Should you change the name of that school? Here's a simple test.

Towards the end of another Debra J. Saunders fiasco, this one about renaming stuff that's named for Confederates (like, who knew there were three elementary schools in California named for Robert E. Lee?), there's this little anecdote:

"The bill," BTW, is SB 539, which bans naming state or local property after "an elected leader or senior military officer of the Confederate States of America," but exempts the "renaming of a city, county, or other political jurisdiction" with a Confederate name, so Fort Bragg gets to stay Fort Bragg if it so wishes.

(Fort Bragg, as you may not realize, was named after Braxton Bragg, a guy who was a Confederate general, but was apparently named after him before he became a Confederate so it's OK? I guess?)

Before we move on, let's just pause and admire Deb's phrase "Confederate name jihad," because only Debra J. Saunders would call a move to stop honoring traitors a "jihad."  Christ.

Anyway, we've been getting this a lot.  "But where do you draw the line?  George Washington owned slaves!  Maybe we should remove his name from everything too!"  GOP Assemblyman James Gallagher makes the same argument above, vis-a-vis Earl Warren.  Andrew Jackson was a total shitbird, but Jackson Street in SF is still Jackson Street.

So let me suggest a simple test we could use to determine whether or not to remove someone's name: DID THEY ENGAGE IN WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES?

Voila!  The scales have fallen from my eyes.  Now this shit is easy.  Robert E. Lee is out and FDR gets to stay.  We don't have Emperor Hirohito High School, so why one named after Nathan Bedford Forrest?  (That was thankfully changed in 2014.)  So that's the rule.  Sorry, Taliban Technical High School.  That has a ring to it, but it's a non-starter.

Towns are harder because they're not a discrete entity like a school.  Thousands of people don't put their elementary school as their return address every time they mail a letter and the rest of the country doesn't commonly refer to a middle school when trying to find a place to stay that's close to Mendocino but cheaper.  So I get the exception for that.  (Although changing the name of a town has been done before.  Even as we speak, I'm in beautiful downtown Yerba Buena.  More recently, Hot Springs, New Mexico changed itself to Truth or Consequences, NM, to win a fucking radio contest. America!)

ONE FINAL NOTE.  This is not to say that you have to change the name ONLY if someone waged war against the US.  After all, the Richard M. Nixon Freeway quietly became the slightly less interesting "Marina Freeway." There's always going to be exceptions.

16-year-olds and Debra J. Saunders: People who should not be allowed to vote

Letting 16-year-olds vote is a dumb idea.  Reading a Debra J. Saunders column isn't only a dumb idea, it can actually be physically painful.

With the exquisite rarity of a solar eclipse, Debra and I occasionally agree.  We both agree, for example, that 16-year-olds should probably not be voting.  The only thing dumber than a 16-year-old is a 17-year-old.  You don't magically become smart at 18 but you can legally have sex and smoke and anyone who can smoke and have sex at the same time is cool enough to vote in my book.

I'm getting sidetracked.  OK, so let's get to the part where Debra Saunders is even stupider than a 16-year-old:

Failes-Carpenter added: “San Francisco has been losing young people, has been losing families,” She wants teens to be “involved in crafting solutions.” The resolution notes that there were 8,000 fewer school-age children in San Francisco in 2013 than in 2000. She sent me a link to a Politico piece, “Why the voting age should be 17,” by Peter Levine of Tufts University’s College of Citizenship and Public Service. (Note: He didn’t say 16.) One sentence jumped out at me: “If the government affects you, you get to vote.”

Hmmmm, methinks, I work in Francisco. I pay taxes in San Francisco — as well as the pesky 10-cent bag fee. I drive in San Francisco. I use city services — and would like to see more public sanitation. If I am charged with a crime, I will be charged as an adult. But just because I live in the East Bay, I cannot vote in San Francisco. If it is fair for teens to vote because city government affects them, why isn’t it fair for me to vote too?

Right on, Debra!  I went to Redding once, so why don't I get to vote there?  In fact, under Debra's chuckleheaded logic, you should get to vote in literally every city you've ever visited.  Holy shit, New York just got 700 million new voters.  And I am going to have to clear my calendar to study the ballots for every one of the 300 or however many cities I've been to.

Or maybe Deb just means she should be able to vote in places she goes every day?  Or what about once a week?  What if I don't drive or pay that 10-cent bag fee?  No voting?  This is going to get confusing.

(Also, that bag fee is Debra's personal bête noire.  She mentions it ALL. THE FUCKING. TIME.  I have got a HOT TIP for you, Deb: YOU CAN USE YOUR OWN BAG ANY TIME YOU WANT.  Magic!  No bag fee.  Maybe Debra believes you aren't allowed to use your own bag?  In fact, nobody tell her and we'll put a measure on the ballot to fix it AND SHE WON'T BE ABLE TO VOTE FOR IT HAHAHAHAHAH)

You get my point.  You get to vote where you live.  That's just the system.  Age is a completely separate issue.

In closing, neither 16-year-olds nor Debra J. Saunders should be allowed to vote.

Debra J. Saunders, not content to merely rest on her laurels, pens column so brain-numbingly stupid it's below even her ultra-low standards

Why do I do this to myself.  Why do I click on a Debra J. Saunders column knowing - KNOWING - that the stupid will come tumbling out like a ruptured dog shit bag.  Why.  Why.

Let's start, as we must, with a Debra J. Saunders patented NO RELATION TO THE TRUTH OR ANYTHING ACCURATE HEADLINE:

Obamacare czar: don’t get annual physical

The problem with this inanity, of course, is that there is no "Obamacare czar" and even if there was, it would not be Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, who doesn't even work for the federal government.  At one point in time, he was a health care adviser to the president, but that doesn't make him an "Obamacare czar" any more than once flying coach on United makes Debra J. Saunders a fighter pilot.

Here's how this vapid piece of semi-literate garbage begins:

This opinion piece kills me. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, brother of Rahm, is a former senior health care adviser to President Obama. Now he writes a piece in The New York Times telling people to skip their annual physical. It says, “Most think of it as the human equivalent of a 15,000-mile checkup and fluid change, which can uncover hidden problems and ensure longer engine life.”

“There is only one problem: From a health perspective, the annual physical exam is basically worthless.”

Debra's belief that an op-ed can kill her is roughly consistent with her level of intellect and understanding of Emanuel's column.  Anyway, if you read the actual column, it's based on a study of 182,000 people over 9 years that found that annual checkups "are unlikely to be beneficial."

Big fucking deal.  So don't get an annual physical if you feel fine, right?  NOPE.  In the fevered imagination of Debra J. Saunders, this the #Benghazi of health care.

Remember the 2008 sales pitch about how universal health care would mean regular doctor visits that would keep people healthier and hence out of the pricey emergency room? That’s how Obamacare would cover more people without driving up costs — that was the con-job argument anyway. In that spirit, the Affordable Care Act considers the annual physical to be an “essential benefit” for which there is no co-payment.

Oh God, Debra J. Saunders.  I hope this is an act because if you're actually this stupid I fear for your safety when handling scissors or alighting upon a curb.  If there is something wrong with you, it is demonstrably true that a doctor's office visit is cheaper than going to the emergency room.  And perhaps some people - like those with chronic health problems - need annual physicals.  What the Emanuel op-ed says that if you're otherwise healthy, studies show that an annual physical is unlikely to confer health benefits.  Why is that so hard to understand?

And finally, Debra J. Saunders, Dr. Emanuel is not empowered to control how often anyone sees the doctor, so if you want to have 14 physicals a year, and you can find a doctor as equally stupid as you, go for it.

Debra J. Saunders uses assisted suicide on reason and sense

I was just thinking the other day that I haven't read anything stupid and nonsensical from Debra J. Saunders in a while.  Luckily she's here to fix that.  Today Debra J. Saunders is tackling assisted suicide, which is a complicated, nuanced topic that Debra J. Saunders cannot understand or discuss intelligently.

SPOILER ALERT: Debra J. Saunders is against assisted suicide.

Here's my favorite disclaimer in a while, at the VERY END of the column, so you have to read her childish attempts to rail against it before you find out:

Full disclosure: My husband, Wesley J. Smith, is a paid consultant with the anti-assisted suicide Patients Rights Council.

Haha.  I hope he has some better arguments than you do, because yours are terrible.  Debra is here to discuss the case of Brittany Maynard, who has terminal cancer with less than six months to live and is moving to Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, because she wants to be in control of the end of her life.  Personally, I have no problem with that, but we're not here to discuss why I'm right, but rather why Debra J. Saunders is so very wrong.  Here's the key section:

I love the spirit, but there is a huge flaw in Maynard’s reasoning. She says she wants her story to help change California law so that no one else has to “move to another state to not die horribly.” Close to 40,000 Americans kill themselves every year; they make the same choice Maynard is making, although most won’t have the media attention that is being lavished on the vibrant and telegenic UC Berkeley graduate. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in this country.

Perhaps Maynard sees this choice as a way of beating back at death, to not allow the beast to own every turn of an end approaching far too soon. I respect that. But she is wrong to call it, as advocates do, “death with dignity.” The very phrase suggests that people who do not choose suicide lack dignity.

I've read this over and over and I can't see what she thinks is the "huge flaw in Maynard's reasoning."  Is it that "advocates" call it "death with dignity" and that somehow impugns non-suicide death?  Because that argument is so breathtakingly stupid I'm amazed that Debra J. Saunders could turn on or operate a computer to compose those sentences.  In no way does calling suicide "death with dignity" imply anything other kinds of death, any more than calling Debra J. Saunders an idiot imply that she has occupied the idiot field and there are no other idiots.  Sadly, this is not true.

Also, nowhere in the article does Saunders attribute the phrase "death with dignity" to Maynard, so it's not even her goddam argument.  Debra J. Saunders is assisted suiciding a strawman.

She - or husband Wesley, I don't know - also comes up with one more anti-assisted suicide argument.  Well, she doesn't, but she manages to write down what someone else said. 

Marilyn Golden of the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund in Berkeley is concerned that Maynard’s story obscures the larger picture. “For every individual with a happy family who’s not at risk for abuse, there are many other individuals who may be subtly steered toward assisted suicide by their insurance company or pressured by their family.”

Sure, families subtly steer other family members into all kinds of bad decisions, but we don't ban options that people want because some people may get steered towards them.  Just because a kid in a military family feels pressured to join the Army, we're not going to ban the Army. 

In the end, just like with gay marriage, it's impossible to construct a logical argument against assisted suicide, because it doesn't fucking affect you at all. Debra J. Saunders is just too dumb to realize this.

Oh no, Debra J. Saunders is looking at gentrification now

Oh God.  You know what that means.  A quasi-libertarian word salad and some unfocused jabs at "the left."

The piece is called, for no particular reason other than, I guess, to recycle a 15-year-old movie catchphrase, "I see rich people."  It starts off like so:

In the Star Trek movies, San Francisco serves as headquarters of Starfleet Command. This cracks me up no end, as I cannot imagine the Board of Supervisors approving construction of Starfleet Academy or the oddly shaped high-rises you see in the background. And if City Hall somehow did approve the project, you know there'd be some ballot measure to kill the deal. The grounds could be endless: No photon torpedoes. Too many techies already. What about affordable housing?

Debra, look away, because Salesforce Tower is already underway:

Deb moves on through some well-trod ground, including 8 Washington and then the fact that she can't afford to live in SF, then mentions Kim-Mai Cutler's incredible article in Techcrunch, "How Burrowing Owls Lead to Vomiting Anarchists (Or S.F.'s Housing Crisis Explained)."  Then we get these curious paragraphs:

Cutler also supports proposals to make it more expensive and difficult for owners to evict paying tenants. There's a price for that approach. In a city with more renters than homeowners, do you want to be the chump who buys a duplex when City Hall can tell you want you can and cannot do with your own property? (Keep in mind that this City Hall won't let retailers give away paper bags.)

Groups like the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project stage protests to send this loser message: "The Yuppie dot-com lifestyle must be fought and eliminated, because if it is left unchecked, it will eventually ruin our neighborhoods, our cities, and our planet." They ignore the fact that the Mission is happening now in part because of the influx of tech money.

Most working people want to live in a neighborhood where residents spruce up buildings and keep the streets clean. Who is most likely to do that? Homeowners.

Para 1: Judging by the current real estate market, there appears to be no shortage of people who want to be the chump who buys a duplex.  If Deb's logic was on, duplexes would be dirt cheap.  I haven't checked lately, but I don't think that's true.  BONUS POINTS for any mention of the plastic bag ban.

Para 2: I don't think the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project has existed since the first dot com boom, sweetheart.  And have you walked down Valencia lately?  It's over, and the yuppies won.  (Sadly, they never managed to eliminate "Neighborhood enemy number one," Beauty Bar.  We can still dream!)

Para 3: I was wondering why the streets are so dirty!  Now I know why: RENTERS.  Why can't you clean up after yourselves, you dirt-loving planet destroyers?

More confusion ensues:

But I don't think it would hurt for San Franciscans to reorient their thinking to make this town more livable for the middle class. Last week, I walked from City Hall down Market Street at dusk with a friend from out of town. It stank, the police had a couple of people in handcuffs, and the mood was downright eerie. Yet the left in this town thinks Twitter is bad for San Francisco.

People pay top dollar to live near what only can be called squalor. Those Yuppies whom anarchists hate pay $700,000 for a condo in a neighborhood where they have to step around street people on their way to work. And the Yuppies rarely complain until a neighbor wants to rent to out-of-towners through Airbnb. Then suddenly they are outraged, and their quality of life is threatened.

Let's unpack that first paragraph, because it's the Italian opera of SFGate columns: it sounds pretty, but I can't understand a fucking word.  OK, first, yes, it wouldn't hurt to make the town more livable for the middle class!  Yes!  Great!  How do we do that?  Wait, now we're walking down Market Street and something something the left hates Twitter.  Wait, what?  I learned in 6th grade English, Debra, that the PARAGRAPH is supposed to flow from the TOPIC SENTENCE.  You don't write "Argentina is a land of many features" and then follow it up with how you flew over Mexico once.

The second paragraph has no coherent thought at all.  People pay a lot of money to live in a bad neighborhood.  Then they complain when someone uses Airbnb.  WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING POINT.

It's fine to have problems with current SF housing policy, but for fuck's sake, if you're going to go public with them, write some coherent arguments down instead of a bunch of disconnected phrases that floated through your head.

You finally lost me, San Francisco Chronicle

I bought the San Francisco Chronicle every day when it was 25 cents during the week and, I think, 75 cents or a dollar on Sunday.  Then it was 35 cents, then 50, and lately 75 cents.  I stopped buying the Sunday paper a couple of years ago when it seemed like it changed every Sunday - No magazine! OK, here's your magazine back! No Datebook!  Different Datebook! And on and on - and also it's really not worth it at $3.  But I was still faithfully plunking down (well, feeding into a newspaper box) 75 cents a day.  I like the tangible, physical paper.  I like holding it.  I like reading the Sporting Green while I eat lunch.  I don't have an iPad and reading it on a computer screen while I eat is unwieldy.  ANYWAY, no more.

Are you fucking kidding me, San Francisco Chronicle?  A fucking DOLLAR?  For a paper that is just a shell of what it used to be?  That's it, I'm out.  We are done here.  I could do 75 cents a day but, I will freely admit, there is a psychological barrier to adding on that extra quarter.  I just cannot pay a dollar a day for Debra Saunders' ill-informed ranting or Chuck Nevius' whatever that thing is that Chuck Nevius does.  It's been a nice 23 years, Chronicle, but we are done.  Good luck at your new price point.

(Incidentally, this is a photo of the newsrack in front of the courthouse at McAllister and Polk.  Usually it's empty by 8:30 a.m.  Not today.  Plenty of razor-thin Monday Chronicles for sale today.  Looks like I'm not the only one who's finished here.)

Debra J. Saunders is up to her old tricks again!

And by "her old tricks," I mean "being an idiot."  LET'S CHECK IT OUT. Yesterday's column was called "Airburshing an impeachment" in the print edition of our beloved SF Chronicle and "First lady, second impeachment," which is even more nonsensical and meaningless, in the SFGate. Here's how it starts:

It has been a banner year for Bill Clinton. The former president delivered a galvanizing speech, deemed by many on the left to lay out the best argument for re-electing President Obama, at the Democratic National Convention. During the Republican primary, Newt Gingrich and other GOP hopefuls frequently talked up the Clinton-era economy and the former president's ability to reach across the aisle. The Sunday New York Times ran a front-page story on whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will run for the Oval Office in 2016 - and it didn't even mention Bill's 1998 impeachment. 

WHAT!?!? There was a story about Hillary Clinton's possible run for office in four years and it didn't mention the completely irrelevant fact that 14 years ago, her husband was impeached in a transparently political ploy, was then found not guilty by the Senate, enjoyed continuously high approval ratings during as booming economy and left office with a surplus, which was promptly squandered by his successor?  HOW COME THE NEW YORK TIMES DENIES THE TRUTH?

Of all the inane, laughably pointless columns Debra J. Saunders has written, this has got to be one of the silliest.  So, Deb, we aren't allowed to write about Hillary without mentioning an unrelated political event that took place over a decade ago?  Isn't that going to get old?  "Secretary of State Clinton, whose husband was impeached in 1998 and was later found not guilty, traveled to Bangladesh today to participate in a trans-Pacific summit."  "Hillary Clinton, whose husband was impeached in 1998 and was later found not guilty, spoke with Extra! about her favorite cookie recipes." I mean, after a few thousand of these, wouldn't everyone just be like "I KNOW, IMPEACHMENT ALREADY."

Besides that, there's also the problem that Debra's premise - that nobody talks about Clinton's impeachment anymore is completely false.  Here's a few examples, just from the last several weeks:

Las Vegas Review-Journal, December 2, 2012: "But doesn't that also describe the election of the reckless and underqualified playboy Jack Kennedy in 1960, and serial sex assailant Bill Clinton, since impeached and disbarred but still a great hero even to the feminists of the left?

New York Times Magazine, November 25, 2012: ". . .  he insisted I reach out to Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian who, owing to his strident defense of Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings . . ."

Here's one that SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS HILLARY, along with the impeachment, Chicago Sun-Times, October 17, 2012: "I’m also hearing that a number of people who feel very protective of both former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have quietly reached out to Lewinsky, asking her to drop those plans. While my sources stress that neither of the Clintons are involved in any contact — of any kind — with Lewinsky, they, like everyone, know the impeachment scandal will never be forgotten."

I could go on, but you get the point.  Debra's fear that the national press has somehow forgotten that Bill Clinton was impeached, or there is some great Conspiracy of Silence to suppress that fact, has no basis in reality.  It's OK, Debra. You can sleep now.

Her column goes to meander through her risible theories about how the Clintons are responsible for the current divisive political environment - surely Newt Gingrich bears no responsibility - before ending with this little gem:

"You'll never see a story about (President Richard) Nixon that doesn't say he resigned in disgrace," former Reagan speechwriter Ken Khachigian observed. There's a double standard so it's bad form to mention that Bill Clinton was the second U.S. president to be impeached.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 11, 2012: "All of the police powers that the local, state and federal government have accumulated since President Richard Nixon fired the first salvo in the War on Drugs are directly threatened by the public's weariness with this farcical, losing campaign." Wait, I thought I heard something about this Nixon guy getting impeached? Huh.

Four things

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings today.

First, I love this story:

Teen Discovers Promising Cystic Fibrosis Treatment

A 16-year-old from the Toronto area used a supercomputer system to find a new drug combination that shows potential in treating the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis, and won top honors for his work.

Marshall Zhang, an 11th-grade student at Richmond Hill's Bayview Secondary School, received first place Tuesday (May 10) in the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge, a contest in which students conduct their own research projects with the help of mentors.

Impressive, no? But the best part of the story is at the end:

Now Zhang and a trio of Montreal students who took second place for their technique for making sorbet without gelatin move on to compete against U.S. and Australian teams at the International BioGENEius Challenge in Washington, D.C., June 27.

That's right. FIRST PLACE: CURING MOTHERFUCKING CYSTIC FIBROSIS. Second place: Making sorbet without gelatin!!! SCIENCE. IT SOLVES THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS.

Second, have you ever wanted to see the inside of the Old Mint? Here's your chance! This weekend there's some kind of art show thing at the Old Mint and you can totally get in there and wander around and do whatever it is you do. Our pals over at Dusty Modern will even get you in for free if you're too cheap to pay the $5 admission. SUPER COOL!!!!!!

Third, there is no fucking way you will believe this, but Debra Saunders said some more stupid shit! SHOCKING, I KNOW. In her latest inanity, "Was Sarah Palin done in by Trig "birther" story?", Debra postulates that it was the (admittedly insane) rumors that Palin pretended to give birth to Trig to cover up her daughter's teen pregnancy that tanked Palin's credibility with the American people.

Oh, yeah, Debra, that is definitely what did it. It couldn't have been the epically disastrous interviews she did with Katie Couric or her repeatedly blaring absurdities on those rare occasions when she was able to form an English sentence or her sneering approach to, well, everything, or maybe quitting her job as the Governor of Alaska for no coherent reason at all, could it? Couldn't have been any of those things. No, it was probably a rumor about her kid's birth that maybe - maybe - 10 percent of the American public has even HEARD. God, the stupid never stops with Debra Saunders.

[Oh, and one more thing - even if, in some alternate universe that Debra Saunders calls home, the Trig thing really did bring down Sarah Palin, she fucking deserved it. Lest we forget, Palin supported Trump's ridiculous Obama birth certificate nonsense. As ye sow, etc.]

Fourth, I can't remember the fourth thing.

Have a good weekend, errbody!

The Debra Saunders Leap of Logic Watch

Sometimes I feel like I need to start a different blog just to deal with the inanities Debra Saunders spews forth on a regular basis. I will call it something like "Oh, Debra Saunders" or "You Are Such a Fucking Idiot, Debra Saunders" or "Debra Saunders is Wrong Again" or something like that but I would have to do every single column (with certain exceptions) and I don't have the time.

(The exceptions are that she and I are both opposed to draconian drug sentences, so I guess we can agree on one thing.)

Yesterday's column - "Obama tries to obstruct executions" - promised a bombshell! You mean the President of the United States is trying to keep individual states from enforcing the death penalty within their borders? WOW.

Except there is nothing in the story like that. Here's how it starts:

President Obama well may have begun another undeclared war - this time on states that try to enforce their own death penalty laws - on the dubious grounds that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved drugs intended to kill convicted killers.

Oh, hold on a second. "Well may have begun"? What the fuck does that mean? Did Obama begin a war on states trying to enforce their own death penalty laws? MAYBE! Does Debra Saunders drink childrens' blood from a chalice made from a piece of the True Cross? MAYBE!

Here's the evidence:

On March 15, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental, the first drug given under the three-drug lethal injection protocol used in most of the country's 34 death-penalty states. The DEA also asked Kentucky and Tennessee for their sodium thiopental to aid its investigation. Why? The DEA referred me to the Department of Justice, which sent an e-mail declining to comment. News reports indicate that the feds had concerns that the drugs were imported improperly.

A-HA!!! That Bad Old Obama must have called up the FDA and told them not to let anyone have sodium thiopental, right? Because he secretly hates the death penalty, right?

Wait, what's this? "FDA helped two states get scarce execution drug"?

The Food and Drug Administration, which has long maintained that it has nothing to do with drugs used in executions, has quietly helped Arizona and California obtain a scarce type of anesthetic so the states could continue putting inmates to death.

The shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country. But newly released documents show the FDA helped import it from Britain.

Huh, so maybe the FDA was just doing its job with the shipment in Georgia, and meanwhile was actively helping other states get the drug. I guess Obama forgot to call the FDA when they were busy helping Arizona and California get the same thing.

The point is, when your worldview is that everything the president does is wrong and evil, you see all kinds of conspiracies where none exist. Never mind that Obama supports the death penalty. Why let facts like that get in the way when you can construct a fictional account of Obama somehow reaching down from the White House to stop executions in Georgia because he's secretly against the death penalty, I suppose, just like he's secretly a Muslim and secretly whatever else you want to ascribe to him.

If you object to the FDA's concerns about the importation of lethal injection drugs, that's fine. State your objections and the factual basis for them and move on. But for God's sake, Debra, no need to invent conspiracies that you can't support with actual facts. You "may well have" to stop listening to your Lizard Creature Overlords if they're feeding you this shit.

Hard-hitting Chronicle columnist tackles the Sheen story; readers yawn

Oh good! Semi-retarded[*] Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders has decided to weigh in on the Charlie Sheen thing. Last seen penning a hard-hitting interview with the Governor's dog, let's see what fresh insight that bomb-thrower Saunders brings to the Sheen story:

This week Charlie Sheen owns network news. No wonder Americans hate the media.

In a rush for ratings, TV news shows have been clamoring for sit-downs. The goal, of course, is to get Sheen to say something nutty that makes news. But no one wants to look like a vulture, so from their high horse, interviewers try to prod the bad boy to admit that he needs help.

Frauds. They're not bottom-feeders; they dress up the package with a redeeming angle. Like: Is Charlie Sheen bipolar?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Debra, hold the phone for a second because you are BLOWING MY MIND. TV shows are motivated by ratings? Holy fuck, you just blew all my illusions about the entertainment business out of the water. Here I am thinking that they're all ars gratia artis and you're telling me it's ABOUT MONEY? Fuck, thank God Debra Sunders is here to clear the scales from my eyes. "Frauds." PULITZER ON LINE TWO, DEBRA.

Also, Americans don't "hate the media." Americans fucking LOVE the media. Sure, different people like different aspects of "the media" but to make a blanket statement like that is ridiculous. If Americans "hated the media," you and Charlie Sheen both would be out of a job. For one of the two of you, that would be a good thing.

If Sheen doesn't kill himself, you know the script: The arrest, the rehab, the contrite I'm-an-addict comeback interview, another drop-dead gorgeous wife, a new baby, a new series starring a character who is Charlie Sheen without the child support and cocaine. Big box office.

The Romans made gladiators kill each other in the circus for their entertainment. For their viewing pleasure, Americans pump up celebrities, who then misbehave in public, so that we can feel superior to them. The Romans demanded blood. Americans go for shame.

More incisive commentary from Debra's thoughtful pen! So let me get this straight. You're saying that Americans enjoy watching celebrities fall? No shit!?

I'm not surprised Saunders decided to write about Charlie Sheen. It sells papers! Oh, whoops, isn't that what Saunders was decrying earlier? Never mind. Anyway, it's fine to write about it, but recycling all the same fucking tired commentary that's been said 1000 times only fills up column inches and bores the fuck out of the rest of us. If you can't think of something original to say, just leave it the fuck alone, OK?

[*] I'm not supposed to say "retarded" any more. It'll take some time. Bear with me.