HELP - SOCKINGTON IS MISSING

If you Twitter, you have most likely heard of Sockington, a most unusual cat. Sockington is Jason Scott's cat, who logs daily, sometimes hourly, Tweets about his life. Hairballs, dust balls, dinner, and his "companion" cat, Penny, are all hot topics. Socking has 832,647 followers - more than many "celebrities."

Today, one of the most "trending topics" is "HELP - Sockington is missing." Trending topics are those that have lots of people Tweeting about them.

We hope that little Sockington is OK; and that if he is missing, he is soon reunited with Jason.

But we cannot help but wonder, with a celebrity of his magnatude, is this is merely a stunt to garner more followers as Sockington nears the 1,000,000 followers mark.

FRIDAY'S LITTLE DOSE OF CUTE

Two tired kids after a day at the zoo....

ECONOMY FORCES CUT-BACKS NOT DREAMED OF A YEAR AGO

From John Marshall, for The Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON - "Due to the recession, politicians who only a year ago were able to afford prostitutes and mistresses may actually have to engage in sexual acts that do not go beyond the boundaries of law or marital vows.
"Economists cite Senator John Ensign (R-NV), a 51-year-old with gray hair, who was forced to borrow $96,000 from his parents to pay off his mistress, dipping not only into his parents' retirement fund, but also into any hopes of affording another mistress.
" '$96,000 is a lot for some trim,' said one economist. 'Even good trim.'
"He added that most Republican parents want their children to be able to afford things they could never have, like mistresses, and seeing them unable to do so was a source of heartbreak.
Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) made headlines earlier this year when it was revealed that he kept a mistress in Argentina. But the cost of airfare, apartments and aftershave may now be too high for most governors, not to mention international implications.
" 'If politicians are forced to have sex at home,' said one expert, 'it could cause a ripple effect on the mistress-producing nations of the world.'
"Even that most venerable of political institutions - prostitution - may be hurt by the economy. Experts say that former governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), if he were still in office, would most likely be unable to afford the $80,000 he spent on escort services.
" 'That's too much for today's Democrat,' said an expert. 'Spitzer would have to settle for sex with his wife while fantasizing that she was an expensive 22-year-old from New Jersey.'
"Some politicians hope that a second stimulus package will include provisions for extramarital sex, but admit that such hopes are dim. 'We need another $787 billion just to f**k around,' said one. 'We'll probably have to borrow it from Ensign's parents.' "

THE RIGHT TO LIFE DOES NOT STOP AT BIRTH

From our friend, Badtux, the Snarky Penguin:
"On the evening of July 4, 2009, Eric De La Cruz died, killed by the patchwork U.S. 'healthcare' system and its infuriating inability to provide a working system of healthcare for all Americans. This young man had a congenital heart defect which was quite solvable by a heart transplant, but because he was uninsured and Nevada Medicaid won't pay for transplants, he died.
233 years before Eric De La Cruz was killed by our 'healthcare' system, some guys in Philadelphia wrote these words:
" 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...'
"Over 18,000 Eric De La Cruz's are killed by our 'healthcare' system every year because of its refusal to pay for needed care for all Americans who need care. This is a slaughter of innocents, over six times the death toll of the 9/11 attacks PER YEAR. Clearly our 'healthcare' industry is killing, slaughtering, tens of thousands of innocents per year guilty of nothing except being born poor or maybe not the brightest bulb in the chandelier or just plain unlucky, and has no intention to stop doing so. Whenever any industry infringes so baldly upon our inherent human right to life, it is completely within the realm of our founders' intents to have our government secure these rights, and if it does not do so, to change our government if necessary -- which we did, in November 2008, when we elected President Obama on a platform of healthcare reform and withdrawal from Iraq.
"There are some people who say that the right to life is conditional -- that you have a right to life only if you have the ability to pay cash for your health care. There are others who say there is no such right because it is not listed in the Constitution of the United States of America, 9th Amendment of the Constitution nonwithstanding. This is utter nonsense. Rights are granted to us by our Creator, not by a piece of paper, and are absolute, not conditional, and the right to life is the most fundamental right without which all other rights are meaningless. When any entity infringes upon this most fundamental of our human rights, it is well within the provence of government as envisioned by our founding fathers to deal with this threat to our most fundamental human rights via whatever means are necessary -- which, in the case of our corrupt murderous health insurance industry, should with all fairness be the death penalty just as much as for any other mass murderer, but I'll settle for Medicare For All single-payer health insurance and let those bastards spend the rest of their lives begging for alms on streetcorners."

I'M THINKING OF GETTING A TATTOO...

MICHAEL JACKSON - R.I.P.

Michael Jackson is dead at the age of 50.
It's hard to know what to think about this. Michael was a pop icon and had more Number 1 hits than any other pop star.
On the other hand, he may have been a child molester.
May his children grow up to in a loving, understanding, compassionate environment.

FRIDAY'S LITTLE DOSE OF CUTE

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE?

That's the partial title of a book by Rick Shenkman: "Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter" (Basic Books, June 2008). Mr. Shenkman, an Emmy award-winning investigative reporter, is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and editor of the university's History News Network. It is also the title of his blog. The following is a post from June 2, 2009:
"Cheney Finally Admits No Connection Between Saddam and 9-11
"As anyone who has read my book knows, it was the Bush administration's success in making people believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 that triggered my decision to write 'Just How Stupid Are We.'
"Now along comes Dick Cheney to say--7 years too late!-- that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11. Here's the money quote from CNN:
" 'Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he does not believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning or execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks. He strongly defended the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, however, arguing that Hussein's previous support for known terrorists was a serious danger after 9/11.'
"Cheney, in an appearance at the National Press Club, also said he is intent on speaking out in defense of the Bush administration's national security record because 'a clear understanding of policies that worked [in protecting the United States] is essential.'
" 'I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true,' Cheney conceded.'
"He's still insisting that: the evidence was 'overwhelming' that al Qaeda had a relationship with Hussein's regime in Iraq, and that media reports suggesting that the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks reached a contradictory conclusion were 'irresponsible.'
"I guess we couldn't hope for him to completely abandon his ill-considered views. Cheney wants to blame George Tenet and notes that Tenet in open testimony before Congress declared that Saddam and al qaeda had a relationship. But who's Cheney kidding? We know from numerous books that it was his office that was responsible for pushing the Saddam/9-11 angle over the objections of people like Richard Clarke."