Hamiltonians abruptly change their minds about Palin visit — overnight!

It’s a War On Christmas Miracle!

When I last checked the Hamilton Spectator poll that asked “Would you pay to hear Sarah Palin speak?” (about 10pm Pacific), the overwhelming majority had answered with a definitive “Negatori!“

But the Palinbot is apparently a nocturnal creature, because overnight:

and that is how it stands at 9:15am Pacific.  (Scroll down)

I visualize one or two feverish Palinoids, resolutely voting, clearing their cookies, voting again, and repeating as necessary all night long.  Too late, bozos:  the Spectator realizes the people have spoken, and they have spoken in decidedly disgusted tones:

Many expressed disbelief she will speak at a fundraiser for Canadian hospitals, much less show her face in Hamilton which has three social democrat MPs in the House of Commons and two at Queen’s Park.

“Why would anyone invite Sarah Palin for a fundraiser in Hamilton?” asked Lynne Greenwell in an e-mail to The Spectator. “She doesn’t reflect any of our values.”

A Spectator poll asked: Would you pay to see her? More than 1,600 voted and 90 per cent said No.

The gist of Greenwell’s email is echoed in the comments of the Spec’s blog, where they ask readers if they’d go to see Palin speak if they could afford the $200(!??).  No no, a thousand times NO.

Think Progress delightedly picked up the story:

According to the Hamilton Spectator, Sarah Palin has been contracted to speak at a fundraiser for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and St. Peter’s Hospital in Canada. “This is quite the coup,” said Gabe Macaluso, an organizer for the event.

Palin might be surprised to learn that the hospital she is fundraising for runs counter to her professed beliefs:

– St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”

– St. Peter’s Hospital performs abortions. Palin, a staunch anti-choice zealot, has protested outside of abortion clinics and has refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.

– St. Peter’s Hospital, through its Centre for Studies in Aging, offers “advanced directives.” Palin tried to derail health reform earlier this year by falsely labeling advanced directive reimbursements as “death panels.”

You have to wonder about the abortion aspect of things.  By the anti-choice movement’s own Stupak Amendment-producing logic, anyone who raises funds for a hospital that does abortions is financially supporting abortion.   Or maybe life doesn’t start at conception, it starts at $200K.

Paging Lifesite!  Pick up the courtesy phone, there’s a new outrage on the line!  Huh?

UPDATE: Apparently St.Peter’s Hospital itself doesn’t provide abortions, but as part of the Hamilton Health Sciences medical complex, shares its resources (ie. funds) with an abortion clinic, which I believe amounts to the same thing by fetus fetishist “umpteen degrees of abortion separation” logic.  (St.Peter’s specializes in geriatric care — death panels!)

BWAHAA!

Sarah Palin is coming to Hamilton.

But is Hamilton coming to Sarah Palin?

(Poll results as of 7:30 PST)

There’s more here at the Spectator’s blog, which asks readers whether they’d go to see Palin if they could afford the $200(!!??!).  The poll results reflect the general demeanour of most of the commenters:  snarly!

Seriously though, you know what would make this little shindig worth the price of admission?  Now that SaWah’s been cracking off about climate change, how about having Al Gore appear with her and let them debate the science over din-din.  I would pay at least $200 to see that.  Yes, yes I would.

It is time to

… cry havoc and let slip Teh LOLcats Of War (on Christmas):

The sleazy face of scientific denialism

The climate change denialist “movement” is led by many sinister, squalid and opportunistic creeps, but one of the sleaziest is Christopher Monckton.  A business consultant and former Tory policy advisor with a political philosophy that seems to be equal parts Thatcher, Goebbels and the Pope, Monckton refers to himself as “Lord” although he’s never been a member of the British House of Lords — he is what’s known as a “hereditary peer” in one of those old aristocratic British families (rumours of inbreeding and insanity in the British aristocracy are just irresponsible speculation, I think?).   He achieved notoriety in the 80s with his warped views on AIDS/HIV:

“…there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month … all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.”

Monckton went on to become a vehement critic of climate change science and spokesman for the well-funded flat earth denialist movement.  His attitude towards environmentalists is summed up in this slide from a speech he gave to the Minnesota Free Market Institute a couple of months ago:

A shout-out to the teabagger wing!

Naturally Monckton’s been among those denialists hanging around Copenhagen like a bad smell during the Climate Change summit. This week one of his speeches was interrupted by a group of young climate change activists, who he smeared as “Hitler youth”.  Want to see some slime?  Here’s a video of Monckton later justifying his remarks  to the young activists, and repeatedly calling them Nazis — (and doesn’t apologize even to one kid who says he’s a Jew):

Ugh.  I certainly admire the restraint of those young people in dealing with that sanctimonious asshole.   And what’s up with denialists and “the last 15 years”?  It’s no wonder serious people refuse to debate them — they should be dismissed out-of-hand, the same way scientists do to proponents of “creation science” when they clamor for debate.

UPDATE: Surprise — denialist claims have been Fact Checked and found wanting.

UPDATE II:  Who are you people?

(via DeSmogBlog)

Surrey fundie drops HRC complaint

The right-wing Anti-HRC Talking Points must have gotten held up in the backlog of War On Christmas mail.  But the Pony Express finally made it over the Rockies to Surrey and got that memo into the holy-rollin’ hands of Paul Jubenvill, who decided to drop a complaint he’d filed against his kid’s school for refusing to allow a bible study group:

Surrey parent Paul Jubenvill has withdrawn his human rights complaint over an elementary school’s refusal to provide space for a Bible study group.

Jubenvill said Wednesday he was taken aback by the storm of controversy over his plans to hold voluntary meetings on Christianity at Colebrook Elementary School. [...]

Jubenvill had filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal on Dec. 1 after he was refused space for the noon-hour group.By way of explanation, the school board said it had a legislated duty to separate church and education in elementary schools.

According to Jubenvill, a 35-year-old software designer who lives “by God’s word,” his freedom of religion was guaranteed under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

But he has now withdrawn his official complaint “after further reflection.”

This is what cracks me up:  the school, a taxpayer-funded public school, wants to keep things secular and rightly so.  But even though he’s free to worship as he sees fit at home, in church, in the woods with bunnies and squirrels or even standing on an orange crate wild-eyed and whacked out on a downtown street corner, somehow Jubenvill feels the school’s decision not to allow it in this one place is an infringement of his “freedom of religion”.  Does the whining never end??

That’ll leave a mark, Pt.2

Further to the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda that was downgraded yesterday to “Imprison the Gays — and their friends”, last night it was revealed that there are USian fingerprints all over this horrific violation of human rights.

There is evidence on undercover tapes made during anti-gay meetings before the introduction of the bill that certain Americans urged Ugandans to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy towards gays, and this led directly to the crafting of this legislation.  This is how C Street occupies itself when it isn’t busy fulfilling its self-appointed role as Official United States Uterine Hall Monitor:

Disgusting, utterly disgusting.

That’ll leave a mark

The good news is that Uganda has cut the death penalty and life imprisonment from their proposed anti-gay legislation…:

Persistent international outcries have prevailed in Uganda where an anti-homosexuality bill is being edited before it goes to Parliament for a vote. The legislation previously included provisions for death by hanging in cases of HIV-positive gays caught having sex and life imprisonment for non-HIV-positive offenders. These two sentences have now been cut from the draft bill which will likely be passed in two weeks in order to gain support from religious leaders.

…but the bad news is that an anti-anyone bill could exist in any form.  (What’s next, 40 days in the hole for having green eyes?)

While it was the international outcry that caused Uganda to rethink the most draconian part of this brutally oppressive bill, ironically some of the inspiration for this odious legislation also comes from an outside source — one of those absurd “pray the gay away” books being flogged by an American snake oil salesman “gay-to-straight” “therapist”.

Here Rachel Maddow interviews Richard Cohen, whose book “Coming Out Straight” was cited by the creeps pushing the bill as justification for it, because it perpetuates the horribly (and provably) wrong idea that being gay is a choice.  And it’s one of the best smackdowns I’ve seen on TV:

Why not?

This baby could be the official pace car for the next teabaggers march.

In yer faces, Conference of Catholic Bishops

Good news in US healthcare reform:  the Nelson Amendment, which used the same language as the Stupak Amendment to restrict abortion availability even to women paying for it with their own money, was rejected by the Senate today:

The Senate narrowly rejected an amendment that would have restricted abortion coverage in the pending health-care bill, leaving in question whether Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) has the 60 votes needed to move the bill toward final passage.

The measure, which failed 54-45, addressed the scope of restrictions on coverage of abortion services for people who receive subsidies to buy insurance. The outcome was expected, but could cost the support of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who has threatened to filibuster the $848 billion bill unless abortion restrictions are tightened.

The introduction of the amendment was held up on Friday because — get ready for it — because — and I’m not kidding — because the Conference of Catholic Bishops needed more time to review it before giving it their okay.

Are the Catholic Bishops elected officials?  Are they gynecologists?  Why are they  involved in womens’ healthcare policymaking?  Un-freaking-believable!

Remind me again why the Catholic Church is tax-exempt?

UPDATE: What?  No public option?

Climate Capers

I’ve been remiss in not keeping up on the climate science, uh, debate(?), but in trying to catch up I’ve found one of the best places for information (that isn’t dripping with saliva) is DeSmogBlog. DSB is a great source of reality-based information to offset the horrible shitload of bad craziness currently being crapped out on this topic as the Sphinctersphere rapidly and repeatedly voids itself. (“Climategate“!!!  Wooooo!  SHRIEK!  *blat*)

That said, there have been some pretty alarming developments around this issue recently, like this story from a couple of days ago about an attempted break-in by people trying to gain access to data at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling & Analysis at UVic:

According to sources at the University of Victoria, two people claiming to be network computer technicians presented themselves at the headquarters of the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis and tried to gain access to the data servers. When challenged by an employee, the two individuals hastily left. The timing of this attempted break-in is very suspicious given that it occurred so closely on the heels of the release of hacked emails and data from a similar facility housed at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Criminal conspiracy?  Stay tuned.

Also worth checking out is Swifthack.com, a new site set up to deal with the fuckery that’s afoot regarding the hacked CRU emails.  Swifthack is reporting a disturbing story about how two of the CRU scientists (of hacked email fame) have received death threats:

Two of the scientists involved in “Climategate” – the e-mail hacking incident at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK – have been emailed death threats since the contents of their private e-mails were leaked to the world. No further information can be revealed about these particular threats at present because they are currently under investigation with the FBI in the United States.

Discover Magazine also posted a link to Swifthack.com, and some of the comments at the post give you an idea of the willful ignorance of the opposition to climate science.  Is it a coincidence that these are often the same people who believe in “creationism”?  As one of the rational commenters remarks:

Those who are opposed to science will remain opposed to science regardless of the evidence. They will parrot the same line of discredited arguments no matter how many times those arguments are refuted. They will slander thousands of scientists and proclaim their love for a talk radio or Fox News blowhard.

These people are beyond hope.

(h/t BigCityLib)

You say tomato

I say “I N C O M I N G !!!”:

A Minnesota man was arrested Monday for throwing two tomatoes at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

According to police, 33-year-old Jeremy Paul Olson threw the tomatoes at Palin from a second floor balcony in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., while the former GOP vice presidential candidate was signing books at a Barnes & Noble.

Palin was not hit by the flying tomatoes, which instead hit two police officers standing near the former governor. Olson was arrested on charges of suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct.

Tsk.  Clearly another case of “post-abortive”-driven Palin Derangement Syndrome.

And really, tomatoes?  This was really a job for Al-Pieda.  (Don’t take a tomato to a pie fight, or whatever… oh shutup.)

This might not end well

Rasmussen Reports released a poll yesterday that shows an as-yet-nonexistent “Teabagger Party” in the States would poll better than the GOP.  No, seriously:

Should the “Tea Party” movement organize itself to run congressional candidates across the country, it would poll better than the Republican Party, according to a new survey by Rasmussen Reports.

In the national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters released Monday, 23 percent said they preferred to vote for a candidate from the yet unformed “Tea Party” for Congress in 2010. The Republican Party trailed the non-existent political organization by 5 percentage points, getting the support of 18 percent of respondents.  (emphasis mine)

BWAHAHA!

However, this poll doesn’t give the Dems anything to write home about either, as it shows them being preferred by only 36% of likely voters (Rasmussen polls always favour the right, but still…).  And while 23% might not sound massive, recall the bizarre special election in New York’s 23rd last month.  Teabagger candidate Doug Hoffman started his run with a similar gap, and ended up losing by a mere 2.3%.  It’s not inconceivable that there could be a few teabaggers elected next year, and in 2012 they might even have a chance  at putting a teabagger in the White House.

A teabagger? In the White House? If that happens, it’s definitely Zombie Wall time.

O’Reilly: Why do atheists hate the Baby Jesus?

For the same reason women hate Sarah Palin:  the Green-Eyed Monster of JEALOUSY:

Cue “Life News” to claim that the cause of this insidious jealousy is “post-abortive syndrome” which makes atheists resent all babies, including (but not limited to) the Baby Jebus.   (Whether they’ve had abortions or not.)

Billo is probably well aware that the atheist bus ads have been running in various locations all year, but why let the facts get in the way of the war on The War On Christmas?

Life News: PDS explained

The shameless Palinoids at Life News take a whack at explaining why so many women dislike Sarah Palin (a phenomenon known to some as “Palin Derangement Syndrome), and you better be sitting down, because surprise! — it’s teh abortions, stupid!:

Many women chose the birth control route, delaying marriage and childbirth well into their thirties and even forties. Their biological clocks ticked away and they sacrificed the most fertile time in their lives for career advancement and what they thought would be true happiness.

Some, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy they believed would interfere with their careers, chose the abortion route. They sacrificed the life of their unborn child for their own personal career advancement.

Now enter Sarah Palin, a woman with a husband, children and a high-profile career. Yes, this hockey Mom went from school board, to mayor, to governor to a vice presidential candidate! And her own unplanned pregnancy ended not in the hands of an abortionist, but in the loving embrace of the Palin family.

Now when the women who sacrificed motherhood either by abortion or birth control look at Sarah, they can’t stand her, even if they can’t explain why. Because she was able to have a family and a career, they see her as having the best of both worlds. They see, in this confident, self-possessed, accomplished woman, surrounded by a loving family, everything they gave up.

The fact that people feel so strongly about Palin either way is kind of inexplicable anyway, since she’s relatively mediocre in the overall scheme of things… just another opportunistic hack with a brain like a turkey on crack.   But there’s no doubt she inspires strong feelings on both sides of the political divide.

However, Life News is really testing the bounds of reality with their psychobabblish little theory.   Many of the women who dislike Palin have families and careers, whether they have an abortion in their past or not.  Further, a Rasmussen poll last August showed that given the choice of Palin and Hillary Clinton as president, 59% of women would choose Clinton, another “has it all” type female.  And though Palin’s overall favourables are on the rise of late, there’s still a significant gender gap.   No, Life News, it’s not them, it’s her.

It’s probably something as simple as this: by dragging her family into the presidential campaign, she just made the working mom gig look a little too easy.  That might not sit well with those real-life, non-millionaire working mothers who know it’s anything but.

UPDATE: Hitch, you’ve got “post-abortive syndrome”!  Seek help!

(via right wing watch)

More from the front lines of the War On Christmas

You just know this is going to outrage someone — a greeting card, T-shirt, coffee mug etc. design of a Santa that looks like Charles Darwin and “evolving” reindeer:

More here.

(via pharyngula)

lolz

(from pundit kitchen)

Pull up a chair

…and welcome to the TROLL MANNAGEMINT THRED (ALLCAPSed  and misspelled accordingly).  This is your thread for discussing the status of trolls.

****************************

I try to keep this a free speech zone where pretty much anything goes, and most of the time it works.

We’ve had a few visiting wingnuts lately.  Some are trolls, some are not, and some defy description.  The trolls are mostly drive-bys who take a shit on the carpet and run.  But some stick around and become part of the landscape.

That nasty little freakshow of a troll we had a couple of weeks back was a good example of someone who deserved banning, brain damage run amok, an obsessively deranged nutcase who sat here for hours on end firing a nonstop volley of incoherent insults at other commenters in a Tourette’s-like frenzy.  Much to my chagrin, people kept responding to her which just encouraged her even more.  I hate to use the ban hammer, but that one finally had to be put to sleep for her own good and everyone else’s.

However, I won’t ban everyone who expresses a dissenting opinion, even (especially?) if it’s jawdroppingly wrong and stupid.  Most blogs tend to be echo chambers to varying degrees, and I guess that’s the value I see in comments from the Dumb: they might be wrong and stupid about almost everything, but for whatever reason they seem to initiate discussion.   When they’ve finally become too dumb, I just ignore them, and it seems to work okay.

But I could be wrong, and maybe this doesn’t work for everyone.  What say you?

Remembrance and change

Longtime readers will forgive me, I hope, for re-using an image I created last year in remembrance of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre.  But when I read things like the first comment with this article, recycled artwork seems appropriately symbolic of how much things have changed, even in 20 years.

UPDATE: Worth reading.

(h/t emily in the comments)

Awww

Your moment of cute:

Wingnut: Pre-emption of A Charlie Brown’s Christmas a Muslim plot

Russell Wiseman, mayor(!) of Arlington, Tennessee, claimed that Obama’s speech on Afghanistan this week was deliberately timed to block the airing of “A Charlie Brown Christmas”…. because he’s a Muslim.   No, I’m not kidding:

The mayor of a suburban Memphis city accused President Barack Obama of deliberately timing his speech about the war in Afghanistan this week to block the airing of the “Peanuts” Christmas television special.

According to The Commercial Appeal, Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman posted the statements on his Facebook page and said the president is Muslim. Obama is Christian.

Wiseman posted this spittle-flecked rant on his Facebook Page:

“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”

And there’s more:

In Wiseman’s extensive thread that attacked the president, his supporters and Muslims, he stated “…you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”

I got nothin’.

LOL

If we’re taking collections

… to expedite the departure of those who are embarrassed to be Canadian:

…Some day I may write a more thoughtful response to your confession that you are embarrassed to be a Canadian. In the meantime, I will be delighted to throw in 133 dollars for your application for immigration to any country that is willing to have you.

…let’s not forget about the ones who hate Canada:

No, really:

(in response to:)

Unless embarrassment trumps hate, I assume we can look forward to Adler’s outraged article and emigration fundraiser… soonest!  (Or is this yet another one of those “IOKIYAC” things?  There are so many, it’s hard to keep track.)

GOP pays respects at Teabaggers Movie premiere

The Teabagger documentary movie — “Tea Party:  The Documentary Film” ($18.95) — had its long-awaited premiere last night.

As if to dispel any vague, lingering doubts that the teabaggers are taking over the GOP, Republican lawmakers dispatched representatives to the event to pay their respects and genuflect before their new teabagging overlords:

…The stars of the film relaxed and talked with former House Majority Leader and FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) handed out business cards to a steady stream of well-wishers. All of the guests made their way into the auditorium on the FreedomWorks version of a red carpet — a strip of green astroturf.  [...]

Two more members of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), joined the proceedings to pay tribute to the activists who organized the 9/12 “taxpayer march on Washington,” which drew an estimated 60,000 people to the Capitol to protest the Democrats’ economic agenda.

After the initial bowing, scraping, whimpering, nut-licking and throat-offering, the GOPers ranneth over with frothing praise for the teabaggers, particularly Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), who foamed:

“The only reason we don’t have national health care right now is you — is the people outside of Washington,” DeMint told a gathering of tea party activists gathered Wednesday night in Washington for the premiere of a documentary about the movement.

Readers in the Great White Northosphere couldn’t be blamed for having a little trouble wrapping their be-tuqued heads around DeMint’s statement, which roughly translates to…

THANK GOD, we were *this* close to the unthinkable, horrific, nightmarish catastrophe of… *gasp!*…

…National Health Care?

Huh?  What?  EH??

But never mind that, because reviews of “Teabaggers: The Movie” are in and they are tub-thumpingly  enthusiastic:

(via RWW and h/t JAB)

His mind said No but his hands said GO

That more than a few conservative knuckledraggers view females as the baby-making equivalent of those bread machines that pop out perfect little loaves on demand is not a new concept, and often makes great fodder for parody and satire.  But occasionally one of these boneheads will belch out a quote of such brain damaged magnitude that it’s unparodyable, and there’s nothing to do but point and laugh.

The Divine Ms. Z points and laughs at New Brunswick “Progressive”(?)(!!) Conservative MLA Carl Urquhart, who, pondering a new budget from NB’s Liberal government, was inspired to drool on his Facebook page…:

“Another Liberal budget … Another $1 billion on the debt by March … Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future.”

… which prompted Liberal MLA Joan MacAlpine-Stiles to dispute Urquhart’s image of women as peripheral fetal support systems:

“To suggest to New Brunswick’s young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking,” she said.

… forcing Urquhart to apologize:

“When I went back and read it, it was offensive, and I apologized because it was offensive,” he said.

“Sometimes when your mind is saying one thing and your hands are saying another it can get you in trouble.”

Indeed.

Keep those hands where we can see them, Carl.

Dope & change

From the “WTF” file… Obama blotters:

Dude… that’s just full of groovitude.

(via boing boing)