Another Portrait Of An Asshole As A Young Man

Yeah, I know you’ve seen this title before. I stole it from Brad. So bite me. But, really, there was no other title that was even remotely possible for a post about Steve Spruiell’s comments at America’s Shittiest Website™ concerning the Miami student without health insurance who died of the flu. Rather than summon up even an ounce of human pity or compassion for a young girl’s tragic death, which, admittedly, would be a difficult task for this soulless rat bastard, Spruiell shifts into full IGMFU mode:

This young woman’s death is indeed tragic, but it is not an indictment of the U.S. health-care system, cheap left-wing moralizing to the contrary notwithstanding. Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry. The rest of us are under no obligation to subsidize that choice.

This could have been a shorter:

  • People who don’t have jobs deserve to die

But that wouldn’t have fully conveyed the malodorous stench of self-righteous indignation wafting from Spruiell’s post. Poor little Steve. Forced to hunt-and-peck his two index fingers to death on a keyboard to earn a paycheck and health insurance from a sweat shop that, by all appearances, is quite content if he shows up to make a few lazy posts at ASW™ and maybe write a longer piece every now and then. I’m sure that getting his butt constantly pinched by a googly-eyed K-Lo doesn’t help matters but, frankly, that appears to be the only thing that happens to Steve on his job which even remotely resembles work.

A shorter also wouldn’t have conveyed this shitbag’s fundamental dishonesty. For example, Spruiell’s little I-told-you-so dance on the young women’s grave includes this statement:

A healthy 22-year-old female in Oxford, Ohio can purchase serviceable health insurance ($30 co-pay for office visits) for $55 a month, according to ehealthinsurance.com.

Oh really? Let’s go see what “serviceable” means. Here’s the policy quote from ehealthinsurance.com that Spruiell was mentioning without, conveniently, providing any details

ehealthinsurance

A $10k deductible is hardly “serviceable” for someone, like the woman in question, who was working two low-paying jobs without benefits in a coffee shop and a bagel joint to make ends meet. Just because Spruiell fell into the lap of wingnut welfare, this doesn’t mean that every college graduate can find a stable job with health care.

I think that there is an exception to the bad karma rule if any of us wishes that Spruiell catches a fatal but treatable disease and then has his health insurance canceled because he forgot to tell his insurance company that he had acne as a teenager.

 

Comments: 200

 
 
 

Geez–

These people are not human and need to be processed into canned dog food as soon as is convenient for FEMA.

 
 

Fingers crossed!

But seriously, the woman was working two jobs trying to get through college. Isn’t that the script from “up by your bootstraps”? Still no sympathy. It’s like Steve doesn’t want anyone pulling themselves up.

 
 

If people pull themselves up, how will Lil’ Stevie ever get to grind his high heels on anyone?

 
 

It’s like Steve doesn’t want anyone pulling themselves up.

He wants people to pull themselves up the old-fashioned way: through family influence and/or inheritance.

 
 

The opening scenes of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man relate in minor detail an illness young Stephen Dedalus contracts after thrown into a ditch filled with filth by some bullies.

I for one hope Stephen Spruiell does not come down with a case of viral meningitis. There’s a likelihood the fever-induced hallucinations would make him more of an asshole on the other side.

 
 

What an asshole. Actually, Kimi died of viral pneumonia, not the flu, but the sad fact is that if she had gotten treatment early, she could still be alive. And the starving artist thing galls me to no end. I am an artist, what I do is important and I deserve access to health care. He can go fuck himself.

 
 

One request: I know that site well deserves the epithet “America’s Shittiest Website,” but can you please refrain from abbreviating that to “ASW”? When I see “ASW,” I can only think of A Softer World, which is much much much too enjoyable to be associated with the dirtbags at the National ScrewYou.

Thank you. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled requesting that Steve Spruiell die in a fire, already in progress.

 
 

What he wanted to say was that it’s cheaper to let artists die of illness and disease than it is to go to all the hard work and expense of killing them directly. Saves on bullets, transportation, and body processing expenses, as this way they just die on their own and their family can clean up the mess. It’s the best of all possible worlds.

 
 

Our health care system is GREAT, if you’re a health insurance company.

Otherwise, it is awful.
~

 
 

“The rest of us are under no obligation to subsidize that choice.”

Oh do tell. I’d love to read his explanation of what obligation(s) the rest of “us” are under. Get that, and you’d get the This I Believe of one of society’s most loathsome sub-groups. Steve? Got a minute?

 
 

I’d love to read his explanation of what obligation(s) the rest of “us” are under.

I imagine it involves seven years of unpaid labor in return for room, board, and the Master’s stick on our bare buttocks if we misbehave or run away.

 
 

Cancer of the eyes is too good for this repulsive fuck. I hope he tastes his own blood at some point in the dying process.

 
 

Of course, serious, bipartisan people not only don’t want to subsidize health care for the “starving artist” in question, but they expect her to subsidize the health insurance of other people! Viz —

(1) health insurance is expensive because too many sick people and not enough healthy people buy it

(2) so? let’s force healthy people — even those who can’t afford it — to buy health insurance

… and this “solution” is considered to be at least a step in the right direction even by some so-called liberal bloggers?

So who is the bigger asshole? Some wingnut who’s so far gone he can’t be expected to think properly or some “reasonable” moderate-liberal who thinks a good “compromise” solution is to force everyone to buy health insurance?

 
 

This man is scum. And stupid. ARGH! What an idiot! The sample provided has 30% coinsurance and a 10K deductible! That’s hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of pocket per year if you’re sick or break your arm or get pregnant. What a tool.

 
 

This is the America of FreedomWorks.

 
 

BTW — when I was in the position of being an un-insured/under-insured post-doc, the crappy plan highlighted here was much better than anything I could have found down in FL

 
 

it’s good to have the sociopaths’ words documented here on the intertubes for when we drop all this health care smoke and mirrors bull shit and just git whitey like we planned last year…

 
 

Poor people are soooo whiney. It is all your own fault because you did not work hard and have the foresight to have rich or well connected parents (or suck the cock of every well connected conservative you met).

 
 

That’s perhaps one of the ugliest things I’ve read on teh intertubes. “Souless” doesn’t begin to describe Spruiell. Earthworms have more apparent humanity.

 
 

As a citizen of a socialist country, can someone please explain what the terms of that policy actually mean? I don’t understand any of them. Thankee.

 
 

As a citizen of a socialist country, can someone please explain what the terms of that policy actually mean?

Shorter insurance company: You pays us shitloads of money, we provide essentially no service, everybody happy happy. Free enterprise! Wolverines!

 
 

Yea, I can’t think of anything funny to say about this shit stain.

 
 

Shaun –

The insurance doesn’t pay a dime until the insured’s costs have exceeded $10,000; the insurance will never cover more than 70% of any cost; the insured pays $30 for every doctor’s office visit even if that’s more than 30% of the visit cost.

Welcome to America, the free-est of the free, as long as “free” is defined within the standards of co-insurance and deductibles.

 
 

DrDick covered the essentials. DAS: forcing everyone to have insurance is the right thing to do. Forcing everyone to buy crappy insurance from the insurance industry, however, isn’t.

 
 

He looks like William Atherton in Day of the Locust, but like Donald Sutherland in said film he’s probably capable of stomping a child to death.

 
 

Khmer Rouge was me. Still on my first cup of coffee.

 
 

I’d like to suggest a slow death by bone cancer. I had a great-uncle go that way, and it’s about the worst thing you can imagine, hence perfect for this fuckstick.

Added bonus of course is that it’s a hideously expensive death, so when his insurance is canceled due to that un-disclosed teenage injury involving a lubricated jam jar, this fucker can die destitute as well. <borat>Great Success!<borat>

 
 

SomeNYGuy, I was wondering what the Khmer Rouge was up to these day but I never thought it would be movie criticism.

 
 

cheap left-wing moralizing to the contrary notwithstanding.

Irregardless, also.

Dear fReichtards, throwing more words in a sentence doesn’t make you sound more intelligent, it makes you sound like you’re wanking off as you type … Oh! Eww! Never mind.

 
 

Okay, as usual I’m confused. Mr. Spewall cites the median salary for a Miami of Ohio graduate. This young woman, according to the original story, had been unable, like so many others these days, to find a job in her field. So she was working two other jobs to support herself. Thus, Mr. Spurtwell concludes that starving artists should die of swine flu.

My question: Who’s the starving artist? And what did she ever do to Sir Steveington Sputumington?

 
 

The insurance doesn’t pay a dime until the insured’s costs have exceeded $10,000; the insurance will never cover more than 70% of any cost; the insured pays $30 for every doctor’s office visit even if that’s more than 30% of the visit cost.

Christ, an uninsured foreigner in Ontario can visit a doctor for 25.00 Canadian (and that’s if the doctor decides that it’s even worth the paperwork to charge for the visit).

 
 

As a citizen of a socialist country, can someone please explain what the terms of that policy actually mean?

It means if you paid Aetna $55 per month for about 15 years that would equal $10k. And then if you had an illness or accident and the medical bills were $10k, Aetna wouldn’t pay any of it. So you were a sucker for paying them all those years, plus you’re broke.

This system is in place to avoid the evils of socialism.

 
 

I’m sure that getting his butt constantly pinched by a googly-eyed K-Lo doesn’t help matters

O, my appetite! Whither hast thou so promptly & cruelly hithered to?

Alack a day – not to mention look out esophagus, look out gums, look out laptop here it c-HWLLRRGGHHK!

 
 

And what did she ever do to Sir Steveington Sputumington?

She obviously (in Stevie’s tiny little closed mind) is not an upright, hardworking conservative. Anyone who is unwilling to suck as much conservative cock as needed to gain employment (a subject upon which we would wager he is an expert), simply deserves to die.

 
 

Also, kids, as someone intimately acquainted with the ravages of cancer, I must tsk-tsk and wag my finger at the exceptionally bad-karma-esque wishing of the disease on anyone, even this useless sack o’ shit. Being run over, repeatedly if necessary, by a pickup truck full of gun-totin’ teabaggers would suffice.

 
 

Christ, an uninsured foreigner in Ontario can visit a doctor for 25.00 Canadian

Welcome to AmuriKKKa, home of the Greatest Health Care System On Earth ™.

 
 

Being run over, repeatedly if necessary, by a pickup truck full of gun-totin’ teabaggers would suffice.

Or drug behind one over gravel roads for 20-30 miles.

 
 

Young was an active member of the Students for Peace and Justice and the Association of Latin American Students. “She had an incredible commitment to social justice,”

It’s not so much that Spruiell thinks all those without jobs should die, only those committed to social justice. Also that Latin American Students thing.

For DAS, she went to the U of M in Ohio, not Florida.

 
 

And what did she ever do to Sir Steveington Sputumington?

She had the nerve to die and highlight the flaws inherent in the US health system. Steveington must now convince himself and his readers? that it was not flaws in the system, but flaws in the victim of the system.

 
 

MzNicky: I wished cancer in particular on this asshat precisely because of how awful it is. I’d do it again, too.

(My own personal worst fears involve your brain-wasting diseases, but hey, he has a lot less to lose than most of us)

People like Spruiell are the reason I became an atheist all those years ago. At the time I was an agnostic, but I came to realize that, while disproving the existence of God in general might be impossible, suffering like this, and inhuman monsters like Spruiell, disprove the existence of any God I’d ever care to worship or acknowledge. If there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being in this universe, I thought to myself, he/she/it *has* to be evil or profoundly indifferent.

Much like Spruiell, actually. But since I can’t plausibly wish cancer on God, I’ll wish it on him instead.

 
 

…wish cancer on God…

Well, actually you’d be too late for that anyway. There are plenty of cancers on God: Phelps, Robertson, etc etc etc.

 
 

Hmmm. So, I’m not quite sure. Which is more like what Jesus would do, piss and moan about how some poor hippie chick went and got sick and died ’cause she was poor and a hippie and deserved it, or actually interfering with somebody’s cancer treatments by fucking up the flow of charitable donations they needed for lack of insurance simply because they had different political views, like that charming fellow a couple of threads down did?

Fuck, these people disgust me.

The lubeless, anally-implemented Garden Weasel is too good for these folks. They just need to all jump into a fucking bonfire, though being dropped in the middle of nowhere with necrotizing fasciitis beginning in their genitalia would be a suitable substitute. Galt that, motherfucker.

 
 

If she had been president of the Young Republicans the NRO would be fore healthcare reform tomorrow, but since she was into social justice and faggoty things like that then it’s OK to piss on her grave.

Dear God, this guy is an asshole.

 
 

Dear God, this guy is an asshole.

Please do not unecessarily demean and insult assholes by comparing them to this guy.

 
 

“Blame the victim” is Republican SOP.

It is also typical that they are unable to see how revolting it is to follow that script in a situation like this.

Ideology is more important than people. Hey, wait, isn’t that what they often accuse us of project upon us?

 
 

As a biomedical researcher, I just want to say that any clinically advances that emerge from my efforts are intended for use by the entire human race. Except Stephen Spruiell.

 
 

Whoops. Clinically effective.

 
 

Y’all forgot one important detail of the $55 plan that our Canuckistani or other socialist brethren may not grok – it’s a PPO, a Preferred Provider Organization, meaning you are limited to those doctors on the insurance company’s list: the ones willing to take that particular plan’s shitty reimbursements (‘take assignment’) and put up with its paperwork requirements.

If you need to see someone outside the list, all bets are of as far as what the insurance will cover.

 
 

I see the strike-through I applied to “accuse us of” does not work in the post even though it worked in the preview. What is up with THAT?

:: fuming ::

 
 

The kindness of strangers saved your life 20 times yesterday, Spunky.

Keep sneering, I’m sure you can make every single one of them ashamed.

 
 

Perhaps we could simply smear Steverino with a mix of used fryolator oil and rancid meat, drop him in the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness here in western Montanain in just his tennies and running shorts, and fire a couple of gunshots. Over a million acres with no roads, no signs, no amenities, no nothing, except the largest concentration of grizzly bears in the lower 48, as well as abundant black bears and mountain lions. Grizzlies and the others love fryer grease and rank meat and are attracted by gunshots (looking to poach hunters’ deer and elk kills).

 
 

sounds good, drdick, but skip the running shorts, you bleeding heart libral.

 
 

justme: I laughed, literally out loud, at your necrotizing fascitis comment. Well done good sir.

Jennifer: well, those people can’t be cancer on the God they worship, or he would eliminate them. They could be considered cancers on human civilization though, since we lack a good way to deal with them.

 
 

I’m really fucking sick of the whole “she was a starving artist” side-issue here. Full disclosure, I am in the arts, so’s my family.

But as a recent undergrad in an economic downturn, it doesn’t matter that she was an artist. She could easily have been an engineering grad, a plumber or a business administration grad and STILL have been living on earnings from a bagel shop with no health insurance.

And, frankly, I’m also sick of the whole “she didn’t have the personal responsibility to buy health insurance” talking point. Because young people starting out on their own have a whole long list of things they have to have personal responsiblity for. Paying rent. Keeping a car running – to get to a job – paying car insurance. Paying off student loans.

When you’re young and you have to allocate your minimal earnings. It’s completely understandable that someone young and healthy would say, “Well, maybe not this year,” about health insurance – especially a shitty health insurance policy.

Poor people are ALWAYS making choices – is it canned soup today for the car insurance payment tomorrow? Is it a cheaper apartment in a dangerous part of town, versus a hundred dollars more to avoid your car being broken into? Is it throwing money away on nebulous “health insurance” or filling the gas tank?

These assholes also seem to think that young people, fresh out of school, single and with the rest of their lives ahead of themselves, should be completely risk averse, forgo all entertainment and pleasure, and hunker down at the age of 21 and prioritize payments for health insurance instead of – oh, I don’t know. Travel? Entrepreneurship? Strive to fullfill a dream? Do something creative?

With values like the ones this asshole pretends to espouse, no one in this country would ever start a small business, invent anything, write a novel, make a movie, or live a spiritual life.

 
 

sounds good, drdick, but skip the running shorts, you bleeding heart libral.

Has the additional sweet bonus that all of the bears and lions are socialists, being protected and maintained by our socialistical National Forest Service. Did I mention that the wilderness is in the middle of the northern Rockies and that night time temperatures this time of year are below freezing?

 
 

With values like the ones this asshole pretends to espouse, no one in this country would ever start a small business, invent anything, write a novel, make a movie, or live a spiritual life.

Well, at least those without access to mommy and daddys’ credit rating.

 
 

Please do not unecessarily demean and insult assholes by comparing them to this guy.

I agree. However many disagreements my asshole and I have had over the years, I’d never be so rash as to send it packing.

What?

 
 

If she had been president of the Young Republicans the NRO would be fore healthcare reform tomorrow, but since she was into social justice and faggoty things like that then it’s OK to piss on her grave.

If she were a Republican, they’d come up with some reason why her situation was different.

That’s the problem with modern conservatives. They establish rules for being a proper American/Christian/adult/whatever that few people can follow. When their own violate those rules, they have to rationalize to stave off cognitive dissonance. After enough years of that, the young Republican operative reaches a point at which s/he can rationalize anything, and another sociopath is made.

 
 


Did I mention that the wilderness is in the middle of the northern Rockies and that night time temperatures this time of year are below freezing?

I lived in MT for a few years – does get a tad nippy there at times. perfect for little lord sputumington.

I also like the necrotiaing fasciitis thing – maybe he could get that at the same time??

Another endangered species that might benefit – komodo dragons!! send him, all greased up, to Komodo Island!!

 
 

Apparently I’ve been infiltrated by the Khmer Rouge. Please send heavily armed U.S. advisors ASAP.

 
 

These people are not human and need to be processed into canned dog food as soon as is convenient for FEMA.

Soylent Wingnuts…worst dog food ever.

 
 

I think the Vietnamese army would be more helpful.

 
 

Julia Grey said,

September 27, 2009 at 18:58

“Blame the victim” is Republican SOP.

It is also typical that they are unable to see how revolting it is to follow that script in a situation like this.

I was just going to point out that this sounds a lot like the fRighty reaction to the early phases of the housing collapse: “It’s just a bunch of deadbeats who couldn’t pay their bills!” This was a remix of Welfare Queens in Cadillacs, which was Version 2.0 of “Them darkies/Micks/Poles/&c. is all lazy liars,” which just goes to show a fRiechtard couldn’t have an original idea if you slathered it in lube and shoved it up his ass, sideways.

And yeah, I have to second MzNicky’s finger wagging. Shame on you all.

You should be praying he comes down with a STD that can only be contracted by being butt fucked by a goat.

 
 

Kill yourself, Steven Spuriell.

 
 

And it would be interesting to see whether Spruill is living the life he expects others to live.He may be earning wingnut welfare, but I’d be dollars to doughnuts his employer isn’t paying his benefits. What’s he spending on health insurance? Or, if he has health insurance, is he maintaining proper stewardship of the asset entrusted to him? Diet, alcohol, smoking? Is he forgoing entertainment, so he can save for retirement? Is he driving responsibly, so he can avoid any costly repairs? What kind of car is he driving, is it a responsible choice? What about cable TV – is he wasting his money on that?

These fucking assholes keep calling social responsibility “The Nanny State” when others advocate behavior, but they sure as fuck don’t have a problem advocating things for other people.

 
 

Please send heavily armed U.S. advisors ASAP.

I am sorry, but the entire US military is currently engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and unavailable for any other duties.

 
 

This sorry MoFo should end up with the fucking flu. Let his ass suffer for two fucking weeks. No Doctor. Or better yet, go to the Doc then let his insurance cut him ff next time h gets sick because he had the fucking flu.
They can all kiss my big, fat, white ass.

 
 

The entire US military got engaged? Wow, congratulations I guess. One word of advice, don’t have the wedding in Afghanistan.

 
 

“Blame the victim” is Republican SOP.

With no real-life victim to pin it to, their blame would look even more deranged than it already does.

“Damn your loathsome spirit, Tooth Fairy! A wounded nation will avenge your naked treason! Arrrrrrrrr, matey, ARRRRRR!”

This might have to do with the parlous conceit of slopping a layer of superstition &/or mysticism (“That Ol’-Time Religion, OR ELSE”) over an actual social craft (what we now call “politics, as she is whored”).

It smothers progress like a motherfucker [INSERT OMINOUS ELLIPSIS HERE PLZ] & it’s been overwhelmingly successful as a means by which to prevent large empires from disintegrating since long before 1 A.D. – & they say history is dull!

 
 

She had the nerve to die and highlight the flaws inherent in the US health system. Steveington must now convince himself and his readers? that it was not flaws in the system, but flaws in the victim of the system.

That’s the key part there, as I read this slug’s shorter. It’s not so much that he is blaming people for not having money (although that is a handy Rightwing trope, useful for bolstering an empty argument with time-tested Conventionalities) but that the situation has to be immediately invalidated, using whatever means, in order to “win” the health care debate. As ever, it’s about “winning”, beating the libruls, at whatever cost.

Fuck, these people disgust me.

What, you weren’t paying attention when they were dancing on the grave of Rachel Corrie, or using Terri Schiavo and her family’s anguish as tiddlywinks for political gains? Or add your own favorite examples. The cobag who trashed a man’s efforts to raise money to pay for the gaps in his health care is admittedly an all time low, however.

 
 

Because young people starting out on their own have a whole long list of things they have to have personal responsiblity for.

I absolutely feel fucking sorry for young people nowadays. They’ve gotta be the first generation in a long time where old people like me said “You poor young bastards, I had things a lot easier in my day”.

 
 

Apparently I’ve been infiltrated by the Khmer Rouge. Please send heavily armed U.S. advisors ASAP.

All advisors fully occupied with Iraq and Afghanistan. Will send Blackwater ASAP.

 
 

Might I point out that as shitty as this policy is, her application could very well be rejected if she has a preexisting condition. This happened to me when I tried to buy my own insurance as a 28-year-old. Although I never thought of myself as unhealthy, I had a condition called keratoconus which carried the slight possibility I might someday require surgery to correct problems with my vision. As it stood, though, the only treatment required was that I wear glasses so I could see. No insurance for me! They rejected my application and suggested I check out some kind of government program for people with preexisting conditions. I was never able to find anything I could afford.

 
 

I absolutely feel fucking sorry for young people nowadays. They’ve gotta be the first generation in a long time where old people like me said “You poor young bastards, I had things a lot easier in my day”.

I’m stealing that line.

 
 

“You poor young bastards, I had things a lot easier in my day”.

*shakes fist*

“Come over here and stand on my lawn!”

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry.

Has anyone, much less a young person, seen a “stable” career lately? Let me know.

Young workers (15-24) are the most vulnerable in any job market. They are usually the last to be hired and the first to be laid off. They have access to fewer occupations and are usually the paid the lowest wages because they have the least experience and education of all workers.

 
 

I should have added, young workers ALWAYS have the highest unemployment rates no matter what the economy’s doing. ALWAYS. End of story.

 
 

And another thing: Since when is majoring in international studies with minors in two foreign languages considered the “starving artist” track? There are plenty of good-paying corporate jobs for which this would be good preparation. Just maybe not a lot that you can get right out of college without a lot of (quite expensive) résumé building.

 
 

1st Yorkshireman: Kids today just don’t know how rough they’ve got it. Back in my day we had it easy.
2nd Yorkshireman: Once every two weeks we had to get up around noon and drive the Cadillac down to the welfare office for our check.
1st Yorkshireman: Hard top?
2nd Yorkshireman: Yes.
1st Yorkshireman: You had it tough, we had a convertible!

 
 

Has anyone, much less a young person, seen a “stable” career lately? Let me know.

Apart from wingnut welfare and crony CEOhood, there ain’t much. I’m over 40 and have never assumed any job of mine will last more than a couple of years, because I’ve had so many employers fall apart from under me (but that’s the software biz).

 
 

Since when is majoring in international studies with minors in two foreign languages considered the “starving artist” track?

That is generally considered a fast track program for the Department of State as well as any number of think tanks and NGOs. I guess he thinks that actually knowing anything about them furrners and trying to negotiate peaceably with them, rather than just blowing the shit out of them, is just like being an artist.

 
 

(but that’s the software biz)

Ain’t it the fucking truth.

I’m doing OK now but I’m basically a permalancer– i.e. all the headaches and demands of a full-timer but none of the benefits.

 
 

What really pisses me off about the glibtards is their assumption that people with health insurance receive treatment. I can’t wait until one of these shitheads finds out he or she has a pre-existing condition. If Lady Luck is in an ironic mood, it’ll be brain cancer or heart disease.

 
 

“Come over here and stand on my lawn!”

And mind you, I came out of college during the first Bush recession, in 1991. And I still had it better than these poor slobs nowadays.

 
 

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

I am not a violent person.

That noxious load of excess human baggage up there at the top may have broken my mantra. It doesn’t seem to be working.

 
 

If noone tried to be an artist wouldn’t we be in a world free of art? I find this guy’s attitude sick… For a whole host of reasons.

 
 

They’ve gotta be the first generation in a long time where old people like me said “You poor young bastards, I had things a lot easier in my day”.

Win+

1st Yorkshireman: You had it tough, we had a convertible!

Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Diggin the scene
With a gangsta lean, wooh-ooh-ooh

 
 

With values like the ones this asshole pretends to espouse, no one in this country only the right people would ever start a small business, invent anything, write a novel, make a movie, or live a spiritual life.”

I think this would be more along the lines of what Spruiell is shooting for.

Keeping the lower born from doing these things is a feature, not a bug.

 
 

Here’s the thing, too – of all the occupations that they profess to admire, hardly any of them are a guarantee of either health insurance or big bucks, when you’re starting out.

How much health care coverage do fundamentalist church workers get? Or salary to pay for a private plan?

How about a “small business owner”?

It seems to me that what Stephen Sprueill is advising young people to do is get a job with a government agency, represented by a labor union.

 
 

Damnit- “no one in this country” should have been strike-throughed. You get the idea.

 
 

That noxious load of excess human baggage up there at the top may have broken my mantra. It doesn’t seem to be working.

These glibtard asshats would try the patience of a boddhisatva.

 
 

If noone tried to be an artist wouldn’t we be in a world free of art?

Depends. Noone was an artist, it’s the quality of his art that’s in question.

 
 

For those of you who think that <strike> is on strike, WordPress seems to require that you spell it out rather than just use an “s”. It’s a little slow.

Now you know.

Also, the obligatory response is FYWP.

 
 

FYWP.

Though it’ll show up in a couple of hours, making this look silly.

Strikethrough only works here if you spell out “strike”. Just using an “s” won’t do.

 
 

When a career as a welfare wingnut is stable, something’s wrong in the world.

 
 

When a career as a welfare wingnut is stable, something’s wrong in the world.

Certainly none of the welfare wingnuts are stable.

 
 

Is it wrong of me to wish that this poor girl had a nice, burly brother who would love to discuss that blog post inj person with this shit speck?

 
 

When a career as a welfare wingnut is stable, something’s wrong in the world.

There has always been a substantial and generally stable market for sycophant lackeys.

 
 

She was working two jobs, so his real attitude is more “Serves her right.” I wonder if she’d been a conservative activist if he’d feel any differently.

 
 

Is it wrong of me to wish that this poor girl had a nice, burly brother who would love to discuss that blog post inj person with this shit speck?

Not if he also happens to be a Marine or Special Forces combat veteran.

 
 

It’s really easier to reduce his position to this: “Get a better job, you stoopit loser!”

 
 

I have dwelt long enough on this pathetic bottom feeding invertebrate. Time to go amuse the local trout population.

 
 

Is it wrong of me to wish that this poor girl had a nice, burly brother who would love to discuss that blog post in person with this shit speck?

There is only one thing wrong with your idea. You left out the cheering section for the burly bro.

 
 

“If noone tried to be an artist wouldn’t we be in a world free of art?”

Well, Liberal Fascism would still have been published.

I leave the reader to decide the significance of that.

 
 

Balloon Juice has a great “define conservative/liberal” thread.

 
 

Not if he also happens to be a Marine or Special Forces combat veteran.

My thoughts exactly, though I then went, hmm, ex-Blackwater.

She was working two jobs, so his real attitude is more “Serves her right.”

How uniquely American of her.

/droll

 
Nights in Black Satin
 

Shorter Steve Spruiell:

We should All Always Pass By On the Other Side! Remember, that guy bleeding in the ditch might have AIDS or fleas or smell bad or something. The ditch is obviously where he belongs; otherwise he wouldn’t be there, Praise God.

 
 

Welcome to medical Calvinism: she got sick and had the bad manners to die, therefore she was of the damned. Spewell is of the elect, even if he gets sick.

 
Nights in Black Satin
 

Is it wrong of me to wish that this poor girl had a nice, burly brother who would love to discuss that blog post in person with this shit speck?

How about she has a SISTER who loves stiletto heels and stilettos? SHE’D show Little Stevie a REAL Good time.

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry. The rest of us are under no obligation to subsidize that choice.

Many young heartless conservative asswipes named Steve Spruiell cross the street. The rest of us are under no obligation to put on the brakes.

 
St. Trotsky, Pope-in-Avignon
 

Welcome to medical Calvinism: she got sick and had the bad manners to die, therefore she was of the damned. Spewell is of the elect, even if he gets sick.

And much like the basic faultline of regular Calvinism, there’s only so many seats in the lifeboat out of this filthy disgusting world, and not all the elect will get one. So they’ll suffer with us damned anyway.

If I were one to believe in Calvinism, I’m not sure what would be the worse punishment, for Spuirell to get a seat, or to remain here taking out his anger and frustrations on the rest of us.

 
 

So I clicked on Stephen Spruiell’s profile at America’s Shittiest Website™:

* Support John Bolton.
* Grow the ‘stache.

It’s that simple.

Holy FSM, but this dirtbag doth scrapeth the earth beneath a snake’s belly.
~

 
 

If your politics had been this beholden to corporate interests a hundred years or so ago, you would still have private fire-insurance companies rather than a universal fire service. Spruiell would be claiming that the cutting-edge nature of the high-price fire extinguishing technologies available in the US make up for the lower costs and lower fire-mortality rates in countries that do have a fire service as a branch of government, and that people who burn to death because they can’t afford the insurance have brought it upon themselves by failing to prioritise their expenses.
Nor would there would be any universal fire service in Obama’s proposal to address the problem, which would consist of making fire-insurance mandatory, but this would still be attacked as Socialism.

Another socialist: Robert Peel, with his idea of a “police force”, destroying the livelihoods of private-security companies.
People who can’t afford to pay their security insurance have only themselves to blame if they are burgled or mugged.

 
St. Trotsky, Pope-in-Avignon
 

Obviously, the real flaw of private health insurance is that when you get sick, there aren’t two gangs of insurance agents beating the shit out of each other outside your hospital room.

Nothing like the old days where you went to a burning building to see the impromptu fistfight..

 
 

Certainly the analogy would be better if the fire-insurance companies could refuse coverage if your house had a pre-existing condition like being made of wood, and if their immediate response to a fire was to send an agent along to look for reasons that might invalidate your policy.
But in this hypothetical situation, the companies have had a century or so to downplay the “extinguishing fires” aspect of their business while emphasising the “collecting premiums” aspect, and have an exemption from anti-cartel legislation so they need not worry about competition.

 
 

By using Kimi Young as an example of “starving-artistry” gone awry, Steve Spruiell neglected to observe that the majority of young people [53%] are starving artists due to unemployment:
[http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/the_dead_end_kids_AnwaWNOGqsXMuIlGONNX1K]

 
 

There are days when an old atheist wishes there were a God, because if there were, Spruiell could look forward to spending a few thousand years with Satan’s red-hot poker-shaped pump-handle so far up his butt that it would keep him from blinking. Then five minutes off for good behavior, and start again.

 
 

I’m pretty sure many of the most revered artists that ever lived have been stereotypical starving artists at some point. Wasn’t Van Gogh a poor, crazy, paint-eating, ear-cutter? I have no problem defending starving artists. And if a few of my tax dollars go to keeping them,um, alive I’m ok with that too.

 
 

May the last words Stephen Spurious ever hears, be the soft, sympathetic tones of his doctor saying
“i’m sorry, but you have ass-cancer, galloping dysentry, syphilis, the glaggies, and chronic brain calcification. And your insurance doesn’t cover it.”

 
 

private fire-insurance companies

Good news! They’re making a comeback.

 
 

What I was getting at with the fire-service analogy is that you’re already halfway to losing the argument if you accept the Insurance paradigm for a health system (instead of including it among the minimal requirements of a functioning state). It’s a borked paradigm. It lets nimrods frame the failures of the system in terms of “Why should I subsidise someone else’s coverage?”, and “Why should I pay premiums for diseases like testicle cancer that are never going to affect me?”

I can imagine Spruiell wondering why his money should go to pay lawyers to defend people in the criminal courts. Of course it’s tragic if some innocent dude receives a death sentence on a trumped-up charge because he couldn’t afford Legal Insurance, but Spruiell is under no obligation to subsidise other people’s life styles. And if the insurance premium is lower for him, and prohibitively high for other people because of pre-existing risk factors like skin colour, that’s a feature, not a bug.

 
 

Dude, you could get major abdominal surgery before hitting that 10K limit.

A friend of mine was hit by an RV, carted a hundred and eighty miles by ambulance, spent a week in intensive care, and barely hit the 10K mark in emergency medicine.

10K is more than most people spend on housing or food for a year.

And do you think that plan will really kick in when someone needs something long-term, like cancer treatment or rehabilitation?

Grr.

 
 

This could have been a shorter

In addition to what everyone else has already written about this fine, upstanding young exemplar of all that is good and decent in movement conservatism, I did click through (having, alas, no real shorter to trust, always) and noted how little effort Little Lord Laugh-at-Peons put into his nasty drive-by swipe at a dead woman. If he got paid even the $0.01 per word of a hack pulp writer in L. Ron Hubbard’s day, he was grotesquely overcompensated. (We can morally object to giving him the meat-grinder treatment by noting how including material such as NRO posters would contaminate the resultant Soylent Green.)

As for MzNicky’s cheap moralizing mild objections to our fevered wishes concerning this toady, let’s move it into the karmaically-neutral column by having him contract (slow, painful, expensive, incurable, wasting) disease instead of someone decent.

I was going to speculate that jealousy motivated his attack, given that the young woman had already accomplished more academically than he can ever possibly hope to dream about doing in his most absurd fantasies, but then I recalled this would require an iota of self-awareness in someone who posts at NRO…

 
Tendenious macerator
 

I can only hope this fucker prolapses.

 
 

Can I wish explosive gout on him without cursing myself?

 
 

There are days when an old atheist wishes there were a God, because if there were, Spruiell could look forward to spending a few thousand years with Satan’s red-hot poker-shaped pump-handle so far up his butt that it would keep him from blinking. Then five minutes off for good behavior, and start again.

You forget Spurious is a true-blue RealAmerican(R) neo-con. Therefore your punishment is a neo-con’s idea of artificially flavoured vanilla sex. If he gets to moralize about the evils of non-missionary, non-baby-making sex during his five minute break your punishment is a good description of neo-con heaven.

 
 

explosive gout
Uric acid crystals only become explosive if you consume large amounts of diesel fuel.
I looked it up.

 
 

I’m also wondering whether Stephen Spruiell thinks it’s a good idea that someone who’s working at a coffee shop and a bagel joint should go to work and serve customers while incubating the flu.

How does he like his cough-cough-cough-ee?

 
 

Uric acid crystals only become explosive if you consume large amounts of diesel fuel.

Fine. I’ll switch back to regular unleaded.

 
 

Y’all forgot one important detail of the $55 plan that our Canuckistani or other socialist brethren may not grok – it’s a PPO, a Preferred Provider Organization
But if you have a good plan, your docs are on the PPO list. I have one doc that isn’t and I still get a decent out of provider network benefit. I am lucky enough to work for the Feds and have alot of choice and none of those plans are allowed to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Everyone should have the same.

 
 

although I would never wish anyone to get bone cancer. My mom had undetected breast cancer that matistezed (I know that isn’t spelled correctly but am too lazy to look up) and is was horrible. Erectile dysfunction and not being able to take the usual suspect drugs is more satisfying to me.

 
 

Where did you find Spruiell’s profile on ASW?

Here’s his bio

Spruiell received his BA in journalism from the University of Oklahoma in 2002.[citation needed]

Spruiell was a Koch Summer Fellow, Class of 2002, at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.[citation needed]

Spruiell received his masters in public affairs from the LBJ School at the University of Texas, Austin in 2005.[citation needed]

Spruiell has worked as a researcher at Citizens for a Sound Economy, a Washington, D.C. grassroots advocacy group that now goes by the name FreedomWorks.[citation needed]

So he works for Dick Armey. There’s an objective observer to healthcare reform – speaks to his credibility.

Guy’s had one job in his life – wingnut welfare. The guy literally doesn’t exist anywhere but America’s Shittiest Website. What kind of “research” d’you suppose he does?

And I bet he’s fond of going on about people having “productive” jobs.

 
 

Actual Christianity:
“When, Lord? When did we see you sick, or hungry or in prison and did not help you?

I tell you solemnly, whatsoever you do for these the least of my people, that you do unto me.”

Wingnut Christianity:
“The rest of us are under no obligation to subsidize that choice.”

Of course, there’s a chance this guy’s one of the atheist libertarian types you meet on the Internet, people for whom FYIGM is at least an internally consistent position, but that wouldn’t explain how they get away with this shit among their allegedly “Christian” voting base.

 
 

this may be a dup my apologies if it is.
Now this is real hardship

 
 

Uric acid crystals only become explosive if you consume large amounts of diesel fuel.

Good thing I am not fond of petrochemical beverages.

 
 

I certainly hope that this turd-burglar does not have any CDs, books, or paintings at his house, because I would have to go there and remove them, by force if necessary. Rip the radio out of his car, the TV out of his livingroom. No movies for him, either. Let him cuddle up with a warm copy of Liberal Fascism if he gets lonely. He does not deserve the fruit of an artist’s labor.

 
 

Erectile dysfunction and not being able to take the usual suspect drugs is more satisfying to me.

Necrotizing erectile dysfunction. With a side dish of the explosive gout.

 
 

Shorter Spruiell:
22 year old woman without health insurance dies of flu. That is a feature not a bug.

 
 

So, if liberals seem really annoyed by contards’ attitude toward Kimi Young, maybe they’ll start calling her “Saint Wheezy” the way they called Rachel Corrie “Saint Pancake.”

 
 

Hey, Dr Dick, imma let ya finish with that idea of covering this feller with fat and grease and cutting him lose in the bear-infested wilderness after drawing some of them critters by firin’ off gunshots and all, but I think it would be much better if you transported him from his present abode to the bear-infested wilderness in the back of a cement mixer filled with bowling balls. Ya’ll can throw the grease in then, if ya wanna.

 
 

My two-word wish for Spruill: anal fistula

 
 

maybe they’ll start calling her “Saint Wheezy” the way they called Rachel Corrie “Saint Pancake.”

Compassionate Conservatism.

 
 

Compassionate Conservatism.

Just so, and it’s every bit as classy as it is compassionate.

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers
shovelling POOP.

 
 

Come to think of it, I begin to suspect that the capable young Spruiell forwent his stable career after complaints from the dancing donkey.

 
 

Cathy Seipp. Look into her problems with her insurer when she contracted cancer and how said problems were resolved. She wrote for ASW. They don’t actually live by the rules they insist the rest of us live by.

 
 

Conservative men are so freaking ignorant. They truly believe leprechauns shit gold at everyone’s homes because they are so busy mooching off of each other for paying jobs. Obtuse, ignorant, useless, leeching bastards is what they are. Disgusting does not even begin to describe them.

Me personally I’m sick of the whole conservative man making excuses as to why Americans have to keep dying for their fucked up egos.

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry and none of the female ones will let me touch them.

Fecksed.

 
 

No doubt Spruill was inspired by the Parable of the Republican Samaritan.

FWIW, we had to find an individual insurance policy for our daughter after she was booted off her converted individual policy ($453 per month) at the advanced age of 25. She got a decent policy (about $375 a month) that would cover everything EXCEPT her existing asthma treatment (about $200 a month in meds.) And of course we had to pay for the policy since there was no way, as a barely paid intern, that she could afford it. Last year she finally snagged a position that provides medical benefits.

Now we’re going to start down the same, expensive path with our son. Some Republican, any Republican, please explain to me how I will benefit from having my tax dollars subsidize insurance companies rather than simply paying for healthcare for everyone, including my kids?

According to Spruill, my kids deserve to receive medical care because they took seriously their responsibility to choose to be born to parents with jobs that provided good benefits and salaries that they were lucky enough to keep–so far. But what is up with those kids who choose poor, less successful parents? Why do they do that? God should really explain it to them before they choose. If they knew the facts, they might choose Canadian or French parents. They should have that option.

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry. The rest of us are under no obligation to subsidize that choice.

It looks like Spunky doesn’t consider the profession of “Writer” as one of the ‘Arts’.

How did this year’s NRO fund-raiser go, Spunky?

 
 

It looks like Spunky doesn’t consider the profession of “Writer” as one of the ‘Arts’.

In his case, that is an entirely accurate assessment.

 
 

Looch –

Grizzlies tend to like their food a bit less tenderized than that, but otherwise a good idea.

 
 

Spruill’s been in college 7 of his last 11 years. The other 4 years he has worked for Freedomworks. He studied journalism at Oklahoma and Political science at Texas. Who paid for his health insurance while he was in school? and I don’t think journalism majors form OU have any room to complain about language majors choosing “the starving artist path” This guys never had a real job, and since the the only job he’s ever had is working for Dick Armey, I’d bet there’s some family connection there. damn, I hope he doesn’t go Galt on us. We’d never survive without his awesome productivity

 
 

I hope he doesn’t go Galt on us

No worries of that. None of the Randian retards will ever go Galt because they no in their hearts that no one would even miss them.

 
 

So if Spruiell lost his current health insurance, would he think it just that his four-month-old son suffered from lack of health care for being so irresponsible as to choose a temporarily unemployable father? Eric Cantor would tell him to try to jump through the Schip hoops, maybe by divorcing the wife whose income puts them just a little bit too high in income to qualify. Or he can always try to persuade gas station owners to let him put his donation can on the counter. Not so effective since everyone pays at the pump these days.

http://twitter.com/shspruiell

 
 

Geez, this far into it and no one has wished this guy would catch ebola? I do. I wish he would catch an unpleasant combination of ebola, polio, and leprosy. With a side order of Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic fever. I want him to get a condition so nasty and horrifying that the only medical care anyone could give to him would be to be poked with twenty foot long sticks wielded by the most fearless of terminally ill convicts wearing full isolation suits in exchange for a fast tracked death sentence for science and mercy’s sake..

 
 

Hypothetically speaking of course. What I really want is for that moral imbecile to realize how shallow and cruel he is and spend the rest of his go damned life trying to make up for his misdeeds. Maybe by getting a doctorate in oncology and curing cancer, maybe by being an orderly, or maybe just by joining the right side on this issue and working 24 7 for a real, viable public option in the mold of France for example. I admit the callous cruelty gets under my skin.

 
 

i don’t even have anything funny to say. what a vile human being. i keep trying to blog about health care reform but it makes me so angry that i keep having to walk away from the computer. writing about bicycles is much easier. rest in peace, kimi young, and may your loved ones find ways to heal.

 
 

Some Republican, any Republican, please explain to me how I will benefit from having my tax dollars subsidize insurance companies rather than simply paying for healthcare for everyone, including my kids?

Well, and this is a good point. Right now people are basically paying not only tax dollars, but also premiums to insurance companies for absolutely nothing. Because when they need whatever the fuck it is that they are paying for, they get denied.

So why the fuck not have every single legal resident and citizen pay the exact same OR LESS than they are paying now, to cover everyone?

 
 

Many capable young people forgo stable careers in order to try their hands at starving-artistry because our economy is in the shitter.

Flexed, to include the reality our original author wouldn’t recognize if it bit his pasty ass clean off.

I was graduated into the 1991 economy. After months of searching for an engineering position, temp work got me a union-represented job, with health care, at a non-profit hospital. It had nothing to do with my engineering degree, but it paid the bills, and kept me insured, until I got one of the 22 million jobs created during Clinton’s presidency. I’d like our wingnut-welfare recruit into The Dick Armey to explain how this represented a triumph of the free market in employing us producers of wealth, but then his tiny little head would explode, and we really cannot afford several shifts of a qualified HazMat team to clean up the results.

 
 

Cowalker wrote:

If they knew the facts, they might choose Canadian or French parents. They should have that option.

Snark aside, we’re so damn screwed that it’s defies belief why people are choosing to have kids at all. We’ve got at least two generations now who will do worse than their parents did. Having kids–knowing that they’re going to fare even worse than we have–is a profoundly selfish act.

(Proudly childfree)

 
 

OK, so having Satan up your butt for thousands of years may not be what young Spruill would consider punishment. On his behalf I submitted testimony to the Dante’s Inferno Test site (see below) and this is where he will end up:

Fourth Level of Hell

Just before the river Styx is the Fourth Level of Hell. Here, the prodigal and the avaricious suffer their punishment, as they roll weights back and forth against one another. You will share eternal damnation with others who either wasted and lived greedily and insatiably, or who stockpiled their fortunes, hoarding everything and sharing nothing. Plutus, the wolf-like demon of wealth, dwells here.

Sounds too good for him, if you ask me.

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

 
 

My two-word wish for description of Spruill: anal fistula

fixxored

 
 

The government facilitates, the courts support the insurance industry, because it is the perfect model for capitalism. One can start a company with administration costs only, offer a product that is designed not to perform, and obligate the suckers with a signed contract.

An insurance company is said to be successful when it takes all the money that it was extracted from the suckers to invest in other things and makes a profit on those investments. An insurance company’s success is not measured by the quality of its service, but by how smart it is at having suckers hand over their money voluntarily.

OPM is the creed of an entire generation, and suckers are a renewable resource for harvesting. If the lord did not intend suckers to be a commodity, why does it make so many of them?

 
 

That Oklahoma survey that was exercising people last week — the one showing remarkable ignorance among Oklahoma highschool students — appears to have been fraudulent.

 
 

No worries of that. None of the Randian retards will ever go Galt because they no in their hearts that no one would even miss them.

I have a friend who works for the government (I know, the irony, right?) who has been threatening to go Galt for over a year and a half.

 
 

My new t-shirt idea….
“Where is John Galt?

and why aren’t you with him?”

 
 

None of the Randian retards will ever go Galt because they no in their hearts that no one would even miss them.

Nah, they just don’t want to clean their own toilets.

 
 

So why the fuck not have every single legal resident and citizen pay the exact same OR LESS than they are paying now, to cover everyone?

Because, over the years the conservative plaint (taint?) has morphed from “I shouldn’t have to support people who don’t work” to “if those people expected to have a decent living, they should have gone to college and become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer,” while still including “I shouldn’t have to support people who don’t work.” These morons still haven’t figured out that not everyone can be a doctor or lawyer or engineer for a variety of reasons, among them being that if everyone was a doctor or lawyer or engineer, either the entire economy would grind to a halt or we’d have a lot of over-educated secretaries, bank tellers, fast food cooks, waiters, etc etc etc. They’ve internalized the idea that rich people are rich because they’re more worthy, not because of the real reason that most people who are rich are rich – having the good fortune to be born either to parents who were rich, or at least to parents who were comfortably middle-class and understood the value of education and were able to help their kids go to college – leaving out entirely the fact that the majority of people aren’t born with the brainpower to succeed in those higher-paying professions.

I got into it with a wingnut realtor several months ago who was ranting about the automaker bailouts and going on about how they get paid “$75 per hour” – not only was he wrong about that, but the dumb bastard just couldn’t seem to grasp that insisting that autoworkers work for the same slave wages that people in a box factory in Arkansas earn ($8 per hour) simply translates into that many more tens of thousands who will never be able to afford to buy a home. The fellow realtor who was with him was the one who brought up how unfair it was for the autoworkers to be paid a living wage when she had worked in one of those box factories for $8 an hour. I asked her, if the autoworkers were only getting $10 an hour, would that mean workers at the box factory would make more? Of course not. Instead you’ll just have a lot more people who can’t afford to live. How does that help you in the business you’re in now? I just finally said, when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, no one seemed to get butthurt over the idea that a guy working full-time made enough money to support a family. When did folks like you decide that we’d all be better off if both parents working full-time still couldn’t earn enough to support a family? How does it help anyone if we have a large class of people who can’t buy anything? Do we really want to live in India with huge shantytown slums? How many houses do you think you’d be able to sell if we did?

Of course, they couldn’t answer that, but just stuck doggedly to the idea that we need to make sure that people are treated as serfs if they aren’t of the “right sort” who were born into better circumstances – even if it means they end up living like serfs as well. The wingnut mind, or what passes for it, defies all understanding.

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Spruiell should count his lucky stars that he’s a wingnut whore fine, upstanding, job-holding citizen–he’s doing much better than most of the rest of us in his age group.

My husband has been laid off TWICE since he entered the worforce 8 years ago, and was lucky enough to the job he’s working now before the business he worked for folded. Now he’s looking at losing his job again. We’re in a much better position now and will get through it, but we are DAMN lucky.

We struggled hard enough 7 or 8 years ago–I can’t imagine being 21-22 now. This girl could have easily been my brother or his girlfriend , or hell, any of my friends who are in their late twenties.

*imagining kicking this fucker in the balls, repeatedly*

 
 

*imagining kicking this fucker in the balls, repeatedly*

Have you considered buying used – preferably rusty – garden shears?

 
TruculentandUnreliable
 

Have you considered buying used – preferably rusty – garden shears?

Yeah, but there’s something more satisfying about ball-kicking. Not sure what it is. Plus, it can be done without laying eyes on Little (and I do mean LITTLE) Spruiell.

Good God, Dan Riehl is a shitstain.

 
 

Jeebus Christ!!

I wish you hadn’t posted that link to Reihl. I was already depressed enough about humanity with Spruiell, but Reihl tops him in the have-you-no-decency department.

All I’m doing is looking at any and all possibilities.

Right. While slandering a murder victim.

Oh, and he speculates that Sparkman was a pedophile because he was a Boy Scout director. This from a member of the crowd that, heretofore, has defended the honor of that wonderful organization for its policy of excluding gays.

He gets points in both categories, Intellectual Inconsistency and Vile Inhuman Assholery.

 
 

OT, a Dash T-shirt

 
 

OT, a Dash T-shirt

Was there a baby shirt? I was distracted by C3P-Ho.

 
 

Baby shirt’s brown.

I have found that if you put several ounces of blue food coloring in the formula, you can get it to come out a great shade of, well, mauve.

 
 

Hey, has anyone read the Obituary for William Safire in the New York Times?

Look carefully at this paragraph:

And there were Safire “rules for writers”: Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. Avoid clichés like the plague. And don’t overuse exclamation marks!!

I think someone’s having us on.

(thanks, watertiger)

 
 

So that Aetna plan did indeed include a $30 co-pay for office visits, but a $10,000 deductible (which likely wouldn’t have been satisfied for the flu) AND beyond that, $30 out of each hundred?

Serviceable, yes, if you make anything more than, say, $100K, I suppose. Not all of us are that fortunate as to make that straight out of college.

 
 

Also from the Safire obit.

Years later, Mr. Safire called Hillary Clinton a “congenital liar” in print. Mrs. Clinton said she was offended only for her mother’s sake. But a White House aide said that Bill Clinton, “if he were not the president, would have delivered a more forceful response on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”

Mr. Safire was delighted, especially with the proper use of the conditional.

 
 

HA HA NYT obituary writer doesn’t know the difference between the conditional mood and the subjunctive.
What better send-off for Safire could there be?

 
Big Bad Bald Bastard
 

What better send-off for Safire could there be?

I am so happy that Safire witnessed the degeneration of the political movement he championed into a morass of illiteracy and dumbassitude.

As far as Spruiell’s concerned, I hope he has a run-in with a candiru.

 
 

Baby shirt’s brown.
How to Speak New Zealandic. Lesson #16 — Karitane Yellow.

 
 

“People who don’t have jobs deserve to die”

This is a grossly unfair oversimplification of what Sprueill is actually saying. Which is in fact:

“People who don’t have jobs that I approve of deserve to die.”

You do yourself a great disservice when you cheapen the dialogue this way.

 
 

Keep fucking that chicken, rightwingers.

I’m sure there’s a bottom somewhere.

 
 

I sometimes wonder if it’s wrong that I want to hold the entitled, smug sons of bitches of America’s elite down while I vigorously scrub my freshly-beshatted ass across their fucking smug little faces.

Then I read something as jaw-droppingly repulsive as this, and I think no, there’s not a thing wrong with me.

 
 

You need to prep the surface with a wire grill-scrubbing brush first.

As for Safire– I don’t think highly of him at all, but the man who could write this speech might, to paraphrase Mencken, be worth the oil it’ll take to fry him in hell.

 
 

but the man who could write this speech
Ripping off lines from Rupert Brooks does not make Safire a master of language.

 
 

Also I would like to complain that S,N! has spoiled my appreciation of my seecond-favourite Titian paining, since I can no longer think of it without mentally photoshopping in Mr Spruiell’s inbred Hapsburg features.

 
 

Re Safire: the man may have “loved” language, but he managed to suck the life out of it week after week, year after year, in the NYTimes Magazine, to the point where the mere sight of his name on the page was pretty much a guarantee of soul- and brain-destroying boredom. On the rare occasions when I actually read the column because of (a) interest in the topic and/or (b) a self-destructive impulse, he was almost always wrong about at least one point — the source, the etymology, even the commonest use of whatever unfortunate phrase he was pontificating about. How the hell he ever got his rep as a language maven, I have no frickin’ idea … and since the high point of the rest of his career was coming up with ways for Zero T. Achoo to sneer at people with educations, I feel no compunction whatsoever in saying, Good riddance, and I just wish he’d taken Norman Podhoretz with him.

 
 

You’re bitching about somebody pursuing a career in the arts? You’re a fucking journalist, asshole! You’re worse than utterly worthless! You are death, the destroyer of value!

And what makes you think your health insurance is a magic shield against the uninsured peoples’ untreated infectious diseases? How could anyone who understands the germ theory of disease not care whether the people serving them in restaurants have adequate access to health care? Bitch, nobody’s insured unless everyone’s insured!

 
 

The wingnut mind, or what passes for it, defies all understanding.

@Jennifer:

To understand this mentality, you need to realize that poor folks are white trash and darkies don’t even deserve to be poor folks. I suggest for your own mental health you end any and all attempts to economically rationalize the stable middle class of America when in the presence of wingnuts, because stability, economic good sense, rationality, and fairness are all anathema to them. It’s about keeping Orwell’s boot stamping into their faces forever because they’re inferior. Appealing to their reason or humanity is insufficient because you’re calling upon qualities these people do not possess.

 
 

“Appealing to their reason or humanity is insufficient because you’re calling upon qualities these people do not possess.”

Or as Robert Heinlein put it, “Never appeal to a man’s better nature. he may not have one. Appeal instead to his self-interest.”

But apparently even an appeal to self-interest is not enough to lure them away from that wonderful boot in the face.

What is it like, I wonder, to believe that your best hope of happiness lies in making others more miserable than you are?

 
 

But apparently even an appeal to self-interest is not enough to lure them away from that wonderful boot in the face

Doctor, you have just exposed the central point of my reasoning, which is: conservatives are fucking evil.

I am an optimist believe it or not. I am famously forgiving as people who know me in person will tell you. But wingnut conservatives have been fucking with my worldview by rejecting all avenues for rapprochement. You want to think they can have reason. You want to to think they have empathy. You want to think they have self-interest or even self-preservation.

And you end up realizing that we may have to take off and nuke the site from orbit because there’s no other way to be sure. “Alien” analogies aside, I no longer believe that constructive conversations with republicans are possible. Their worldview is that people not getting ahead should lie down and fucking die. And the people who are being adjured to lie down are . . . not taking it lying down.

The Conservatives have dehumanized anyone who’s “not them” and in the process are begging the rest of us to dehumanize them. It’s a game that nobody can win. But i’m sure Lee Atwater is laughing hysterically from Hell, in between blasts of liquid fire up his anus.

 
 

Conservative health care: well you should have shot of that before you got sick!

 
 

I remember the time the National Lampoon went after Safire, running a parody of his NYT column, and making the idiom of the day “butt-boy” as in the phrase, “You were Spiro Agnew’s butt-boy.” Question raised of whether it meant he was the one who fetched the immemorial Spiro’s cigs or whether it meant something a little more dark.
As for the wing-nut in question: if we can’t wish him ebola, let’s wish him regret. And let’s live long enough to see him repent for his smug idiocy when he watches society get so much worse, and knows he had a part of making things worse by chortling over an innocent woman’s death. And then we’ll have the option of forgiving him for his delusions. Or not.

 
 

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