OPEN THREAD

Since our hosts haven't put an open thread up for a while, I'm taking the bull by the horns. I've got a couple items that individually aren't really worth diaries but collectively might interest some of you...

• Regarding the mind-bogglingly stupid fight over women getting their contraception: Planned Parenthood has launched their Fill My Pills Now website. Post a story, read a story, get involved. (To clarify: it's not stupid that we're fighting it, it's stupid that we're having to fight it. Fighting for one's birth control in this day and age is f*cking archaic, like fighting your drugstore over whether you can buy dental floss.)

• Did anyone catch Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC news guy and President Bartlet's father on The West Wing, on the Al Franken show on Air America Friday? He was on to tell Al that the Bush's Social Security plan is dead. It was dead last week, it's still dead this week, and it will be even more dead next week. Bush is now in the 78th day of his 60-day Social Security Bamboozlepalooza tour, and he's been reduced to appearing before Republican audiences in Republican states. Interestingly, his new plan which cuts benefits for wealthier people gets more Democrats supporting it than Republicans - until those Democrats find out that it's Bush's plan, at which point most of them stop supporting it. Cue "He's King Midas in reverse".

• Is anyone else in the Bay Area as irritated as I am that our local Air America affiliate, KQKE-The Quake, stopped broadcasting Morning Sedition at its regular time? They put the wake-up guys on at some godfarsaken hour in the middle of the night, and in their place now it's three hours of Jerry Springer. Let me tell you, this guy is boring enough to put me right back to sleep. What the hell were they thinking? Have they even listened to the show? There is no f*cking humor in his show! How the hell am I supposed to wake up if they can't make me laugh? They should put the Morning Sedition guys right back where they were, as they know how to actually wake people up (you know, like a morning show is supposed to), and put Springer on at 11pm so he can lull people to sleep. I really wanted to like the guy, and maybe the first two hours that I never catch are more interesting, but regarding the times I've caught it, I don't think I've ever heard a more boring radio show.

• Portugal will soon get the world's first "wave farm", a new-ish kind of energy production that makes use of the power of ocean waves. It will be in the form of agiant orange "sea snakes" five miles out from shore. See the BBC story here. This is cute: the Scottish firm that developed the technology warns that Scotland is falling behind in wave-farm energy production. I'd guess that less than 1% of Americans would even know what the hell a wave farm is.

OK, that's all I've got. What have you got to share?

•  It's okay when Repbulicans do it.

  http://www.peopleforchange.net/

  Earlier this month, right wing Christian anti-abortion extremist Neal Horsley appeared on the Alan Colmes Fox radio news show. Horsley has posted the names of doctors who perform abortions on his website, called The Nuremberg Files, as a way of targeting them, and one doctor has been killed. He secretly films women seeking abortions and posts their pictures on his website. Horsley's website was the topic of the show. During the interview, however, Horsley revealed a great deal about his past as a farm boy in Georgia, including a sexual relations with a mule. One might think that revealing such a thing on the radio would be embarrassing enough, but Horsley went back on the Colmes show to justify it! The mule took an ear of corn from him, which was clearly (to Horsley, anyhow) a sign of consent. The mule may also have been dressed provocatively, we can't say for sure. We can, however, be very sure that when Republicans have sex with mules, it's not bestiality - it's because the mule tempted them.

  by TeresaInPa on Sun May 22, 2005 at 01:21:08 AM PDT

  •  forgot the <snip>

    by TeresaInPa on Sun May 22, 2005 at 01:22:30 AM PDT

  •  Any comment from the mule? n/t

    by boran2 on Sun May 22, 2005 at 05:52:58 AM PDT

•  looks like the ladies

  are formenting a little revolution on dKos. Anarchy I say. Uppity women.

  by oysterface on Sun May 22, 2005 at 01:23:24 AM PDT

•  you know what the aminal says...

  "visit my blog"

  

  A lesser panda stands on its two feet at Chiba Zoological Park in Chiba, east of Tokyo May 21, 2005. The ability of Futa, the two-year-old lesser panda, to stand upright on its hind legs for about 10 seconds is unusual for the species, the zoo said. JAPAN OUT REUTERS-YOMIURI/Takehito Kobayashi

  by pacified on Sun May 22, 2005 at 01:39:45 AM PDT

•  All That Stuff Is Great And

  important but I really would appreciate answers to these questions:

  Does anyone know why Monkeyboy is flogging the dead issue of SS?  Is it just to keep the old fart busy and looking like he's gainfully employed?

  Or, is there a more sisister reason, like the Big Boys are planning the attack of Iran and want Stupid out of the way?

  And, and this is what keeps me awake at night: Is an attack on Iran really still in the cards for this June?  Or did China and Russia really foil the US/Israeli plans?

  TIA.

  Matt

  by mattman on Sun May 22, 2005 at 02:03:33 AM PDT

  •  Why is she going now?

    Laura Bush going on a 5 day "goodwill trip" to the Middle East has me puzzled.  With the recent protests over there, why send her now?  Don't they know she will probably add more fuel to the fire?  She is over there preaching about this:

    "The first lady, speaking to business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in this town on the Dead Sea, highlighted education and women's rights as central to fostering democracy in the Middle East, a major theme of the Bush administration."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/international/22forum.html?

    She can't fight for the rights that women fought for in this country and her husband is trying to take away but she'll go on a tour to promote women's rights in the Middle East?

    Give me a break...

    by CD in TX on Sun May 22, 2005 at 02:36:30 AM PDT

•  Saturday night

  This place just gets crazy on Saturday night.

  I did catch Lawrence O'Donnell on AAR.  After saying how dead SS was, Al says "I hope you can come back next week and give us an update," or something similar.  Lawrence O says "It'll still be dead."  It was hilarious.  78th day of his 60 day tour hahaha.

  Call The Quake and complain!!

  by OLinda on Sun May 22, 2005 at 02:12:08 AM PDT

•  Peak Lard!

  Zoe Williams reports on another emerging resource crisis in The Guardian

  For a couple of months at the start of the year, there were signs in the supermarket lard section saying, "There is a European shortage of lard. You might like to use Trex instead." Repeated exposure to this sign made me forget how implausible this was, but now that the crisis has passed, come on ... really?

  Where was the warning? Where were the discussions about how close we were to peak lard, and what inferior mines of lard might we have to plunder once we reached it?

  by Dancing Larry on Sun May 22, 2005 at 02:41:45 AM PDT