Pirate's Cove

It seems that every time Howard Dean shows up on the national stage, there is an impulse to tell him “dude, chill. You are losing you mind.” But, then, everyone reflects for a second or two and realizes that happened long ago. He’s like your Mom’s brother, who never got married and shows up every once in a while and embarrasses the heck out of her at parties. Or, like you friend who likes to say “hey, y’all watch this!” Usually involving something cold which comes in 12 ounces.

So, what did he do this time? Via The Radio Equalizer (who also has the video), he was on the Stephanie Miller show and said

HOWARD DEAN: At the end of the day, I think we will. First of all, the president is a very smart guy and he knows very well this can’t work without a public option. Secondly, you know he’s run into a rough patch in the Senate, mostly because of Democrats, honestly.

The Republicans, they have no interest in this Bill. They’re using the 1994 playbook. Let’s kill the bill and kill the president…… or, kill the president’s term. Although there are sort of angry people out there I get very nervous about this stuff. I don’t like it at all.

So, we’ve gone from being racists, to mobs, to Nazi’s, to evil, to fascists, and now, we are attempting to kill the president, just because we oppose his health system reform idea (can’t call it his plan, since he outsourced that to Congress.) Nothing defines Barking Moonbat like Howie “Scream” Dean.

And, nothing screams unhinged like ICMDS (Ice Cream Man Derangement Syndrome)

IT’S a spectacular day at Harmony Playground in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, with children swinging and running through sprinklers. An “icy man” with his pushcart of fruit ices stands near the jungle gym, as parents look toward the gated entrance. A second ices vendor enters, also setting up shop inside the playground’s cast-iron fence.

Vicki Sell, mother of 3-year-old Katherine, tenses when the vendor starts ringing his little bell, over and over, hoping her daughter doesn’t have the typical Pavlovian response.

Ever since Katherine had an inconsolable meltdown about not being able to have a treat, Ms. Sell has been trying to have unlicensed vendors ousted from the park. She has repeatedly called the city’s 311 complaint hot line, joining parents nationwide who can’t stand the icy man or his motorized big brother, the ice cream man.

“I fall into the camp of parents who are irate,” Ms. Sell said. She has equal disdain for Mister Softee and the ice cream pop vendor outside the park, but since they are licensed, there is not much she can do about them.

No, really. This is the real deal. It is on page D1 of todays NY Times, the paper of record. Parents unhinged over the ice treat vendors. I wonder why?

Ms. Sell says she is not obsessed with health and nutrition. She — and others — feel they have been pushed to the brink by that little bell. Across message boards and playgrounds, soccer fields and day camp exits, parents have been raging. In a greener, more health-conscious, unsafe world, the ice cream man has lost some of his mojo.

Raging. Goodness. Unsafe? The ice cream man is now unsafe? Hey, maybe if liberals weren’t so pro-criminal, the parks would be safer. Green? Insert face palm here. Certainly, they mean that it has something to do with the real environmental movement, rather than the one taken over by Climahysteria, right?

In May, New York City principals received letters from the advocacy group Asthma Free School Zone, urging them to keep trucks from their buildings. “Sometimes you’ll see a child in a stroller parked right next to the exhaust pipe of the truck,” said Lori Bukiewicz, schools coordinator for the organization, which has been trying to persuade Mister Softee to use biodiesel fuels in generators for their freezers and to get city officials to pass legislation controlling the trucks’ emissions.

Umm, I guess it is about Climahysteria.

BTW, parents, it might not be such a great idea to park strollers near the exhaust pipes of automobiles. Don’t blame the ice cream man because you are irresponsible a complete and total idiot.

Wanting the trucks to go away “is not a valid issue,” he said, adding, “It’s like a mother being angry at a store being at a particular corner.” Besides, the ice cream man isn’t forever.

“It’s summer,” he said, sighing. “It’s only four months.”

In other words, unhinged Climahysteric parents, get a life. Let kids be kids. And learn some control.

In other AGW news, some crazy denier, who happens to be an MIT professor, says CO2 is irrelevant to the global warming debate. Lots of facts and figures and charts.