Advice for the Sleepless

Protip: on those unfortunate nights when you just can’t sleep do NOT dial up your fav political blogs.

Why? Well, I did and kissed all chances of ever getting back to slumberland a good, solid buh-bye.

I dared to visit Stonekettle where Jim Wright’s righteous, informed, cogent rant, Mother of Exiles, about the “right” wing hysteria and hypocrisy over immigration was waiting for me:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...
Well, give me your tired and poor yearning to be free just so long as they’re from Ireland or Scotland or Germany. The Netherlands? Italy? We’ll take them. England’s okay too. Maybe Poland and Greece.  Even the stinky French. Why, we’ll even take the Russians. Sure what the heck, welcome to America! Come on in.

Brown Spanish speaking children from where now? Central America? Whoa, not so fast.
Hey, there’s a reason why the Statue of Liberty holds her lamp above New York Harbor and not the Texas border. Just saying.

Because that’s America right? That’s who we are, a bunch of fat old white Christians with signs and bibles screaming hatred at a busload of brown children.

Yeah, fuck you, huddled masses yearning to breathe free! Back on the bus!

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...

Go read the whole thing — it’ll open your head.

The always awesome Mister Charles Pierce pointed me towards a tremendous, scary Washington Post essay on how we’re  being robbed of our ability to receive real justice when wronged by a corporation.

Two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings—AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors—have deeply undercut these centuries-old public rights, by empowering businesses to avoid any threat of private lawsuits or class actions.
~~~~~
Hastily clicking through terms of service is now all it can take to surrender your rights to these companies. Once you do, your only path for recourse if you’re harmed by any one of them is “mandatory arbitration,” where the arbitrator is often chosen by the corporation you’re challenging, and any revelations about the company’s wrongdoing tend to be kept secret. Rather than band together under the light of the public courtroom, each individual has to work through the darkness of a private tribunal, alone, where arbitrators can interpret laws however they wish. Certain inalienable rights, the Court has ruled, are actually kind of alienable.

OK, so now I’d given up on snooze time entirely. Horrified, was I. Naturally this meant that I needed to jump over to Tbogg’s new joint Panic in Funland at Raw Story for a palate cleansing hod of snark.

Looks a bit like a Tardis, no?

I came gob to gob with this:
Never mind those dead kids, check out our NRA gunbunnies

In the wake of the Sandy Hook slaughter, where Adam Lanza watered the Tree of Liberty with the blood of 20 small children between the ages of six and seven, the NRA saw that they had their work cut out for them.

Snark? Sure but I was in for more more horror, disgust and rage too. Oh goody — I didn’t really need those 40 winks.

I went to Wonkette — also snarky but goofier than Tbogg — hoping they would give me a grin and help me feel that the country’s NOT really headed down a corporatist, christianist, been-out-in-the-July-Oklahoma-fairgrounds-heat-for-two-weeks-and-never-emptied Porta Potty.

I found this peach.
‘Christian’ College Wants Special Right To Hate The Gays, Keep Its Tax Dollars, Just Like Jesus

Asking the president to pretty please be exempt from the law that says if you do business with the United States Government of America, you are not allowed to discriminate against The Gay because that is bad and wrong, and if you insist on discriminating against The Gay, even though it is bad and wrong, no, you do not get to use taxpayer dollars to do it. Sorry. Be an asshole — for Jesus! — if you must, but you can pay for it yourself. Asshole.

I only mention it but, if you’re gonna claim to be a Christian, ya might wanna brush up on what that entails. Here — the good Rev. Mark Sandlin provides a top ten list of things you can’t do while following Jesus. Wonderfully helpful of him, don’cha think?

Ahhhh, at last a palate cleanser!