Briefly, before I pass out

WTF!?

UPDATE: LOL

Flu

Things might be slow around here for a day or two…  I was feeling a little weird yesterday and today it looks like some vile pest of a flu bug has launched a full-scale two-pronged attack on my gut and brain.

At this time of year it’s an occupational hazard.  The kids go back to school, they all get sick, they give it to their parents, their parents come into the store to buy Cold & Flu Crap™ and they cough the whole time,  each cough unleashing a flurry of airbourne contaminants that are rapidly propelled  throughout the entire building via the heating system.  C’est la vie.

In other news, I lit my first fire of the winter today, an event I usually hold off until October 1st.  It bugged me because I knew I wasn’t really cold, just sick.

That’s it (for now).

Dig deep

CC’s cycling club is doing a charity ride this coming weekend and the challenge is for us the readers to help him raise as much money as humanly possible for their cause, Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region.

This is a great cause and these people are busting their asses riding 160km to make it happen, so let’s help him out.

Hey Bina: Here’s one for Wanker of the Week

You just had to know this was coming, and now it’s arrived.  The right-wing demonization of murdered census worker Bill Sparkman begins:

Notorious homophobe Dan Riehl pre-emptively asks if Sparkman was a gay child predator, because he had an adopted son. He has no other evidence at all.

No, really:

Once again, right-wing douchebaggery sinks to a sleazy, slimy, shit-encrusted new nadir.

UPDATE: Really.

UPDATE II: Here’s last week’s Wankers of the Week in case you missed it.

Chill

Settle down everyone, sing along with Captain Trips.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps theyre better left unsung.
I dont know, dont really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then whos to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.

Sex Degrees of Separation

Based on the idea that when you have sex, you’re not only getting it on with your partner but with all your partner’s partners, this “Sex Degrees of Separation” calculator is supposed to calculate the real number of sex partners you’ve had:

Go ahead and try it, but it might not work — I think I broke it:

Come on, it was the 70s.

Adopt a Liberal

Stand back!  There’s a new initiative in the Liberty Counsel’s ongoing battle against the Forces of Satan — “Adopt A Liberal“. 

The LC website explains “How it Works” and then goes on to suggest a few potential adoptees who are in need of prayerifying, including an odious and shadowy figure that looms menacingly over all god-fearing, commie-loathing, universal health care-hating footsoldiers in the War Against Good & Evil… “the Unknown Liberal”:

If this little routine sounds familiar, it should:  it’s just another form of the Full-Scale 30-Day Prayer Assault we fought off 2 years ago… but this time it’s more insidious.  At least the denizens of Stanek’s Fetusburger Bistro & Grill didn’t adopt us.

Helmets on, troops, and watch for incoming.  We are all “the Unknown Liberal”.

It’s Sunday

Time for some godliness.

According to this godly sign, a lot of us ♡ the devil:

Looks like they covered everyone but “gratuitous apostrophe abusers”.

BY THE WAY, what do you think they mean by “High Fullutent”?   “High Flatulent” maybe?

(from God Hates Protesters)

Worst Person in the World

Just for Jasper…

Shona’s at it again

Shona Holmes is once again being trotted out on Fox News so she can dump all over Canada’s health care system.  See Shona lie:

The anti-health care reform goons in the US have recently launched one last desperate volley against the public option, and this is just part of it.  Videos like this one suddenly sprung up all over YouTube yesterday, posted by rotten shit-eating creeps like “Patients United Now”, part of the “Americans for Prosperity Foundation”.  (“Prosperity”, right — for the greedheads that run the private insurance companies.)

But enough of that bullshit.  Here’s some real Canadians (ie. not  being paid by the private insurance lobby) talking about health care:

If anyone knows how to post that as a video response on YouTube, I would appreciate knowing.

Lastly:  when does Holmes go to court?  She said in the video “Monday” — is that this  Monday?  Sept. 28 rings a bell, but I’m not sure.  Anyone know?  Whatever, I hope she gets her ass handed to her.

Public Service Announcement

Since we seem to be enjoying — no, basking in — the attention of a few blithering right-wingnut trolls recently (and by “right-wingnut trolls” I don’t mean “rational conservatives”, whose input I appreciate), it’s probably time to direct all sane readers to this article on How to Talk To Complete Idiots:

There are three basic ways to talk to complete idiots.

The first is to assail them with facts, truths, scientific data, the commonsensical obviousness of it all. You do this in the very reasonable expectation that it will nudge them away from the ledge of their more ridiculous and paranoid misconceptions because, well, they’re facts, after all, and who can dispute those?

Why, idiots can, that’s who. It is exactly this sort of logical, levelheaded appeal to reason and mental acuity that’s doomed to fail, simply because in the idiotosphere, facts are lies and truth is always dubious, whereas hysteria and alarmism resulting in mysterious undercarriage rashes are the only things to be relied upon.

Ha!  Ain’t that the truth.

Update on killed census worker

This is starting to sound weirder.  One of the people who discovered the body of Bill Sparkman has gone public with what he saw at the scene:

A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago.

Authorities have also said the word “fed” was scrawled with a felt-tip pen across 51-year-old Bill Sparkman’s chest, but they have released very few details about the case and said investigators have not determined if it was a homicide, suicide or an accident.  [...]

Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was among a group of relatives who made the gruesome discovery on Sept. 12.

“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Weaver said. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something.”

“And they even had duct tape around his neck. And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.”

Definitely murder — the “why” remains to be seen, but I’m less convinced than ever that this might have been a drug-related murder.

Your Friday “Awwww”

Born to be police dogs:

Eight puppies were born in the back of a Winnipeg police car while the officers were responding to a call on Thursday.

The officers were on regular patrol when they noticed a couple of dogs wandering in traffic near Mountain Avenue and McPhillips Street around 2:30 a.m.

They were able to coax the dogs into the rear of their cruiser, luring them with food purchased at a local convenience store.

While on their way to take the dogs to an animal shelter, the officers responded to a call for assistance in regards to a man with a gun seen in the 800 block of Redwood Avenue, just a few blocks away.

The officers were on the scene of the weapons incident for about four hours while the dogs remained in the back of the cruiser.

After the incident was over, the officers returned to their car to discover the female Labrador/Shepherd cross had given birth to eight puppies.

All together now:  Awwwwww!

New doll indoctrinates Your Children to have compassion for the homeless

Political Indoctrination Tool

After the madness that spiraled out of the President’s school speech, would any kind of right-wing paranoia surprise you?  No?  Good, then you’re ready to hear about the latest “political indoctrination” conspiracy theory, which surrounds a new doll manufactured by those Marxist scum at Mattel Inc. (the “Inc.” is the tip-off that they’re commies.)

The offending doll, named “Gwen“, is one of a collection called “American Girl“, an outrageously expensive and popular series of dolls that cost about $95 each.  American Girl dolls come with  biographical books and movies about their lives… and that, according to the NY Post’s Andrea Peyser, is where things go unacceptably sideways with Gwen:

Snuck into the collection is a doll that comes with a biography that is weird and potentially offensive enough to keep Mom running to the Maalox. Gwen, you see, is harboring a terrible secret.

She is homeless. A homeless doll.

Ye fucking gods, homeless!?? Worse yet, Gwen’s bio explains the downward spiral of events that led her to this sorry state:

In the history books that come with every American Girl doll — bringing to life these little monsters until impressionable little ones believe they are actual people — you learn that Gwen’s father walked out on the family. Her mother lost her job.

As the little kiddies learn to read about this doll as if she’s a human being, one learns that, as fall turned into winter, Gwen’s mom lost her grip.

Mother and daughter started bedding down in a car.

It’s hard not to see the sad irony in a homeless doll that sells for $95 (hairstyling extra).  But Peyser’s problem with this doll isn’t so much that it’s expensive — it’s the message it sends:

For starters, men are bad. Fathers abandon women without cause. She’s also telling me that women are helpless. And that children in this great country, where dolls sell for nearly 100 bucks a pop, are allowed to sleep in motor vehicles. But mothers don’t lose custody over this injustice. Because, you see, they are victims, too.

Whether Peyser wants to admit it to herself or not, sometimes those things are all too true.  Some men do desert their families, and even in a great country where dolls sell for $95 a pop, some children are allowed to live in motor vehicles… about 1.5 million of them. And I can’t help thinking that kids whose parents can afford to give them $95 dolls might be just the right target for a few life lessons from someone like Gwen.  They sure as hell won’t get them from cold-hearted cretins like Peyser, who regard compassion as some kind of “political indoctrination” to be feared and hated.

(h/t DU)

Just another hapless victim

…of the World’s Greatest Health Care System™©®:

Kimberly Young of Oxford, Ohio, died Wednesday morning a few days short of her 23rd birthday. Hospital officials have said she appeared to have the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu.

But here’s why Young’s death is news beyond her northwest Ohio community: people who knew her are saying she resisted treatment that could have saved her life — because she didn’t have health insurance.

Once again, if this woman had been Canadian, she’d be alive today.  Oh and look, here’s someone who should be (but probably won’t be) feeling more than a little uncomfortable:

And adding to the political resonance: Young’s member of Congress is Rep. John Boehner, who as the House Republican leader has led the effort against reform.

Better dead than red, eh Boner?

The Evidence is in

With all the bad wingnut craziness that’s been going on in the states the last little while, it’s occasionally pointed out that US conservatives seem to have totally lost their grip on reality and gone stark raving apeshit bonkers.  Going on the defense, they typically fire back that “both sides have their nut fringe”.  And while that’s true enough in a general sense, the amount of batshit on the right seems disproportionately high.   But who knows?

Until now.  Thanks to Pollster, we now have the definitive answer to the question of  who has the most crazy:

Suck it up, wingnutters, the pinch is in.  And by the way, that 64%?  Not fringe.

UPDATE: Well well well, Peter in the comments insists on keeping me honest, so I feel compelled to add one last observation to this post:

Dems: one-third is nothing to write home about either.  WTF?  (I wonder how many believe Dick Cheney is the Antichrist?)

Tea stains

As a symbol of World Nut Daily‘s diehard commitment to improving its bottom line (“Don’t Tread On My Revenue Stream!”), for the low low price of $73.50, they’ll sell you a tea-stained flag:

Now imagine the furious, choking, sputtering, panting, wheezing, purple-faced, vein-popping, spittle-flecked outrage that would have ensued from the very same World Nut Daily not long ago if “The Left” had purposely stained flags, say, in opposition to the Iraq War.

(via TPM)

Juxtaposting

Many women who have abortions aren’t doing so by choice, they’re being coerced because they’re in a position of weakness:

When women are coerced or forced into having sex while intoxicated, drugged or drunk (ie. in a position of weakness), it’s their own fault and they should man up and take their punishment err, responsibility.

“It”:  that bothersome thing which can’t be had both ways.

(h/t – DJ)

Rachel Maddow on Census Worker killing

Further to this post from yesterday, about the census worker killed in Kentucky, here’s Rachel Maddow’s report last night:

Apart from the obvious possibility of this murder being fueled by anti-government sentiment, I was thinking it might have been about drugs — the area is known for its meth labs and pot farms.  And seriously, I would rather think it was because of something like that, because the other alternative is terrifying.

But the “Copperhead Road” scenario seems a little unlikely considering that the last thing anyone running an illegal operation would want to do is bring teams of cops into the area for a murder investigation.  If this poor guy stumbled onto a meth lab, they’d more likely have shot him and quietly buried the body somewhere.  Hanging the guy and writing “FED” on his chest is (obviously) meant to attract attention and send a message.  The fact that the FBI has kept the story quiet for so long is also ominous.  And all the blind, brain-damaged rage and hysteria that’s been whipped up about the census, ACORN, FEMA camps etc., is probably enough to put any census worker in danger.

Teabaggitude

… it’s all fun and games and angry town halls and Teabaggapalooza Parades until someone actually “waters the tree of liberty” and hangs a goverment worker from it:

The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word ‘fed” was scrawled on the dead man’s chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.  (emphasis mine)

The Teabagosphere is worried… no, not about the victim and his family (what were you thinking!?), but about whether the murder might make them look bad.

Did someone say “Fifth column of insanity”?

UPDATE: Cliff has more to say.

Update II on racist scumbag Troy Dale West

Even in the wilds of deepest darkest Jo-ja, racist woman-beaters and child terrorizers sometimes have to answer for their loathsome, savage actions:

A man accused of screaming racial slurs while beating an Army reservist in front of her daughter outside a restaurant in Morrow, Georgia, was jailed and held without bond Wednesday after being indicted on felony charges.

Troy Dale West Jr., of Poulan, Georgia, is facing one count of aggravated assault, two counts of battery, two counts of disorderly conduct, false imprisonment and cruelty to children for allegedly beating Tashawnea Hill outside a Cracker Barrel restaurant on September 9, according to a Clayton County Court online docket.

West had been arrested on misdemeanor charges following the incident, but Clayton County District Attorney Tracy Graham Lawson took the the case to a grand jury asking for more serious charges. (emphasis mine)

That’s more like it:  none of this “misdemeanour charges and bonded back on the street in hours” horseshit — as of this morning, West’s mail is being redirected to the county jug.  There he’ll await trial, after which he’ll hopefully move into more permanent lodgings.   Bye-bye, dickhead!

(h/t democommie in the comments)

OMG…

Does this mean…

AIIIIEEEE!!!

Shirts for industry!

Whoops, I got a little carried away after watching that Bonzo Dog video.

There really are shirts, but they aren’t for industry but rather the industrious LEAF, the Women’s Legal Education & Action Fund, who do all kinds of wonderful work on behalf of that left-wing fringe group known as “women”.   The fundraising T-shirts are the brainchild of Antonia Z, and feature the logo in my  sidebar with the caption: “Proud member of that ‘left-wing fringe group’:  Women”.  (The caption originates from a disparaging comment our wonderful PM made about women’s groups — details at the Facebook Group here.)

DammitJanet has more info on styles available and how to get one of these shirts to help support a great cause.  Woohoo, shakin’ the shirt!

Why not

I still love that guitar solo.

Freak Alert

This was too creepy for me not to post.

From Right Wing Watch, here’s a short video clip of anti-choice fascist Lila Rose, addressing the “Values Voters Summit” on the weekend.  Watch closely how the expression on her face transforms into almost a snarl when she talks about how women should be forced to have abortions “in the public square” — a truly medieval hair-shirt punishment routine if there ever was one — then transforms back to a benign smile when she talks about “hearing angels sing”.  

 

I don’t see misogyny behind every tree, but for a few seconds there I saw a hatred of women so raw it was like a slap in the face.   

It really makes me wonder about the origins of Ms.Rose’s crusade against Planned Parenthood; what she experienced that filled her with such loathing for her own sex. According to RHRC, it’s a question she “studiously avoids answering“.