Category: The Dish

And who says Americans haven’t been sacrificing?

Matt is unworried; Kevin wants a study. I found some of the commenters on Matt’s blog to be on the mark. For example, Matt writes:

Ask your local pharmaceutical company executive what he’s done that competes with penicillin.

A reader replies:

ampicillin, amoxicillin, augmentin, methicillin, dicloxacillin, piperacillin, ticarcillin, cefazolin, cefipime, ceftriaxone, cefaclor, cefuroxamine, cefotetan, ceftazidime, impinem, meropenem, ertapenam….

That’s funny, actually, since my own chronic asthma and bronchitis often sometimes require aggressive anti-biotics. Penicillin doesn’t work for me, and I’m lucky to have a doctor who will prescribe stronger and newer drugs. But in England, under socialized medicine, my elderly parents have no choice on what anti-biotic they can get. None. Cheaper, you see? We’re over-medicated over here, as the busybody left insists. Another Matt reader also targets a certain naivete about what would almost certainly happen even if we get assurances that no one wil be stopped from paying for drugs out of pocket.

The right has a new line of attack: some Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans support him! Muslims supporting Republicans? The horror … Look, it seems to me that Paul needs to do better at trying to distance himself from some others on the fringes, and his campaign is still a little not-prime-time in dealing with the usual suspects. But the general line of questioning – "Are you now and have you ever been an anti-Semite?" – is offensive. As Derb points out:

Has anyone else noticed that "Ron Paul" almost rhymes with "Goebbels," if you drop the "s"? And look—it has the same number of syllables!

I see no reason why the campaign should not return any money given by neo-Nazis who are subsequently identified as such. But Jonah is right that this whole thing tells us more about Paul’s amateurism in rapid-response than anything else. It’s also a function of some neocons’ unfortunate tendency to cry anti-Semitism if anyone disagrees with them on foreign policy. Meanwhile, Wonkette offers a bipartisan "anti-Paultard" olive branch to RedState. Heh.

Load on the cranberry sauce if you want to avoid the risk of E. Coli.

Did Bush know before the DHS nomination?

"The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments," – Mad magazine, in a classic one-liner. A discussion of the tight relationship between low self-esteem and rampant materialism can be read here. (Hat tip: Daily Irrelevant.)

And divorce isn’t always a bad option either:

Eleven years ago I sat in a premarital counseling session with my soon to be wife Kristie. I don’t really remember much that was said except one comment made by my pastor. He said, “There is nothing in this world that you can wish upon a person that is worse than a bad marriage.” When I first heard this I thought that it was nothing more than an expedient overstatement that was relevant to the moment.  I gave my pastor “grace” since I knew this was a counseling session on marriage and it was his job to make us understand the vital importance of the decision that we were making. Yet I did think to myself, “There are a lot of things that are worse than a bad marriage. What about cancer, the death of a loved one, or paralysis?” Today, I no longer believe that my pastor made an overstatement. There is nothing worse that you can wish upon a person than a bad marriage.

Personally, I couldn’t be happier. But I do believe that no one knows loneliness like a person in a bad marriage. (Hat tip: Umblog.)

Country and Western lyrics are far more substance-friendly.

The Rudy campaign hones its message.

In limbo?