“Who we talkin’ about?”

For those who've seen it, you know exactly what this quote is from: Chicken Little.

This is one of the funniest kids' movies I've seen, and I've seen it a lot thanks to a four-year-old nephew and the magic of DVD. No, it will never rank as the greatest animated epic of all time. No, it will never be considered ground-breaking in any way. [insert every negative comment ever made by a critic or reviewer]

The thing is, I don't watch a movie to be blown away by the 'excellent plotting' or 'pacing' or the cinematography, or to search for hidden subcurrents. I want to be entertained, to be amused, to escape into the world portrayed until it ends, and I realize I have to go back to my normal, sometimes dreary workaday life.

I'm not alone in my opinion of Chicken Little. My two brothers, sister, three teenage children, preteen niece, and said four-year-old all agree: This movie's funny! But I digress…

This post is really supposed to be about 'Chokes-On-Pretzel'….His Fishiness….George W. Bush. He is either the most incompetent, most clueless, least intelligent man to hold the office of President, or else he is an amazing actor who pretends to be that incompetent, clueless, and stupid in order to hide his evil megalomaniacal true self.

Personally, I'm voting for the former. No one plays dumb that well. Not even Ben Stiller.

What other President, when asked for the highlights of his Presidency, says catching a big fish is the best one he remembers?! Actually, now that I think about it, that might just be one of the highlights of his term in office, considering all his many, many, many failures and flubs.

Even conservatives, real conservatives are getting angry with this guy. More and more of the far-right rats are jumping ship and trying to swim back toward the middle. (Not the real middle, but the middle of the right-wing.)

From Lurch at Main and Central:

Conservatives like to brag about their financial acumen, about how they favor small government, market-driven economies, low taxes and of course, the famous global marketplace. George Bush, “their guy” has increased the size of the US Government by about 20% and can take credit for such erosion of civil rights, and trashing of the Constitution, that many true conservatives look askance at what has been done to the country. The global marketplace has driven down wages in a horrendous spiral; China has become the manufacturing center for the US, and now holds over 25% of our national debt. Things will continue in this vein until we do something the Chinese don’t like, and then they’ll cut off our allowance, bringing on the crash. We do have low taxes, however – for the wealthy. But that advantage for less than 1% of America comes at the cost of a terrible degradation of lifestyle for the other 99%. Things like railroads, highways, bridges don’t work right anymore, and aren’t getting fixed. But George Bush managed to get the estate Tax killed which means he’ll become wealthier when his daddy dies. [emphasis mine]

It's gotten so bad, even for conservatives, that one conservative radio talk-show host, Doug McIntyre of KABC-AM had this to say: (via Main and Central by way of Crooks and Liars)

After five years of carefully watching George W. Bush I’ve reached the conclusion he’s either grossly incompetent, or a hand puppet for a gaggle of detached theorists with their own private view of how the world works. Or both.

And here's where I explain the earlier digression into the magic of Chicken Little:

I can just see Preznit ChickenHawk taking the stand in his own defense in some future (please, please, please!) impeachment hearing, and being asked things like: Did you authorize the National Security Agency to spy upon journalists, activists, and political opponents?

His response (assuming Darth Cheney isn't allowed to sit in the big chair with him and answer questions) will most likely be:

"Who we talkin' about?"

Right-wingers controlling CDC?

Organizers for a federal panel say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were forced by House Republican Mark Souder (R-IN) to add abstinence-only proponents to a panel to be held at the National STD Prevention Conference.

From the CentreDaily.com:

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who chairs the House subcommittee on drug policy, questioned the balance of the original panel, which focused on the failure of abstinence-until-marriage programs. In e-mail to Health and Human Services officials, his office asked whether the CDC was "clear about the controversial nature of this session and its obvious anti-abstinence objective."

Last week the title of the panel was changed and two members were replaced. One of them was a Penn State student who was going to talk about how abstinence programs were tied to rising STD rates.

[snip]

Scientists have complained about increasing government interference. Last year, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration officials told coordinators of a conference on suicide prevention to remove the words gay, lesbian and bisexual from its program and add a session on faith-based suicide prevention.

This was the first time, conference organizers said, that a single politician had so clearly interfered and achieved such dramatic results. The concern, they said, was that studies on sexual behavior would not be made public if they jarred with the administration's views on abstinence and other public-health issues.

"At the CDC, they're beside themselves," said Jonathan Zenilman, president of the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association and conference organizer. "These people aren't scientists; they haven't written anything. The only reason they're here is because of political pressure from the administration."

[snip]

Coburn spokesman John Hart questioned why the CDC would present data that contradict the administration's policy. [emphasis mine]

"I'm not suggesting that their views shouldn't be debated," he said, "but should federally funded tax dollars be used to do that?"

The new panel is titled "Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth."

Uh, Mr. Hart? How about because the Centers for Disease Control are supposed to be a politically-neutral agency, concerned with the public health and ways to improve said public health, not a megaphone for the administration?

Personally, I dislike abstinence-only education. It's unrealistic.

Teenagers will have sex. I'd prefer they didn't, (I'd certainly prefer mine didn't!) but the reality is – as George Michael sang when I was in high school: "Sex is natural, sex is fun."

Teenagers, like adults, enjoy doing things that are fun and make them feel good. They especially like doing things they know their parents wouldn't approve of. We have to acknowledge that while abstinence-only programs may keep some teenagers from having sex before they marry, it will not stop all, or even the majority of them.

Everyone on both sides of this issue have good intentions. We want to protect our children and other children. However, the abstinence-only crowd feels that the only way to protect them is to tout 'abstinence' while leaving them ignorant about the dangers of failing to remain abstinent.