Open Thread–5/12/2011

Yesterday I returned to the denturist.  They pulled no teeth today.  That’s on tap for next Wednesday, when five out of my remaining nine come out.  I’m feeling a little panicky, because in 1961, a dentist pulled my wisdom teeth without anesthetic.  I have feared dentists since.  I’m current on replies, and today I have to do an online shop, after planning for two weeks of foods soft enough to eat between extractions and dentures.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:12 (average 4:40).  Time to duck.  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NewsOK: Inhofe, R-Tulsa, said in an interview that he proposed to CIA Director Leon Panetta at a closed briefing last week that they [Osama snuff porn pictures]  be made available to certain members of Congress.

Why an I not surprised by this or that he was the first to go see them?

From AJC: In his speech to Wall Street yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner waved the same old crazy quilt of demagoguery, distortions and outright lies in which Republicans have shrouded economic issues for several years now. Most of it was standard fare, though there were a few lines that were especially galling…

…For example, Boehner repeated the outrageous falsehood that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan — which essentially ends Medicare — would give senior citizens the same benefits that members of Congress enjoy. Actually, seniors would get the reverse of what members of Congress currently enjoy. As Bloomberg points out, taxpayers subsidize as much as 75 percent of the health care costs of federal employees. But, according to the Congressional Budget Office, taxpayers would only pay 32 percent of the average Medicare recipient’s health care costs by the year 2030. [emphasis added]

46% of what Congress gets is hardly the same benefits.

From The Atlantic: The SPLC maintains a detailed database on hate groups, culled from websites and publications, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports. It defines hate groups as organizations and associations that "have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics," and which participate in "criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting or publishing."  As of 2010, the SPLC documents 1,002 such hate groups across the United States.

Mississippi leads the pack for hate with Montana a close second.

Cartoon:

Today is share your refritos with a Bagger day; eat them first.  (That was not intended to be a factual statement.)