You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (844)

PLAYS: (3724)

...government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

This was too much even for him. He had on a Dr. Leigh Vinocur, who seems to be there to argue for Palin's point of view but ends up saying that what the Zombie Plumber Queen is saying is nuts.

Cavuto: Dr. Leigh Vinocur says she's not that far off. Ahhh, doctor, that's a little extreme, don't you think?

Vinocur: Yes, I do think it's a little extreme and it's because right now Obama is looking at end of life care, and I think the majority of out healthy care costs are in our last twelve years of life so it makes sense....

Cavuto: To call this a death panel and evil, that's that's a little much, don't you think?

Vinocur: Well I do, but I think her point is that she doesn't want administrators making the call...so I've dealt with those issues and doctors tell you, look, these are the options. You have to change peoples expectations in America. What do you say to somebody..

Cavuto: We have that going on in our health system now. We have rationed care in our health system now and I know the fears are that it would be on steroids a national type program and maybe those fears are legitimate, but to then start saying things like "death panel" and "evil" destructs the debate, does it not?

...

Cavuto: She's going further than that. She's mentioning her Down Syndrome baby and more or less implying that in such a system that we're envisioning that baby is tough out of luck.

We already have administrators making the call. They are called the freaking health insurance companies... Cavuto will never support the public option or most of what progressives want in the health care bill, but even he can't handle the Beckerwocky that the teabaggers are speaking.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 123

PLAYS: 78

(Bocky & The Visions - Sounding a bit like James Brown on Steroids)

In anticipation of Hump Day, I thought I would add this somewhat frantic entry by Cleveland's own Bocky & The Visions. Released in 1964, I Go Crazy was the James Brown track, only this version pre-dates crack by about 30 years. It is so turbo-charged and over-the-top that, as a 14 year old, it answered just about every one of my hormone imbalances.

Sadly, it didn't chart all that well (it was the year The Beatles and the entire British Invasion dominated the charts) and the few other singles they issued didn't fare much better. But if they released nothing else, this track alone would gain them a toehold on immortality.

This track might go well with the first cup of coffee . . . just sayin' . .

(graphic via ESPN)
For all you baseball fans. You probably know that Manny Ramirez was suspended for fifty games because he got caught taking a "banned substance." Sports reporting is very similar to political reporting. They have their own Village, their own Beltway mentality and their own wankers. And people like Peter Gammons (who at times is a very good reporter and is beloved by his Village elders) fill the David Broder role for them quite well. The medication Manny is believed to have taken is called HCG:

One report on the wire suggests that Ramirez took a drug called HCG, used to stimulate female fertility as well as testosterone production in men, and to treat delayed puberty in boys.

As the NY Times writes:

H.C.G., which has been banned since 2008, is similar to the drug Clomid, which has a history of being used in conjunction with steroids. According to medical experts, doctors prescribe H.C.G. to men who are having fertility problems or who have low levels of testosterone, both of which can be side effects of steroid use.

Jose Canseco was busted for illegally bringing HCG into the country:

HCG most recently made news when former major leaguer and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco was caught attempting to smuggle it into the U.S. from Mexico.

The Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement stated that Canseco admitted to bringing it across the border because “he is currently on a hormone therapy plan because his testosterone levels are extremely low due to his past steroid use.” HCG and LH were added to the banned drug list by MLB a year ago. They have been banned for male athletes by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 1987.

So while Manny says he needed it for medical reasons, there isn't much doubt why he needed it, is there?

Back to Gammons. He's a big-time ESPN hall of fame pundit and Boston apologist. This is what he had to say about Manny and the drug use from ESPN2 that I transcribed:

Gammons: He had a medical issue, went to a doctor in Miami, he got a prescription, the doctor told him it was perfectly alright, it would not violate drug policy, it turns out it does, and the drug did violate baseball's drug policy which is very strict and, ummm this is not, to my understanding it's not steroids, it's not a performance enhancing drug, but guys have been suspended before for drugs that were not on the list. I mean we had J.C. Romero got suspended for sixty days for something he bought at a normal store so, ummm, it's unfortunately doctor's and players don't always know what is banned and what isn't banned. I am told that he is absolutely devastated by it and I can tell you something else.

I, there was a rumor floating around about an hour and a half ago, I contacted one of the people in the Red Sox front office and he said he did not believe it for a second. So, it's not like there was a history there from a team that he doesn't have exactly good relations with. That team didn't believe for a second that he cheated.

Gammons sucks up the propaganda from the Red Sox organization like a man stranded in a desert without any water. Can you think of one reason why the Red Sox would deny that he was a juicer? Oh, wait, maybe it would tarnish their two World Series wins. You know, how that ended the curse of Babe Ruth. And the "medication" that Manny took was called HCG which steroid users use when they come off a steroid cycle to help them produce testosterone again.

Hey Peter. It wasn't a steroid, but it's for steroid users...What a wanker that Gammons is. Now back to politics.

February 10, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann