TalkingPoints link |   CBS 13 link

“It’s no good for a family values Republican to get picked up on a DUI. But substantially worse to get picked up for a DUI after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in a state vehicle.” … “In better days Ashburn, a fierce opponent of gay rights, was fighting marriage equality and organizing anti-gay marriage rallies as part of his “Traditional Family Values” campaign.”

To quote a friend of mine:

“this is why I love republicans.  It’s like they suffer from “The lady doth protest too much” syndrome.”

You just can’t make this shit up.

UPDATE:  The senator has admitted he is gay.

From: shontatbb463@yahoo.com (Teisha Schut)

Msg:
You don’t have to sell this so cheap…I used to sell stuff on CL just like you were doing to pay my bills. I ended up realizing a lot of people get ripped off, its over-all NOT SAFE anymore to meet people from craigslist. A friend of mine told me about an amazing website and said I should check it out so I did. I made about 4000$ last month. I’m making more than I was at my regular job. If you want to try it visit http://googlepaidme.com

If you need help getting started please let me know.

Here’s my response:
Are you kidding me?  Spamming random Craigslist posters about some sign-up-get-paid-get-rich bullshit site?

From: joshua@kingersons.com (Joshua Kingersons)

Msg:
HOW ABOUT SOME PERFUMES/COLOGNES AND CASH COMBINATION. I’M TRYING TO GET RID OF MY FRAGRANCES (FROM STORE)

http://kingersons.com/fragrance/discountperfume.html

JOSHUA K.

Here’s my response:
Oh, shit!  I can get knockoff perfumes in exchange for my brand new motorcycle?!  PLEASE send more info!

However, the latest installment of media forwarded to me actually is playing out pretty interestingly.  Jerry Day, a self-proclaimed news broadcaster has put out a video which seems a bit conspiracy theory at first.  So, I did some research, and uncovered some interesting facts.

The Census website boasts “One of the shortest forms in history – 10 Questions in 10 Minutes“, and shows you a sample form.  But if you dig around you’ll find the ACTUAL questionnaire which includes questions like (actually copied from the form, word for word):

1. IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS, what were the actual sales of all agricultural products from this property?
2. LAST MONTH, what was the cost of electricity for this house, apartment, or mobile home?
3. What is the highest degree or level of school this person has COMPLETED? Mark (X) ONE box. If currently enrolled, mark the previous grade or highest degree received.
4. Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, does this person have difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping?
5. How many times has this person been married?
6. How many weeks DID this person work, even for a few hours, including paid vacation, paid sick leave, and military service?
7. Wages, salary, commissions, bonuses, or tips from all jobs. Report amount before deductions for taxes, bonds, dues, or other items.
8. Interest, dividends, net rental income, royalty income, or income from estates and trusts. Report even small amounts credited to an account.
9. What are the annual real estate taxes on THIS property?

WTF!? These are the kinds of questions that I don’t answer if my FRIENDS asked them.

Anyway, here’s the video I mentioned earlier, make your own conclusions:

Why it’s fantastic:
With international eyes so closely focused on the US, this over-sized gas-guzzling monster added yet another stigma to the overweight, unhealthy, and greedy American personification.  The Hummer was so over-the-top that owners were the object of ridicule from even their American neighbors.  All of this doesn’t even mention the safety issue;  imagine for a moment being next to this dinosaur on a motorcycle or scooter!

Why it’s sad:
I am personally, very upset about this.   Every time I saw one of these mindless purchases I relished in the moment of rolling down my window and screaming “douchebag!” or “rich dummy!” at the top of my lungs.  Today marks the end of a staple in American society that wasn’t missed even by popular media.

Not to worry, I’m sure another company will step up to fill the void that Hummer has left behind.

“A MOTORCYCLE RIGHT-OF-WAY VIOLATION WIDOW AND SURVIVOR ADDRESSES THE KILLER OF HER
HUSBAND
An open letter from Amy Pickholtz to Brenda Melancon

Brenda Garon Melancon, Former Mayor
44337 Melancon Street, P.O. Box 7
Sorrento, LA 70778 . 225-675-8*7*

I hope on this day, 14 October 2009, that you will spend some time reading my letter, and that the message I am conveying will make a difference, because on this day I will spend some time at the cemetery mourning my husband Jim, and spend sometime honoring him by reflecting on all the reasons that I fell in love with him.

“It’s not the life that you live, it’s the courage that you bring to it.”–Yogi Bhajan

This is the quote I adopted in 2004 when I started to teach yoga. I really never understood why I adopted this particular quote as my own credo, and even put it on my yoga business cards. Now, I truly understand why.

It’s been 2 years since your grossly negligent behavior as the driver of the car who violated our right-of-way, and as the Mayor, who although with prior knowledge did nothing about the existing problems at the intersection. We know the result of your negligence. The death of my husband Jim, the permanent disabling injuries to me,and the devastation to our entire family. I will remind you of your immediate response after the crash when asked if you had been in touch with the Pickholtz family, was “No. I don’t wanna know. This is all so devastating to me. The accident was just horrible.”

Horrible, yes, but this was not an accident, Ms. Melancon. This was an incident,caused by you, but not solely about you.

You reiterated how devastating all this was to you when you took it upon yourself to call The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge to use them as your own personal platform in response to the Sorrento Town Council meeting reporter including in her article my showing up at your public town hall meeting on Tuesday June 16, 2009. The headline on Friday June 19 read, “Mayor: Crash ‘devastated’ her”:

You literally slid out of the back door of your own town hall meeting (without having opened up the floor to any further business), when faced by me and the other16 motorcycle riders, family and friends who sat or stood quietly without disrupting any of the business of your town council meeting. The Advocate reporter was irresponsible to even write an article for you and furthermore to intertwine my previous quotes into your dictated agenda.

My message to you of “It can never be over” written on a poster board was in response to you saying “It was a terrible accident, and I’m very sorry. I’m glad that it’s over…” after the Grand Jury hearing concluded they would not indict you on Criminal Negligent Homicide, Criminal Negligent Injury and Failure to Yield from a Private Driveway. The Grand Jury’s failure to indict does not mean you were found innocent. It means that the law in Louisiana does not support Justice. You should have been found guilty by proximate cause for killing my husband Jim, and for seriously injuring me, and you should have been charged with the ROW Violations ACT195.

How can you think this will ever be over?

You need to know that I still need to go weekly to grief therapy, still need physical therapy, have to rely on pain medication daily, still live with PTSD,survivor’s guilt, chronic pain, disabling injuries and depression. I am still paying exorbitant medical bills, and health insurance premiums as a result of you crashing into us. I have had continued tests, treatments, surgeries and therapies.I am scheduled for my fifth surgery. I must maintain myself physically in order to function at a reasonable level to care for children and maintain my household. The simplest tasks have become physically challenging and my everyday functioning is completely at the mercy of my pain levels throughout the day.

I am still unable to provide an income for my household. You took away took away my financial stability, and my physical ability to do the work I used to do. Yes, the insurance companies paid. It is a pittance after all the medical and legal expenses, and with the ongoing medical expenses and no income, how long do you think it will last?

And what are your financial ramifications?

You had the audacity to question if I think you felt nothing, for learning a “person was killed”, as you put it, while propped up on your platform in the Advocate newspaper. This is not about what I think you feel, Ms. Melancon. This is about how you have taken no responsibility, morally or ethically as a human being, or any action to make any positive impact as a political figure. A person was killed, Ms.Melancon. His name was Jim Pickholtz and he was a son, a father, a husband, a friend and the absolute, unequivocal love of my life, with whom I was supposed to grow old.

Since you took it unto yourself to refer to your letter of May 22, 2008, in the newspaper, I am taking it unto myself to refer to your letter, also, in which you expressed “sympathy and condolences for the loss of my husband.” I need to remind you that I did not “lose” my husband and your wording was entirely insensitive to the fact that you killed him. Your timing couldn’t have been any worse, either. It was very damaging for me to have received your letter on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, and even more damaging to read what I consider an empty jumble of contrived clichés and self justification defending your previously perfect driving record.

Nowhere in your letter or to the media did you ever ask, “Is there something I can do to help?”, or ask how I am, or how the children are. Nowhere did you reach out a hand or reach beyond your own self, or into your political position as a public official to DO anything to help me, my family or the community.

Why?

Courage. Well… it takes courage to do so. I think you’ve buried your head in the sand as a coward.

I am writing proposed legislation and will be on the floor with two Bills next June,even though I have never been politically minded before. I am talking with the new administration in Sorrento in order to make the necessary changes to the entrances and exits of the property at the Ascension Civic Center. I have volunteered as the Director of the Baton Rouge Chapter of MAC [Motorcycle Awareness Campaign], and have applied for MAC to be present at the largest festivals in the area that are non-motorcycle events so that our message and mission goes out to the motoring public. I am speaking on behalf of MAC and independently on television shows, radio shows and at events held by Motorcyclists’ Rights Organizations that invite me. I am actively involved in my community and do whatever I can to help by guiding and talking with other crash victims, and comforting other widows of motorcycle riders killed by motorists like you. I am trying to make a difference, so that no one!else has to go through what I am living.

All of this takes courage.

In two years I have come from being totally incapacitated, months spent in a wheelchair, and having to re-learn the simplest of physical functions that we all take for granted–like walking, from begging God to take me to Jim, to waking up daily in grief and depression and loneliness, in anger and pain, to enduring the emotional and physical roller coaster of loss–of Jim, of health, of my blended family, of my entire life as it was, what I describe as “blissfully happy.”

It takes courage to stand up for my rights and advocate for motorcycle awareness. It took courage to sit before you in your meeting. It takes courage to write you this letter, which I can only represent as my truth. It takes courage to accept that I am a victim, but that I will not be victimized. It takes courage each day to live without Jim, yet honor Jim all the ways that I choose.

So I ask, who are you speaking with about being a driver who killed a motorcyclist?How are you educating motorists to look for motorcycles? How are you spreading the message to other motorists, so that they don’t kill a motorcyclist, too?

You had over a year in office to correct the problems that exist at that intersection, and you have the rest of your life now as a civilian to do something,and yet to this date, you still have done nothing. I maintain that no matter what the Attorney General says about the crash site, the tree line, the guardrails, or the stop sign placement at that intersection didn’t kill Jim: You did. You were behind the wheel of the car, and you violated our right-of-way. You are the proximate cause of this incident. You also knew about the obstructions and yet, you didn’t take the care to insure that the right-of-way was clear.

The law in Louisiana is not yet in place, but it will be after next session, that would have convicted you, which is Ordinary Negligent Homicide. I maintain there is no justice, there is just law. If there was justice, you’d be off the road, without a license to drive. You’d be at the very least doing community service and advocacy work for motorcycle awareness, and you would have been found guilty on all counts of negligent homicide, negligent injury and failure to yield, and you would have been charged under the current ROW Violations Act 195 and convicted of that, too.Louisiana should be ashamed as a State to not have the proper law in place to convict those responsible for negligent homicide. And you should be ashamed, Brenda Melancon, that you’re doing nothing to make amends for killing my husband Jim,permanently injuring me, and devastating an entire family, not for months, but for the rest of our lives.

Perhaps you shouldn’t have listened to your lawyers, and been in touch with us personally from the beginning of this tragic incident. Perhaps you should have considered the timing of your letter, the affect of the content and your comments to the media with greater stringency. Perhaps, you should look at the forgiveness that you hope I will be able to offer you with some more reflection and merit.

I invite you muster up the courage to take your head out of the sand and do something.

In memory of my husband Jim I remain,

Amy Pickholtz . brmac@eatel.net
FTY-ROWV Widow/Survivor/Bikers’ Rights Activist
Director, Baton Rouge Chapter, Motorcycle Awareness Campaign
P.O. Box 4762 . Baton Rouge, LA 70821 . http://www.macorg.com”

Today, Jacksonville news station News4Jax, posted an article of another disgruntled individual hit particularly hard with a lawsuit and the current recession.  When faced with a completely unfair foreclosure, he bulldozed the home he built to the ground stating:

“As far as what the bank is going to get, I plan on giving them back what was on this hill exactly (as) it was, I brought it out of the ground and I plan on putting it back in the ground”.

This guy, as a matter of contrast, is a fucking hero. (http://www.news4jax.com/nationalnews/22610178/detail.html)

Some examples:
ScreenToaster: screen recorder
FillAnyPDF: pretty self-explanatory
Vuvox: Create your own collage
Aviary: Super simple PhotoShop like image editor
Evernote: Keep notes
Zoho: Online office-like suite of software

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/30_incredible_web_apps_you_need_try

See?  The KeyboardDevil isn’t all doom-and-gloom satire. LOL

What you’re about to watch here is “Faux” News not suggesting, but actually claiming that GOING to COLLEGE makes you a liberal and “dumbs kids down when it comes to basic questions of civic literacy”

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4016232/college-skews-political-spectrum

In the interest of helping young people pick their political party affiliations, I have put together this helpful guide with a checklist.

Of course, we all know there are ‘other’ parties, but they will certainly never rise to power, so why bother even mentioning them…

So here we go!

Republican  [re·pub·li·can] :
(wikipedia)
The “right of center” American political party founded in 1854 who’s basic premise of membership is “Do you make more than $60,000 a year?” and “Are you terrified of a deity and his son?”.  The GOP (Grand Ole Party, look it up) has spent a good portion of the Obama presidency crying of fiscal responsibility while running this year’s winter meeting at a high-end hotel in Hawaii.  Today’s Republican is an angry, Tea Party member hellbent on skipping work to hold up poorly spelled signs who’s message is provided by the self-proclaimed conservative Glenn Beck.  The untold basis for this party is to protect the rich, and by rich, I mean Americans who are under the impression that they are well-to-do.  And by protect, I mean completely give up all rights and money to the truly rich.
Should I join this party?
A Republican checklist, do you:

• Watch, and believe everything you see on Fox news
• Fear your god, and provide him with money
• Hate homosexuals, but love Sarah Palin regardless of how fucking stupid she is.
• Don’t know the “Colbert Report” is a satire

Democrat  [dem′ə krat′] :
(wikipedia)
The “left of center” American political party self-described as “liberal”, notably older than it’s counterpart the Republican party.  The Democratic party consists of some of America’s most dimwitted sissy boys who, in the current congress, are absolutely terrified to vote on anything that might upset anyone even in the face of a majority strength (formerly a super-majority until just recently).  Membership in this party is powered by the “protect main street from the rich” mentality, although there isn’t a poor man in Washington regardless of political partisanship.

Should I join this party?
A Democratic checklist, do you:

• Believe that re-appointing the head of the Fed and massively greedy banks to fix the economy is a good idea.
• Fight the red-tie-wearing rich elite by taking pointers from… Blue-tie-wearing rich elite.
• Wish to be a vegetarian because scantily-clad supermodels are in cages.
• Anyone has ever called you a “liberal douchebag”

So here we are… Again… Right back to where we started.  Some might remember Ben Bernanke, the lovable head of the US Federal Reserve.  I mean, Time Magazine even made him man of the year in 09!  Sure!  Anything was better than that Greenspan jack ass, right?!

Of course that was before everything started to head south.  That was before the bubble on sub-prime lending (basically akin to lending money to gophers and expecting to get it back, two-fold), selling off “A-rated” securities to countries that don’t even speak English (nor probably even know that they’re buying bad bets on real estate in the US), and a 10% unemployment rate.

Basically, he was the man, until everything fell the fuck apart.

The good news is, we learn from our past:

• Tomorrow’s banking surely won’t be led by the same asshat who helped get us into this mess.
• Tomorrow’s lending regulations will be stiff, but fair so America can start lending again.
• Tomorrow’s banking regulations will protect those of us on “Main St” from getting screwed in the ass… Again… By the same greedy bankers that we’ve surely thrown out of their posh offices.

Well… No, actually.  None of that is taking place.

The asshat is back at the helm, the same greedy, rich, jackasses that drove our economy into the toilet are still in positions of power at your favorite banking and insurance institutions, and we’re getting ready to start the madness all over again.

And no one seems to care.

The truth is, the current economic tide is so rocky that we’re willing to accept anything at all to get ‘back on our feet’.  Americans are so hungry for a new Hummer or some other overpriced pile of steel that we’re all anxiously awaiting the day when some Fed big wig or NYSE jockey comes on TV and tells us that it’s OK to start buying shit we don’t need again.

Hey, Mr. President!  Do us a favor and Google the following sentence:

“what caused the recession”

Make legislation based on that, not the folks in the banking and insurance industries that fund your re-election campaign.