High Function: Functioning Highly

The First 100 Days

As every media outlet has been reminding us, ad nauseum, it has been 100 days since President Obama has been in office. Ergo, the “bananamedia” (Steele, Limbaugh, Fox & Palin) has seized the opportunity to use this arbitrary standard to unleash a superfluity of skewed analysis, inane criticism, and outright mendacity. In other words, a whole lot of regurgitated MORONism. Nationalization, socialism, and communism, oh my! However, one simply cannot ignore the overwhelming achievement of the last 100 days – not one President Moron story!!!!!

Yes, being a Banan Republican is actually more painful than cancer

WASHINGTON – Incredibly, all that chemotherapy must have had some salutary effect on formerly Banana Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter.  Today, he actually rejected his party and became a Democrat!  Fifty-nine so far, and one more to go when Al Franken finally gets seated.  That means the Banana Republican party — the party of NO — has become completely irrelevant.  While they still crow about how cutting taxes will somehow fix the economy, and how controlling spiraling health care costs is socialism, it now no longer matters.  That incessant clamoring for Obama’s failure is going to get fainter and fainter as they find their discredited ideology left behind in the dustbin of history.

Now, Specter is not without his baggage like trashing Anita Hill; and he is not without his achievements like voting “Not Proved” in President Clinton’s impeachment trail.  And, of course he is not free from controversy like serving on the Warren Commission.  But, all in all, tilting the Senate makes up for a lot.  Good on ya’, Senator!

One Star at Night, Pirates' delight; Fifty Stars at Morning, Pirates take warning

MOGADISHU – Well, Vexillology (the study of flags) may not be emphasised very strongly in whichever school provides instruction to Somali Pirates, but really, simple counting should get a little more attention.  Pirates, when choosing a target for your next boarding party, if you see a red, white and blue flag with ONE STAR and eleven stripes, that means Liberia — a flag of convenience which implies you will be dealing with private entities as you negotiate for your booty.  If you see a fuckin’ flag with FIFTY STARS and thirteen stripes, that does not mean the ship has been registered fifty times; it means the ship has been registered in The United States of America!  These kinds of ships come with a whole lot of backup from those big gray ships with the big white numbers on the bow (they tend to sport an impressive array of gun batteries, helicopters, fighter jets, and in your particular case, professionally trained sharpshooters, with high-powered scopes, hanging over the side).  Don’t mess with them.
All week long, to fill the twenty-four-hour news cycles, we were treated to endless commentary from former victims and current experts on pirate negotiations.  In most cases, the pirates and the shippers wanted exactly the same things: the certain delivery of a cash ransom in exchange for the safe release of the crew, the vessel and the cargo.  But, in this case, after the Maersk Alabama’s — whose crew did everything right — Captain was reported captured by four Pirates in a lifeboat, and after the U.S. Navy arrived, it did not seem likely that a ransom would be forthcoming.  For future reference, Johnny Depp Wanna-be’s, if you start out taking over the wheelhouse of a freighter, and subsequently find yourselves standing up to a complement of warships from the deck of a forty-man lifeboat with one hostage and four lightly armed Pirates: you have overplayed your hand.
Godspeed, Captain Phillips.

Lawmaker defends comment on Asians

Call for voters to simplify their names not racially motivated, Terrell Republican says
By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
April 9, 2009, 11:58AM

Biddy Brown looks awfully White

AUSTIN — A North Texas legislator during House testimony on voter identification legislation said Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with.”
The comments caused the Texas Democratic Party on Wednesday to demand an apology from state Rep. Betty Brown, R-Terrell. But a spokesman for Brown said her comments were only an attempt to overcome problems with identifying Asian names for voting purposes.
The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.
Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver’s license on school registrations.
Easier for voting?
Brown suggested that Asian-Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible.
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”
Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie said Republicans are trying to suppress votes with a partisan identification bill and said Brown “is adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments.”

Hot Lesbian Action

STOCKHOLM – Yesterday, it was Sweden legalizing same-sex marriage.  Today, it was Iowa of all places.  The  representatives of Vermont  also voted to legalize same-sex marriage. The walls of the  “traditionalist” barrier to progress are crumbling all around the  United States, and around the world.  It’s only a matter of time until they’re gone.

Don’t worry, old white Americans, I’m sure there will still be plenty of other things to be angry about…or you could just move to Iran.