OOF! *thud*

Now here’s a headline with the impact of a hail of bullets to the face:

No, really:

But I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in the background was liberal readers spitting out their lattes.)

Why? Because Cheney is a man of conviction [...]

Maybe he meant to say “a man who deserves a conviction?”

(via Wonkette)

More dumb on Twitter

I didn’t think it was possible, but I just found a twitterstream with even more stupid per square inch than #tcot:

#climategate

Don’t click unless you’re wearing a stupidproof vest!

Fundraiser to send Frank Chauvin the postage to return his Order of Canada

Further to my post about melodramatic anti-choicer Frank Chauvin, whose court challenge disputing the Morgentaler Order of Canada was kicked to the curb on Friday:

After months of being included in the long(er than eight) list of OC medal returnees, Chauvin says he’ll finally return the medal:

“I kept the medal until this hearing was over and now it’s going back,” said Frank Chauvin, a devout Catholic who received the Order of Canada in 1987 in recognition of his work with children in Haiti.

Right.   And the court’s ruling was a big surprise, no?

The court found that Chauvin did not have standing to bring the case either in support of his personal interests or as a matter of public interest.

“I didn’t expect one judge to go against another judge,” said Chauvin.

“It (the ruling) was no surprise, as far as I’m concerned.”

If Chauvin really “didn’t expect one judge to go against another judge”, and the ruling was “no surprise”, then why in the wide wide world of sports would he waste the court’s time (and taxpayer dollars) on this bullshit court challenge?  Isn’t that what’s known as “frivolous litigation”?

What’s really no surprise is the fetus fetishizing hypocrisy of it all.  If Chauvin isn’t completely sincere about wanting to return the medal, and I wouldn’t blame him for that since he earned it fair and square, he should stop bleating about it and just keep the thing.  But if he means business and he’s just having trouble coming up with the postage, I’m sure we could raise the $20 it would cost to Express Post the thing.  (There, I just looked in my purse and met our fundraiser’s quota already.)

So… Come on Frank, let’s have it… the medal, Frank… give it up… come on…!!

UPDATE: Whoops!  BCL reports that Chauvin is being a little coy about his intentions.  Come on, Frank, give it here… come on… come on…

Twitter’s liberal bias

Wow, this is old but I missed it and is it ever exciting!

I keed.  Not exciting, but pretty freaking funny.

In the great “Facts Optional” tradition of Conservapedia and the Conservative Bible Project, stand back:  there’s a Conservative Christian alternative to Twitter!

A few weeks ago, a Christian Twitter user (Christweep?) was hit with a one-week suspension from Twitter for spamming.  The user, James L Paris, immediately upshifted into Persecution Complex mode and claimed he was suspended for supporting Rush Limbaugh.   Paris harrumphed:

I guess I am making some liberal at Twitter upset.

and fretted:

These are the kinds of things that we as Christians and Conservatives can only expect to happen more and more often.

Of course:  it’s all about anti-Christian bigotry and the Silencing of Christians, not the fact that in trying to promote his “Christian Money” site, Paris made such gratuitous use of the “@” key (replying to all and sundry with the Good News about Christian Money) that Twitter thought he was a spammer.

But Paris was determined to fight back against Twitter’s liberal bias, so in early November he launched ChristianChirp, the Christian Alternative to Twitter:

“It was not just the suspension for sharing my conservative views, but I was also receiving a number of very inappropriate messages to a computer that I share with my children”, said Paris. “I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to be a part of the solution, so I started a Christian alternative.” According to Paris, his version of Twitter will not allow any profanity, vulgar language, or adult content. “We are very serious about keeping this a safe Christian space”, said Paris on Monday.

It’s funny:  by setting up these alternative information sites and social networking platforms, fundies contribute to their own isolation far more than any malevolent liberal anti-Christian forces they might imagine.  Yet that doesn’t stop them from bitching about how they’re being “silenced” and driven from mainstream political dialogue.

And one last point of interest:  if this guy thinks Twitter has a liberal bias, he’s never seen #tcot (“top conservatives on twitter), a Twitterstream of such cataclysmic brain damage that reading more than 2 tweets at a time is a mental health hazard.

UPDATE: Apparently the tweets that got Paris in hot H20 with Twitter were not business related but Limbaugh-oriented, and lots of ‘em.   (via)

(h/t the Mad Voter on Twitter)

Just in time for the festive season

Back in my misspent youth, Molson “Brador”, a beer that was only sold in Quebec, was considered the Ultimate Beer.   With 6% alcohol by volume compared to the 5% of our average domestic beers, a halfsack of Brador was an efficient investment of beer capital.   Never mind Budweiser with its wimpy 3.2% ABV — among decadent and depraved Canadian youth of the 70s, Brador was the de facto king of beers, and every weekend  a couple of us would make a run to Montreal and return with a trunkload of the stuff.

Apparently the search for mindblowingly intoxicating beer goes on.  Move over Brador — stand back and make way for the King Hell Big Daddy of Beers, “Tactical Nuclear Penguin”:

A controversial Scottish brewery has launched what it described as the world’s strongest beer – with a 32% alcohol content.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin has been unveiled by BrewDog of Fraserburgh.  [...]

Managing director James Watt said a limited supply of Tactical Nuclear Penguin would be sold for £30 each.

He said: “This beer is about pushing the boundaries, it is about taking innovation in beer to a whole new level.”

Beer has obviously come a long way in 30 years:  “pushing the boundaries” used to be what drugs were all about!

(h/t Ellroon)

Wingnuts and Science: a bad mix

I think I better start following the climate change debate if this is any example of the hilarity coming out of it.

The climate-flavoured asshattery continued apace this week, rising to a screeching crescendo on Thursday when the Drudge Report mistakenly linked to a post at Scienceblogs’ Deltoid with the headline “New Zealand Climate Science Coalition caught lying about temperature trends“.

Drudge apparently didn’t read any further than the headline.  Since the “NZ Climate Science Coalition” sounded like a group of actual scientists instead of, well, you know,  what it really is — a group of anti-climate science wingnuts who’ve just hung a sciency-sounding name on themselves to shore up their credibility — Drudge linked to the Deltoid post. For added goofy goodness, wingnuts blindly reposted the article to “Digg“:

Noting Drudge’s mistake, Tim Lambert added a shout-out to Drudge readers to the top of his post, and incoming wingnuts who were rubbing their hands with glee in expectation of a good lambasting of climate science — on Scienceblogs, no less — were instead greeted with this liver-quivering message:

Update: A special message to visitors from Drudge: you are being lied to.  [...]

Needless to say, Drudge removed the link — wouldn’t want anyone reading anything but anti-science horseshit, after all — but not  before hordes of wingnuts descended upon Deltoid.  Imagine them reading the link at Drudge, jumping into their virtual ’75 Harvester and barreling over to Scienceblogs, and then… “the screaming tires, the busted glass, the painful scream(s) that I heard last”:

Sorry wingnuts,  ALLCAPS and exclamation marks don’t make it any truer. (!!!)

Deltoid has more.

UPDATE for extra wingnutty goodness: If you click on the image of the Digg link, you’ll see that whoever posted it wrote that the Deltoid article was about pretty much the opposite of what it was really about.  So any wingnut who saw the link on Digg would have been extra excited and ultimately, extra disappointed.  Boo-hoo!(via)

Test

T52VV5RFYUKX

Nothing, just Technorati bullshit

Morgentaler Order of Canada court challenge FAIL

Oh guess what guess what guess what no you’ll never!… Dr. Morgentaler gets to keep his Order of Canada.  What a surprise! (/end sarc)

Most of you will recall how fetus fetishists attempted to get a “blizzard” of returned Order of Canada medals in protest against Dr. Morgentaler finally getting this well-deserved and long-overdue honour.   (Oh what fun that was last summer — MASSIVE amounts of fun!)  Needless to say, the perfect storm of returned medals never materialized… the final tally was about nine(9), including “4 from beyond the grave”, as we like to say around here.

Yep, I’m sure you’ll fondly recall all of that.  But you probably won’t remember this part of it — I sure didn’t.  About a year ago, Frank Chauvin, one of the fetus fetishists who swore up and down that he was returning his medal, had a bit of a change of heart.   In spite of his threats, Chauvin apparently had trouble parting with his medal (and in fact has not returned it to this day), so rather than giving it up for the “cause” like he said he would…

“Yes, it’s definitely going,” Chauvin said Thursday from his Windsor home. “I don’t want to be painted with the same brush as Morgentaler. It’s definitely going back.“

…he decided to hang onto his medal and try to get Dr. Morgentaler’s medal taken away from him instead.  To this end, he launched a legal challenge to invalidate Dr. Morgentaler’s  award:

Local Order of Canada member Frank Chauvin has launched a legal challenge against the advisory council that decided to make abortion-rights activist Dr. Henry Morgentaler an Order of Canada member.

“This is not the way they’re supposed to choose,” Chauvin, a devout Catholic, said from his Windsor home on Friday.

No indeed!  They’re only supposed to choose fetus fetishists, right?  Well, the verdict is in and Chauvin’s court challenge is a MASSIVE FAIL:

A Federal Court ruling this week has said that the Governor General’s highly controversial induction of Canada’s “father of abortion,” Henry Morgentaler, into the Order of Canada last summer cannot be legally contested.

In a decision released this week, Order-inductee Frank Chauvin’s application for a federal court review of the award was rejected on the grounds that it is “plain and obvious that [it] cannot succeed.“

That’s legalese for “Well, DUH!”

Now come on, Frank, let’s have the medal… you said you would… come on now, give it up… you promised… you wouldn’t want to be a hypocrite, now would you?  Come on…

Pick me up off the floor

I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tells ya:

Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland’s government concluded Thursday.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse — yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.

Martin said his four predecessors in Ireland’s capital, including retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, must have understood that priests’ molestation and rape of boys and girls ”was a crime in both civil and canon law. For some reason or another they felt they could deal with all this in little worlds of their own.

“For some reason or other” — and I wonder what that might have been… wanted to keep the party going, I guess.

An idea whose time has come

Dammit Janet has come up with the “Maurice Vellacott Award” — an honour recognizing leadership in what DJ calls “gynophobia” (which I think is probably the irrational fear of women managing their own reproductive systems).   It kind of reminds me of Andrew Sullivan’s awards that are named after Michelle Malkin et al.

When you think about it, Canada has enough wingnuts that there are many awards that could named after the leading Canadian lights in deranged disciplines from misogyny to fetus fetishizing, and occasionally bestowed upon deserving individuals:

the ALLCAPS Award – for fetus fetishism so extreme that it borders on the psychotic;

the KEN Award – for incoherent misogynist gibberish posted in blog comments  (named for “Ken”, one of ALLCAPS’ regular commenters);

the Landolt Award – for demented homophobic hyperbole;

the Lakritz Award – for excellence in blaming feminists for every problem in the world from Climate Change to the Stock Market Crash

I bet we can think of a few more if we try…

Yo, free speech warriors…

…especially you socially conservative so-called “free” so-called “speechers”…Hello?  Hello?? (*tap-tap*  Is this thing on?)

It buuurrrrrrns

More teabaggy Goin’ Roguey- booky-waity-lineuppy wingnutty goodness…

 

Angus Reid: Canadians more pro-choice

A new Angus Reid poll on what Canadians believe about a number of social and ethical issues has bad news for fetus fetishists — 66% of Canadians are pro-choice, up from 61% just two years ago:

With so many moral issues at a crossroads, Angus Reid Strategies undertook a national survey last month asking Canadians to consider 21 ethical issues. Their answers—on issues as diverse as animal rights, prostitution, homosexuality and illegal drug use—show some profound divisions by gender and region. But taken together, they seem to reveal a rather astounding liberal tilt in our morality, albeit with some exceptions. Each Canadian steers by his and most certainly her moral compass, and the wonder is we don’t bump into each other more often.  [...]

Abortion is morally acceptable to 66 per cent of Canadians, an increase from 61 per cent in two years. It is one of a remarkably few areas where men and women agree in similar proportion.

Canada has long polled overwhelmingly pro-choice.  Unlike our USian friends, we don’t have to put up with having the sexual obsessions, hangups and fears of authoritarian religious perverts imposed upon our personal lives.   Just last year our honouring of Dr. Morgentaler with the Order of Canada amazed feminists south of the border:

Great Scott! Canada has handed out a big gold loving cup to a dude abortion rights activist! That’s right. Dr Henry Morgentaler, pioneer abortion provider, gallops home with an Order of Canada, the government’s top civilian award. As the Guardian’s Heather McRobie points out, this is a big deal;  imagine the extent to which your mind would be blown if either the US or the UK even dreamed of officially admitting that women’s abortion rights is a human rights issue, much less publicly announced that a dude who provides abortions ought to be regarded as a national hero.  (emphasis mine)

Certainly in comparison to the rest of the world, our prevailing attitude towards reproductive rights is enlightened, to say the least.  And apparently, becoming more so all the time, in spite of the anti-choice movement’s best efforts.  I wonder if their habit of importing strategies from the states is starting to backfire — Canada is a stubbornly secular nation, where things like Catholic bishops meddling in health care legislation would be unthinkable, so what works in the US might be a poison pill up here.

Whatever they’re doing, I encourage them to keep at it 

(h/t phatbiker in the comments)

Who could have seen this coming?

Let the squeals of misplaced outrage begin:

Oh, boo hoo hoo! All this self-pitying outrage from the Queen of the Rabid, Rancid, Maggot-Infested, Shit-stained Smear herself.

There was no “smear” in this case.  The possibility that some brain-damaged right-wing fruitbag might have killed Sparkman in a frenzy of anti-government fury wasn’t dreamed up by “The Left” the way Malkin hallucinates her paranoid notions — it was a very real possibility that was investigated by law enforcement as a feasible motive.   After all, Sparkman wouldn’t have been the first casualty of right-wing extremism, which has claimed five victims this year alone.

So please, spare us the fauxtrage.  Here’s an idea:  just shut the fuck up.

UPDATE: Don’t hold your breath.

Marg Delahunty goes rogue

From This Hour has 22 Minutes, Marg catches up with SaWah… sort of…

(Video replaced — this one should work for everyone.)

Census worker death a suicide

The investigation into the mysterious death of Bill Sparkman has ruled that Sparkman’s death was a suicide:

Census worker Bill Sparkman committed suicide and deliberately made it look like murder as part of an insurance scam, Kentucky state police have concluded.

State police, working with the FBI, said at a press conference moments ago that Sparkman had recently taken out two life insurance policies that would not pay out for suicide. It appears Sparkman hoped that the scheme would benefit his son, Josh Sparkman.

It was initially feared that Sparkman was the victim of anti-government sentiment driven by the furious right-wing hate rhetoric that’s been escalating since Obama took office, in much the same way as Dr. George Tiller’s murder was driven by insane anti-abortion hyperbole and demonization.

Although wingnuts will no doubt be whining for apologies, the conclusion that Sparkman wasn’t murdered because of right-wing extremism doesn’t change the fact that there’s something seriously rotten happening when such a motive would even be considered… and it’s something they are helping to perpetuate.

Ugggghhhh…

You might have already seen this vid over at CC’s, but it was so truly horrifying that I had to post it here.  It’s Sarah Palin supporters explaining why they think she should be president, and it’s so bad that it took was less than :35 seconds before I fell to the floor screaming “Holy FUCK!  The burning fucking stupid!!!”.

I wonder how people can be this stupid and remember to breathe in and breathe out.

 

The American Taliban in action

The Catholic church has always carried an absurd amount of political clout in the US. For evidence, look no further than their recent attempt to stick their noses into the health care debate and use health care reform as an opportunity to limit access to abortion, something they still haven’t given up on.   Catholic mullahs routinely employ bullying, blackmail and threats to bend politicians to their anti-woman, anti-gay will.

The latest victim of ecclesiastical strong-arming is Rep.Patrick Kennedy, who was banned from taking communion because of his pro-choice voting record.  The Church Enforcer who perpetrated Kennedy’s punishment appeared on Hardball yesterday, where Chris Matthews explained the concept of church and state separation, why Catholic bishops shouldn’t be meddling in politics, and oooooh, he went there! and asked the question every anti-choicer hates because they can’t answer it:

He’s back!

Go welcome our Evul Squirrul back to Blogistan!

You see Louise? You see?

You see why, when a seemingly-controversial story emerges, bloggers in the reality-based community don’t instantly run around screaming, shitting themselves uncontrollably and hallucinating blindly with their hair on fire…

…until they know the whole story?

AFTERSNARK: You have to appreciate the knee-slapping hilarity of “Stumblebumming Retard” Louise choosing to link to me, of all people, in a post about climate change, of all things — a topic I rarely if ever blog about, since I know sweet fuck-all about it.  But then, that doesn’t stop her from blogging about it.

(h/t John Cross at Dawg’s Blawg)

Speaking of shitcrazy bonkers…

The War on Christmas is fast approaching, and maybe you’re wondering what to buy the teabagger in your life.  Wonder no more (or maybe in this context that should be “wunder know more”) — here’s something that will warm their crusty, calloused barnacle of a teabaggy little heart.   Remember the Teabagger Movie?  This is the week “Teabaggers: The Movie” (or something like that) premieres, and you can buy the straight-to-DVD production for the low low price of $18.95.

With its melodramatic voice-over and goofy, overwrought prose, the teabagger movie might appear to be satire, but it’s not.  It’s more parody-proof wingnuttery with unintentional humour that cannot be improved upon by satire.   I mean, really:

“It began as a ripple, an online whisper, a grassroots awakening to a new threat on freedom!”

“Lady Liberty faces her newest challenge and across this great nation a new generation of patriots stands ready for her defense.”

And my favourite:

“They were ignored. They were mocked. But in the end they would not be silenced.”

Who could mock the teabaggers??

I can’t wait for the sequel!

Why do teabaggers hate the Fetus?

Looks like teabaggers only care about Teh Unborn when it’s opposed to health care reform:

The family, Dan and Midge Hough, of Chicago, spoke in favor of health care reform and in support of U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-3rd) at a Nov. 14 town hall meeting in Oak Lawn.

Their daughter-in-law, Jenny, and an unborn grandchild died recently due in part, they believe, to a lack of health insurance. They said Jenny was not receiving regular prenatal care and ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock. Her baby died in the womb, and Jenny died a few weeks later, leaving behind a husband and a 2-year-old daughter.

Catherina Wojtowicz, of Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community, an organizer for a Tea Party splinter group, Chicago Tea Party Patriots, falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story. In an e-mail, she called them operatives of President Barack Obama who “go from event to event and (cry) the same story.”

When the Houghs spoke at the Lipinski event, some Tea Partiers ridiculed them. They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted. Midge Hough began to cry.

Keep it klassy, ‘baggers.

(via political carnival)

Christian is the New Black

If you haven’t had your fill of Wild-Eyed Shitcrazy Bonkers for the week, at Wingnut Daily the deranged Ken Hutcherson begins an unhinged anti-gay screed by hinting at some upcoming craze-a-liciousness:

It has been said loudly and proudly that gay marriage is a civil-rights issue. If that’s the case, then gays would be the new African-Americans. I’m here to tell you now, and hopefully for the last time, that the gay community is not the new “African-American” community. In fact, I think Christians are the new Negro – but that’s an issue for a follow-up column.

The Paranoid Persecution Complex, now with added civil rights metaphors for extra wingnutty goodness!

Hutcherson is African-American himself so he should know better, but he’s also a fundie, which by definition makes him a demented crackpot regardless of race, colour or creed.  A pastor who stokes the hellfires of anti-gay sentiment from his pulpit at the Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, Hutcherson has a long and depraved history of anti-gay activism.  A favourite target is Microsoft…

A few years ago he was so pissed at Microsoft for supporting anti-discrimination laws that he devised a plan to punish the software giant:  all his supporters would buy a couple of shares in Microsoft with the goal of selling them all at once on a pre-arranged date in order to drive down the stock price.   Stock manipulation for Jesus — it’s not securities fraud if you’re a conservative! The day of the fundie stock dump the mighty Microsoft was shaken to its core, with stock closing 14 cents higher than the day before.

Knowing Hutcherson’s bugfuck nuttiness, it’s hard not to breathlessly anticipate his column explaining how “Christians are the New Negro”. But I wonder if he’s thought about how it will go over with his anti-abortion cohorts, who’ve already made pretty much the same claim about Fetuses.  Maybe they’ll compromise, and the New Negro will be Christian Fetuses?  Stay tuned.

(h/t – right wing watch)

They make it too easy

Have we finally reached the endpoint, the nadir, the edge of the abyss, the heart of conservative darkness where wingnuts have become unparodyable?

Conservapedia 3 years old today

Can you believe it was 3 whole years ago that Conservapedia dragged its knuckles onto the internet?   Tempus fugit:

Conservapedia, launched on November 21, 2006, is a conservative, family-friendlyWiki encyclopedia. It was founded by teacher and attorney Andrew Schlafly with the help of several students from his fall 2006 World History class.  [...]

When a student handed in her paper using the date-markers “BCE” and “CE” from Wikipedia, Schlafly realized that Wikipedia, despite its claim of neutrality, contained bias against the achievements of Christianity and conservatism. Other occasions of liberal bias, including the reversion of factual edits about the 2005 Kansas Evolution Hearings, led to the creation and launch of Conservapedia.

Conservapedia:  celebrating three years of assuring wingnuts that they’re entitled not only to their own opinions, but to their own facts.