Stupid, pointless, potentially fatal airline restrictions

Airline's medicine ban leaves passenger in coma

A diabetic man fell into a coma because airport staff refused to let him take his insulin on board a flight from Auckland to Christchurch.

Qantas yesterday apologised to Tui Peter Russell, who had a severe attack on the plane and was in hospital for two weeks.

Mr Russell said check-in staff at Auckland Airport told him he could not take his medication on board because it was dangerous.

He started feeling ill during the flight last month and called a flight attendant.

"They asked where the insulin was, and they weren't very happy when they found out I wasn't allowed to bring it on board."

*sigh*

The good thing is Mr. Russell survived; the flight crew appears to have handled themselves very well and did their best to care for him when he became ill. It's the braintrust on the ground who didn't allow him to take his medicine onboard that I worry about.

Hopefully, some corrective training was conducted with a quickness.

Stupid Blog of the Day

I don't make a habit of calling out other bloggers for their stupidity. Quite honestly, there is so much stupidity going on in the blogisphere that it seems a little redundant for me to waste pixels talking about it here.

However.

Well, just click on the link, and let Toni speak for herself.

Here, by the way, is the text of the amendment. You'll see in paragraph 2(1) that cloning is prohibited. So, Toni calling it the "cloning amendment" while she's excoriating someone else for not reading the amendment is not only Stupid, it is delicious irony.

Congratulations, Toni.

A Stupid Sunday Quickie

If you haven't figured out how to drive your car forward yet, please, for the love of all that is holy, do not try to back up your 97-passenger SUV into a compact-only parking space.

That is all.

Slumber parties and Abba

Tonight is Little Stupid Girl's birthday party. She kept it small and sane (thank the Gods): 2 girls, roller skating, and "slumbering." Her friends are delightful children, and, because they like my daughter, they obviously have exquisite taste.

When I picked them up from the skating rink, I was playing the Mamma Mia! soundtrack. Imagine my surprise, not to mention, delight, when three little barely pubescent voices all shriek from the back seat: I love this song!!!

Being the oh-so-cool mom I am, I cranked it, and we drove around town singing along with it until we were all hoarse. We stopped at Wendy's for frostys to ease our throats, and then came home. And I think they're already asleep, even though I told them they got an extra hour of sleep for daylight savings time.

What little angels!

P.S. Don't forget to check the batteries in your smoke detector, dear readers!

Halloween reminisences

Because brittney promised me a dollar to not post about politics today, I am going to indulge her. A dollar's a dollar, after all!

Today, Sista Smiff says all I've ever wanted to say about the evangelical "Trunk or Treat" movement.

I grew up in the north, where we usually had at least one snowfall of some significance by Halloween, and, regardless of how great a seamstress your mother was (mine was great, btw), nobody could see your costume underneath your winter coat, anyway.

When I was young, my mom always made sure I had great costumes. When I was 5, I was Raggedy Ann, complete with a wig made from red yarn and a stocking cap. I tore a hole in my stripey tights when I tripped while running over to our neighbor's house and skinned my knee. My favorite costume was when I was in 3rd grade and we were living in teeny, tiny Royalton, Minnesota. My mom and my Aunt Christina got together and made a scarecrow costume for me out of burlap, complete with straw hanging out the cuffs of my top and pants. It looked really great; even now, 25 or so years later, I remember how itchy it was.

Now, our children are growing up in the south, and they are having a much different Halloween experience than I did. I do not believe that my childhood was any sort of rarefied experience, and I certainly don't think that it was any sort of more innocent time or any of that rot; it was a different time, and that's about it. Anyway. My daughter has never had to wear a winter coat over her costume, so nobody's ever been able to mistake her very-obviously-purchased-at-Party-City costumes for one lovingly sewn by her mother (my daughter's mother doesn't sew; she did take Home Ec. and failed the sewing part). And she doesn't particularly care for candy, either, which I find a little odd; a typical pre-Christmas task is dumping her plastic jack-o-lantern still full of T-or-T loot in the trash.

Today is Little Stupid Girl's 12th birthday, by the way. She got a cellphone. In the months leading up to this day, she lamented how everybody she knew had cellphones except her. I kept reminding her that I didn't get my first cellphone until I was 30. It was an artful dodge; she had no idea what she was getting.

A Stupid Three-fer

Sorry, guys. I hope I'm not boring you, but, for some reason, I let this stupid slip my mind. But it's a doozy, and, while it's blogged everywhere, who am I if not a hanger-on. And, if it gives me the opportunity to call Rush Limbaugh stupid, well, what's a girl to do?

Well, if that girl were James Boyce, she would call him Winner Of The 2006 Swift Boat Asshole In Action Award.

But, I'm not James Boyce, so I'll leave that to him.

But here's why, exactly, Rush is both stupid, and an asshole.



I can't believe he'd mess with Marty McFly like that. He does resemble Biff a little bit, though, doesn't he? Big fat bully.

I voted!

My voting streak remain solid: I haven't missed voting in an election since 1988. Yay, me!

I cast my vote this afternoon at my local branch library. While waiting on line, the man in front of me let his party affiliation be known with the utterance of a liberal code word. There were four of us all together on line, and we bonded. It was a pond of blue in what was, I suspect, a sea of red.

A big shout out to Jo Fish, an obvious America Hater! I stumbled onto his blog this afternoon, and I highly recommend it, particularly for his perspective on issues as a veteran.

Stupid Political Angst

I am a partisan, by and large. I am a Democrat. I live in a Democratic city/county metro area which is ringed by Republican counties. Because of my proximity to one of those Republican counties, I live in a gerrymandered district. Because of that, I am represented in the US Congress by the most Republican of the Republicans, Marsha Blackburn. I have, in the past, when I was younger and idealistic and thought that my representative would be interested in my views, communicated with Ms Blackburn. And Lamar, for that matter. I have not ever written to Senator Dr. Video Diagnosis, but a girl has to have standards, even a Stupid Girl. But I digress. My communications with Ms Blackburn were, in a word, unsatisfying. I would tell her how I felt about something, and she would send a form-letter back telling me she was acting in a diametrically-opposed way to what I would want her to. I forgot she's got a few hundred thousand others to represent, as well. Guess I can't be the Princess of TN-07, can I? sigh

Anyway. The point is, I am a Democrat.

I am pro-gay marriage (or anti-marriage discrimination), anti-Social Security privatization, against the war in Iraq, and anti-USA PATRIOT Act. I think that we should treat "enemy combatants" as POWs, and I think that everybody who has been arrested by US law enforcement should be entitled to habeus corpus, as well as other provisions of the US Constitution. I think rights should be given liberally and only given up if the government has a compelling reason to withhold them. I also believe that money spent on social programs is better than money spent on corrections programs.

I am also in favor of balanced budgets. I am wildly uncomfortable with our role as hegemon. We have a massive military (our military spending as a percentage of the GNP was greater than the #2-#13 countries combined), and, because of that, we tend to view all the world's problems as issues to be solved militarily.

So, obviously I'm not going to vote for Bob Corker. Not just because he's a Republican, but because he's conducted his campaign in a sleazy manner. I still don't know where he stands on any of the issues that matter to me and my family. So, that's a big no for Bob.

Which leaves me Harold Ford, Jr. He seems like he would be the perfect choice for me, since we are the same age, same skin tone, same party. But Congressman Ford and I have very serious differences of opinions about many issues that are important to me. I hate that he has stated he is in support of Amendment 1. I hate that he voted for USA PATRIOT Act. I hate that he voted for the war in Iraq.

I have a very hard time being comfortable with those things. Voting for Ford has never been a done deal for me. I was really pulling for Rosalind Kurita last year before her campaign was done in. I didn't agree with everything Senator Kurita stood for, either, but, at least last year, I could work with those disagreements.

So, I should just refrain from voting for either, right?

And that is what I would do if not for the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election cycles. I don't think that my vote is just my own anymore.

Stupid Political Blog Post #1

MT. JULIET — The Scappaticci family came prepared for Tuesday night's outdoor prayer rally: They came early, brought a cooler of food and drinks, and even a football to toss about.

Stephan and Susan Scappaticci acknowledged they know very little about the American Civil Liberties Union or all the particulars of a recent lawsuit filed by the group's Tennessee chapter against Lakeview Elementary, the school where their young children, third grade and kindergarten, attend.

But the couple — he's a teacher in Metro schools — said worse things could happen than having "our children prayed over."

Ah, yes, Mr. and Mrs. Scappaticci, there are worse things that could happen than having your children prayed over. For example, your school district could go broke defending itself against an ACLU lawsuit that only the truly stupid could not have seen coming.

A hint for all you Christianists: Prayer in school is a long-settled issue in the law. It's okay if kids do it silently. It's okay if kids decide to meet around the flagpole before school and pray. It may be okay for parents to meet in the school before classes start and pray. It is never okay for a teacher to lead a class in prayer.

Any questions?

I am torn

My university degree is in political science, specifically international relations, and I love politics. However, I have resisted the temptation to do a political blog. The Stupid has been able to remain alive even while being neglected, mostly because its charm doesn't rely on timeliness to be relevant. Political blogs, particularly during election seasons, require a lot of attention, and, to be honest, I am really not ready for that kind of committment.

At least, not a long term committment.

A short term committment? Well, that is something I am totally into!

So, dear readers, The Stupid is going to shift gears for a little while to focus on campaign/elections stupidity. Lord knows, those of us living here know how stupid campaigns can be.

I know that I am a Jane-Come-Lately to the deal, but...whatever. Let's have a little fun with this thing!

Outsourcing for dummies!

This is yet another Craigslist discovery .

I am glad that companies can hire individual university-educated Phillipinos for less than $7/hour without the fuss and muss of actually travelling to Manila.

I can't begin to imagine why the terrorists hate us; we should be using up all the hate doing some well-deserved self-loathing.


[While we're about Craigslist, if you are an up-and-coming Republican wanna-be legislator married to a star of any genre, do not use Craigslist to find a date. You will get caught. Oh, and if you're gonna watch porn, make sure the kids are in bed and close the damn door, you moron.]