My ol’ bloggin’ buddy Laer Pearce is working on a book, Crazifornia, about all the wrong-headed political and regulatory stuff that happens in this crazy state. Today he has an Op/Ed in the Washington Times where he releases a wee bit o’ info that will make the Democratic candidate for Governor, former CA Governor Jerry Brown, just a wee bit nervous.

When Jerry Brown recently held his first fundraiser as an official candidate for governor, he chose as the venue the Sacramento apartment where he lived the last time he held that office, after famously declining to live in the governor’s mansion. Faced with multimillionaire Republican opponents, Mr. Brown wants to be seen as just a regular public employee, trying to hold his own against tycoons at the top of America’s wealth disparity. While politically expedient, the image of Jerry Brown as everyman is patently false.

Mr. Brown has a lot of money – how much exactly is not public – and unhappily for his environmentalist and global-warming-alarmist supporters, it’s oil money. Even more unhappily for his campaign managers, it’s money that may have led him to an attack against California’s largest employer and a rewriting of state regulations to feather the family nest.

Like we always say, “Read it all!”

Some West-coast union-lovin’ potty-mouthed attorney! is giving the gals at Chicks on the Right a scary earful in a creepy email exchange:

You Rethugs are just so hypocritical.

And, as for pussy, I get all I want because I get it by pointing a gun at it and threatening it or else. You know, law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, all that free enterprise bull shit that your kind always tries to force down the throat of the vast unenlightened masses that you manipulate constantly with your bull shit right wing false rhetoric.”

Ummmm….Holy crap. This is when I realized that I was dealing with a total nutcase, who apparently thinks that joking about raping women is completely acceptable. Or worse, who actually DOES what he says in that last paragraph. I mean, you just don’t know with these kinds of wackjobs.

The guy is not just a radical hater, he’s stupid, or sloppy to boot as with that last email he inadvertently sent her his real name and email address came through, and when she Googled it she found out that he’s a practicing attorney out here in ol’ Okie’s neck of the woods.

Hope she reports this scumbag!

Hugh Hewitt is killing me today as he plays clips from shows hosted by Dean Barnett, who passed away one year ago today. Last year I wrote the following:

Dean Barnett passed away today. Born in 1967, he was a young 41 years old. What a shame, what a loss for all of us.

I first discovered Dean while he was guest posting at Hugh Hewitt’s blog where his opinions and prose entertained and informed with a sense of glee. I used to send him Photoshops and he used one once, and often commented on others that he liked. When I got an email from him that was special. I loved it when he guest hosted for Hugh on the radio. That voice, that Boston accent, the way he had such fun talking with Glen in Texas.

Dean had cystic fibrosis and had already out survived the odds. He had many close calls before, but a new type of treatment gave him hope, and extra months and years. Dean wrote about CF in a blog 2006 post.

CF is a genetic disease, the number one genetic killer in the country. The average age of death is 36. I’m now 39; when I was born in 1967, the life expectancy for a newborn with CF was 8 years.

Yet, he thought that he was a lucky man.

Until I was a teenager, I was mostly asymptomatic. Even after I was a teenager, I enjoyed what is considered good health in the CF community. I’ve certainly been luckier than most CF patients.

After having a serious setback a few years ago and being placed on the lung transplant list he got a chance at being in a test of a new treatment.

At one point during my interview, the questioner asked me if I expected to see a cure to CF in my lifetime. I answered no, but that it doesn’t really matter. When you see death up close, a couple of things become clear. One is that we all die, and that death is just part of the deal. The other is that life is such a blessing, that’s it just so great, even though you know the inevitable might be near you still want as many bites of the apple as possible.

None of us know what the future of the salt water treatment might be. My health will maintain its current state indefinitely in the truest sense of the term. The good times could continue for years, or it could all crash tomorrow.

That treatment brought him a bit over 18 extra months of the “good times”.

Godspeed Dean. May God’s grace and comfort be with your family and friends.

I miss Dean . . .

Technorati Tags: Dean Barnett, cystic fibrosis

About a month ago The Anchoress took off from blogging for a personal retreat. Evidently she has been having a bit of trouble putting into adequate words what was gleaned from that period of contemplation. However, in a post today she wrote this:

And increasingly, even when my kneejerk instinct to a headline or a piece of news is to snarl, or rage, or smirk, I remember:

“Everything” is about nothing.
Everything ended with the sacrifice of the Lamb.
All is consummated.
We are forever and always at the Last Supper, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.
Time ended with the tearing of the veil and the rolling back of the stone.
The rest is illusion and catching up.
There is nothing to be afraid of.

And when I remember that, I dash all of my fury, all of my love, all of my passion against the cross of Christ, and settle beneath their shards and fragments as they rain down upon me, and pass and bite and dissolve. And I pray, most particularly for the event or the person or the feeling that has roused my headstrong, foolish passion and lured me toward the illusion, and away from detachment, wherein is found humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace.

I have to admit I was struck by the wisdom and the rebuke waiting for me in these words. Although I will never find true depths of “humility and tranquility; wisdom and peace” that she will, (trust me on this), I do need to remember that as crazy as the world can seem, and as terrible a future that can be imagined — Mankind only thinks it’s in control.

Gotta remember that a lot more often . . .

The Anchoress has this one pegged to the wall:

When Dubya swaggered, it was “arrogance.” When Obama “swaggas” it’s “cool.” Bunch of upper-class white pretenders calling it “swagga;” just makes you want to roll your eyes, doesn’t it? I can’t help but think Obama loathes them, and I wouldn’t blame him if he does. It’s hard to respect people who slobber all over you.

The White House Press Corps has revealed a profound truth about themselves: they’re a bunch of 14 year old girls. If they don’t like you, they will be absolute savages to you. But if they like you, you’re cool and they all want to be, they all want to invite you for a sleepover.

If they love you, they collect your bare-chested pictures they draw hearts around your name and sigh that you are the best, the smartest, the coolest, the funniest, the most elegant, the most brilliant, the handsomest and best-dressed, most charming evah, evah, evah, and have fantasies that you’ll take them on a dream date! They share minutiae about you; what you like and dislike. And when you break promises to them, they either ignore it or they make excuses for it.

Sorry for the loooooooooooong interlude between posts. This whole Obama’s 100 days thing has me gobsmacked — and it just keeps on smackin’ and a smackin’. I’ll be back in the ol’ saddle real soon — promise!

The Internet — What can ya say? If you ever wanted to hear your own words presented as a mini-movie: Xtranormal.com

Here’s the top few ‘graphs of a post from the other day.

Be sure and go full-screen — Heh!

[H/t: Ace Mine's not as weird as his . . .]