Sarah Palin: ‘We Must Never Forget the Wisdom of Jefferson, and his Wife, Weezy’


From the hilarious Borowitz Report: Visiting Thomas Jefferson’s historic home, Monticello, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today paid tribute to the nation’s third President, telling an audience of supporters, “We must never forget the wisdom of Jefferson, and his wife, Weezy.”

Gov. Palin said that “at a time of our history when the American people needed leadership, it was Jefferson who said the immortal words, ‘We’re movin’ on up.’”

The former Alaska Governor, criticized in recent days over her grasp of American history, used the Monticello speech to demonstrate her knowledge of the country’s founding fathers.

“Let us have the ingenuity of Benjamin Franklin, who invented the electric chair,” she said.

“Let us have the honesty of George Washington, who told his father that he chopped down a cherry tree because it was blocking his view of Russia,” she added. “And let us have Washington’s perseverance, which he demonstrated during that harsh winter at Sweet Valley High.”

But she saved her most fulsome praise for her favorite American hero, Paul Revere: “In his famous cry, ‘One if by land, two if by sea,’ Paul Revere proved that you don’t have to know how to count higher than two to be a great American.”

At the end of her speech in Monticello, Gov. Palin said that she was looking forward to the next stop on her bus tour, Philadelphia, “the home of the Taco Bell.”

Go to the Borowitz Report for more brilliance.

The Republican ‘Fantasy’ Nation

From the New York Times: Very interesting essay today in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof. In it, he points out a nation that lives many of the ideals we see espoused by Sarah Palin and John Boehner. Can you guess the country?

It has among the lowest tax burdens of any major country: fewer than 2 percent of the people pay any taxes. Government is limited, so that burdensome regulations never kill jobs.

This society embraces traditional religious values and a conservative sensibility. Nobody minds school prayer, same-sex marriage isn’t imaginable, and criminals are never coddled.

The budget priority is a strong military, the nation’s most respected institution. When generals decide on a policy for, say, Afghanistan, politicians defer to them. Citizens are deeply patriotic, and nobody burns flags.

So what is this Republican Eden, this Utopia? Why, it’s Pakistan.

Read the rest here. Very interesting as he describes how the Pakistan wealthy take responsibility for their lives while not having to responsible for the poor.

Dad Waves At Son’s School Bus Every Day For A Year In A Different Costume

Nothing says “I love you son” like dressing up in a different costume every day for a year and waving at your sophomore son’s school bus.

You have to admire the commitment the father had to NEVER repeat a costume. Apparently the kids on the school bus began to look forward to what the “costume of the day” would be.

I can relate a little to this. While performing in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway, every night before a particular entrance, a short piece of music would play and I would improvise a quick ‘themed’ dance for my cast mates. I tried to never repeat a theme.

Strange the things you do in life…
(via Mediaite.com)

Michele Bachmann supports anti-gay amendments

I notice in Ms. Bachmann’s impassioned speech about “protecting marriage” she doesn’t address outlawing divorce, which would have a MUCH bigger impact in keeping the parents of children together. Hmm…

As I read someone today, this footage will be used in history classes in less than 10 years as an example alongside slavery, Women’s suffrage, the McCarthy hearings, and the civil rights movement of the ’60s.

Sarah Palin insists she didn’t get Revere history wrong

Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps giving, and giving and giving…

The former half-term governor of Alaska insisted Sunday that history was on her side when she claimed that Paul Revere’s famous Massachusetts ride was intended to warn both British soldiers and his fellow colonists.

“You realize that you messed up about Paul Revere, don’t you?” “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace asked the potential 2012 presidential candidate.

“I didn’t mess up about Paul Revere,” replied Palin, a paid contributor to the network.

“Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms. You are not going to beat our own well-armed persons, individual, private militia that we have,” she added. “He did warn the British.”

Memo to Palin: no – you’re wrong.

Palin was asked in Boston on Thursday about the Revolutionary War hero during a stop on her East Coast bus tour. Her version of “history”:

“He who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

The Paul Revere House’s website says that on April 18, 1775, Dr. Joseph Warren instructed Revere to ride to Lexington, Mass., to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them.

Since then, as reported in Slate and Politico, among other sources, a battle has erupted on Wikipedia, where Palin’s supporters seemingly have been trying to edit the Paul Revere entry to be more in line with Palin’s defense of her remarks.

But hey, what do they know?

The Original Bionic Woman – Lindsay Wagner

OK – color me “geek” – but I am having the best time watching episodes of the original “Bionic Woman” series.

To watch click here.

When I was, let’s say – younger, in the 1970s I thought Lindsay Wagner was the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, and the quality she brought to “Jamie Sommers” in the Bionic Woman series was magical. She was gorgeous, vulnerable and had a great sense of humanity. It’s not well known, but the role earned Wagner an Emmy Award for “Best Actress in a Dramatic Role” in 1977.

I recently discovered a website where you can see all of the original episodes – commercial free – of the “Bionic Woman” series. I’ve alrady watched 4 episodes, including three featuring ‘Max’ the bionic dog (guest starring 70s hottie Christopher Knight). Clearly there was thought given to a possible ‘super Lassie’ reboot with Max as the star.

(Stop laughing at me – I’m happy).

If you know me – between Lindsay Wagner and a super-loyal super-dog – clearly I’m in retro-heaven.

If you even know what and who I’m talking about, head over to this website and remember some fun days in TV history.

And for those who really love this – go to Amazon and get Season One and newly released Season Two on DVD! Both apparently have a lot of bonus features and commentary by Lindsay and other stars of the show.

20 years later – AIDS patient essentially cured

Almost 20 years after he became infected, Timothy Brown is, essentially, cured of AIDS.

Brown, now 45, is known in medical-journal circles as “The Berlin Patient,” a moniker assigned him by a February 2009 case study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In a “Brief Report,” oncologist Gero Huetter and his colleagues at Berlin’s University Hospital described the unique stem-cell transplant of an HIV-infected patient — Brown — who had acute myeloid leukemia, and the remarkable result: Twenty months after the procedure, the virus had not reappeared in Brown’s body, even though he was no longer taking antiretroviral drugs.

The bone marrow Brown received in a time-tested treatment for leukemia also transferred to Brown’s immune system an uncommon genetic variation — present in an estimated 10% of northern Europeans — that rendered it resistant to HIV.

When he learned he was HIV-positive in 1995, a friend told him gravely that he probably had two years to live.

Ten years later, he was alive and taking antiretroviral medications. Then, in 2006, a bout of exhaustion sent him to the doctor, who diagnosed leukemia and proposed the customary treatment: Wipe out Brown’s immune system with radiation and rebuild it with the bone marrow of a healthy donor.

From the 230 possible matches found for Brown, Dr. Huetter deliberately picked a donor who carried genetic resistance to HIV, hoping they might lick both diseases in a single shot.

Now living in San Francisco, Brown has found himself a bit of a celebrity at AIDS functions around the city. Two weeks ago, he spoke at an event titled “Cure — Still a Four-Letter Word?” organized by the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Afterward, he says, “everybody wanted to get their picture taken with me.”

Certainly, the treatment Brown received could not be applied to the millions of people infected with HIV — it is far too risky and expensive for that. But its results offer proof that there are ways to turbo-charge the immune system to prevent and even fight off established infection without taking a cocktail of pills everyday, the officials wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Read more at LATimes.com