Sunday Roast: The Common Cold

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Aaaaaa-CHOOO!!

There’s just never a good time to get a cold, is there?  Even if you really don’t have much going on, getting a cold is not near the top of things to do.

When you have a cold (or any other virus or disease), your body becomes a battle ground.  This is why we feel so crappy!  The immune system is fighting a battle to the death with viral invaders, and we do our best to get on with life and deny anything is happening — while we share our lovely cold with people all around us.  Srsly, don’t do that.

There are four basic stages of a cold:

Stage 1: Inflammation
The first stage of a cold or flu is all about inflammation. Everything is hot and dry. Inflammation occurs as your immune system mounts an attack against the invading virus.

You feel feverish, your throat is sore, you’re thirsty and cranky — stay home with your tea and toast!  If you take medication, your cold will last about seven days, if you don’t, it will last about a week.  I don’t bother with it, since I think the body should be allowed to have its war, and get it over with.

Stage 2: Mucous
At this stage of a cold you are always left wondering how such a small body part can produce so much mucous. The mucous at this stage is clear and runny, and there is usually lots of it.

I’m familiar with this stage right now, and the snot is epic.  No decongestants!  For heaven’s sake, you want the snot on the outside, not withering on this inside.  Treat yourself to soft tissues and chicken soup with a dash of cayenne.  You’ll be glad you did…like I am.

Stage 3: Congestion
Mucous becomes thick and changes colour from the clear to white of stage 2 to yellow or green. As the bacteria that usually live in the nose grow back, they change the mucus to a greenish colour. This is normal.

This is the stage where the snot becomes boogers.  That’s highly technical mom-speak, so if you need translation, just let me know.  Keep drinking lots of warm liquids to keep things flowing (remember, better out than in), and don’t do that thing where you blow your nose and then look at it — that is just gross.

And finally…

Stage 4: Convalescence and Recovery
Convalescence and recovery while not a true stage of colds and flu is a valuable art that we have lost as a society.

Your body literally fights a war each time you have a cold and allowing some time at the end of the infection for your body to clean up the mess and repair the damage can mean the difference between another cold next month or next year.

Convalescence is very simple, all it involves is a few extra days of ‘quiet time’ (don’t schedule in any extra curricular activities), early nights and nutritious foods. You may resume exercise but don’t overdo it, intense exercise has a temporary suppressant effect on your immune system. A long walk is far better at this stage than an intense exercise session at the gym or a run.

Take it easy!  What’s the matter with you?  Your body has been a war zone, and you won.  You want to be sick again?  Fine, get your own chicken soup, and leave my cayenne and soft tissues alone.  *grump*

This is our daily open thread — I just gave you cooties!

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143 thoughts on “Sunday Roast: The Common Cold”

  2. There will be no cure for the common cold while the “market” decides it’s more profitable to repeatedly treat the symptoms.

  5. I recall hearing a hypothesis about how virus’s are actually life forms from parts of the distant galaxy.
    They believe there are virus strains that can endure the brutal extremes of space remaining dormant until a suitable environment is found.

    So, everytime we get a cold or a flu, we are being invaded by space aliens.

    This dosen’t diminish the misery of having a cold but, it gives my imagination something to play with while my head manufactures the ingredients for a quiche.

  6. Favorite saying when I was a kid, way back when:

    Some call it mucous, but it’s snot. :lol:

    Works better when you say it than when it’s written down.

    • That reminds me of a commercial jingle…”If you think it’s butter, but it’s not, it’s Parkay.” I always wondered what made it yellow….
      :lol:

  7. I was born in 1960.
    Our family was fortunate in having no allergies, no asthma and a varied fresh and natural diet,

    We had aspirin, Visine,cough syrup (expectorant), Milk of Magnesia, Listerine, Germolene (an antiseptic cream), iodine, Lucozade (a glucose drink) and Vick’s Vapor Rub, and all that took care of just about everything (that didn’t require vaccination, stitches or a cast). Ear drops were by prescription.

    When it came to a cold the ‘remedy’ my parents would administer ( and use themselves) was Vapor Rub dabbed on one’s nostrils to help breathing and hot lemon or blackcurrant juice with honey and aspirin powder, spiked with a proper shot of Johnnie Walker or Dewar’s.

    NyQuil is pretty useful, or something like Contac (though that encourages one to be mobile and thus spread one’s cold about), but pretty much everything for colds on today’s Pharmacy shelves is unnecessary and in my experience no more effective than the ‘home-remedy’. .

    • We had a Vicks Vapor Rub vaporizer, but that didn’t prevent my mum from rubbing even more of the that glop on our chests. Plus mum mixed honey, lemon juice and scotch for the cough. Yum!!!

        • LOL! I still keep Vicks here – but in my tackroom – works great in my stallion’s nostrils when he is around some very hot and willing girls!
          now aren’t you happy the Vicks thread started! Just thought you all might like to know that little tidbit of the day! :-)

          • Stallion’s eh?

            Though I’m not sufficiently versed in equine arts to engage you in any detailed and significant conversation regarding fetlocks and snaffles and withers and what-not, messing about with horses in a non-pervy way was, as it happens, very much a part of my childhood and youth, but somewhat convoluted circumstances. ..

            My father spent his childhood in Brazil, and his father (English) not only lived the high-life ( as a bank governor) in Rio, he also had a summer-home (?) that was a ranch in Argentina so my father ( and his brother) learned to ride from the gauchos.
            Boarding school in Devon followed by studying acting at RADA in London and then that pesky WWII and then post-war marriage and kids estranged him from equine pursuits for about 30 years, but then he was able to start riding again as we lived in ‘horse country” and he encouraged me and my closest in age brother to take it up too.
            It was a lot of fun and interesting but my real passion was for soccer, my brother’s for ballet.

            Anywhoo, my dad briefly retired from British Airways, got stir-crazy and then got himself a job in Bahrain which paid him well enough to buy an Arabian horse out there and begin riding again. Five years later he retired for real back to England ( having kept the house I grew up in up) and as luck would have a Kuwaiti prince happened to live nearby who had a two year old white/grey pure bred Arab stallion he was willing to part with ( for five thousand pounds, including an ornate Arab saddle).

            My father ‘broke’ him.but never gelded him. My mother, being a skilled amateur seamstress made a whole kit of blanket and bridle for “Burak”, and my dad and Burak won a few rosettes in a few Royal Arab Horse Society shows.

            After my father died my mother kept Burak and groomed and fed him for years. When she died Burak was still alive and quite fit despite his age, and still a challenge to ride., We gave him away to our horsey friends.

            • 5th: the breed of my horses are from south America – Peru. they are one of the few breeds that do not have Arab blood in their ancestry.
              There are some wonderful breeds from South American countries.

    • A better alternative to Vicks Vapo Rub is REAL eucalyptus oil. You will want a top grade aromatherapy oil. Vicks is a petroleum product. As for an antiseptic, tea tree oil is the BEST. There are several other essential oils that also kills germs.

      • we have lots of eucalyptus trees/plants here. When it does rain the air smells of sage and eucalyptus.

  8. BTW, feel better soon, Zooey.

    In one of our favorite Stargate Atlantis episodes (“Irresistible”), Richard Kind (who had a minor role in the original Stargate movie) played Lucius, a simple baker who dabbled in herbs and potions. When Lt Col John Sheppard showed up and sneezed, Lucius asked him what was wrong. Sheppard said that he just had a cold. Lucius said, “I have something for that that will clear it up in six or seven days.” We always liked that part.

  12. Untreated, a cold lasts 7 whole days.

    Treated, it’s gone in as little as a week.

    • By the way, Zinc lozenges, such as “Cold Ease” have been proven to help get over a cold in a couple of days.

      meanwhile, such healing energies as I can send are yours. (are your eyes bothering you – esp. your left eye?)

      drawing down the sun also helps.

  13. Rest, water, rest, vitamins, rest, zinc, healthy food, rest, extra vitamin C, and rest have all proven to be helpful for me getting over a cold quickly.

    Did I mention rest?

    • A hot bath with Vick’s vapor rub lathered on chest and throat does wonders also. Some people also claim putting Vick’s vapor rub on your feet helps one get over a cold, but I’ve never tried that one.

      • No, no, no to the Vicks. Use real eucalyptus oil instead. Make sure it is top grade and not cheap imitation junk. It will definitely clear your sinuses. Vicks is a petroleum product. The active ingredient in Vicks is eucalyptus.

        My medicine cabinet consists of lavender oil, tea tree oil and eucalyptus radiata oil and a homeopathic that I take when exposed to poison ivy.

        • LOL it does work with my stallion – he can’t smell the phereomones/hormones…….an easy fix ;-)

  14. Coming soon from Canada? The Kestrel, a car made out of industrial hemp:

    • I was born and raised in a tiny town (1000 pop) on the prairie in S. Minnesota. Outside of town about a mile, there was an old facility of some sort that included a tall chimney plus two large and elongate quonset-style buildings, plus the remains of a good-sized parking lot in the front. When I was finally old enough to start wondering about things, (late 1940s) I asked my dad what that big building was. He explained to me that it was a Hemp Plant, that it had been quickly constructed in 1942, and that farmers in the area grew lots of hemp which was then processed at the Hemp Plant apparently into various types of ropes. The place closed abruptly after the war was over.

      I had no idea till I got to college that hemp had any uses other than in the manufacture of rope. Not sure anyone else in town ever did either.

      But suffice to say, commercial production of hemp is nothing new!

      • No, commercial hemp production is nothing new, but why isn’t there a hemp industry today, especially when our economy could use a boost?

        All of the hysteria over marijuana in the 30′s was probably instigated by the DuPont’s, knowing that it would lead to the demise of the hemp industry in this country, which would be advantageous for DuPont.

        Pehaps, because the hemp plant grows hardy and doesn’t need pestacides, etc, etc…so that anyone could grow it, is the real reason for the illegality of growing hemp?

        God forbid the common folk who have some land might actually began making a comfortable living growing Hemp to produce American made products.

  16. So many great things to comment on here today! I have guests coming for brunch and chocolates, followed by an afternoon orchestra concert across the river … I shall check in later to see how you are all “feeling” :D

    • We cannot be afraid. The people that fought for union rights, women’s rights, and civil rights stood their ground. Some even paid with their lives. I’m beginning to think it is time for the left to start getting really noisy.

    • In the early sixties, my extremely prescient college roomie summed up the essence of religious delusion. He put it this way: “We have to find a way to get rid of Faith. Without faith, no one could ever believe any of that religious bullshit and global peace might have a shot at becoming reality.”

      He was right, as history since then has shown both graphically and murderously. If only there was a way to get the job done.

  20. Don’t you love it when you go to the store for a “few” things… $100 later you’re home with your (more than a) few things.

  21. So much ground to cover.

    1. Colds. Sleep. It’s really that simple. Use whatever remedy allows you to get to sleep and then “power sleep” the cold away. (NyQuill works but i prefer peppermint schnaps.) The odd thing is that I only get colds when I’ve had to sit with a bunch of sick kids waiting to see my doctor and, thankfully, don’t turn into sinus infections like they used to. I can’t recall the comedian’s name but some wag once said; “children are like buckets of disease that live in your house”. I avoid them as much as possible.

    2. Credit cards are evil ‘Nuff said.

    3. It is utterly insane that we don’t have an industrial hemp industry in this country. It has thousands of uses, from fabric to fuel, and the kids can smoke all of the industrial hemp they want and the worst effect will be a headache. There’s feral hemp all over Southern Minnesota because of the wartime production and I have it on very good authority that it has no narcotic effect whatsoever.

    4. Frank Schaeffer is one of my favorite people.

    • You are right Pete, it is utterly insane that we don’t have an industrial hemp industry in this country, especially when the president talks about green technology.

      One would think that the hemp industry would open up a whole new market of products for consumers, would create jobs, help rural farmers or anyone who has land and the ability to farm.

      These “new” products would be MADE IN THE USA and would directly help OUR economy, not China’s, not Mexico’s, not India’s…OURS!

      But of course there is something more sinister behind this. The DuPont’s,
      Monsanto’s, Exxon, BP of the world, those who thrive on unfettered capitalism, do not want any new products to compete with their products.

      Leading hemp experts claim that hemp is 10 times stronger than steel. Hemp fibers are 100 times stronger than cotton, which means clothes would last longer….see these are the very things the DuPont’s and the Monsanto’s of the world do not want….better goods that last longer….this kind of thinking might take away their precious profits

      • Sometime in the 80s I vacationed in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai (great place for those who hate crowds!); one day whilst browsing the local paper, I ran across an article that described work a local ag extension facility was doing on a crop called Tropic Sun Hemp. Given that my business in AZ was agriculture, I called the office and made an appointment to talk with the fellow that headed the Tropic Sun project. Had an interesting conversation (and no, it’s not anything worth smoking) and in fact brought some seeds back to AZ. There I handed them over to an ag extension office in south Phoenix (arranged by a UofA Plant Sciences Prof. friend of mine). They were going to plant it out, see what it might do in the desert climate. It didn’t care much for the climate, was the final conclusion.

        Still, “hemp” — and an amazing willingness on the part of an extension agent in Hawaii to share information and seeds, an amazing willingness on the part of the AZ ag extension service to try it and see what might happen — and not a word about the “oh my god, hemp!’ idiocy. I actually had begun to wonder if maybe times were changing, that the American nutcase scourge was maybe in the process of dying out. I had no idea that it was, really, thanks to the new Republican ascendency in DC, just getting started.

      • Hemp doesn’t need pesticides. That would depress the sale of Roundup. You are correct. The oil industry and the chemical industry does not want us to use hemp. The pharmaceutical industry does not want marijuana legalized because that would compete with their drugs.

  22. Too obvious?

    Another Sunday morning full of GOoPers saying that we can’t raise taxes on “job creators” during a recession. Here’s an idea:

    Raise taxes on individual income over a set limit but include a tax credit for persons or small businesses that actually hire someone. It would work just like the deduction one gets for children.

    Have any of our lawmakers proposed such a thing? It seems to me that such a proposal would increase tax revenue, promote hiring, and take away the GOoPers’ favorite argument against increased taxes.

    • Well said by Bill!

      Ironically he brought up the word “uncertainty”. I’ve heard that word used a lot by republicans, the US Chamber Of Commerce, some democrats and some economists.

      Uncertainty as in big business haven’t created new jobs because of the uncertainty of health care reform. Or investors aren’t investing because of uncertainty of the financial regulatory reform bill. Or businesses are holding onto their record profits instead of creating jobs because of economic uncertainty….Hog wash!

      Life is all about uncertainty….but the corporatist’s use this word as a lame excuse as to why they aren’t creating new jobs, or why banks aren’t l
      loaning out money, or why businesses are holding onto record profits…

      Because of uncertainty….perhaps but more than likely they aren’t doing any of the above because they want to destroy Obama, who has been giving into them all along. It’s about destroying the middle class, the unions, wages and all about mass profits…not uncertainty.

      • Exactly, IP.

        Life is all about uncertainty, and learning how to be comfortable with uncertainty. Of course, such a prospect terrifies rightwing authoritarians, so they must try to quench uncertainty at every turn — but that’s impossible. The rest of us pay for their fear of uncertainty.

  24. Mitch McTurtleneck:

    “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal’s Major Garrett in October.

    Fox News’ Bret Baier asked McConnell Sunday if that was still his major objective.

    “Well, that is true,” McConnell replied. “That’s my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country.”

    “But that is in 2012,” he added. “Our biggest goal for this year is get this country straightened out and we can’t get this country straightened out if we don’t do something about spending, about deficit, about debt and get the economy moving again. So our goal is to have a robust vibrant economy to benefit all Americans.”

    You can ignore the stuff Turtlehead said after “But that is in 2012,” it’s all lies.

    • Better we go back to the source of the problem and start the repairs there — that way they might have a chance of eventual success. I recommend Emily Dickinson’s solution:

      To fill a Gap
      Insert the Thing that caused it –
      Block it up
      With Other — and ’twill yawn the more –
      You cannot solder an Abyss
      With Air.

      In current vernacular, “Gap” is the huge deficit and the far larger debt hole, both demonstrably caused by REPUBLICANS.

      Recommendation: Stuff each and every Republican, starting with Mitch McConnell and the Boner, back into that gap, that hole which they themselves dug for us. Fill it up to the brim with ‘em, pound it down as necessary. And remember, “You cannot solder an Abyss / With Air” — in other words, gasbagging the situation — the current approach — will accomplish nothing other than to cause it ‘to yawn the more,’ to get worse and worse.

      I like it. Thanks Emily — on top as usual!

    • Defeating Obama is more important to the GOP than doing their jobs that they were elected to do. We pay them to put their party’s best interest before the best interest of America. Trash, they are nothing but trash.

    • I will put myself at risk of life and limb…”

      I’m sorry, but I don’t often hear about left-wingers trying to kill politicians they don’t like. I do hear about right-wingers, people who think like David Duke, trying to do that more often.

      • that, and the FB page: “Dear Lord..last year you took my favorite singer Michael JAckson, and my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett. Just so you know, my favorite president is Barack Obama”.
        HOW IS THAT FOR SICK FUX?

    • WTF
      No wonder the skinheads beat up innocent folk with impunity – with a police force that f’g insensitive.

    • “Horrifying” is a mild adjective.

      As David Duke pointed out (see the Duke video post above)

      this country’s being basically invaded and overwhelmed with massive immigration

      Isn’t that what our white folk forbears did in preceding centuries to North America? And here in Nevada we have the demented offspring of that invasion demonstrating their human “value” by doing what they did to a native American family, a family whose ancestral land was “basically invaded and overwhelmed with massive immigration.”

      How unfortunately ironic. Actually, I could almost agree that I’ve reached the point where I might welcome a world order demanding the deportation of all white folks from North America. I often mumble about my grandparents leaving Scandinavia anyway …

    • Exactly!
      I’ve let Safeway know that.
      “You can go to the automated check out”.
      No I can’t it took a job away – I get a smile of acknowledgement.

      I won’t shop at ‘Fresh and Easy’ it’s all auto.

      • I’ve never heard of Fresh and Easy. You don’t even have the option of going to a checkout with a person behind the counter? I hate that.

        People need MORE human interaction, not less.

    • I don’t use self check out unless I have two items and the lines at all the other checkouts are backed up and I’m in hurry to get home because I have guests coming for dinner :( That’s a very rare occasion.

      I prefer to have a real person at the cash register. Some stores even have baggers which is really helpful and gives a person a job.

    • I tried to use self-checkout twice. Both times I wound up yelling at the machine “I’m not ready to put that item in the bag”. It’s embarrassing to be fussing at a machine.

    • I’ve noticed in many stores that the “10 Items or Fewer Less” (Arrrrgh!) lanes are always the farthest from the courtesy counter. So when they run out of change, they have the longest distance to go to get more. Why not put them closest since people using that lane are usually trying to get out faster?

      • That’s the way it was when I was managing the checkouts at K-Mart, approximately 100 years ago. As manager, I had the change, etc., but the 10 items or less lane was the furthest from me. Thank goodness I didn’t have to wait on the customer service desk for anything — I’d still be there.

    • That woman is strong, and she can write!

      Hope you feel better soon.

    • Thanks for the link. I didn’t realize that Leftside Annie had a blog. I spent many years working in a drug and alcohol rehab and I would say that almost every addicted female was a victim of sexual abuse.

  30. A woman’s place:

    Ken Auletta profiles Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook:

    “At her Phi Beta Kappa induction, there were separate ceremonies for men and women. At hers, a woman gave a speech called “Feeling Like a Fraud.” During the talk, Sandberg looked around the room and saw people nodding. “I thought it was the best speech I’d ever heard,” she recalls. “I felt like that my whole life.” At every stage of her time in school, Sandberg thought, I really fooled them. There was “zero chance,” she concluded, that the men in the other room felt the same. Sandberg says she eventually realized that women, unlike men, encountered tradeoffs between success and likability. The women had internalized self-doubt as a form of self-defense: people don’t like women who boast about their achievements. The solution, she began to think, lay with the women.”

    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_auletta#ixzz1RMx3JT3r

  31. Sometimes I get really down.

    I had to wait for a prescription and found myself sitting next to a guy who was skimming the paper. The top story on the page was about News of the World shutting down and I asked him what he thought about Rupert’s paper hacking phone accounts for gossip. Well? He said; “that’s British socialism for you”.

    Even though I know better I pointed out that NotW is owned by News Corp; the same, Australian owned, corporation that owns SaudiFAUX “News”. He said; “FOX news is too fair and balanced to do anything like that”.

    Luckily, that was the precise moment when my scrip was ready so I was able to escape before I decided to shake him until he saw the light and/or his teeth fell out.

    • Soem day I may ask someone who says that about Fox news Channel if presenting only one side of the argument is either “fair” or “balanced”? Wouldn’t “balance” require them to present a liberal perspective in addition to the heavily conservative one they present?

      • But the MSM is already totally liberal, so Fox has to present the “other side.”

        I know that’s complete shit, but that’s how they ‘think.’

        • I know, so how is presenting their viewers only one side either “fair” or “balanced”? I mean, they must know the majority of their viewers do not get their news from any place else (hence, the reason FNC viewers are the most misinformed.) So what are they “balancing” their coverage with, the truth?

          • They pretend that they think their viewers are informed. I’m sure they would be SHOCKED to find out Fux viewers use Fux as their only source of news.

            I know, more utter shit.

    • OK, now I need to RANT a bit. Last weekend while waiting for a shuttle ride to the county fair, a couple were behind us…..there were signs that in order to enter the Del Mar fairgrounds, everyone would be passing through a metal detactor for weapons…..ok.
      then the female half of the dynamic duo sez, “this is just MORE government intervention trying to control us”. I am so proud of myself I did not turn around and let her have it……however, I did say to my spouse, “gee honey that means I can’t bring my knife and gun in – so I can’t stab or shoot anyone. I have a right to do that, you know…..”

      WTF is WRONG with these A$$HOLES. rant over. ;-)

    • Wayne, you are certainly enamored of the Twitter/Tweet!

      I’m still attempting to figure out why the # (pound or number) has become a ‘hash tag’ —- do I have that correct? Or is the ‘hash tag’ something completely different?

      • I don’t know how it came to be renamed “hash-tag” (yes, that’s right), but it is used as a tag for subjects or categories of your own invention. I used one today for “#embarrassed” when it turned out I was wrong about the Girl on Page 3. I thought (because of the Beatles’ “Polythene Pam”) that she was in News of the World, but it turns out she’s in The Sun. Well, I’m glad she’s not homeless. I was corrected by, of all people, Michael McKean. (I’m trying to get replies from as many famous people as possible. :) I have a simple life. :( )

          • I’m still learning stuff, trying stuff out, trying to figure out how to do things. But I’ll be happy to impart whatever knowledge I have to anyone who wants to hear it.

            One of my Senators, Chuck Schumer, follows me on the twitter, but I think that’s just because I’m one of his constituents. I’m sure it has nothing to do with how awesome I am. (HA! I’m not awesome at all.)

            But it is a good way to respond to outrageous thins Republicans say, which is one of my motivations. I also like to tell the President to stop caving in to the Republicans, too.

      • I need to get rid of the last of the food in the freezer, and I’m no fan of “bride’s cookin’,” which is what he’d be doing. ;)

          • Oy, I did. It was BORING!

            Luckily (for that ass I married), I’d been cooking for my family since I was 14. He didn’t experience “bride’s cookin’.”

            That’s a phrase my ex’s step-grandfather used. When he married the grandmother, her girls were in their teens. He was a cranky old goat, and said he didn’t want the girls cooking, because he didn’t like “bride’s cookin’.” The grandmas was a cook for a logging operation, so you know she was good. My ex’s mother, while a very sweet lady, not so much. ;)

            The old boy never really settled into the step-father or grandfather role, but he loved his great-grandkids. He had a special bond with Zoo Jr, who used to hang onto the arm of great-grandpa Ben’s recliner and babble his baby talk to him, while he was slowly dying of liver cancer. He was in so much pain, but his eyes were just full of light and joy when my baby was spending time with him.

    • Sarah: “To paraphrase Hemingway…”

      Hemingway also said: “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

      Now we know where Sarah got the title of her hagiographic film.. Sell it, sister.

  36. Another big surprise.

    So. President Obama has essentially agreed to every cut the GOoPers want. So. Rather than give their insane, teabagging, worshipers the impression that they agreed with Obama? Now the GOoPers want to restart the “negotiations” from scratch.

    Obama is a bright guy and I’m pretty certain that he realizes the futility of trying to negotiate with the Reich-wing goons but it sure would be nice if he would articulate it. He’s already getting blasted every time he opens his mouth so I really can’t see why he doesn’t just go on the all-out attack. Tell the people of America that he’s tried to work with the GOoPers, but it’s simply impossible because they are a bunch of WATBs, and stop this pretense of trying to build bipartisanship with people who would rather die than agree with the black “librul” in the White House.

    • This is what I’m afraid of, pete. Maybe the president is being cagey, and getting the repiggies right where he wants them, so he can move in for the kill. In the meantime, he’s got the Democratic Caucus thinking he’s thrown them under a bus and the people in this country terrified that he’s going to cut the most popular social programs in existence for us.

      If he’s going to move in for the kill, he better damn well do it soon. He’s losing us…

      • It’s frustrating as Hell. The protests in Wisconsin and other states, as well as all the recall efforts, show that we are ready to march if President Obama would just wave a baton around a couple times.

        A good start would be an address to the nation identifying how many jobs have been lost to GOP policies since their gains last November. Another would be to offer a “last chance” proposal to the GOoPers. I would love to see him, or anyone for that matter, offer to raise taxes on those who can afford it combined with a tax credit for those who hire people.

        Hire a maid? Get a tax credit. Hire a gardener? Get a tax credit. Hire three new workers in your small business? Get three tax credits. Such a proposal would, if nothing else, pull the fangs of all the Reichwiners screeching about “taxing job creators” and demonstrate that they are not the least bit concerned about jobs..

    • Wasn’t the GOP answer to the Healthcare reform to start the process over from scratch? Been there, didn’t fall for that.

      I think these rumors of how bad the agreement might be, is a method to soften us up for the real sellout, because it won’t be quite as bad as we were afraid it was.

  39. WOO
    The Washington Post runs a weekly contest in its Style section called the ‘Style Invitational’. The requirements this week were to use the two words ‘Lewinsky’ (the Intern) and ‘Kaczynski’ (the Unabomber) in the same limerick. The following winning entries were actually printed verbatim in the newspaper, no bleeps or xxxs:

    Third place:

    There once was a girl named Lewinsky
    Who played on a flute like Stravinsky
    ‘Twas ‘Hail to the Chief’
    On this flute made of beef
    That stole the front page from Kaczynski.

    Second place:

    Said Clinton to young Ms. Lewinsky,
    We don’t want to leave clues like Kaczynski,
    Since you made such a mess,
    Use the hem of your dress
    And please wipe that stuff off your chinsky.

    And the winning entry:

    Lewinsky and Clinton have shown
    What Kaczynski must surely have known,
    That an intern is better
    Than a bomb in a letter,
    When deciding how best to be blown

    • That reminds me of one of Keith’s ‘worst persons in the world.” The woman was suing ($50K, I think) some state because her brother was an “inmate” in the penitentiary. She said that they were called “inmates,” because they were meant to mate with one another, which is a dirty sin.

      I used to think I wanted to know how these people’s brains worked, but more and more, I really don’t.

      • I’m constantly torn between Douglas MacArthur and J.R.R. Tolkein on that one. “Know your enemy” is very sound advice but there is also some wisdom in the theory that studying one’s enemies too closely runs a risk of being corrupted by said enemies’ perversions. My guess is that, had Teddy Roosevelt had the advantage of studying MacArthur and Tolkein he would have said something like; “study the ways and means of your enemies but remain ready to club them to death if they start making sense”.

  42. Well? It looks like everyone else has retired for the evening so I think I’ll go out on the deck and puff on a cigar while the storm rolls in.

    G’night, good people.

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