Intertubes A Toilet Sometimes

Last week the Intertubes lit up with intense reaction to 13 year old Rebecca Black's song "Friday", dubbed by overzealous editors as "the worst song ever".

"Friday," sung by 13-year-old Rebecca Black, was uploaded to YouTube last month by Ark Music Factory, a Los Angeles-based company that was hired by the girl's parents to produce the song for their daughter. (AFP)

The "worst song ever"? Really? The song has 30 million hits on YouTube. Million.  I heard it -- I thought it was pretty forgettable; typical tween song. But it wasn't horrible. If you don't like it, don't listen to it.

Some Netizens representing the lowest rungs of the culture went so far as to post comments saying "I hope you cut yourself and die or get an eating disorder so you can be pretty."

Seriously? The girl is only 13 years old and her parents paid a company to produce a song for her as a gift. The reactions are so intensely over-the-top as to be unbelievable. The anonymity the Internet affords sometimes brings out the worst in people. (Probably another jealous 13 year old.)

Being a 13 year old is traumatic enough all by itself, no need to pile on.  At least this girl produced something to look at; most of these parasites never will.

Coast Guard Pulls Boneheaded Drill On 9/11

In what turned out to be nothing more than a routine drill, CNN reported that shots were fired on the Potomac River closest to the point near the Pentagon where the President was laying a wreath to commemorate those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

[AP] Unaware that it was an exercise, CNN opened its reporting on the incident by saying at least one boat was intruding in a security zone on the river and the Coast Guard was chasing it.

Even the Coast Guard was confused about what the Coast Guard was doing.

After the erroneous reports surfaced and flights were grounded, at 10:12 a.m., the Coast Guard ordered one of its helicopters based at Reagan National Airport scrambled to fly over the river to investigate the reports of shots on the Potomac, Coast Guard spokesman Ron LaBrec said.

The Coast Guard began the drill at 9:30 a.m., five minutes after Obama arrived at the Pentagon for ceremonies keyed to 9:37 a.m. — the time of the 9/11 attack. Other agencies were not widely notified of the drill because the Coast Guard considered the exercise routine.

CNN reported the alleged attack after hearing radio chatter of someone saying "bang, bang, bang, bang" and "we have expended 10 rounds". CNN should check some actual facts before hyperventilating on the air.

On the other hand, the Coast Guard should get its head out of its collective rear. How dumb is holding an exercise on 9/11 and within a mile of the President at a public ceremony? Everyone is on edge on this infamous anniversary. This is just as boneheaded as the Air Force One flyover of Ground Zero in New York earlier this year.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

WBN awards this Blynken Raspberry to the Coast Guard for epic stupidity.

GE Now Experimenting On Babies

These bozos just dropped to the bottom of my Crap List.

I did a quick appliance check -- no GE that I can see -- a Whirlpool and a Frigidaire (although who knows who owns who these days). And yes, I know there's a difference between the Appliance Division and the Healthcare Division, but the brand gets to take the kudos and the lumps all together.

You can be sure that my next appliance will NOT be from GE.

These moral cretins are actually talking about sparing the lab rats in favor of experimenting on embryonic humans. Here's a clue why that drug testing would work better: they're humans.

[Discovery] Although ethical debates about the use of embryonic stem cells continue to rage, stem cell technology is beginning to make its way into the medical marketplace. Yesterday, General Electric division GE Healthcare announced that it’s teaming up with the biotechnology company Geron in a venture that will use embryonic stem cells to develop products that could give drug developers an early warning of whether new medicines are toxic [Reuters].

Read the rest of the article.

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UPDATE: Weird. GE seems to be largely a media company these days.

Heartless Couple Of Down Syndrome Baby Sue Doctor

Oregon is a strange place; being the home of assisted suicide, it's not a far stretch to see how they got here.

[W]ithin days of the birth of their daughter, Deborah and Ariel Levy learned the baby did have Down syndrome. Had they known, they say, they would have terminated the pregnancy. Now they're suing in Multnomah County Circuit Court, seeking more than $14 million to cover the costs of raising her and providing education, medical care, and speech and physical therapy for their daughter, who turned 2 this month. The suit also seeks money to cover her life-long living expenses.

The Levys declined to be interviewed. Their attorney, David K. Miller, said the toddler is as dear to them as their two older children but they fear being perceived as "heartless."

News flash -- you are heartless. Anyone who can say: "we love our little darling, but we'd have killed her if we'd known" is by definition a selfish, heartless person.

If you'd like a little heartless, how about considering that a) no medical test is ever 100% reliable and you have no expectation of such; you could have gotten a second opinion -- later tests indicated positive; and b) the genetic defect that resulted in your daughter's condition came from you -- maybe you should be sued for causing it.

I'd like to sue you for impersonating people with consciences.

Now for the record: my son (Nub) has Down Syndrome; my other four children don't. I never, never, ever, for one moment blamed anyone else for that happening. Not once. Maybe a little "why me?", but no blame of God, me, her -- or the doctor for crying out loud!

Doctors aren't omniscient. Tests are not always conclusive. Life. Just. Isn't. Fair. Get used to it, and quit looking for a handout.

A Non-Titus 2 Moment

This was an irritating moment which I just want to get off my chest so I can forget about it.

A certain lady offered some "fraternal correction meant in a loving way" to my wife after Mass today. Her advice ran along these lines:

"Your kids were terrible in Mass today [they weren't], so you should have taken them out. Since I have 5 kids the same as you [not the same], and my kids were never that misbehaved in Mass [oh, really?], therefore you should listen to what I say. Oh, and your friend was no help either." [thanks for nothing]

First of all, that lady is lucky I didn't hear what she said or she would have gotten some less-than-fraternal correction from me. My wife, being infinitely more gracious, merely thanked her and walked away.

Second, I didn't see that lady's 5 perfect kids with her in Mass today.

Third, we sit in the unofficial Kid Row in the back of our Church; it is well known for having half a hundred small children in various states of behavior who sit there and nursing mothers who need to head to the bathroom to change diapers at a moments notice. The crying room is useless for the number of families with small children in our parish; it would be more appropriate for the persons without small children to sit there given its size.

Fourth, our pastor has specifically stated that he desires that the children remain in the Church with their families and he doesn't care if they make noise (other people might, but he doesn't). Let the little children come to me, and all that.

Fifth, and finally the point: if you are going to offer "fraternal" correction to someone, you had better have a relationship with them before you try it. Otherwise your correction is not going to be kindly received, it is not going to have its intended effect, you may be meddling in circumstances that you have no clue about, and you unknowingly may be dealing a crushing blow to an unsuspecting person.

The scripture verse Titus 2:3-5 is popular among Protestants, in particular for encouraging older women to become mentors to younger women.

Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

If this woman wants to offer her wisdom to my wife, she had better come alongside her first and offer her friendship and practical helps -- then and only then can she offer her advice and loving correction. You cannot speak to someone's life without being in relationship first.

Someone once said the steps in evangelization are: make a friend, be a friend, bring a friend to Jesus. The same goes for relationships and double for fraternal correction.

Blynken Raspberry

Here at Wynken, Blynken, and Nod we are pleased to announce a new and non-coveted award: the Blynken Raspberry.

This award is reserved for individuals or organizations who by their own volition are bad, evil, dirty, nasty, or generally rotten. It could have been called the bad-evil-dirty-nasty-rotten award, but that's too hard to say. This way, we cut to the chase -- pbbt! Also qualifying are acts of willful ignorance, incredibly bad judgement, sins of omission, and general wrong-headedness.

The list is not meant to be exclusive, because there simply is no limit to the ability of people to do boneheaded things. We're a creative race, and people should be recognized -- natural consequences, you know.

Swindle your grandmother? Pbbt! Raspberry for you! Waste the taxpayers money? Pbbt! Raspberry for you, too! Attack the Church? Redefine marriage? Support abortion while claiming to be a devout Catholic? Pbbt!, pbbt!, and double pbbt!

The image is mine, I made it; you may use it without restriction. Just drop me a note as a courtesy. Feel free to nominate the deserving.

Porkulus Rumbles On

In once sense, the Obama administration and the current liberal Democrat power pyramid should be commended at least for being consistent.

They believe in big government and big spending in matters social and economic -- and are giving it to us in spades. (President G.W. Bush gets the non-coveted Blynken Raspberry award for going against his party's small government principles by giving us TARP in the first place.)

Only the gargantuan proportions of the trillions of dollars spent by the recently passed TARP and ARRA so-called stimulus bills could make the Senate giving final approval to a $410 billion spending bill to fund most of the federal government for the remainder of the year look small.

Visualize trillions of dollars here for some perspective.

• President Obama said that "At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life."
  
• Secretary of State Clinton stated: "Never waste a good crisis ... Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security."
• Barack Obama’s health care plan follows the Democratic template—an emphasis on dramatically and quickly increasing the number of people who have health insurance by spending significant money upfront.
• Obama rescinds conscience rule, funds ESCR and overseas abortions.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she is open to introducing a second stimulus bill, but it's too early to determine the size of such a package and the timing on another major economic measure.
• A Virginia Senator Jim Webb email states "This economic recovery package is designed to swiftly drive money into our struggling economy. While this legislation is an important step, other measures must be adopted to restore the health of our economy. These include appropriate reforms of our banking and financial systems, tax fairness, and measures to place the nation on a long-term path to fiscal responsibility. "
• Virginia Senator Mark Warner's email states "The Recovery and Reinvestment Act is but one component of a three-part plan to restore our economy. We still have important work to do to address the foreclosure crisis and shore-up the real estate market and we also must take steps to repair our banking system."

The hits just keep on coming -- and it's only been 50 days.