Friday Fish Wrap: October 8, 2010

What a week. I’m sorta glad it’s over and the sun shineth again.

We haven’t seen that much rain here in ever dry Nevada since … well, I don’t remember when. Nearly two inches of rain, plus plenty of hail and wind. Mt. Rose even has a beautiful cap of snow, as does Slide Mt. Yippee on that. Ski season cometh. I realize that two inches of rain doesn’t sound like much to people in many parts of the country. Our annual average rainfall being only seven inches, that makes two inches a really big deal.

It also made cycling unpleasant to the point that the treadmill got pressed into service for the first time since last spring. I don’t like exercising indoors, preferring the fresh air and abundant sunshine that our state usually offers. The bike only got out on the road today.

Much of the rest of my week revolved around the car accident my 93-year-old mom had on Tuesday. Seems like she was following too closely and slammed into another car, which then slammed into a truck.

Mom isn’t taking any of this well. She’d love to make it my fault somehow, since she’s not the sort to humbly beg forgiveness and exhibit quiet, graceful contrition. Add to this the looming possibility of her self-propelled days coming to an end. It’s been a toxic stew that I have to maintain some distance from lest I be tempted to reach over and pop her one for bad behavior.

The cops cited her but didn’t lift the license. Her car doesn’t appear to have been damaged, although I noted a serious shimmy in the steering above 55 mph. Probably a messed up linkage. But until the insurance adjuster looks at it, there’s not much point of getting it up on the lift. It ought to be interesting to see what her insurance rates do in response to this.

If she has to lose the car, I’m going to have to move her to a new - and probably more expensive - retirement place nearer me, her new taxi service when her friends aren’t available. That’s going to be fun.

The newest and latest Sharron Angle televised lie is getting on my nerves. Now, she’d have everybody believe that Harry Reid wrote a law to actually give Viagra to sex offenders. And if you believe that …

But here it is. Look for yourself:

I can’t find anybody - beyond the most hard core ‘conservative’ - that thinks this is anything but the basest, most cynical, disgusting and fact challenged attempt to win an election using anything other than the issues.

If you haven’t been following this, here’s the back story:

Back when the Democrats in the Senate were in the depths of the fight to pass critical health care reform, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, proposed a ridiculous amendment that was intended to sink the entire health care bill. It was designed to be so obnoxious that nobody would dare vote for a bill that included it.

But the country needed health care even worse. The margins to pass the bill were desperately slim, and supporters - including Harry Reid - knew that the slightest change, to even something so stupid as Coburn’s amendment, would derail the whole thing they’d worked so hard for.

Here’s what Max Baucus, D-Mont., had to say about Coburn’s amendment:

“This is a serious bill. This is a serious debate. The amendment offered by the senator from Oklahoma makes a mockery of the Senate, the debate and the American people… It is a crass political stunt aimed at making 30-second commercials, not public policy.”

And make 30 second commercials it has.

Typically, the Angle campaign - helped by big money from outside of Nevada - mischaracterizes Reid’s vote. He voted against an amendment that would have stopped using tax dollars for that special purpose. And let’s not let it get lost along the way that this is a pure hypothetical based on a lot of ‘if/maybe’ assumptions - that won’t even be tested within the scope of the health care law until 2014.

The Reid campaign might extend their reach occasionally interpreting Angle’s own words, but they are her crazy, extreme words that are in full view and on record. They are not in any way ambiguous in their meaning.

Angle, on the other hand, has no problem with organizations outside of Nevada coming in with the big money - from who knows where or whom - to flat out lie to Nevada’s electorate.

This apparently has serious Nevada Republicans concerned. So much so that the Big Kauhuna of the Nevada Senate, Republican William Raggio came out holding his nose and gave his support to Reid. Raggio is no RINO. The ‘R’ is engraved on his DNA. As the Reno Gazette-Journal reported:

“But he said he couldn’t set aside his concern about Angle’s record, calling her “totally ineffective” as an assemblywoman. Angle often voted “no” against her own party, especially on raising taxes and spending. Raggio also said he doesn’t agree with what he called her “extreme positions” on issues such as Medicare, Social Security and education as she calls for a smaller federal government.”

He was followed by Dema Guinn, the widow of late governor Kenny Guinn. You can view a list of Republicans for Reid here.

The bright spot in today’s news: Sharron Angle’s own pastor - John Reed, of the sonrise church in Reno,  declared that Reid is one of those weirdo mormons - and therefore not a christian.

Pastor John Reed actually put it like this:

“His religion’s a cult. The Christian community — all the Christians, theologians and scholars, all recognize that, that Mormonism is a cult. I have books in my library on cults, and it lists Mormonism right there with all these bizarre cults.

Well, there must be a reason. I mean, here a member of a cult is one of the most powerful people in the United States. Doesn’t that alarm you? And his allegiance is to Salt Lake City. Something is up with that. Something’s weird. But nobody touches that — Harry Reid’s allegiance is to Salt Lake City. The Mormon church is rich, powerful, they do illegal things. They do secretive things. They’ve got all this money. They own American businesses. There’s weirdness going on there. Churches are not multi-millionaire organizations like the Mormon church.”

Being an escapee from an old line Utah mormon family, this was sure to bring a smile to my face, and a chuckle since it’s got to rankle all the conservative mormon Tea-baggers who were identifying more with Angle than Reid, fer sure! Needless to say, the Angle campaign was in hot pursuit to mitigate the damage. I find it all ironic that these Tea Nuts are worried about Harry Reid’s religion and it’s potential influence when they’ve said all along that there should be no wall separating church and state.

Pastor Dipshit, I mean, Reed suggests that ‘real’ churches aren’t “multi-millionaire organizations”. Uh, I guess he doesn’t include the mega-churches where high end pastors knock down annual salaries of up to $500,000. And I’m not including well known pauper pastor Billy Graham, Bentley driving Bishop Eddy, and Grapevine Fellowship Pastor Ed Young and his private jet:

Which way do they really want it - or is their religious belief campaign specific? But this is what the religious among us do - cherry pick crazy stuff to suit whatever brand of crazy they’re selling at the moment.

As P. J. O’Rouke said on the Bill Maher show this evening: “We conservatives think government is bad … and we have the candidates to prove it.”

That was the only intelligent thing he said during the entire show.

Well, that’s enough for now.

Have a great weekend and be safe.

-maven