Use A Condom (Tasteless though it may be) or Get The Vaccination.

"People who have had more than five oral-sex partners in their lifetime are 250% more likely to have throat cancer than those who do not have oral sex, a new study suggests."

Greensburg Kansas a Casualty of the Iraq War. Who’s Next?

"Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday evening that the state's response will likely be hampered because much of the equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies _ including tents, trucks and semitrailers _ is now in Iraq.
'Not having the National Guard equipment, which used to be positioned in various parts of the state, to bring in immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild,' said Sebelius."

Nero didn’t actually fiddle while Rome burned. He probably played either a lyre or a guitar.

God Save Us From True Believers.

“Then all of the candidates were asked to indicate which of them DO NOT believe in evolution. Huckabee, Brownback and Tancredo each raised a hand. . . .In retrospect, it seems astounding that three candidates, 30 percent of the Republican presidential field, said flat out they do not believe in evolution, without any further queries or explanation on the subject.” (emphasis added)

“The true-believer syndrome merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it--indeed, clings to it all the harder?” --M. Lamar Keene

See also, Eric Hoffer’s Work

So What If Millions Will Die Because of Global Warming? There's Always Heaven.

"A United Nations' panel says the world must begin immediately to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions thought to be bringing about climate change. "

Alcohol Shrinks The Brain. Now They Tell Me.

". . . a reduction in brain volume of 0.25% for every additional category of alcohol consumption. In contrast, the average age-related decline in brain volume is 0.19% per year, she noted."

It's even worse for women. "Gender modified the alcohol-brain volume relationship significantly (P=0.0029), with men having a slightly lower downward slope than women, meaning that brain volume decreased more in women than men across categories of alcohol consumption. "

Gonzales: The Lawyer Who Lied to the Judge

". . . in November 2005 Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales apparently misled a federal judge in Montana about the status of William W. Mercer, the U.S. Attorney for the state. The nation's top lawyer and chief law enforcement official reportedly told the judge that Mercer was not breaking the law by spending his time working in Washington (for the Justice Department) and not Montana (for the people of his state). But this evidently was not true. Because on the same day, Eggen reports, "Mercer had a GOP Senate staffer insert into a bill a provision that would change the rules so that federal prosecutors could live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews."

Back in the Days of 'Mission Accomplished'

May Day

Virgil Did Not Have Sex With That Woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, Or Any One Else At Pamela Martin & Associates.

In the unlikely event that it is proven that he did, he still didn’t get us into a war under false pretenses & get a bunch of folks killed for nothing.

A Kinky Look At The Imus Fiasco.

Some, including Kinky Friedman, for whom Virgil has the utmost respect, imply that Imus's use of the words “nappy headed hos”is no worse than rappers or hip-hoppers use of similar words in Grammy winning songs. Virgil disagrees. We'd all be better off not using the words. see, Words Hurt Too. However, like it or not, the words sound worse coming from an older white guy, and Imus did more than just use the words. He used them to describe specific, real, young women who had done nothing improper. Worse yet, they had done exactly what our culture claims to respect. They had worked hard, made sacrifices, and become winners. They became role models for those even younger than they. Imus sent a cruel, dangerous, message, which I'm sure he never intended, to our young people .
Still, Virgil agrees with a much of the rest of the Kinkster's article quoted, in part, below, though it pains him to cite anything from the New York Post. The I-Man, given the chance, may have healed the wounds sooner and more completely than they will be now that the cowards and the politically correct have sacrificed him for the sins of many others as well as his own. He would, at least, have opened up an honest dialogue.

Take it away Kinky:

“There's no excusing Imus' recent ridiculous remark, but there's something not kosher in America when one guy gets a Grammy and one gets fired for the same line.
The Matt Lauers and Al Rokers of this world live by the cue-card and die by the cue-card; Imus is a rare bird, indeed - he works without a net. When you work without a net as long as Imus has, sometimes you make mistakes. . . .
Political correctness, a term first used by Joseph Stalin, has trivialized, sanitized and homogenized America, transforming us into a nation of chain establishments and chain people. . . there will always be plenty of Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons around. There will be plenty of cowardly executives, plenty of fair-weather friends, and plenty of Jehovah's Bystanders, people who believe in God but just don't want to get involved. In this crowd, it could be argued that we need a Don Imus just to wake us up once in a while.
There probably isn't a single one of Imus' vocal critics who come anywhere close to matching his record of philanthropy or good acts on this earth.
Judge a man by the size of his enemies, my father used to say. A man who, year after year, has raised countless millions of dollars and has fought hand-to-hand to combat against childhood cancer, autism, and SIDS - well, you've got a rodeo clown who not only rescues the cowboy, but saves the children as well.
I believe New York will miss its crazy cowboy and America will miss the voice of a free-thinking independent-minded, rugged individualist. I believe MSNBC will lose many viewers and CBS radio many listeners.
Too bad for them. That's what happens when you get rid of the only guy you've got who knows how to ride, shoot straight and tell the truth." From COWARDS KICK AWAY ANOTHER PIECE OF AMERICA'S SOUL By KINKY FRIEDMAN

Opus Dei Goes To Washington.

"Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?" Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Patti nails it again with About that Majority Conservative Male Supreme Court Ruling to Protect Women Against Themselves and Their Doctors.

See, also Bush Wins Honesty Loses Alito Sucks

"Don't Touch Me." Can You Find the Prima Donna?

"Laurie David . . . said she and [Sheryl Crow]. . .had hoped Rove might take a ‘fresh look at the science of global warming’ when they met him at the black-tie gala in D.C. But, according to David, Rove ‘immediately got combative. . . . Throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments.’
As he headed toward his table, ‘Sheryl reached out to touch his arm,’ David writes on TheHuffingtonPost.com. ‘Karl swung around and spat, `Don't touch me.' . . . ‘Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, 'You can't speak to us like that, you work for us.' Karl then quipped, 'I don't work for you, I work for the American people.' . . . Sheryl promptly reminded him, 'We are the American people.' ‘”
Is it getting too hot for you Karl?

Trapped In A Nutritional Maize.

“A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called "an epidemic" of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation's agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce. To speak of the farm bill's influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact - on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities - or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico's eaters as well as its farmers.) You can't fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.” You Are What You Grow, Michael Pollan, New York Times.

Earth Day Turns 37 Today

Oh, how I long for the good ol' days
Without that carbon monoxide haze
A-hangin' over that roar on the interstates. . .

Lord, Mr. Ford, I just wish that you could see
What your simple horse-less carriage has become
This world was once a garden spot
But now it's one big parkin' lot
Lord, Mr. Ford, what have you done?
From Lord Mr. Ford by Dick Feller. Click here to hear Jerry Reed sing it.

Pretties In Pink-Cancer Benefit

For Tickets, Click Here.

Remus & His Brother Founded Rome On This Day In 753 B.C.

Also on this day, Emily D. West turned Santa Anna every which way but loose. Though we may have been better off letting Texas stay with Mexico, she was still quite a gal. Here's to the Yellow Rose!

"Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran"-Another Dick head wants to be president.

To hear him sing it, click here.

May You Live In Interesting Times

"Yum. We're now at the end of one epoch and well before the start of a new one. During this period of transition, there will be no moratorium on individual aliveness. In fact, momentous events are hatching in the vacuum. It's a wonderful time to be alive. As long as one has enough dynamite." Bernard Mickey Wrangle

Bush's Sex Life

Plenty of Guns & Somethin to Shoot

It’s good that we grieve together, as a nation, when shootings like those at Virginia Tech happen. We did the same for, Columbine, Jonesboro, Austin, and other places. It’s a sign of our humanity. We haven’t been totally desensitized though mass killings happen daily somewhere in the world. It’s still a shock when it happens in our midst and especially when it happens to our young. It’s not, however, the aberration that we pretend it to be. With guns available to almost all, incidents like these are inevitable. Periodically, a deeply disturbed person who sees no other outlet for his or her rage will obtain a firearm and start shooting. Guns are part of our mythology- gods that demand human sacrifice. We, as a nation, are willing to make these sacrifices. Whether or not the Second Amendment or the First Amendment (Some say the right of revolution is guaranteed by the First) guarantee our right to posses guns (Or Nukes for that matter), they would still have to pry our guns from our cold dead fingers and take them over the dead bodies of our children.