true love is when somebody kills a spider and tells you the dead spider landed on your toothbrush instead of keeping that information to themselves

I have decided the reason I continue to play Scrabble is that being defeated by Bergoef really fuels my constant need for self-loathing.

He beat me last night by almost 100 points.
That would be (in case anyone besides him is counting) 5 games in a row.

In an unbelievably disgusting display, G.W.B. vetoed the stem cell research bill passed by the Senate last night. We all knew he'd do this. He had to keep his freakity-freak conservative Christian base happy. What I found particularly distasteful:

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," Bush said Wednesday afternoon. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect. So I vetoed it." (my emphasis)

Thank you for imposing your personal moral boundaries on a national issue. And that decent society of which you speak? Up to 70% support embryonic stem cell research.

and this:

Attending the White House event were a group of families with children who were born from "adopted" frozen embryos that had been left unused at fertility clinics.
"These boys and girls are not spare parts," he said of the children in the audience. "They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research. They remind us that we all begin our lives as a small collection of cells."

Way to manipulate the reality there, G.W.B. No one is talking about ceasing the practice of adopting frozen embryos. We're talking about the embryos that get destroyed. Instead of going to waste, they could be used for very valuable medical research that could potentially save millions of people. Plus, how much does it cost, exactly, to get your hands on one of these frozen embryos? Is this a common occurrence? Rich white couples passing off their viable frozen embryos to poor infertile couples? Just wondering.

I get it. He can't open this door or abortion comes at him with a vengeance and he completely loses the already disgruntled rightwingnuts.

I love it when political gain blocks the door to progress.

It only took 7 days, but G.W.B. finally came out in support of Israel and he gives the exact reason I knew he had to: terrorism. If we are leading the war against terror, then we'd better step up and lead the war. Okay. He didn't go that far. But he did say that the "root cause...is terrorism and terrorist attacks on a democratic country." You know I hate to be difficult, but technically--and I'm just talking technically here--wasn't Hezbollah democratically elected to Lebanon's parliament? Kinda like Hamas was technically democratically elected to lead the Palestinians? I get why we're less than thrilled with either of those prospects, but that's the way democracy works. The people who live in the countries get to pick who leads them not the people in the richwarmongering countries.

Did I just say that?

I rarely quote political commentary, but Lou Dobbs had an interesting piece on CNN today.
A big old quote to get your blood boiling:

"While the United States provides about $2.5 billion in military and economic aid to Israel each year, U.S. aid to Lebanon amounts to no more than $40 million. This despite the fact that the per capita GDP of Israel is among the highest in the world at $24,600, nearly four times as high as Lebanon's GDP per capita of $6,200.
Lebanon's lack of wealth is matched by the Palestinians -- three out of every four Palestinians live below the poverty line. Yet the vast majority of our giving in the region flows to Israel. This kind of geopolitical inconsistency and shortsightedness has contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Western world seems content to allow to perpetuate endlessly." (again, my emphasis)

What did I just say about richwarmongerers?