Muslim." He was raised by his mother and grandparents, none of whom were Muslims. His step-father, whom he lived with for only five years, was a Muslim, but a very traditionally Indonesian one.   The dude is currently a practicing Christian. 

Frankly I could give a rat’s ass one way or another.  I am not, however, your average American voter. 

I do care deeply, however, about taking back the White House.   Our country is in big heaps o’ trouble, from the war in Iraq to the economy to the war against the poor to our overriding lack of compassion to the decline of our dollar to the abysmal quality of our public schools to the lack of health care for all to the overmedication of our children leading to our children shooting up high school and college campuses to the gutting of our constitution to the ruination of our media to the … you get the picture.  We are at a point in our great nation’s history when we are no longer great – nor can we pretend to be.  We’ve been screwed people.  Screwed by the Republican party from Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Rove to Bush. 

It’s a big mess.  And it’s gonna take more than inspiration to clean it all up – if indeed it CAN be cleaned up.  It’s gonna take experience and a return to the progressive roots of the Democratic Party. 

Make no mistake. The Republicans are praying Obama wins the Democratic nomination. Ya’all would be playing right into their hands by making it so.  And the Republicans are planting seeds and hoping the little Muslim Obama stories will have gained a life of their own by the time the general election rolls around.  Well, heck, Republicans own the media so they can do more than hope. They’ll be exploiting Americans worst instincts.  Think you're better than that, think it's hard to pull one over on the "bright, educated" American populace?  Hahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhahhhahahhhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

hhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhhhahha

 Oh my gosh, I can't quit laughing ... 

The Democrats Could Lose it in 2008 - Draft Gore!

Well, after the devastation of the past 8 years, after Katrina, the war in Iraq, the 9/11 lies, the price of gas, the continued decline of public education, the disastrous economy, etc., etc. wouldn't you just think that, come November of 2008, a Democrat would sail smoothly into the White House? i mean, c'mon, who would be foolish enough to vote Republican? Let's get real, our dollar is on par with Canada for crying out loud. Gisele Bündchen is demanding her modeling fees in euros, if that doesn't tell you something about faith in the American dollar. We are an international embarrassment.

After witnessing the current administration’s response to Katrina it seemed to me you could run news footage (hey, even FOX news footage!) from now until election day without even campaigning and the Democrats would take the election.

But, nooooooooooooooooooooooo. Just as they are wont to do, the Democrats have fucked up again.

The one Democratic candidate who was feared by both Republicans and the lobbyists – and, gee, I don’t know about you, but I would just love a candidate who was feared by the lobbyists – John Edwards, has fallen by the wayside. We’re left with Hillary and Obama. Not just Hillary and Obama, but a snarky, snarling Hillary/Obama snit at the one point in our nation’s history when a united front is crucial.

Both have an uphill battle against McCain, but particularly Obama, whose lack of experience will really contrast with the septuagenarian McCain. When we consider that the damage to our country began in the 1980’s with the Reagan/Bush administration – it goes way back – Obama’s lack of experience is particularly troubling.

I hate to say it but it looks as though the Raspublicans could take it again … and then we’ll really be up a creek without a paddle. We can kiss our freedoms, the very thought of universal health care, and our country goodbye

Where do Progressives Stand? Not With MoveOn.org

These past few months I've been wondering where my favorite political action organization, MoveOn.org, stood on endorsing a Presidential candidate.

You know Moveon.org, the wiki-described "controversial, non-profit liberal public policy advocacy group, which has raised millions of dollars for Democratic Party candidates in the United States. It was formed in response to the impeachment of President Clinton., and is by some accounts, cited as a factor which helped propel the Democratic Party to power in the 2006 election.^"

The question was answered today when I received this email:

Dear MoveOn Member,

We have a big decision to make. Yesterday, John Edwards left the race for president, leaving just two major Democratic candidates. And next Tuesday, over half of MoveOn's members will go to the polls in the biggest primary day in American history.

Right now, we have an opportunity to influence who our next president is—3.2 million MoveOn members together. When we surveyed over 200,000 MoveOn members yesterday to see if we should go forward with an endorsement process, a big majority said "yes."

So it's time to ask the question: Who should MoveOn endorse in the Democratic primary? If two-thirds of MoveOn members support one candidate, we'll campaign for that candidate together. Here's your ballot—vote today:

Frankly I was a little confused. Here MoveOn had had an opportunity to support a truly progressive candidate, a candidate who had made poverty and health care the focus of his campaign, more importantly the one lone candidate not accepting corporate PAC lobbying funds. To my mind, having survived - barely - eight years of Bush, not to mention the 80's decade-long destruction by Reagan-Bush, having a Presidential candidate who supported my interests - the interests of the people - rather than those of the mega corporations and pharmaceutical companies, was of primary importance.

I not only want my country back - I want my party back!

When the money that fills the campaign coffers of Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney and Huckabee all comes from the same sources ... something's a little fishy.

Didja Ever WONDER About our Media?

Great article about what has really been going down since the 1980's in what constitutes the American media.
Money, Media & the Mess in AmericaBy Robert Perry

Sometime after 2009, when historians pick through the wreckage left behind by George W. Bush’s administration, they will have to come to grips with the role played by the professional conservative media infrastructure.

Indeed, it will be hard to comprehend how Bush got two terms as President of the United States, ran up a massive debt, and misled the country into at least one disastrous war – without taking into account the extraordinary influence of the conservative media, from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh, from the Washington Times to the Weekly Standard.

Recently, it’s been revealed, too, that the Bush administration paid conservative pundits Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher while they promoted White House policies. Even fellow conservatives have criticized those payments, but the truth is that the ethical line separating conservative “journalism” from government propaganda has long since been wiped away.

For years now, there’s been little meaningful distinction between the Republican Party and the conservative media machine.

In 1982, for instance, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon established the Washington Times as little more than a propaganda organ for the Reagan-Bush administration. In 1994, radio talk show host Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the new Republican House majority.

The blurring of any ethical distinctions also can be found in documents from the 1980s when the Reagan-Bush administration began collaborating secretly with conservative media tycoons to promote propaganda strategies aimed at the American people.

In 1983, a plan, hatched by CIA Director William J. Casey, called for raising private money to sell the administration’s Central American policies to the American public through an outreach program designed to look independent but which was secretly managed by Reagan-Bush officials.

The project was implemented by a CIA propaganda veteran, Walter Raymond Jr., who had been moved to the National Security Council staff and put in charge of a “perception management” campaign that had both international and domestic objectives.

In one initiative, Raymond arranged to have Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch chip in money for ostensibly private groups that would back Reagan-Bush policies. According to a memo dated Aug. 9, 1983, Raymond reported that “via Murdock [sic], may be able to draw down added funds.” [For details, see Parry’sSecrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]

Besides avoiding congressional oversight, privately funded activities gave the impression that an independent group was embracing the administration’s policies on their merits. Without knowing that the money had been arranged by the government, the public would be more inclined to believe these assessments than the word of a government spokesman.

“The work done within the administration has to, by definition, be at arms length,” Raymond wrote in an Aug. 29, 1983, memo.

In foreign countries, the CIA often uses similar techniques to create what intelligence operatives call “the Mighty Wurlitzer,” a propaganda organ playing the desired notes in a carefully scripted harmony. Only this time, the target audience was the American people.

Payoffs

In the 1980s, there were also propaganda operations directly comparable to the payments to Williams and Gallagher.

In a May 13, 1985, memo, which surfaced during the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan-Bush official Jonathan Miller boasted about what he called “white propaganda” successes. As an example, he cited the Wall Street Journal’s publication of a pro-administration opinion piece on Nicaragua that had been written by a government consultant, history professor John Guilmartin Jr.

“Officially, this office had no role in its preparation,” wrote Miller, who worked out of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy. “The work of our operation is ensured by our office’s keeping a low profile.”

At the time, a Reagan-Bush National Security Council official told me that the administration’s domestic propaganda campaign was modeled after CIA psychological operations abroad where information is manipulated to bring a population into line with a desired political position.

“They were trying to manipulate [U.S.] public opinion – using the tools of Walt Raymond’s tradecraft which he learned from his career in the CIA covert operations shop,” the official said.

Another administration official offered a similar description to the Miami Herald’s Alfonso Chardy. “If you look at it as a whole, the Office of Public Diplomacy was carrying out a huge psychological operation, the kind the military conduct to influence the population in denied or enemy territory,” the official said.

After disclosure of these “perception management” schemes, a legal opinion by the congressional General Accounting Office concluded that the administration’s secret operation amounted to “prohibited covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public to support the administration’s Latin American policies.”

Expansion

But these ad hoc propaganda tactics of the 1980s didn’t go away.

With the investment of billions of dollars over the next two decades, the strategy grew into the permanent conservative media machine that we know today, a vastecho chamber to amplify conservative messages on TV, in newspapers, through magazines, over talk radio, with book publishing and via the Internet.

This media machine gives conservatives and Republicans a huge political advantage both during elections and between elections. It has even changed how Americans perceive the world and what information they rely on to make decisions.

The clout of this conservative media machine explains why millions of viewers to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News believe “facts” that aren’t facts, such as their stubborn beliefs that the Bush administration did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was collaborating with al-Qaeda in the Sept. 11 attacks.

These days, a large number of Americans are fed a steady diet of conservative propaganda disguised as information – and millions more are influenced by the conservative messages that pervade TV, radio and print.

But the influence doesn’t stop there. Since the 1980s, this conservative media machine – often in collaboration with Republican politicians – has targeted and pressured mainstream journalists who discover information that conflicts with the propaganda.

Many independent-minded mainstream reporters have seen their careers damaged or destroyed after being denounced as “liberal” or “anti-American.” Other journalists have protected themselves by tilting their reporting to the right or avoiding many controversial stories altogether.

So, in 2002-2003, for instance, the major news media largely acquiesced to – rather than challenged – the Bush administration’s false claims about Iraqi WMD.

When some mainstream reporters, such as the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, did produce skeptical WMD stories, the articles were killed or buried deep inside the papers where they got little attention. By contrast, editors at the Washington Post and the New York Times trumpeted the administration’s WMD charges on their front pages.

New Rationales

In the weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the conservative news media continued to hype every false alarm suggesting that WMD had been found, possibly explaining why so many Americans think WMD was discovered.

Whenever that would happen, even at a small outlet like Consortiumnews.com, we would get e-mails from conservative readers demanding that we apologize to President Bush for doubting his word.

Surely at large news organizations like the New York Times and the Washington Post, the stakes were much higher. If WMD caches had been found, any reporter who had displayed any skepticism before the Iraq invasion would have been pilloried by the right-wing media and its legions of angry e-mail writers.

Those future historians gazing back on the Bush administration should not underestimate this fear factor in explaining why so few journalists at the major news outlets were willing to take the chance.

It’s also true that while career death awaited any journalist who questioned the WMD case – if stockpiles had been found – journalists have not suffered any serious consequences for buying into the Bush administration’s false claims. Most right-wing commentators simply have shifted their war rationales and continued to berate critics of Bush’s war policies.

The Game

Rather than face up to any responsibility for the deaths of more than 1,400 U.S. soldiers and the killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis, the propaganda game has just moved on.

Indeed, listening to the continued angry rhetoric on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, a listener would get the impression that these very well-paid, mostly white men were part of some persecuted minority, not a group of privileged individuals wielding extraordinary power.

By now, the huge investment of money in this conservative media machine may mean that even if conservative “journalists” did reach an honest conclusion that their behavior was damaging the United States, they would be hard pressed to change course.

That’s because like any large bureaucracy, the conservative media machine has taken on a life of its own.

Thousands of conservative “journalists” are dependent on its perpetuation for their livelihoods. There are mortgages to pay and school tuitions due. It’s much easier just to continue doing the job and keeping the assembly lines of propaganda humming, rather than trying to shut the operation down or dramatically change the product.

In that way, the conservative “journalists” are like workers in a factory that’s polluting a river which flows through the neighboring countryside. If the pollution is stopped, they fear they will lose their jobs. So it’s in their interest to fight environmental controls, keep the factory running and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.

Dirty Money

Another aspect of the conservative media corruption can be found in where some of the right-wing money originates.

The evidence is clear, for instance, that the wealth of one major conservative media tycoon – Rev. Sun Myung Moon – traces back to money illicitly laundered into the United States and possibly even to operatives connected to organized crime.

In the late 1970s, a congressional investigation, headed by Rep. Donald Fraser, discovered that Moon was a South Korean intelligence operative whose operations were financed from secretive bank accounts in Japan. Investigators also uncovered Moon’s close ties to the Japanese yakuza crime syndicate which runs drugs, gambling and prostitution rings in Asia.

Moon also associated with right-wing South American leaders implicated in cocaine trafficking. In 1980, Moon’s organization aided Bolivia’s “Cocaine Coup” conspirators who overthrew a left-of-center government and seized dictatorial power. The violent coup installed drug-tainted military officers at the head of Bolivia’s government, giving the putsch the nickname the “Cocaine Coup.”

U.S. government evidence about Moon’s money-laundering activities led to his conviction for tax fraud in 1982. But in that same year, flush with seemingly unlimited supplies of cash, Moon established the Washington Times as a reliable booster of Reagan-Bush policies.

Since then, the theocrat, who considers himself the new Messiah, has become a political untouchable in Washington. Both President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush made special pronouncements about how valuable they considered Moon’s newspaper.

After leaving office, George H.W. Bush gave paid speeches on behalf of Moon’s front groups. Though the exact amount of Moon’s payments to Bush has never been revealed, one former Unification Church official told me the Moon organization had budgeted $10 million for the ex-president.

[For details on Moon’s background and his ties to the Bush family, see Parry’sSecrecy & Privilege.]

Confusion

So, Armstrong Williams might be understandably confused by the furor over his $241,000 grant from Bush’s Education Department to promote the “no children left behind” program. The same may be true of columnist Maggie Gallagher who touted Bush’s pro-marriage policies while on a $21,500 contract from the Department of Health and Human Services.

After all, many of their conservative colleagues have taken buckets full of money from Moon’s bottomless well of cash.

Amid this moral confusion on the Right – as the U.S. national treasury is drained, the dollar sinks to record lows and American soldiers die in a war launched for a fake reason – it’s getting harder and harder to notice any bright ethical lines.

Dickheads of the Year

A Must Read:  http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/17538811/dickheads_of_the_year/photo/2/large

Dickheads of the Year
My picks for the biggest assholes of 2007 by Bill Maher 

C'mon, no list of assholes and fuck-ups could be complete without the Dipshit in Chief. Who will tell this president what everyone but him already knows? The theory of evolution. And the times tables. And where the sun goes at night. And that Iraq is going to be three different countries. And that everyone hates us and we've run our military into the ground and the Taliban is back and we still haven't caught bin Laden and the economy is tanking and we wasted eight years blowing the oil companies while the Earth is melting. We had a pretty nice house when this Cat in the Hat of presidents came in and made the mess of all time. And who's going to clean it all up — Rudy Giuliani?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Wait a second ... could it be that the biggest dickheads of the year are us?  The American people?  For allowing ourselves to be duped and dumbed down for 8 long years?  

Dude! I want my country back ...

Subtitled:  Why I am voting strictly on the basis of campaign finance reporting (which means I'm voting for Edwards).

The following article, from Leslie Savan and published on the Huffington Post speaks eloquently of the main stream (i.e. corporate) media's total disregard for John Edwards' candidacy.  I've been supporting Edwards since he announced his candidacy.  I support him for a number of reasons, but the two main reasons are:

1)  His clean campaign finance reports.  Check it out.   Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, etc. - they're all getting THEIR funding from the very same corporate PAC lobbying groups who have destroyed our country.  I want my President to be beholden to me, not corporate America.

2)  John's campaign manager is David Bonior.  I worked in Michigan politics for ten long years - and I could count the number of people I met with any integrity whatsoever on one hand - David Bonior was one of 'em.  

LESLIE SAVAN 
 
Yesterday's Zogby poll has Edwards within Iowa-like striking distance of Hillary for second place in today's South Carolina primary. "The real movement here is by John Edwards, who is the only one who continues to gain ground in our three-day tracking poll," writes John Zogby, attributing most of the gains to previously undecided African American voters. 
 
White dude rising? We'll soon find out. But the mainstream media, long determined to ignoreEdwards and keep this a feisty, feuding two-person racehttp://www.johnedwards.com/media/video/where-is-john/ , is not letting him show his stuff where it currently counts--against McCain. 
 
Thursday night, Tim Russert was oohing over how close a McCain-Obama or McCain-Hillary race would be: the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal head-to-head match-up poll shows McCain beating Hillary by two points and tying with Obama; Obama and Hillary each clobbered Romney, Giuliani, and Huckabee. When I saw that Edwards wasn't part of the six-pol poll, my jaded jaw almost dropped. 
 
Though I shouldn't have been surprised. CNN also disappeared the former North Carolina senator from its most recent (mid-January) head-to-head poll--even though Edwards was the only Dem to beat McCain in its previous (mid-December) match-up. At the time, CNN polling director Keating Holland wrote, "Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats. Some might argue this shows that they are the most electable candidates in their respective parties." 
 
Why wouldn't CNN include its own previous chart-topper? Don't know. CNN wouldn't return my calls. Granted, a lot has changed in the last month, and other polls have also bumped Edwards from their January match-ups. Granted, too, Edwards is doing poorly in national polls. But so far, Edwards (unlike the shamefully treated Paul and Kucinich) is still deemed debate-worthy. Shouldn't Democrats as well as Republicans have access to information on how all their candidates stand in hypothetical general election contests? 
 
Eviction from "electability" polls is bad enough, but CNN's Bill Schneider and even the esteemed Factcheck.org have called Edwards "misleading" for citing, at the CNN debate last Saturday, his winning performance in the December CNN poll. "It's literally true [that Edwards was the one Democrat who beat McCain in the last CNN poll that included him], but still misleading," Factcheck writes, because, "there is a MORE recent CNN poll, one that shows either Clinton or Obama beating McCain and doesn't include Edwards." 
 
Talk about Chinese finger puzzles, self-fulfilling prophesies, chicken and eggs. 
 
No matter. MSM has moved on. Edwards's new designation is "kingmaker." On Friday, the Wall Street Journal, NBC's polling partner, tsked-tsked that "Mr. Edwards has all but dropped from sight. Generally ignored by the national press and with a campaign bankroll a fraction the size of his rivals," the best Edwards can hope for is to swing his accumulated delegates toward Obama's or Hillary's nomination. 
 
That's no doubt true. By February 6, Democrats are likely to be stuck with the two weakest candidates. As Marc Cooper wrote here, once Hillary locks up the nomination, the rumors about Bill will come fully unzipped, diminishing her chances in November. Meanwhile, Obama's numbers among whites are dropping, largely because of Billary's attacks, whether you consider them to be coded racist appeals or merely color-blind Rove-ian hit jobs. 
 
If I didn't know better, I'd say that by cutting off the race's possibly strongest Democrat--first from media coverage and now from polls--the corporate media could be misleading us toward another Republican administration. 

What's the latest miracle drug?

Over the past several years I've begun to feel more and more alienated from my fellow Americans.  

It all started about ten years ago when it seemed like everyone that I knew was on Prozac.  I had to try it too!  But my doctor wouldn't just give me Prozac ... I had to start out with Zoloft.  A nightmare!  Literally.  I took it one day and never again.  Friends said "give it time."  I couldn't chance another experience like the one I'd had.  I might lose my MIND.  Next was Welbutrin.  The rage was unimaginable.  I'd scream at my kids for looking at me funny.  

Finally my doctor gave me the miracle drug, Prozac.  To be honest, I did give it some time.  Two weeks to be exact.  It was an eerie experience to say the least.  I didn't feel depressed.  I didn't feel exactly joyful either.  I felt more like a zombie, sleepwalking through my day.  My creative thought process, normally in high gear, became sluggish.  I was unable to do the one thing that HAD previously usually lifted me out of the doldrums - exercise.  My body felt too heavy to perform even a simple run.

So much for "health insurance."

Now I rely on fish oils, a good multivitamin, fresh air and exercise.