Shorter Sotomayor hearings

… in pictures!  Yes, I think this about sums it up.

(h/t ellroon)

Squid Invasion

Great snappin’ cephalopods!  The California coast is being terrorized by swarms of giant carnivorous squid:

Calamari on the hoof!

Jumbo flying squid have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, California, spooking scuba divers and beachgoers after washing up dead on the beaches.

The carnivorous cephalopods, which weigh up to 45kg (100lb), came up from the depths last week, with swarms of them roughing up unsuspecting divers. Some reported tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.  [...]

The so-called Humboldt squid, named after the current in the eastern Pacific, have been known to attack humans and are nicknamed “red devils” for their rust-red colouring and mean streak. Divers wanting to observe the creatures often bait the water, use a metal viewing cage or wear chainmail to avoid being lashed by the creature’s tentacles.

Sounds like it might be boot camp for  PZ Myers’ elite army of attack squid.

Nope, doesn’t remind me of anyone

Remind you of anyone?

Bernie Farber — still not gay

Kathy English — still not getting it:

I learned much about “snark” and nasty blogosphere invective this week from some bloggers who disagree with my take on what Zerbisias wrote. Mean-spirited personal attack, inaccurate facts, innuendo and even speculation about the identity of my spouse was lobbed my way, much of it anonymously.

“Inaccurate facts”?  At the risk of being a nitpicker, a fact by definition is accurate — truthiness is the primary requirement for factiness.  Apart from that, the gist of it is that English is taken aback that some mean bloggers disputed the Star’s  trashing of its best columnist.  Well, that’s what we do — call bullshit.   Welcome to accountability, proudly brought to you by the blogosphere.

I haven’t altered my view that Zerbisias’s blog comment (about Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber) fell short of the Star’s standards of fairness.

But I have learned more this week about its context. My own standard of fairness thus demands reconsideration of the harsh assessment I expressed in last week’s column.

At least she seems to realize that her public evisceration of AZ was uncalled for, although she’s still not completely clear as to why:

Though I gave Zerbisias opportunity to comment before publication of that column, she said little to help me understand the context of this comment she posted on her Star blog about Farber’s participation in the Pride parade: “Imagine my surprise when I saw Bernie Farber identifying himself as queer by joining a pro-Israel gay rights group in the parade … Funny because I didn’t know he was gay.”

Farber is not gay and Zerbisias knows that.

Sigh.  If English still doesn’t get snark, I shudder to think what she’d make of the “shorter” concept.

UPDATE: Did someone say “shorter”?

UPDATE II: “Some blogger in Abu Dhabi” responds.

Walter Cronkite, RIP

A little over 41 years ago, he made this groudbreaking statement about the war in VietNam and helped make the war an increasingly unpopular and divisive issue:

(Double click to watch on Youtube.)

Today he passed away after a long illness.    RIP, Mr. Cronkite.  Every news commentator around today owes something to the news anchor who became known as “the most trusted man in America”.

Sotomayor: It’s a lock

What’s that sound?  BANG!  BOOM!  KaBLOOEY!  That’s the sound of crania wingnuttia in explodum,  in response to the news that three (3) rational GOP Senators (who knew there were that many?) will vote to confirm Judge Sotomayor:

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor picked up her first Republican Senate backers Friday — Sens. Mel Martinez of Florida, Richard Lugar of Indiana and Olympia Snowe of Maine — virtually assuring her of an overwhelming confirmation vote.

Democrats control 60 Senate votes, and some other Republicans could join them when the Senate votes, probably in early August.

A Democratic supermajority means the nomination is pretty much a lock anyway, so Republicans have been grilling, insulting and browbeating Sotomayor all week for no other reason than to suckhole up to the querulous theocrats, misogynists and racist scum they call their “base”.   Hope it was worth it… “it” being the Hispanic vote, because the blatant racism oozed out of the hearings like, well, like big blobs of mystery goo.

Then again, at least one Republican thought the hearings weren’t racist enough:

Newsflash to Pat Buchanan:  your job at MSNBC is an “affirmative action hire” — you’re only there to provide balance for the “left-wing” commentary.  So stuff it, scumbag.

Cool

A lizard that swims through sand like a snake:

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology used a high-speed x-ray camera to peer through the sand and see. The little lizards, it turns out, use a far different mode of locomotion under the sand than they do at the surface.

“Once below the surface they no longer use their limbs for propulsion,” study leader Daniel Goldman said in a statement. “Instead they move forward by propagating a traveling wave down their bodies like a snake.”

Scrubbing Bubbles at Operation Rescue site

Well, lookee here.   Operation Scumbag has been having website “problems”:

I recall their site crashed just hours after the killing (which they had nothing to do with, nothing! and were shocked, shocked I tell you! to hear about, belying their decades-long demonization and harassment of Dr.Tiller).   But not before intrepid bloggers revealed that the murder suspect, who had OR’s phone number in his car, had also been posting on their website and in regular touch with their “senior policy adviser”, who helped him stalk Dr.Tiller.  One can only imagine the frantic purging that went on in those dark, feverish hours of May 31st.   But apparently that wasn’t enough time to do what had to be done, because since then they’ve been running on an emergency site while “fixing” the old one:

But:

Got that?  Their webmaster lost internet service at his office AND his home, AND his computer crashed (probably chewing up a few incriminating files in the process), all on the same day!  The LORD works in mysterious ways!  So…

It’s not “spiritual” warfare these depraved douchebags are worried about, it’s “legal” warfare, and in that respect, the ordeal has only just begun. Keep praying, assholes.

Big blobs of mystery goo

Hmm, disturbingly eye-catching headline:

Maybe the First Dude took Pat Buchanan’s advice and the big blobs of mystery goo are all that’s left of pesky little Levi.   Strange things are done by the midnight sun!

Mental health break

Damn atheists!

(from atheist cartoons)

World’s oldest mother dies

Realizing a scenario predicted two years ago when a 66-year-old woman became the world’s oldest mother by giving birth to twins (through IVF), the woman has passed away:

The brother of Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara told the paper Diario de Cadiz she passed away on Saturday, aged 69.

It said she had been diagnosed with cancer shortly after giving birth.

In 2007, Ms Bousada de Lara said she had lied about her age to doctors at a fertility clinic in California to get IVF treatment, telling them she was 55.

Ms Bousada de Lara argued that there was no reason to believe she would not have as long a life as her mother, who died at the age of 101. She even joked that she might live to see her grandchildren.

And now, Hell will proceed to freeze over

as I find myself onside with the fetus fetishists on this one, though not for the same deranged reasons.  They disagree with IVF because some of the little polywogs in the petri dish (aka “babies”) get flushed.  I only disagree with it in scenarios like this, where the mother is just way too freaking old.  (If that makes me an IVF anti-choicer, so be it.)

Anyway, as luck would have it, it looks like another prolific pensioner has already broken this woman’s record.

Hell

It hath no fury like a woman fucked around on.

(h/t ellroon)

News from Sawahpac

Sarah Palin’s political action group “Sarahpac” hints ominously at the possibility of a new conservative party, a different conservative party, a more dangerous conservative party than ever before:

Enter now Sarah Palin with very encouraging comments that lead one to believe that she is indeed planning to do what she must: build an independent conservative movement and take this nation back from the liberals which now control both parties. Thanks liberals, for provoking Sarah into the national scene while vetting that family at the same time.

Could we be so lucky?  And why not?  We’re talking about someone who is

…a threat to every existing political status quo.

Nevertheless, taking the nation back from the liberals who commandeered it last fall is bound to be an expensive little venture, so in the intervening two years before campaigning begins in earnest, shill, baby, shill!

It begs the question

If Meghan McCain could figure it out about Joe the Plumber, why couldn’t her father figure it out about Sarah Palin?

(h/t JAB)

Bullwinkle Barbie: Cap and Trade is hard!

With unemployment freedom from work looming and political cartoonists wondering if she’ll stay in politics and thereby secure their supply of material for the foreseeable future, yesterday SaWah Palin fired the opening salvo in what looks like an absurd campaign to be taken *cough* Seriously.  In a Washington Post op-ed (“Op” for “Facts Optional”, according to Olbermann), Palin held forth on the subject of Cap and Trade, apparently unhindered by the fact that she doesn’t understand it:

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.  [...]

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.  [...]

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

Word Salad:  it’s what’s for lunch.  You’ll note that, in an op-ed ostensibly about energy policy, the egocentric Palin manages to devote an entire brain-damaged paragraph to those big meanies in the media.  And predictably, there’s the requisite dog-whistle to the fundies — “the resources that God created” — apart from that, the whole thing reads like a protracted “LALALALALA”, rationalized by outright falsehoods  (“The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet” — wrong) and scare tactics (“destroying America’s economy” — wrong again), with no regard for the actual issues that initiated Cap and Trade.  As Conor Clarke points out:

It’s basically an editorial advertisement for drilling in the ANWR.  Palin could have saved herself a lot of time and keystrokes with some minor edits to the second paragraph quoted above:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy Big Oil. It would undermine our recovery Chevron’s profits over the short term and would inflict permanent  damage to Big Oil’s plans to rape and pillage the ANWR.

There, fixed.  So it looks like SaWah’s decided on a new career: shill for Big Oil.   And why not?  That’s who’ll be bankrolling any of her future political ambitions.

(Read Clarke’s entire takedown of Palin’s op-ed here, and Senator John Kerry’s response here.)

You know they’ve got nothin’

… when they play the Terrorist Card!  I guess it wasn’t good enough to insinuate that Sonia Sotomayor will shoot unborn fetuses with the guns she grabs from 2nd Amendment-abiding citizens:

So stupid you’d almost think it was intentional.

Buffer zone law upheld in Mass.

A small victory for safe access to womens’ clinics in Massachusetts today:

The US 1st Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Massachusetts law on Friday, allowing a 35-foot safety buffer zone between protestors and abortion clinic entrances. The law, established in 2007, protects clinic patients and staff from harassment.

Five anti-choice protesters originally filed the lawsuit on the grounds that the safety zones violate their right to free speech. In 2008, US District Judge Joseph Tauro rejected their request and they filed the most recent appeal.

The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that the law does not infringe on protestors’ free speech rights and applies to all protestors no matter their viewpoint.

Only 35 feet??  Not nearly wide enough in my opinion (try “out of high-powered rifle range”), but at least now patients can get in and out of the clinic without having to raise umbrellas against the flying spittle.

Sotomayor: Roe v Wade “settled” law

Sorry, zygote zealots, embryo enthusiasts and fetus fetishists.  Okay, not really.

We report, you lock & load

Seriously, what the blue blazing fuck is Fox News thinking?

(h/t Frank Frink)

Anti-Choice Pinheads Go Bonkers at Sotomayor hearings

Today was the Big Day that Randall Terry (here’s the old attention whore himself) and the rest of the anti-abortion ignorami have been waiting for… the start of hearings preceding Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the US Supreme Court.  The fetus fetishists were there in numbers proportionate to their importance and influence, doing what they do best:  interrupting the proceedings by going bugfuck nuts in public:

The plaintiff in the landmark abortion-rights case Roe v. Wade, who became an abortion protester in recent years, was among four demonstrators arrested Monday for disrupting Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination hearing.

Norma McCorvey, 61, of Texas, better known as “Jane Roe,” began screaming that Sotomayor was “wrong” about abortion during the opening statement of the newest member of the Senate, Al Franken, D-Minn.   [...]

The first outburst came during Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s opening statement. A man in the back of the room interrupted the California Democrat’s remarks by shouting: “Senator! What about the unborn!” He called abortion “genocide.”

“What about the unborn!!???”  What about the Undead?  What about the Unstupid?   Way to make the anti-choicers look like a bunch of barking-mad, shrieking headcases.  Oh, wait..

On a more serious note, TPM has a live blog that was done during today’s hearing.  It summarizes some of the opening statements, which hint at the direction questioning will take when it starts tomorrow.  Alas, nothing about the Unborn.  The Unsane will be very Unhappy.

I’m not Gay, I just play one in Pride Parades

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

The Divine Ms. Z continues to prove the old adage about well-behaved women seldom making history as she once again finds herself at the center of a frenzied little tempest of outrage, hurt feelings and political correctness run amok, this time because of a comment at her Canada Day post.

Zerb’s post mentioned the censorious tendencies of the zionist lobby.  In the ensuing comment thread it came up that Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress had marched in the Pride parade with a pro-zionist GLBT group.  (Yay for diversity-embracing Bernie!)  However, he only signed on for it after failed attempts to get the parade to give an anti-zionist (not anti-semitic) GLBT group the boot.

Commenting snarkily on the possibility that Farber might have had his own agenda, Antonia said:  “I didn’t know he was gay.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that”… and set off a shitstorm.  Farber fired off an official complaint to the Star for having been “misrepresented” as gay (carefully adding words to the effect of “not that there’s anything wrong with that”)… even though at the parade he wore a T-shirt that said as much:  “Nobody knows I’m Gay”.   So come on — someone had to say it.

It all culminated Saturday as the once-proud Star caved and issued a pearl-clutching apology for Antonia’s “Gay Blog post”.   Only an idiot (and in my opinion, a homophobe) would interpret her comment as an insult — either that or Farber didn’t like some of the other things Zerb had to say, and saw the comment as an opportunity to stop her from saying them.  Pick one, there’s no “neither of the above” option.

That’s called “censorship”, so maybe Zerb should be thanking Farber for making her point.

You can advise the Star of how wrong they got this by emailing Kathy English at publiced @  thestar.ca.

UPDATE: What CC said.

UPDATE II: And what stageleft said.

UPDATE III: Alison’s Epic Fail Roundup.  (Or, “What they said”.)

UPDATE IV: JAB’s take.

Palin to campaign for like-minded dingbats

Freed from the demands of the workaday world and all too aware that Idle Hands are Satan’s Sweatshop,  Quitter-In-Chief Sarah Palin is anxious to put her time to good use and hit the Campaign Trail for GOP candidates… and Democrats… and anyone else who’s not particularly  interested in  winning:

Brushing aside the criticisms of pundits and politicos, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said she plans to jump immediately back into the national political fray — stumping for conservative issues and even Democrats — after she prematurely vacates her elected post at month’s end.

The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP’s base said in an interview she views the electorate as embattled and fatigued by nonstop partisanship, and she is eager to campaign for Republicans, independents and even Democrats who share her values on limited government, strong defense and “energy independence.”

“I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation,” she said over lunch in her downtown office…

But surprise, surprise!  Where are all these Dems who want to crank up their campaigns with some SaWahPower?  If there are any, none have come forward with this politically-suicidal admission.    And frankly, there aren’t many GOP takers either:

Mrs. Palin did not name any candidates for whom she might campaign. Indeed, whether the polarizing Alaskan would be welcome on the campaign circuit is an open question. Republicans running in statewide races in Virginia and New Jersey – the only states with gubernatorial races in November – have offered only lukewarm responses when asked whether Mrs. Palin is welcome to campaign there.

Meanies!  But never mind that — in deepest, darkest, reddest Texas, where men are men, sheep are nervous, and “science is only true” for socialist fucksticks, creationist crackpot Governor Rick Perry (who keeps trying to sneak creationism into schools by making idiot plays like this and getting smacked down like that), will soon face challenger Kay Bailey Hutchison, a moderate Republican, in the gubernatorial primaries.  Not surprisingly, the hyperdelusional Perry is ecstatic about the idea of the Palin Rolling Roadshow & Word Salad Spinner helping him get a lock on the all-important Shrieking Imbecile Vote.  And why not?  Palin and Perry are two nuts off the same goofy tree.  But best of all, there are rumours that this endorsement could lead to the Democrats being gifted in 2012 with… a Perry/Palin GOP ticket!!

Could the Dems be so lucky?

Calling in conservative

The Apocalypse must surely be at hand:  on July 30th, Teabagger Nation is planning to GO GALT by calling in sick to work in protest of… taxes?… or Obama… or liberals… or something — in a campaign they’ve dubbed “Call In Conservative” (but would more accurately be termed “Christmas in July”).

“Stop the engine of our economy in protest!” — and why not?  There are a lot of people who share the teabaggers’ goal of sending the US economy into a tailspin.

We always knew they were wankers

Now the rest of the world is catching on, by the looks of William Saletan’s article in Slate this week, outstandingly titled “Wank Thyself — The Pro-Life Case for Masturbation”:

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, masturbation is “intrinsically and gravely disordered.” That’s because “sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” If you aren’t making babies, you can’t play with the equipment.

But what if playing with the equipment helps you make babies?

The article then goes on to cite a recent study that shows daily ejaculation improves the quality of sperm:

Daily sex (or ejaculating daily) for seven days improves men’s sperm quality by reducing the amount of DNA damage, according to an Australian study presented today (Tuesday) to the 25th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam.

A fap-fap-fapple a day keeps the urologist away!

In the Catholic context of sex-for-procreation-only, Saletan muses that since  daily autonomous ejaculations improve sperm quality and make reproduction that much easier, they shouldn’t be proscribed as “disordered”.  Anything that facilitates the end goal of producing more tithing Catholics should not only be acceptable but favourable and highly recommended behaviour for anyone who considers procreation the sole purpose of sexual congress.   Somebody call the Pope and tell him “Ur doin it wrong!” because Saletan’s theory makes sense.

But only if one’s logic circuits haven’t been fried and fused together into wizened little raisin-like clumps of nonfuctional sinew by feverish religious fervour.   There’s no doubt that many of these people already have matters well in hand, but I don’t think the Pope will be writing an encyclical praising the procreative glory of pounding the hound anytime soon.

Randall’s rolling roadshow flops

Anti-abortion fruitcake Randall Terry, who’s on a road tour to beg senators to “Stop Sotomayor!” by filibustering her nomination to SCOTUS, wasn’t having much luck in Kansas yesterday:

Terry’s 45-minute protest not far from Sen. Sam Brownback’s office drew one columnist, one TV cameraman, a family of three and a woman who arrived as he packed up for his next stop, Topeka. He’s on a 12-city tour, calling for a Senate filibuster against Sotomayor. Brownback’s staff didn’t even let him into their office.

Well, that can’t be good.  Brownback is of the same ideological bent as Terry, and he wouldn’t even let him in the office to use the bathroom, let alone talk to him about filibustering.  Could it be that even mainstream anti-choicers like Brownback have had enough of the brain-damaged fanaticism of crazed fascist punks like Terry and his aborted baby, Operation Rescue?  Ya think?:

For many, Operation Rescue are words forever linked with the fanatical violence that left Tiller dead. Terry and Newman denounced the violence, but it’s far from clear how the slaying will affect their support.

“Denounced the violence” — sure; if by “denounced” you mean “screeched about mass murderers and hands drenched with the Blood of Teh Unborn”, followed by weasely denials of culpability.   But the bottom line is:

Religious conservatives don’t have the sway in Washington they once did. Many conservative pastors now believe the most effective way to reduce abortions is by limiting unwanted pregnancies in the first place. The country would be wise to continue shifting away from the tactics long deployed by Operation Rescue.

Using Terry’s “Stop Sotomayor!” campaign as an inverse barometer to predict the success of Sotomayor’s confirmation to SCOTUS, it looks like clear skies and smooth sailing ahead.