Godwinning the health care debate

This post by Orac (with quite a bit of source material from Arthur Caplan) effectively lays it on the line concerning the growing insanity of the health care "debate", since it's an especially good example of Godwin's Law in action.

It's also nice to know that ex-Governor Sarah Increasingly Weird (R-404 Not Available) isn't above throwing fellow Republicans under the bus when she's ranting and raving about nonexistent "death panels", as Ezra Klein shows here and here. In many ways, this is all just more proof of the truth of Mencken's dictum that  "the only way a reporter should look at a politician is down".

Humor: and now, a bit of levity concerning bad booze and worse booze misaventures

If you're into drinking the unspeakably vile (or are merely unspeakably vile yourself), this article from the Chicago Reader may convince you that the horrors of Malort must be experienced to be believed.

And given this theme, now a bit of historical reminiscence: back in 1991 when I was at Capricon 11, I woke up Sunday morning in my hotel room at the former Hyatt Lincolnwood and decided that the alcoholic leftovers were not going to be flushed down the toilet. What was left over was, in fact, 3 cans of Coors Light (not mine - c'mon, give me more credit than that), part of a bottle of either Rumple Minze or Doctor McGillicuddy mentholmint schnapps (mine) and the remainder of a bottle of 101 proof Wild Turkey bourbon (also mine). I tossed all of the filthy remains of this stuff into a 2-liter empty pop bottle and tossed in about 4 tabs of leftover store-brand caffeine pills (I frown on illegal drug use, after all) and then shook all this stuff up and took a quick hit from it. 

Needless to say, it was just as vile as it sounds. 

Even worse, I actually took a second swig of it and continued to drink it.

I then passed it to my longtime drinking crony Juris Jegens (most people in Chicago skiffy fandom know him as Yuri), warning him that it was, indeed, pretty damn hideous.

His reaction after two swigs was a bit stronger than mine; namely, he spewed through his fingers and made for the bathroom.

Somehow, I held on to that bottle and even took periodic swigs from it with no ill effects over a period of roughly six hours or so. Later, Juris and I got a ride to the Devon avenue turnaround for the Kimball bus and I decided to toss it into a nearby cut-down oil drum the CTA was using as a garbage can. 

I swear to this day that the remains of that bottle caused the garbage it splashed to actually smoke.    

Now see what happens when you go to a SF con, get bored and decide to experiment with your boozy leftovers?
 
I've almost gotten over the experience.
 
Uh...uh...BATS CARRYING RADIOS BOMBARDED MY HOUSE WITH JACK T.CHICK PAMPHLETS TRANSLATED INTO MARTIAN  ESPERANTO! UMBRELLA NUCLEAR PENGUIN UNDERPANTS! THE GHOST OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON KEEPS RAIDING MY FRIDGE FOR PINEAL GLAND POPSICLES! ZIB ZAB YHUGMAAASHAAATHAAAHAAAAAZIBZIBZIBZIBzibzibziiiiiiiiiiib...

Notice that I wrote "almost".

Patrick Kane: and he should be given a free pass *why*, exactly...?

Granted, he's innocent until proven guilty, but...

I'm not going to be one of the idiots out there defending what Patrick Kane and his equally vapid cousin allegedly did to Buffalo cabbie Jan Radecki, regardless of Radecki's priors concerning DUIs and driving with an invalid license. Yeah, Radecki may have done just that. So what? Does that somehow justify the Kane Kousins pounding the crap out of him over 20 cents? 

Boy, if anyone was looking for confirmation that pro athletes are arrogant douchebags with the capacity for reflection or self-control of a lamprey, this is it. And I'm a hockey fan, so anyone who thinks that I have a beef with the sport instead of Kane's off-rink behavior is wrong. Period.  

Oh, but it gets better.

I admit the following was inspired by an on-air rant by legendary (?) local sports radio curmudeon Terry Boers, but get a load of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Slezak on Kane now and how she reacted to a certain music video Chicago Bears tight end Greg Olsen made in 2005 while at the U. of Miami back when he was drafted in 2007.

The moral of the story? Apparently, making a nasty rap recording is worse than mugging a cabbie or engaging in any number of real felonies I can think of. In Slezak's world, saying naughty things is far, far worse than actually engaging in a criminal act. I can almost hear Mrs. Lovejoy from The Simpsons in the background screaming "but what about the chiiiiiildren?"

The real lesson of the story? Slezak is either very bad at what she does or has the memory span of a goldfish concerning her own columns.

Your choice. 

(UPDATE: Oh, wait! Here's more proof of Slezak at her worst; apparently, even Michael Vick ends up being a better person than Greg Olsen in her book. My thanks to Fire Jay Mariotti for pointing out the column and providing further commentary.)

Stephen Hawking, "victim" of the NHS

Well no, not really. But apparently the Investor's Business Daily thinks he is, although Hawking himself doesn't seem to have much trouble with those dread British CommuNazi doctors kind of, well, keeping him alive.

My suspicion? The real reason why opponents of reform are getting progressively screwier in their rhetoric is that they're the ultimate in "big hat, no cattle" thinking on the issue. If they had a better plan, they would've screamed to the rooftops 24-7 about it a long time ago. Hence, my suspicion is that they have no alternative plan at all, and never did.  

Simon Singh update

I've already posted on the lawsuit Simon Singh was hit with by the British Chiropractic Association, but this article by Ben Goldacre further updates and summarizes things quite nicely.