A salad you can toss, but I wouldn't want to marry one.

Okra juice, freshly ground sesame, sesame oil and vinegar would whip up into a lovely frothy dressing.

Say what you like about Santorum, but personally I like the guy, though I don't always agree with him 100%.  I like him because I know he has a real heart and will go to bat for folks... and not many of these political assholes have any heart at all, much less get off their ass to help someone else.

Here's why...

Years ago when Rick was a senator from PA he had a woman working on his staff - not a big shot, mind you, just a low-level go-fer person.  The woman came down with stage III-b breast cancer (that's very, very bad, if you don't know your cancer stages) and as a result she had to get her breast removed and also undergo chemo *and* a bone marrow transplant... one hell of a load for a 30+ year old woman.  She wanted to get her breast reconstructed at the same time as the mastectomy, but the insurance company (BCBS) refused.  I suppose they figured that it was kind of a lost cause, since stage III-b is fatal 58% of the time anyway, so why spend the bucks.  Naturally she was even more distraught than before at this news - she would have to be operated on twice, if she survived, to give her back a breast.  She told her manager about it, just venting, not asking for anything to be done.   Rick heard about her situation soon after, just through word of mouth.  He could have very easily just said 'oh, that's terrible' and gone about his business.  But he didn't.

Rick dropped everything and immediately flew up from DC to personally go to BCBS HQ in Philadelphia and insist that they provide the woman with full service, including reconstruction at time of mastectomy.  He spent over an hour there. No staff, just him.

Long story shortened, the woman did get the proper treatment, including immediate reconstruction, and is still around, over 10 years later, and still (thankfully) cancer free.  She later married and moved out west and is still active in politics.

The 'nice guy' image he puts out is real.  You may not agree with him on gay rights, abortion or bombing the Iranian nuclear sites, but the guy's got a heart.

Last edited by whosasailorthen (2012-01-04 18:58:20)

tojo2000 wrote:

Heh.  You said "santorum".

Yep.  And right here, in the very den of anti-Santorum fervor. 

And I ain't ashamed, either. 

I used to date that gal, before this all hit the fan for her - she's a sweet kid.  And with some major thanks to Rick, she still is a sweet kid.

Very few people are totally evil.  Just because he did something nice for someone doesn't mean he would be a good president.  It does mean he might be an OK next-door neighbor.  Remember, this is someone who wants to ban birth control for everybody.  Most people want to have children at some point in their lives, but very few want 7 or more of them.  If Santorum had his way, there wouldn't be a choice in the matter unless a couple is very good at Vatican Roulette.  Vatican Roulette has a 25% failure rate per month.  At twelve spins per year, the odds aren't good.

Tall Paul wrote:

Okra juice, freshly ground sesame, sesame oil and vinegar would whip up into a lovely frothy dressing.

add a little red wine and soy sauce to darken it up.

whosasailorthen wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

Say what you like about Santorum, ........

Alright, he's a gay-bashing fruitcake....

Actually, he employed two 'out' guys on his staff here in Phila back when he was in office, and they were in pretty responsible positions, not just window-dressing.  He doesn't hate gays at all - he just doesn't believe in gay marriage.  He's fine with 'domestic partnerships' and giving them the same rights... it's just the 'marriage' thing that tweaks him.

What about 2003, when Santorum, in an interview with the Associated Press, compared gay relationships to child rape and dog fucking?

DupeOrNot wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

Okra juice, freshly ground sesame, sesame oil and vinegar would whip up into a lovely frothy dressing.

add a little red wine and soy sauce to darken it up.

The sesame paste would make a nice brown color especially if you add in a little black sesame. Red wine and soy sauce would be good too, so long as it doesn't dull the glistening sheen of lube. Personally I'd use concentrated Japanese dashi (konbu and katsuo) instead of soy, but that's just me. Oh yes, garlic too!

tojo2000 wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

Tall Paul wrote:

Alright, he's a gay-bashing fruitcake....

Actually, he employed two 'out' guys on his staff here in Phila back when he was in office, and they were in pretty responsible positions, not just window-dressing.  He doesn't hate gays at all - he just doesn't believe in gay marriage.  He's fine with 'domestic partnerships' and giving them the same rights... it's just the 'marriage' thing that tweaks him.

You're vastly sugarcoating his position.  He just doesn't believe in gay marriage...or gay sex.   He thinks it's perfectly okay to outlaw gay sex because he thinks it undermines society and he compares it to bestiality and pedophilia.  You're right that he states that he doesn't have anything against homosexuals, but he follows that up with the caveat that he has something against homosexual acts.  So yeah, he has nothing against gay partnerships, as long as they're not, like, gay together and stuff.

And don't get me started on his completely hypocritical stance on birth control and abortion.

OK, I'll bite.  Prove it.  Give me a legitimate direct quote showing that he wants to outlaw gay sex.

whosasailorthen wrote:

tojo2000 wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

Actually, he employed two 'out' guys on his staff here in Phila back when he was in office, and they were in pretty responsible positions, not just window-dressing.  He doesn't hate gays at all - he just doesn't believe in gay marriage.  He's fine with 'domestic partnerships' and giving them the same rights... it's just the 'marriage' thing that tweaks him.

You're vastly sugarcoating his position.  He just doesn't believe in gay marriage...or gay sex.   He thinks it's perfectly okay to outlaw gay sex because he thinks it undermines society and he compares it to bestiality and pedophilia.  You're right that he states that he doesn't have anything against homosexuals, but he follows that up with the caveat that he has something against homosexual acts.  So yeah, he has nothing against gay partnerships, as long as they're not, like, gay together and stuff.

And don't get me started on his completely hypocritical stance on birth control and abortion.

OK, I'll bite.  Prove it.  Give me a legitimate direct quote showing that he wants to outlaw gay sex.

Are you serious?  You've been spending all this time defending the guy and you don't even know his most famous quote?

When Jordan asked "Okay, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?" Santorum's response concluded:[7]
"In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality —" (At this point, Jordan commented, "I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about 'man on dog' with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out," coining a phrase widely used in connection with this incident.)[7]

In the original version of the AP story, Santorum was quoted as saying:[1]

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

It also included additional remarks criticizing "homosexual acts":[7]

"Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

The "man on dog" quote was to clarify whether or not he thinks gay people should be allowed to have sex, and he answered no, and compared it to other acts we don't allow as a society, like bestiality and pedophilia.  He did muddy the waters a bit on that particular quote when he started off talking about marriage, so let's look at his other quotes.  He thinks that declaring that people have a right to consensual sex is the equivalent to opening the doors to anything.  He is for banning sodomy, plain and simple.

DupeOrNot wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

And BTW, to say that birth control fails 25% of the time is absolute horseshit - any woman on the board here can tell you that.  I've lived with a lot of women, and not one of them had any problem preventing pregnancy when they wanted to.

I think that was a reference to the "rhythm method"... and it's failure rate is more like 25% per year, not per month. In other words, one kid every four years from 13 to 40-something.

Well, I'm pretty sure Rick has never suggested banning birth control.

whosasailorthen wrote:

DupeOrNot wrote:

whosasailorthen wrote:

And BTW, to say that birth control fails 25% of the time is absolute horseshit - any woman on the board here can tell you that.  I've lived with a lot of women, and not one of them had any problem preventing pregnancy when they wanted to.

I think that was a reference to the "rhythm method"... and it's failure rate is more like 25% per year, not per month. In other words, one kid every four years from 13 to 40-something.

Well, I'm pretty sure Rick has never suggested banning birth control.

He has said outright that he doesn't think it should be available, and that he thinks it's just an excuse to engage in immoral behavior.  However, to my knowledge he has stopped short of advocating a law to ban it.  He is usually careful to frame it as a 10th amendment issue, like this week when he said the Supreme Court shouldn't have been able to strike down the Connecticut law in 1965 that banned birth control.

I'm not a one issue voter either, but Rick Santorum says family is sooooo fucking important, but he chooses to seek power and glory rather than spend his daughter's last days with her.

"I don't know whether her life is going to be measured, it's always been measured, in days and weeks," Rick Santorum said.

The dude's wealthy and never needs to work again, but instead of spending time with family, he chooses careers (law and politics) that make that extremely unlikely.

whosasailorthen wrote:

fnord wrote:

Very few people are totally evil.  Just because he did something nice for someone doesn't mean he would be a good president.  It does mean he might be an OK next-door neighbor.  Remember, this is someone who wants to ban birth control for everybody.  Most people want to have children at some point in their lives, but very few want 7 or more of them.  If Santorum had his way, there wouldn't be a choice in the matter unless a couple is very good at Vatican Roulette.  Vatican Roulette has a 25% failure rate per month.  At twelve spins per year, the odds aren't good.

Well, Fnord, I'll tell you a story.  When my son was only 11 weeks in gestation my wife had to have an amniocentesis, due to the 5 kids we lost previously due to miscarriage (yeah, really... 5... in a row).  So the doc slowly slipped in the needle to get the fluid, and we're watching this all on the ultrasound.  As the needle punctures the amniotic sac my son suddenly took his tiny thumb out of his mouth and reached his hand up and wrapped his fingers around the needle, slowly moving his fingers... it looked like he was feeling the needle.  The doc absolutely froze, went stone-ass white, and beads of sweat started on his forehead big-time... he'd never had this happen before and didn't want to budge an inch for fear of damaging the fetus' hand with the sharp tip of the needle.  After what seemed like *forever* - but was only moments - my son finally let go and stuck his thumb back in his mouth.  The doc, head of the neonatal department and certainly no shrinking violet, just about passed out.

At 11 weeks my son was entirely legally abortable.  But clearly he was sentient - if you were there you'd know it.  So, you can tell me all you want about women's rights - and I do understand and sympathize with their perspective - but when you see something like that, in person, it seriously changes your mind.  These little things do have feelings, and I'd have one hell of a time putting the Hoover to something that can feel that searing, flesh-ripping pain, and for absolutely no fault of their own. 

And BTW, to say that birth control fails 25% of the time is absolute horseshit - any woman on the board here can tell you that.  I've lived with a lot of women, and not one of them had any problem preventing pregnancy when they wanted to.

I didn't say birth control fails 25% of the time; I said that in any given month Vatican Roulette has a 25% failure rate.  In case you didn’t look it up, Vatican Roulette is a sarcastic name for the joke the Catholic Church refers to as the Rhythm Method or Natural Family Planning.  The problem is that little swimmers can live for several days once they’re in the female reproductive tract, so making sure no viable sperm are around during ovulation is difficult.  People who rely solely on this method of pregnancy prevention are known as parents, whether or not they wish to be parents or be the parents of as many children as they have.

I didn’t mention abortion, and from your story it’s clear to me abortion wasn’t something you were seeking, so why bring it up.  Abortion is a private matter between a woman and her health care provider; nobody else’s opinion matters.

I just don't like the idea that everyone is telling us that we get to "choose" between two right-wing religious nutjobs trying to legislate the action in my bedroom. At this rate we are going into the primaries voting for Jim Jones or Torquemada.

I've been telling my Democrat friends that the very best thing they can do in Florida is to change parties and pick the only Social Liberal on the ticket:  Ron Paul. Then they can vote for Jimmy Carter Jr. in November if they are still mesmerized.

So Santorum helped a little girl. I wish I had a senator to call on when I need some political pressure applied for a friend. That, as much as anything, would disincline me to respect him.

As Rick Santorum gains ground in the polls and commentators increasingly speak of him as if he's not a dangerous, raving zealot, please do remember that Karen Santorum's lifesaving medical intervention is different than the abortions that Santorum wishes to outlaw only in that the woman getting the lifesaving medical intervention was Karen Santorum. His policies would prevent other women from receiving the care they needed, and leave scores of non-Santorum children motherless. If that's not hypocrisy, then I don't know what is.

Emmeran wrote:

Why is it only people like this who decide to run for public office?

I've said it a zillion times....

Anyone who intentionally seeks to be in a position of authority is inherently untrustworthy.

Assholes from both sides of the political spectrum have one unifying trait - they want to tell others how to live their lives.

XregnaR wrote:

Anyone who intentionally seeks to be in a position of authority is inherently untrustworthy.

That corresponds to my experience, without exception. Sanctimonious, fatuous fools, self absorbed defectives you really don't want to know. Some rare few are capable administrators.

Only thing that frosts my ass worse is a general public that'd rather bitch about them than properly exercise their franchise.

The roughly 30,000 sheeple where I live muster 15,000 registered voters and Town Meeting approves the resulting budgetary frauds without a quorum.

Hope I live long enough to see democratic process move online, where you don't have to associate with the likes of our current crop of cunt office seekers.