Baby Hitler Removed

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

A follow-up to a story I posted about a month ago, involving a NJ supermarket who refused to make a birthday cake for a kid.  (And why?  The kid's name was Adolf Hitler Campbell).

That story caught a few national headlines, especially the father's laughable dismissal of his son's name (as well as his daughter's name: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell.

Well… now….

Three-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, whose family's attempt to get him a birthday cake made him an instant object of sympathy (his parents, not so much), was taken from his parents by NJ authorities. According to Lehigh Valley Live, "New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services took the 3-year-old, as well as JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, 1, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell, who turns 1 in April" from their home. It's unclear why the children were taken, but Holland Township police Chief David Van Gilson "said his department received no reports of abuse or negligence." Parents Heath and Deborah Campbell are expected to attend a hearing today.

While I am loathe to defend these parents, I don't think social services can step in and remove children from the house because of their selfish dickhead parents gave them crappy names.  

I suspect there's more than that…
 
UPDATE:  No, it's not because of the names, says a spokeswoman for New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services, reiterating the policy that they only remove a child from their parents when there is an "imminent" danger.
 
What that "imminent danger" was in this case, is still not known. 

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Nashville

Ken AshfordDemocrats2 Comments

Today, the Tennesee General Assembly met today to choose their House speaker.  The body consists of 99 representatives.  The breakdown after recent elections: 50 Republicans, 49 Democrats.

The Speaker is an important position; he chooses, among other things, who heads what committees, etc.

Mumpower The Republicans had their nominee in line.  They were going to choose Jason Mumpower (pictured, right), a wingnut from Bristol County.  

Mumpower was eager for the job, and he had an agenda: bans on gay adoption and fostering, new concealed weapons laws, new constitutional limits on abortion, new anti-immigrant legislation, and mandating the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools, among them.

Everyone knew Mumpower would become Speaker.  The press knew it, the public knew it.  It was a fait accompli.

So at today's assembly, the new members were sworn in.  And the first order of business came up: choosing the next Speaker.

Then the comedy of errors started.

Mumpower called for an immediate vote on selection of the Speaker (i.e., him).  The Democrats wanted a 30-minute recess.  So, the assembly voted on whether to have the recess.  All Republicans voted against the recess, except for freshman Republican State Rep. Terry Lynn Weaver of Lancaster.  Terry Lynn, making her first vote ever in the assembly, purportedly hit the wrong button and cast her vote with the Democrats.

So the Democrats won, and a 30-minute recess was called for.

That was all they needed.

When they all came back, the Democrats had a plan.  After Mumpower was nominated for Speaker, the Democrats nominated a moderate Republican for Speaker — a man by the name of Kent Williams. 

And all the Democrats voted for Kent Williams, and (of course), Kent Williams voted for Kent Williams, making him Speaker by a vote of 50-49.

According to one report, "the official Republican nominee, Jason Mumpower, was left speechless, clutching the family bible that he had brought in preparation for taking the Speaker’s oath of office."

And that's how moderate Republican Kent Williams — not the fundamentalist wingnut — became Speaker of the Tennessee Assembly today.  As Williams went to the podium to accept his selection as the new Speaker, he was greeted with a chorus of boos from Republicans.

Nice manuevering from some state Dems.

More here.

Best Job In The World

Ken AshfordBloggingLeave a Comment

Queensland Island in the Great Barrier Reef is trying to up its tourism profile, and the way they intend to do it is to hire a blogger.

Requirements?  Hang around the island (swim, snorkel, etc) and blog about it:

The successful candidate will be asked to keep a blog and photo diary in exchange for six months rent-free on Hamilton Island as part of a $150,000 salary package that includes return airfares and travel insurance.

Hamilton-Island-420x0 

Tough job, but I guess someone's gotta do it.

The Beast’s List of The 50 Most Loathesome People of 2008

Ken AshfordRepublicansLeave a Comment

Naturally, they are mostly politicians and pundits, but the Freecreditreport.com guy makes an appearance at 40 (while "you" are at 43).

Obama is No. 50.  (Other Dems and liberals are on the list, including the Clintons, Olbermann, Caroline Kennedy, and John Edwards).

I'll save the suspense — Sarah Palin is #1, who got this scathing write-up:

If you want to know why the rest of the world is scared of Americans, consider the fact that after two terms of disastrous rule by a small-minded ignoramus, 46% of us apparently thought the problem was that he wasn’t quite stupid enough. Palin’s unending emissions of baffling, evasive incoherence should have disqualified her for any position that involved a desk, let alone placing her one erratic heartbeat from the presidency. The press strained mightily to feign respect for her, praising a debate performance that involved no debate, calling her a “great speaker” when her only speech was primarily a litany of insults to city-dwellers, echoing bogus sexism charges when a male Palin would have been boiled alive for the Couric interview alone, and lionizing her as she used her baby as a Pro-life stage prop before crowds who cooed when they should have been hurling polonium-tipped javelins. In the end, Palin had the beneficial effect of splitting her party between her admirers and people who can read.

Bonus:

21. Michelle Malkin

It’s a remarkable achievement in unconscious projection that the author of a book called Unhinged could lose her fucking marbles over a patterned scarf in a donut ad, but that’s what Michelle Malkin did when she sounded the nutbar clarion call and sicced her half-cocked league of masturbators on Rachel Ray and Dunkin Donuts for the flatly absurd notion that they were sending a message of solidarity with Palestinians. Right, Michelle—you just can’t sell donuts without joining the intifada these days. What did the nauseously spunky Ray do to incur the wrath of the Malkinoids? She wore a black and white scarf. A paisley scarf. A scarf that was clearly not a kaffiyeh, which, by the way, is just a hat that Arabs wear, not some universal symbol of jihad. In terms of completely false outrage, the only thing that rivaled this travesty of reason this year was the “lipstick on a pig” metaphor panic. But what puts this embarrassing sham over the top is that Dunkin Donuts actually apologized and pulled the ad, rather than try to explain to the fact-phobic horde that they were just blind, raging idiots with the collective brain-power of a lobotomized howler monkey.  

One More For The Road

Ken AshfordBush & Co.Leave a Comment

I got some of Bush's last press conference yesterday, and found it a little bizarre.  He seemed to acknowledge a few mistakes (the "Mission Accomplished" banner), but he mostly phrased them as "disappointments" (abu Gharib).

What he said about Katrina shows just how out-of-touch he still is, even in retropect:

"I've thought long and hard about Katrina," Bush said. "Could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge?"

But that action would have pulled law enforcement away from helping in the crisis to handle his visit, he said.

I don't think Air Force One landing in New Orleans or Baton Rouge was what people were criticizing about Bush's handling of Katrina.  It was his failure to be on top of the situation anywhere, especially before, when it was bearing down, and afterward, when the levees broke.  The American people weren't looking for a PR appearance; they wanted someone to whip emergency response into shape — something which could have been down from anywhere.  It's odd — and telling — that he doesn't understand this criticism… still.

And other mistakes and disappointments, he simply has a blind eye to.  He does not agree, for example, with the premise that America's standing has been damaged abroad, citing China and India.  He may be right about China and India, but of course they love us.  They're getting all our jobs.  And as for moral standing — after the debacles of the Middle East — I doubt even China and India really hold us in high esteem.

RELATED:  You can write — and read — goodbye letters to Bush here.

As Someone About To Be Heading For The Doctor’s…

Ken AshfordHealth Care1 Comment

… and having to make several stops beforehand to get charts, etc…..

I think this is sadly needed.

Obama's big idea: Digital health records

President-elect wants to computerize the nation's health care records in five years. But the plan comes with a hefty price tag, and specialized labor is scarce.

Sadly needed, sadly overdue.  And why should it be hard?  We've digitized the Library of Congress (haven't we)?  All court cases and records are digitized.  What's the holdup with medical records?

In fact, many hurdles stand in the way. Only about 8% of the nation's 5,000 hospitals and 17% of its 800,000 physicians currently use the kind of common computerized record-keeping systems that Obama envisions for the whole nation.

 Well, that's just ridiculous.  Come on.  It's the 21st century.  My Mom should not be more technologically advanced in her record-keeping than hospitals!

And some experts say that serious concerns about patient privacy must be addressed first.

Of course.  I wonder if there any other industries that have dealt with this in the past.  Like, oh, banking.

Finally, the country suffers a dearth of skilled workers necessary to build and implement the necessary technology.

Now, that, I simply don't believe.

I'd write more, but I have to leave to get my MRIs from one place, and other records from another place, so I can take them to a third place…..

Golden Globe Awards

Ken AshfordPopular CultureLeave a Comment

I'm glad I didn't make any predictions, because I would have sucked.

I'm glad Slumdog Millionaire is getting a lot of earlier awards (and maybe the best Motion Picture Drama).  Maybe it will come to Winston-Salem.

Well, as I type this, Slumdog won.

Glad about Mickey, too.  And Heath.

And that John Adams won a lot (the miniseries itself, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti).

And Laura Dern was amazing in "Recount".  So again, well-deserved.

Confused about Anna Paquin.

The Bush Legacy

Ken AshfordBloggingLeave a Comment

This is precisely why the blog "Jon Swift" deserves the 2008 Humor Weblog of the Year Award:

As I recently predicted, in few months, with the benefit of hindsight, historians will look back on the Bush presidency as an unalloyed success and consider President Bush to be one of our greatest presidents. Although the White House has sent around its own talking points highlighting the President's accomplishments, I don't think they go far enough. So I have put together my own list of talking points, which should convince anyone why George W. Bush belongs on Mount Rushmore, along with Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and the other guy.

After Hurricane Katrina President Bush kept our cities safe.

In the three years and a half years since Hurricane Katrina not a single American city has been destroyed or partially destroyed. There are more than 10,000 cities in the United States and because of George Bush every single one of them, except for New Orleans, is still largely intact. Of course, no one could have predicted Hurricane Katrina, and if President Clinton had not left us so woefully unprepared, New Orleans would probably be in a lot better shape than it is now. But since Katrina, there have been numerous hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, fires and earthquakes and none of them has gotten out of hand and wiped out an entire city because of the disaster preparedness policies President Bush put in place. For national security reasons we may not know until records are declassified how many other potential disasters, like epidemics or nuclear power plant meltdowns or alien invasions, were averted because of the work that government agencies did behind the scenes. Unfortunately, Presidents don't usually get credit for all the disasters that don't happen. But I think we should congratulate the President on doing a heckuva job on keeping America safe in the years since Katrina.

This, on the other hand, is not satire:

What have been George Bush's leadership strengths? That is a question that will perhaps best be answered with the perspective of history, considering that Lincoln, was at one time despised by half the country and questioned by many in the other half. There is also the dilemma of whether leaders must be fully successful to be judged good leaders (case in point: Robert E. Lee).


President Bush's overall greatest achievement was that America has not suffered another 9/11 tragedy.

Obama To Appoint Gupta?

Ken AshfordHealth Care, Obama & AdministrationLeave a Comment

Sanjay For what it's worth, I like the idea of Dr. Sunjay Gupta as Surgeon General, the current balloon being floated by the incoming Obama administration.

I like his news reports on CNN and CBS.  I like his rapport on talk shows.

But this WaPo headline gets it wrong when it calls him a "journalist", as do right-wing blogs who focus exclusively on his journalism creds and obvious TV eye appeal.  Sure, he does journalism, but that's a second vocation.  He was trained as, and became a worldwide expert in, medicine (neurosurgery) long before the journalism gig.  In fact, he has been, and still is, a practicing neurosurgeon at Emory University in Atlanta.  He was there before the CNN job a year ago.

And certainly his allegience is to medicine.  While being a war correspondent in Iraq, he was asked to perform emergency surgery on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy who had been critically wounded when hit in the head with shrapnel (the boy did not survive).  This was a violation of journalistic ethics (becoming a part of the story), but for Gupta, it was no-brainer.  As a licensed practising surgeon who took the Oath, he was compelled morally to treat the boy.

Furthermore, the job of Surgeon General is educational as well as medical.  After all, it is the Surgeon General who is charged with getting the word out about health hazards (ever read a cigarette pack lately)?  So who better than an established medical doctor with strong PR skills, and a small modicum of fame?  And, the looks don't hurt.  

So seriously, who better?

Republican’s Plans To Become More Popular

Ken AshfordRepublicans1 Comment

They're going to get "hip":

"We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today," Duncan ventured.

"Let me just say that I have 4,000 friends on Facebook," contributed Blackwell, putting his hand on Dawson's and Anuzis's knees. "That's probably more than these two guys put together, but who's counting, you know?" Acknowledged Saltsman: "I'm not sure all of us combined Twitter as much as Saul."

Anuzis claimed he had "somewhere between 2- and 3,000" Facebook friends, which prompted Blackwell to remind the audience that he has 4,000 friends on the social networking.

And using "the Facebook" works how?

It's the Underpants Gnome business plan at work:

(1)  Use Twitter and Facebook
(2)  ?
(3)  Republican majorities in Congress and Republican presidents!!!

The problem with the GOP isn't their lack of youth outreach so much as they are devoid of a message to reach out to youth with.  At present, the GOP is all about following Rush Limbaugh, and debating whether "Barack The Magic Negro" is a racist parody song.  Oh, and obstructionism — i.e., blocking any Democratic initiative or plan simply because it's a Democratic initiative or plan.

And mostly, as the article suggests, the GOP is about embracing Reagan.  Now, you tell me.  Even using Facebook and Twitter, how are you going to get young people, who weren't around in the Reagan era, to get charged about a party that reveres him like a God?

I think the GOP has many many many days ahead in the wilderness.

The Truth About That McDonald’s Hot Coffee Lawsuit

Ken AshfordCourts/Law1 Comment

It came up in a conversation I had the other day: the lady who sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot.  It's always the example tossed out by people whenever there is a discussion about frivilous lawsuits.

Now, there are frivilous lawsuits filed everday.  But the McDonald's Hot Coffee Lawsuit is not a very good example.

Here's what most people know about the case:
  1. Women gets McDonald's coffee from drive-thru window
  2. She spills it on herself; OW, it burns! 
  3. She sues McDonalds 
  4. She wins at trial  

Ok.  That's an accurate summary of the facts.  But it's woefully incomplete.

The thing people need to focus on is #4.  She won.  That should be a clue that there's more than what meets the eye.  Why did she win?  Was the jury of twelve people comprised of total idiots?  Was the judge a moron? 

In reality, when the jury was selected, all they knew before the trial was #1, #2, and #3.  To many of them at the time, it seemed like a pretty straightforward case in McDonald's favor.  So what happened between jury selection and verdict time?  

Well, the evidence came out.  ALL the evidence.

Consider: The victim — Mrs. Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico (age 79) — did not do anything unusual to contribute to her injuries.  She was a passenger in her grandson's car.  She ordered the coffee.  It came in a styrofoam cup.  She placed it between her legs, so she could open the lid and put in cream and sugar.  The coffee spilled.

Oh, her injuries?  Well, the coffee seeped through her sweatpants.  A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck also underwent debridement treatments.  

Put bluntly, the coffee literally burned a grandmother's genitals off….. through her clothes.

So, by now you're wondering one of two things:  Either Mrs. Liebeck's genitalia/legs/etc were made of tissue paper…. or maybe, just maybe, something was unusual about the coffee.  

And now we get to the heart of the matter — the thing most people aren't aware of.  

The McDonald's coffee wasn't merely "hot"; it was scalding.

McDonalds (at that time) served its coffee 50-60 degrees hotter than that of normal coffee served in your house or breakroom.  Its temperatures ranged as high as 190 degrees.  

Now, the thing about liquids is, if you lower the temperature, the effect of burns reduces exponentially.  In other words, liquids at 180 degrees would give full thickness burns to human skin in two to seven seconds.  But liquids at 155 degrees? Not nearly as bad.

In other words, if Mrs. Liebeck's coffee was 155 degrees — still much hotter than home or office coffee (and about the temperature that other fast food places serve coffee) — and she had spilled it?  Yeah, it would have hurt.  Anything over 140 degrees is a burn hazard.  But it wouldn't have gone through her sweatpants and burned off her hoo-ha.

Another important point: this wasn't a one-time event.  This wasn't a McDonald's worker who strayed from McDonald's coffee prep techniques.  No.  McDonald's coffee was served at 180-190 degrees as a matter of policy.  

So, while reasonable people would expect hot coffee (and McD's, at that time, did have a "hot" warning on the coffee cups), they certainly weren't expecting coffee that hot.  And, reasonably, McDonalds owed a duty to its patrons to warn them — not of the obvious ("the coffee will be hot") — but of the not-obvious ("no, we mean much much hotter than you would think, people").

McDonald's food quality people testified that they knew the coffee was being served at scalding temperatures.  They knew that it was being served at temperatures higher than other fast food places and coffee shops.  It was a planned, discussed, and implemented executive decision to do that.

And they knew that many of their customers probably didn't realize that their coffee was going to be that much hotter.  But they didn't give thought to repercussions.

Even when people started complaining that the coffee was burning their mouths, they didn't do anything.

So, in that light, the McDonald's Hot Coffee Lawsuit wasn't frivilous.  Yes, everybody knows that coffee from a fast-food place will be hot.  But I wonder how many people (back in 1992, when this happened) knew that McDonald's coffee was that much hotter, or knew the consequences of it being that much hotter?  Probably not many.  But McDonald's knew, and certainly had an obligation — legal, if not moral — to warn its customers.  

I'm not the slightest bit put off that Mrs. Liebeck sued.  She had a legitimate — not "frivilous" — complaint.

And I'm not surprised the jurors found in the her favor.

(Needless to say, McDonald's coffee, while still very hot, isn't served at 190 degrees anymore)

Can True Love Last Forever? New Scientific Study Says…

Ken AshfordScience & TechnologyLeave a Comment

Yes:

Love has no secrets from neurologists armed with an MRI brain scanner. What they have found contradicts the cynics: there is such a thing as everlasting love.

Researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have shown that the traditionally sorry path of sexual love – a downward spiral from lust to indifference over the space of a decade – is not an iron rule. Scanning the brains of people who have been together for 20 years, the scientists found that about one in 10 couples still display elements of “limerence”, the psychologists’ term for the obsessive behaviour of new lovers. They enjoy “intensive companionship and sexual liveliness” but without the anxieties and tensions of early love. They are generous, calm and deeply attached. The scientists call them swans (swans mate for life). This is good news for the 10%, if not for the remaining 90% gripped by marital fatigue.

What's more, these researchers believe they have discovered the biological basis for "love".

No, it's not in the heart.  The heart pumps blood, you moron.  It's centered (not surprisingly, when you think about it) in the reward centers of the brain.  But, as the article points out, don't let that turn you into a cynic, because even if its brain-based, "love matters".  In fact, they've proven it matters.