Nevermind

Nice work on the containment, all. Still...I'm keeping my hands clean.

The swine flu virus has spread to 36 states and infected at least 286 people, but the outbreak at this point appears to be milder than initially feared, U.S. officials said Monday, and Mexico declared that the epidemic is "slowing."

Why I Can Never Be a Libertarian

There are just too many things that do indeed need government oversight. Go read "Smithfield Farms Fled US Environmental Laws to Open a Gigantic Pig Farm in Mexico, and All We Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu." It's just pathetic how our food supply is being outsourced by companies that should know better, and how humanity pays the price.

Sadly, it was government that passed NAFTA - so few realizing that food was part of the deal - not just cars and durable goods.

Thanks, Jer...and happy birthday.

Either You Want To Secede Or You Don't

Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked the Center for Disease Control to send 37,430 doses of Tamiflu. What say we tell 'em to make their own if they're so fucking self-sufficient and self-righteous?

Always helping Texas. What a drain...

Volcano Responds to Jindal

Mudflats has the exclusive.

Global Warming Isn't Manmade!

Inhofe and the entire conservative movement base that on findings by EIB Laboratories (aka Marc Morano, a former Limbaugh producer).

See? See? This Email Links to the SENATE! So THERE!

Any minute now, you'll get an email from one of your wingtard friends telling Al Gore to blow it out his shorts (or some such love toward Gore). They're sending you a LINK to the Yoo-nited States Democrat SENATE 'n' their environmental committee, dated December 10, 2008! And it says:

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

So THERE, hippie!

Yeah. So there...yes, right there. Just below the masthead...

*sigh* Yeah. "The Inhofe EPW Press Blog."

Let the head-shaking commence. Token nutbag EPW committee member Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma is using our taxpayer-funded website to make these phony EPW pages to propagate his stubborn, much-debunked and warped view that global warming's a myth - it's just the sun that's warming the planet (Duh, yeah - if it weren't for the sun, stunad, there'd be no heat to get trapped in the polluted atmosphere).

Okay. He's been doing his job because he's protecting his state's industrial commerce. Fine. But he's consistently done it in patently dishonest, ignorant and pejorative ways. Here's a classic example. Of course since a lot of those factories are going to be closing down anyway, Inhofe's efforts may be moot.

So if you get one of these? Hit Reply All with this link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/11/opinion/main666190.shtml

It's all anyone needs to know about Sen. James Inhofe.

And that's One To Grow On.

UK Research: Intelligent Men Have "Better Sperm"

Sadly for America, stupid men make more kids.

Ike: Heads-Up, Texas

A pretty stern warning from the National Weather Service in Houston/Galveston, TX:

MATAGORDA COUNTY:

MATAGORDA COUNTY: A MANDATORY EVACUATION HAS BEEN ORDERED FOR PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND WORK SOUTH OF HIGHWAY 35. THIS MANDATORY EVACUATION INCLUDES THE COMMUNITIES OF PALACIOS...ASHBY-BUCKEYE...EL MATON... COLLEGEPORT...MATAGORDA... WADSWORTH...SARGENT... CEDAR LANE... CHINQUAPIN... TRES PALACIOS OAKS...AND TIDEWATER OAKS. BLESSING IS ALSO INCLUDED IN THE MANDATORY EVACUATION EVEN THOUGH IT IS NORTH OF HIGHWAY 35. THESE EVACUATIONS MUST BE COMPLETED BY 6 PM TODAY.

LIFE THREATENING INUNDATION LIKELY!

ALL NEIGHBORHOODS...AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES... WILL BE INUNDATED DURING THE PERIOD OF PEAK STORM TIDE. PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE. VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS WILL BE SWAMPED...SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN MULTI-STORY FACILITIES RISK BEING CUTOFF. CONDITIONS WILL BE WORSENED BY BATTERING WAVES. SUCH WAVES WILL EXACERBATE PROPERTY DAMAGE...WITH MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OF HOMES...INCLUDING THOSE OF BLOCK CONSTRUCTION. DAMAGE FROM BEACH EROSION COULD TAKE YEARS TO REPAIR.

People We Need to Banish from the Discourse

This lady's wearing a hat made of tin foil, aluminum, feathers, pot roast and stuff she found in her attic.

Thanks, Donita...

'Shrooms

They're not just for omelettes anymore.

In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project.

She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like her heart was ripping open.

But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that it has helped her to this day.

"I feel more centered in who I am and what I'm doing," said Osborn, now 66, of Providence, R.I. "I don't seem to have those self-doubts like I used to have. I feel much more grounded (and feel that) we are all connected."

Scientists reported Tuesday that when they surveyed volunteers 14 months after they took the drug, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience.

Two-thirds of them also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.

The drug, psilocybin, is found in so-called "magic mushrooms." It's illegal, but it has been used in religious ceremonies for centuries.

The study involved 36 men and women during an eight-hour lab visit. It's one of the few such studies of a hallucinogen in the past 40 years, since research was largely shut down after widespread recreational abuse of such drugs in the 1960s.

100 MPG With a Prius? GREAT! But...

...this device takes the place of your spare tire in the trunk well. Having just changed a flat on mine last week, no thanks. But keep trying.