Crazy of the Year

UPDATE (Tuesday, Dec.22) – We have 8 nominees so far, all conservatives, but anyone of any political persuasion can be nominated.  Go for it!

UPDATE (Monday, Dec.21) – Nomination Criteria: Okay, nominations are coming in furious if not fast, and it looks like we might even be able to put this thing to a vote sometime in the next little while.  But in order to make sure we’re comparing apples and apples, we need to establish some parameters.  Therefore, the nominations are limited to the Canadian blogosphere.  Nominees can be righties, lefties or inbetweenies — the nomination criteria is Demonstrable Bad Craziness, such as balb suggests:

Commitment to self-contradiction (must be demonstrated by example); demonstrated preference for ideology vs. reality (examples, please); acknowledgment of psychotropic medication a definite advantage; extra points for periodic outbursts of uncontrollable verbal rage: tendency to argue on the basis of a sudden revelation vouchsafed only to the blogger; periodic absences while in treatment or recovery; insistence on secret, integrated global conspiracy of Bad Guys.

Nominees will be screened by an independent panel of still-to-be-recruited non-partisan types who will break it down to the top 5, then we’ll vote.

ALSO: It would be helpful if you could post a link to an example of your nominee’s bad craziness.

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MOVED to the top: We’ll start taking nominees in earnest this week.  Please post your nomination in the comments with a link to evidence of brain damage.  Meanwhile, balb makes a strong case for Scenty.

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It is that time of year again — no, not just the time when visions of Santa’s sugar plums dance in your head, but the time for Top Ten lists of everything.

In the spirit of the season, Salon has a Top Ten list of CRAZY:

The staff and readers of Salon had a big debate over choosing Glenn Beck our “Crazy Person of the Year.” As we stated in the introduction to “The Year in Crazy,” we disqualified certain media stars — Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly — and some GOP leaders — Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney — whose crazy behavior was purely opportunistic. We rejected prominent people who had a crazy belief or two — Whoopi Goldberg casting doubt on the moon landing — but didn’t seem driven by crazy.

Only one man was crazy enough to possibly trick us. Only one man stood on a media platform comparable to O’Reilly’s and Limbaugh’s, and delivered a crazy shtick that was so over the top that sometimes you’d say: He doesn’t believe any of this, right? The tears, the shaking, the hysteria — it’s all an act, right? And sometimes you’d say, “Get the nets, Fox News!”

Yes, that man is Glenn Beck, and we come down on the side of “Get the nets!” An overview of Beck’s career shows that his success is equal parts talent, timing, cruelty and crazy.

…and I can’t argue with a list of Crazy topped by profiles in brain damage like Glenn Beck, Orly Taitz and Michelle Bachmann. But Teh Crazy is a very competitive field, and many worthy contenders didn’t make Salon’s cut.  (The entire teabagger movement, for one — although that would have to be a collective award, and teabaggers don’t hold with no commie collectivism.)

Have another look at the list — who would you have added?   Better yet, what about Canada — are we not crazy? also?  I can think of a couple of Canadian bloggers who’d be extremely competitive if we were to top-ten our own crazies.  What do you think?

Back by popular demand…

… DEATH PANELS!!!:

How can she use this idiotic expression again right after it was voted Politifact’s Lie Of The Year?

Death Panels:  that’s her story and she’s sticking to it.

Good grief

Here’s an angry fax sent by an angry teabagger (4 times) to a House of Representatives office today:

Yes, it’s backwards, because the teabagger fed it into the fax machine upside down.  The message wouldn’t be visible on the incoming fax, were it not for the psychotically outraged pressure exerted on the felt pen used to write the original.

(from Wonkette)

DKos Hate-mail-apalooza best of 2009

Time to vote for your favourite hate mail at Daily Kos!

My choice, “Dear Socialist Fuckstick”, looks like a runaway winner, but there’s lots more extremely amusing hate mail to choose from.   Go, be astonished, amused and amazed.

Why is this guy a Democrat?

Bart Stupak, C-Streeter, anti-choice extremist and conservative (who for some inexplicable reason is allowed to caucus with the Democrats and even run under their banner), is promising to help the GOP kill the health care bill because the Nelson anti-abortion language isn’t to his liking (it doesn’t say anything about shaming, shunning and stoning).  To this end, Stupak has been secretly scheming with the GOP:

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) coordinated opposition to the Senate health bill’s abortion compromise this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.

Stupak frantically tries to dial it down:

Stupak, in an interview with POLITICO, called the Senate bill’s abortion position “unacceptable” – but disavowed his staffer’s collaboration with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“I never talked to McConnell about the health care bill,” said Stupak, adding that “I did not authorize the email [which] “was sent without my knowledge.”

But:

The emails suggest a previously unseen degree of coordination between the offices of Stupak and McConnell. Stupak is the leader of a group of pro-life Democrats who say they’ll oppose the sweeping legislation if it uses government money to pay for abortion, while McConnell is firmly committed to killing the legislation.

Meanwhile, the ultraright Weekly Standard is begging Stupak to come to the aid of the GOP:

Are there enough votes in the House to pass a health care bill very close to the one the Senate is preparing to pass? Bart Stupak says the Senate bill’s abortion language is “unacceptable” and has pledged to lead a group of pro-life Democrats to vote against final passage if the issue isn’t resolved. How many votes can Stupak bring with him?

I understand that the Democratic Party likes to think of itself as a “big tent”, but this is ridiculous.

Good morning kitteh

World’s smallest snowman

From HuffPo:

Physicists at the National Physical Laboratory have created the world’s smallest ’snowman’ using a variety of sophisticated techniques and advanced research equipment, including a focused ion beam, nanomanipulation system, and silicon cantilever.

This little guy measures 10 micrometers wide, or 1/5 the width of a human hair.

Squeeeee!

Oklahoma slutshaming law stalled again

A couple of months ago I posted about how an Oklahoma judge temporarily barred the travesty of the state’s proposed “Abortion Registry”, which would post online the five W’s of all women having abortions in the state.   “Temporarily” ended yesterday, but once again the malevolent masturbatory dreams of fascist punishment freaks have been dashed upon the rocks of reason and privacy rights, as the restraining order against the Oklahoma Slutshaming Law was extended:

A judge in Oklahoma extended on Friday a temporary restraining order on a law that would post information online about women who get abortions in the state.

In extending the restraining order, Oklahoma County District Judge Daniel Owens denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case, putting the measure on hold until a February 19 hearing.  [...]

The law, passed in May, requires doctors to fill out a 10-page questionnaire for every abortion performed, including asking the woman about her age, marital status, race and years of education. In all, there are 37 questions the women are to answer.

Critics say the act would be harassment and an invasion of privacy.

Having your gynecological history posted online is an “Invasion of privacy”?  No!  Ya think!??  Looks like 93/100 CNN readers agree:

Just imagine if this same kind of law applied to, oh, I don’t know — erectile dysfunction treatments?  What do you suppose the reaction would be?  Men would stop getting treatment, that’s what, which is precisely what the “abortion registry” is meant to do to women.  SLUTSHAMING of the most primitive order.

(via PZ Myers on Twitter)

Nelson 60th vote for US Health Care bill

This is quite the reversal from just a couple of days ago, when Nelson said that even if he gets all the anti-abortion language he wants in the bill, he still wouldn’t vote for the bill because of cost concerns (which could have been alleviated by the public option he voted against, but never mind that).   You have to wonder what kind of payola changed his mind on this:

Senator Ben Nelson’s announcement moments ago that he will vote to end debate on the Senate health care bill puts Dems within striking distance of the first major progressive legislative achievement of the 21st Century, even if the legislation is deeply flawed.

But Nelson also issued a stern threat, designed to put House liberals on notice: If you change the bill in conference, I reserve the right to sink it later. Translation: Don’t even think about trying to add a public option or Medicare buy-in, and don’t even think about putting your grubby hands on my abortion compromise.  [..]

Nelson just now announced that he would support the bill, after having reached a deal on abortion with the following details:

(1) ensure that no public funds will be used for abortion;

(2) mandate that every state provide an insurance plan option that does not cover abortion; and

(3) gives each state the right to pass a law barring insurance coverage for abortion within state borders.

In short, the Senate bill would give individual states the right to ban abortion coverage within their own insurance exchanges (why do fetus fetishists hate the free market?).  Compared to the draconian Stupak Amendment which seeks to mandate the same thing nationally, this is an improvement.

And how do I know it’s an improvement?  Because the fetus fetishists are furiously foaming at the mouth and calling Nelson a “sellout” who is throwing feti under the bus.  It would appear that their evil plot against womens’ reproductive freedom has been *somewhat* thwarted.  (This is still bad, but it’s less bad.)

UPDATE: SHRIEEEK!   NO!!  All ur uterus are belong to Stupak!

Go Al

“I’ve never seen a member denied an extra minute or so”…. except when I did it.

There, fixed it for ya, Mac.

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow wonders why the video record of McCain doing this very thing is missing from the C-SPAN archives…

GOPers ally with another NUT

From last night’s Rachel Maddow Show:

Egads.  This whackjob Engel appears to be certifiably bugfuck insane (Religious Dispatches ran an article on Engel last year).  If this is the kind of lunacy the GOP has become comfortable with, Rachel is right to wonder what’s next.

UPDATE: From Right Wing Watch, here’s a few minutes from the “prayercast” Rachel talked about.  It starts with a hyperbolic prayer from Shirley Dobson (female appendage of James, the dog beater).  Daddy Dobson then chimes in with an even more hysterical prayer full of dire holy-rollin’ warnings about dead babies and the destruction of marriage.  Says Dobson: “I just pray that you will frustrate the plans of the Evil One and revive us again with conviction and forgiveness” — I’m not sure who he meant by “the Evil One”, the devil or the president:

It’s utterly astonishing to me that with the economy, unemployment, 2 wars, global warming, and the impending collapse of their empire, all these people are interested in is abortion and gay marriage.  They’re becoming caricatures of themselves.

“No disrespect meant”

… said Sarah Palin, when asked why she took a black Sharpie to the name “McCain” on her visor. Here she is kickin’ it in Hawaii earlier this week:

HAHAHAHA!  Why didn’t she just use duct tape — it couldn’t look any worse.  Or better yet, maybe invest in another visor ($5.99 at every kiosk on the beach).

This chick is so odd sometimes, I’m actually starting to like her just for her weirdness.

UPDATE: Here’s a picture taken a couple of months ago that shows the bumper of NY-23 teabagger candidate Doug Hoffman’s car — a “McCain/Palin” bumpersticker with the “McCain” part torn off:

This is definitely a dog-whistle to the teabaggers, and so too is Palin’s hat.  It’s so primitive it almost gives me the creeps.

Another dispatch from the front lines of the War On Christmas

In a covert War On Christmas operation, Atheists in Arkansas have scaled Christmas’s almighty security fence and sneaked into Enemy Territory:

The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers began setting up its winter solstice box on the grounds of the state Capitol on Wednesday after a federal judge ruled that the secretary of state’s office must allow the group to put up its display.

The Freethinkers’ wooden box display is eight feet tall and four feet wide. One side depicts the history of winter solstice celebrations, a second side provides background about the society and its ideals, the third side is filled with covers of books about atheism and science, and the final side covers some facts about the universe and the scientific method.

Awesome.  At this rate, it won’t be long before we capture Christmas and take it prisoner. Then we can torture it.

No, they’d probably like that.  And not in a good way.

Good morning

Lifesite = Lie Site

I’m surprised every pair of padlocked pants at Lifesite doesn’t spontaneously burst into a blazing inferno.

Today Lifesite’s jabbering gerbils report that James Pouillion, the abortion clinic protester who was  killed in September by a nutcase on a murderous rampage, will be getting an award from Operation Rescum.  But something isn’t quite right with the story, as Lifesite tells it:

Get that?  “A local man, Harlan Drake, has admitted to targeting Mr. Pouillon for death because he did not agree with his views on abortion.”

Except that’s not really what happened, at all, because Drake’s views on abortion are unknown.  What is known is that he had no connection with the prochoice movement, and that he confessed to police that he’d targeted Pouillon because he was offended by Pouillon’s gory signs being displayed near a school:

So far, it seems Drake was angry at Pouillon for holding graphic signs of aborted fetuses in front of the Owosso High School as children went by, something Pouillon had been doing for years.

But Drake apparently had no connection with the pro-choice movement, and it seems he had a grudge against a few people. He is also accused of gunning down Owosso gravel company owner Mike Fuoss last Friday morning because he was angry at him, though Fuoss has no connection to either side of the abortion movement.

…which is just a *little* different than the way Lifesite’s spinning the story.  I guess the story just doesn’t pack the same persecutional punch when it’s told, you know, the way it really happened.

Lifesite:  where the 9th commandment is always negotiable.

Quarantined tomatoes and angry hairdressers

When the Sarah Palin rolling roadshow was in Salt Lake City last week, the local Costco raised the Security Level to “Red” and quarantined all the tomatoes:

A Costco in Salt Lake City, Utah reportedly removed all of its tomatoes ahead of a Sarah Palin book tour event, after a man was arrested for attempting to hit Palin with a tomato at an earlier event in Minnesota.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Costco management was “determined” to avoid another tomato-throwing incident, and resorted to removing all of the tomatoes from the store.

Could it be that they were expecting an angry hairdresser to be visiting the store for a little tomato shopping?  Also:

Hairdresser Rhonda Halliday doesn’t think Sarah Palin was out to screw her, but screw her she did. Halliday was asked to do Palin’s hair at the ex-governor’s hotel just before her book signing at a Utah Costco. Palin’s flak told her to rush over, and use the valet parking, which Halliday dutifully did. But once she’d finished the job, Palin and her entourage ran out without saying a word—and without paying, she tells Paul Rolly of the Salt Lake City Tribune.

When that happens in restaurants we call it a “dine and dash”.  What would it be at a hairdresser?  Cut and run?

There’s something wrong with these people

The late Oral Roberts talks about teh secks:

Highlights:

“The vagina. Only one organ made can bring forth life. It’s the male organ. It’s not, in lesbianism, for the tongue of a female goes into the vagina of another female. It’s not in the male, where the male organ goes into the part of the body where the… the waste matter comes out of the body as poison, and he penetrates that part of the body in homosexuality. It’s not to be put in the mouth of the man, or the mouth of the man or the woman…. It is the male organ, penetrating the vagina of the woman, the male and the female.”

The “orra-fyce” and the “annus”

Seriously, did any of that gibberish make any sense?  It’s like the guy was so overcome with excitement that he was rendered totally incoherent.

Oh, fun

I think Wonkette and Balloon-Juice have pretty much worn out this new toy, but there’s still fun to be had.

The always entertaining GOP website has come up with a link shortener like Tiny URL, except the GOP’s version promises to make “long URLs Conservative“.  (They want their own Wiki, their own bible, their own URL shortener, what’s next, their own facts?  Oh wait…)

Yes, this nifty little app “conservatizes” your URL by making a shorter one that contains “gop” and shows the GOP website banner at the top and bottom of the linked page.   That such an application might be used for sinister purposes seems fairly obvious to me, but apparently it didn’t occur to the GOP’s web guys that — oh no, cover your eyes!

(from comments at Wonkette)

This thing’s been operating for about a day and already Wired is reporting it’s been taken down, although it still seems operative as I write this.  Make hay while the sun shines.

And another one’s gone

and another one’s gone…

Oral Roberts, croaked at 91.

And let’s have a big hand for the guys at WaPo dotcom for excellence in strategic headline placement:

Attention Pro-abort zealots

Remember way back in June when I wrote this post?

Well, lookee here at what finally arrived in the mail today:

Their owners are in the comments of the old post.

Just drop me a line (unrepentantoldhippie at yahoo dot ca) and let me know where to mail them, and I’ll get them out to you ASAP.