Heard Hugh rfer to women as "gals" on his show the other day.  Darn, wish I could remember who the guest was that he was skewering.  Anyway, he was referring to those with Y chromosomes as "guys", so, reasonably, women became "gals".  Guest had a case of the vapors.  Heh.

Heard on the radio that some chick whose name I don't remember went on a rant on The View, which I've never had the misfortune of having watched, calling George Bush evil, a madman and murderer, the greatest terrorist, and blah blah blah.  Why is it that presumably feminist liberals don't scream bloody murder about the regimes that would have had Rosie O'Donnell executed by now for her sexual orientation, much less her loud mouth.  Don't they GET it?????

Rhetorical question.

I know nothing about the stock market.  I've never quite understood it.  The market falls, and the pundits solemnly posit that an airplane crash in a remote South Pacific island has shaken investors to their core and started a mad, panicky sell-off.  Or the price of roses on Valentine's Day goes down, and suddenly the DOW spikes to a 2 year high.  It all seems like so much hooey to me.

And I only exaggerate slightly, after all.  My favorite thing is when I hear of "less than anticipated earnings".  Does this mean a company saw no profits?  Well, no, just not as much as they might have hoped for. 

Then again, like I said, I know nothing.

Oh, heck, who cares, this is my blog, isn't it..nobody's reading my musings anyhow.  So what was the big deal yesterday, anyway.  So what?  We've had record highs for what seems like forever (sky-falling liberals to the contrary).  Why would anyone be shocked that every now and then the market would "course correct" (H/T "Lost").

Nancy "I support the troops even though I don't want to fund their mission but don't question my patriotism" Pelosi had better toughen up.  A little criticism from Dick Cheney and she goes running to Mommy Bush in a snit.  Methinks she doth protest too much.

'Tis a marvelous day when the Supreme Court, in an alliance of strange bedfellows, takes a baby step toward reason when it comes to the lawsuit lottery.

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...Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the award to Mayola Williams could not stand because a jury may punish a defendant only for the harm done to the person who is suing, not to others whose cases were not before it.

“To permit punishment for injuring a nonparty victim would add a near standardless dimension to the punitive damages question,” Breyer said.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, joined with Breyer.

Dissenting were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, John Paul Stevens and Clarence Thomas.hands down a decision negating an obscene jackpot punitive damage award. 

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Sure, it's easy to demonize a cigarette company, but this lady who sued them, claiming that over the course of the 40 years her late husband smoked they just had no clue that smoking might be harmful, is either a whack job, totally stupid, or just a money-grubber.  Possibly all three.  My mother, born in 1923, called them coffin nails back when she was a girl, for Pete's sake.

Even though the decision was based more on standing than on how high punitive damages should go, I'll take it as a victory.

As a semi-aside, my husband Dr. McFudge dissents from the idea that smoking is just too hard for people to quit, especially when they've smoked for decades.  Why?  Because his patients do it all the time when they go into the hospital, and since he works in a (physical) rehabilitation hospital, his patients have extended stays.  He has little patience, no pun intended, with the people who claim they "can't" quit, because he's seen it over and overs: they quit when they have to.

I've thought many things about John Edwards.....vacuous is the word that most springs to mind.  And I don't have a huge affinity for tort lawyers, especially the kind that make obscene amounts of money using the Pity Argument (something bad happened to this poor person...it must be SOMEBODY'S fault!)  Or for people who live in 28,000 square foot homes who shed crocodile tears for "the little guy".  And yes, he hired patently bigoted writers to work for his campaign, then got all mealy-mouthed about attempting to "disavow" what they wrote while defending their right to write it (was somebody questioning that?  No.)  OK, so vacuousness, greed and hyposcrisy are the big  three irritants of mine when it comes to him.  Just off the top of my head, anyway.  But anti-Semitism and stupidity?  Those are new ones:


 H/T to The Corner:

Edwards: "Perhaps the Greatest Short-Term Threat to World Peace Is the Possibility That Israel Would Bomb Iran's Nuclear Facilities"

Hillary Spot reader Michael points out this little gem in Peter Bart's column on John Edwards' comments in Hollywood:

There are other emerging fissures, as well. The aggressively photogenic John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the "I" word — Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. As a chill descended on the gathering, the Edwards event was brought to a polite close.

Really? Israel is the biggest threat? Not Ahmedinijad? Not al-Qaeda? Not a coup attempt in Pakistan? Not a complete breakdown in Iraq drawing in the Saudis, Turks, and Iranians?

Or, you know, perhaps not.

UPDATE:  JUST KIDDING!  Oh, John, John, John.  Take your foot out of your mouth.  Stop backpedaling.  It's really unbecoming.

WASHINGTON John Edwards’ presidential campaign wants to make it clear that he doesn’t consider Israel a threat to world peace.

A spokesman for the 2008 Democratic candidate issued a statement today denying such a report on Variety.com.

Columnist Peter Bart reports that Edwards told a Hollywood fundraiser last month that the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities is perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace.

Edwards’ spokesman Jonathan Prince says the article is erroneous. He says Edwards says one of the greatest short-term threats to world peace is Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Bart and the host of the fundraiser, Adam Venit of the Endeavor talent agency, didn’t immediately respond to messages for comment.

Heh.

Powerline posted a video of Congressman Sam Johnson of Texas, giving a speech on the floor of the House to encourage his fellow Congressmen to vote against the Let's Lose resolution.  If any of the Democrats in the House had bothered to show up to listen to this former fighter pilot veteran of Korea and Vietnam - and 7 year POW - I can't see how they wouldn't have been totally ashamed of themselves.  But hey, out of sight, out of mind.  Let's listen to the blustering John "Slow-Bleed" Murtha instead, right? 

I'm not sure what I can add to the things that have already been said about the cowardly House resolution of defeat that had Nancy Pelosi grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  It makes me ill that a bunch of mealy mouthed legislators spent the week grandstanding and posturing and making hypocritical noises about "supporting the troops".  I guess they think they're kidding someone.

Thank goodness for my Senator, Mitch McConnell, who kept enough of the GOP Senators together to block a similar vote in the Senate.  You can find the text of his entire speech at The Corner. Money quote from his speech before the Senate.

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The majority party in the Senate wants to vote on a resolution that condemns the President’s plan and which “disagrees” with Gen. Petraeus, who said before he left for Iraq that additional troops are an “essential” part of achieving our goal. They are doing this three weeks after voting, without dissent, to send Gen. Petraeus on this mission. And they are doing it in the form of a non-binding resolution that will have no practical effect on our conduct of the war.

Americans have a right to demand why the U.S. Senate has not yet taken a clear stand on what most of us believe to be our last, best chance at success. So let us be clear at the outset of this debate about what’s going on today, about what Republicans are fighting for today. Republicans are fighting for the right of the American People to know where we stand. If you support this war, say so. If you don’t, say so. But you cannot say you are registering a vote in favor of our troops unless you pledge to support them with the funds they will need to carry their mission out.

Yet this is precisely what the Democratic majority would have us do today. They demand that Republicans cast a vote in favor of a nonsensical proposition that says: “We disapprove of the President’s plan to deploy more troops to Iraq, but we support the members of the Armed Forces who are serving there.” A vote in support of the troops that is silent on the question of funds is an attempt to have it both ways. So Republicans are asking for an honest and open debate. And we are being blocked at every turn.

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Here's hoping we all keep the pressure up on the Senate and House to prevent our oh-so-courageous representatives from blocking funding for the troops they claim to support.