Wednesday Reads: Strange Coincidences

Abruzo Italy vintage travel poster

Good Morning

Yesterday was a sort of strange day for Santorum of the Frothy. I don’t know if it just was the typical reaction to the new front runner…but it was like some people suddenly realized this guy…this is not my kind of guy.

Rick Santorum defends Satan comments

Santorum told roughly 200 supporters at a rally here that when candidates veer from “very structured, very ordered events,” voters believe they have to “worry about everything he says.”
“No, you don’t, because I’ll defend everything I’ll say,” Santorum told the applauding crowd, pledging to “tell you the truth about what’s going on in this country.”

Santorum didn’t specifically mention the four-year-old speech from Ave Maria University in Florida, from which the Satan comments came, or a number of other statements on the campaign trail that have raised eyebrows in recent days, including remarks that some say called into question President Barack Obama’s Christian faith. Questions have also arisen over comments Santorum made that appeared to compare the Obama presidency to the rise of Nazism before World War II and remarks about prenatal testing.

Asked about the Ave Maria speech by reporters following the Phoenix rally, Santorum called the question “a joke” and “absurd.”

“You know … I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil. I think if somehow or another because you’re a person of faith you believe in good and evil is a disqualifier for president, we’re going to have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president,” Santorum said.

Santorum said questioning whether he believed Satan was attacking America was “not relevant.”

“Look, guys, these are questions that are not relevant to what’s — what’s being discussed in America today. What we’re talking about in America today is trying to get America growing. That’s what my speeches are about, that’s what we’re going to talk about in this campaign,” Santorum said.

“If they want to dig up old speeches of talking to [a] religious group, they can go ahead and do so, but I’m going to stay on message and I’m going to talk about things that Americans want to talk about, which is creating jobs, making our country more secure, and yeah, taking on the forces around his world who want to do harm to America, and you bet I will take them on.”

I am not sure that this is really a defense of his Satanic comments…

“Ronald Reagan did it. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire and the media went wild,” he said. “How dare you, how dare you ascribe terms like good and evil to regimes? Because Ronald Reagan told the truth, he didn’t sugarcoat it. He went out and called it the way it was. He went out and promoted the values of our country.”

It all seems so comic…doesn’t it?  Hmmm….what could be causing Santorum to act this way?  Could it be….Satan?

Uh…okay then…good luck with all that.

One thing is funny about these last remaining GOP candidates, they all seem mentally ill. We all know people who are like these dudes, they are the ones who you avoid when their name pops up on caller id. They are the guys you make excuses to when invited over to their house on game day. Lets face it…they are the people who you never feel quite right about. The kind of guy who is described by neighbors to local news stations after the police tape has been put up around his house as, “He was weird, I always knew it would end up this way. There was just something not right about that guy…”

There were some other revelations yesterday that did not involve frothy dick, check it out. Pet abuse seems to run in the Romney family. Seamus Was Not The Only One! – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast

That is from the cross-country travel blog of Craig Romney and friends in 2009. It’s a pet fish that didn’t fit into the crammed truck used for the road trip. Inquiring minds immediately want to know. Did it eventually travel inside the truck? Did they strap it to the roof and have it constantly sprayed with water? Did they just suspend it from the bumper, Clark Griswold style, because it enjoyed the view? Here’s Craig’s caption – and, no, I am not making this up, Gail, I promise:

our fearless sidekick. this fish has cheated death more times than i can remember

Wow, there is a sadistic quality to that comment.

There is something wrong with these people.

The rest of today’s links will be quick ones, because glancing at the clock, I see it is 6:40 am and this post should have been published 10 minutes ago.

Virginia Delays Ultrasound Vote I wonder if it could have anything to do with the “optics” of these transvaginal ultrasounds. Jon Stewart Explains Ultrasound Law To GOP: ‘A TSA Pat-Down In Your Vagina’ 

Nuclear Inspectors Say Iran Mission Has Failed –  did we really expect anything less?

Iceland Provides Blueprint for How to Deal With the Financial Crisis Hang on…isn’t this the country that refused to bail out the banks?

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

So does the story end there? Did the people revolt and the banks give in, leading to a lower standard of living or some financial disaster or something? No. Debt deleveraging successfully brought back the Icelandic economy.

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

We’ve heard in this country for the past several years of housing crisis that principal forgiveness rewards bad actors and causes moral hazard, and that we can’t do that to the poor, put-upon banks. Well guess what? Debt write-downs work. They generate a wealth effect among the population, and they help to end balance-sheet recessions and bring about economic growth. What’s more, Icelandic home values came back, just 3% off their September 2008 pre-crisis level. You can take the example of Iceland or you can take the example of the rest of Europe. It’s your choice. But the facts reveal that austerity is counter-productive, while debt forgiveness is extremely productive.

And those Icelandic banksters?

P.S. Here’s another element of the Icelandic comeback: they are actually prosecuting the people who caused the crisis:

Iceland’s special prosecutor has said it may indict as many as 90 people, while more than 200, including the former chief executives at the three biggest banks, face criminal charges.

Larus Welding, the former CEO of Glitnir Bank hf, once Iceland’s second biggest, was indicted in December for granting illegal loans and is now waiting to stand trial. The former CEO of Landsbanki Islands hf, Sigurjon Arnason, has endured stints of solitary confinement as his criminal investigation continues.

Since there has been a lot of talk about “lady parts” this next link is about another organ that most of the GOP dumbasses also lack.

Study: Women Can Be Missing Symptoms Of A Heart Attack

Chest pain is considered the hallmark symptom of a heart attack, but patients can also experience other kinds of pain, and in some cases, none at all. That’s especially true for women, and they can be missing the symptoms.

Researchers say younger women have a greater risk of dying from a heart attack. A new study in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that may be because their warning signs are often very different.

Lalina Franklin was having neck and jaw pain. She had no idea she was on the verge of a severe heart attack .

“You think of some really bad pain in your chest and collapsing. I wasn’t having any pain at all in my chest,” Franklin said.

New research shows 42 percent of women under 55 do not feel chest pain during a heart attack. And hospitals often don’t diagnose those women properly until it’s too late.

Symptoms to look out for:

“They might have other symptoms like jaw pain, back pain, shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue and simply sweating. All of these things could be a heart attack,” Steinbaum said.

Steinbaum says for any woman noticing those symptoms, getting help immediately could be critical.

And lastly, if you think there has been a lot of decisions made lately that seem beyond our control, my suggestion is to round up all the misogynistic religious right wing righteous jackasses, you know the “usual suspects” and put them in a rocket heading in the direction of this particular black hole. Because it would probably the only way to send these “good Christians” to hell where most of them belong. Cosmic Hurricane: Black Hole Has 20 Million MPH Winds

Scientists have measured the fastest winds yet observed from a stellar-mass black hole, shedding light on the behavior of these curious cosmic objects.

The winds, clocked by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, are racing through space at 20 million mph (32 million kph), or about 3 percent the speed of light. That’s nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole, researchers said.

“This is like the cosmic equivalent of winds from a Category 5 hurricane,” study lead author Ashley King, of the University of Michigan, said in a statement. “We weren’t expecting to see such powerful winds from a black hole like this.”

I think that we have been seeing a display of these forceful winds coming from the mouths of the GOP for a long, long time.

Okay, that is it…the post is late enough already. What you all reading about today?