Gold medal men’s hockey final

Today’s the big day — the final day of the 2010 Olympics, and not a moment too soon. It all wraps up with the Men’s Hockey final: Canada vs. USA!USA!USA!, where we once again prove the superiority of our culture, our country, our health care system, our beer, and most importantly, assure our sovereignty over the Arctic.

The puck drops at 12:15 Pacific time — one hour and 4 minutes to get couches reinforced, mugs and glasses chilled and blenders on High Alert.

Go Canada! W00T!

(This moment of uncharacteristic flaming jingoism brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of Fun.)

UPDATE:  CANADA WINS GOLD!

Congrats to both teams on an awesome performance.  (Jeeezus, Team USA, way to tie the game 24 seconds before it ends.  24 seconds!!  Good thing we’ve got universal healthcare, and whiskey… heart-starter!!!)

Like we needed a study to tell us

Whoops!  A study has concluded that liberal atheists have higher IQs than religious conservatives.  And among men, they’re more likely to be monogamous (*cough*family values*cough*):

Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

The difference isn’t huge: 6-11 IQ points, give or take.  But we won’t let that stop us from gloating, haha.

The article goes on to explain that a reason for the IQ differential is that liberalism, atheism and monogamy are qualities that go against what would have been necessary for survival in our evolutionary past;  you know, back in the Pleistocene when we were stomping around hunting the woolly mammoth.  (Which may be a polite way of saying liberals are a little more “evolved” than conservatives.)   But what it said about religion stood out:

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said.  [...]

“It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere,” Kanazawa said.

Paranoia has always been a survival tool, and nowhere does it run as rampant as in the monotheistic religion embraced by most conservatives.

But the message of Jesus was basically a message of liberalism — love one another, or to update that a bit, don’t let people die because they can’t afford health insurance.  What I’d really like to see is a study on how conservatives reconcile that message with the message of Rush Limbaugh.

If it’s Saturday

…it’s time for Hate Mail-a-palooza at Kos. Here’s my favourite for today:

Die painfully and enjoy your weekend — makes sense to me!

Sadly, there’s more.

Techxxx

Here’s what happens when the geeks in R&D spend too much time surfing pron sites on the job.  Stand back: it’s the newest, or should I say lewdest, thing in mouse technology — the “G-Point”:

Top view:

This design could only come from a company named “Yanko”.

Glenn Beck keeps it klassy

Regular viewers of Olbermann will be aware that KO’s father has been very ill for several months.  On Wednesday night’s Special Comment, he told a heartbreaking story about his father’s illness, in the context of health care reform and end-of-life discussions:

The segment hit me especially hard — 6 years ago, my mom asked me to do the same for her: in her words, “Help me die”.  In the end I didn’t have the guts to help her, but thanks to universal healthcare our family at least had the option, as Olbermann did, of conferring with medical professionals about sedation to dull the agony of her final days, and she slipped away on her own.

So I was infuriated when I saw Glenn Beck’s response to the Olbermann segment was to state that under universal healthcare “Your father would be dead by now”, astonishingly even laughing at times.  (I frankly don’t give a shit that Beck prefaced his remarks by wishing Olbermann’s father well.  Those are meaningless platitudes in this context.)

And it gets worse:  until early yesterday, Olbermann had been scheduled to cover the health care summit with Chris Matthews — but about midday he was quietly dropped from the lineup of commentators.  One would think Beck, or at least one of his staff, would be astute enough to notice this and give some thought as to what such an ominous sign might mean, before saying something like “Your father would be dead by now”.

Fucking puke.

Girls behaving badly?

The nerve of those Olympic hockey hussies, celebrating their gold medal!

The International Olympic Committee will investigate the behaviour of the Canadian women’s hockey players who celebrated their gold medal at the Vancouver Games by drinking alcohol on the ice.

Several Canadian players returned to the ice surface at Canada Hockey Place roughly 30 minutes after their 2-0 win over the U.S. on Thursday night.
The players drank cans of beer and bottles of champagne, and smoked cigars with their gold medals draped around their necks.

Beer, champagne, cigars — sounds about right to me.  Lay off, IOC.

UPDATE:  Seriously!

(h/t Frank Frink in the comments)

CSPAN totally psyched about covering US healthcare summit today

Thursdaaaaaaay!  DeeCeeeeeeeeee!

Another day, another retraction

A sweaty, graphic description of the mechanics of anal sex might be appropriate in some venues, but it’s probably wrong for an executive session of the New Hampshire state government.

The most prominent difference between Democrats and Republicans is rapidly becoming the number of retractions they’ve been forced to make after saying something mindblowingly dumb or bugfuck insane.

Miscarriage of justice

Anyone who doesn’t believe the extreme right’s obsessive focus on the fetus renders women little more than ambulatory incubators need look no further than this bizarre story out of Republican-dominated Utah, where a bill criminalizing miscarriage is one signature away from being the law of the land:

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor’s signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.  [...]

In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless” behavior.

Using the legal standard of “reckless behavior” all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn’t intend to lose the pregnancy.

If this bill is signed into law, it would be homicide to intentionally or unintentionally cause a miscarriage.  What??

Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant until they’re 5 or 6 weeks along.  That leaves a pretty significant window of opportunity to indulge in unintentional “reckless behaviour”… which is whatever the state of Utah deems it to be, I guess.  Drinking?  Smoking?  Snowboarding?  Eating bacon-double-cheeseburgers?  By what weird magic does pregnancy suddenly make these personal choices the government’s business?  The magic of Dumb Law, apparently.

Next up: all women of childbearing age will be required to submit to the Department of Reproduction (next door to the Department of Transportation) for monthly pregnancy tests, and issued “Non-Pregnant” licenses.  Said licenses will be needed to patronize a bar, burger joint or bungee jump.

Why not?  Elsewhere, women are being court-ordered to stay in bed in the interest of their pregnancies.

Kermode spirit bear livecam

This is so cool: a live cam set up in the den of a hibernating Kermode spirit bear (named “Apollo”).  True, Apollo doesn’t do much… mostly just lies there crashed out… but occasionally he moves around, stretches, pokes his head out to see what’s going on, and so on.  And I think it’s just cool to be able to watch him.  Here’s a short video from the BC Spiritbear site:

And here’s where you can watch this crashed-out bear live, during daylight hours Pacific Time.  Right now (5 pm) it’s starting to get dark, so hurry-hurry!

Scott Brown votes with Dems on jobs bill, teabaggers go apeshit

Remember Scott Brown?  The GOP challenger who unexpectedly won Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat in Massachusetts?  Well, it looks like the honeymoon is finally over:

Not long ago, Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was elected to the United States Senate and a nation rejoiced, because he was going to drive down to Washington D.C. and become the President of Filibusters. But a funny thing happened yesterday, when Brown decided not to cast the 41st vote, and instead to vote as if he’d like to one day get re-elected to office in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Whoops:  this is where the rubber meets the road.

That was enough to earn Brown the Drudge banner, complete with the demon-red tint of betrayal!

The problem a conservative faces when elected in a liberal state is that if he wants to get re-elected, he has to govern like a liberal: it’s a no-brainer.  Amid high-pressure pre-election intensity, conservatives were able to overlook Brown’s suspiciously moderate stance on certain issues, but now that he’s safely installed in the senate it’s Payback Time, baby, and he’s expected to Bring The Wingnuttery.  Thus his vote in favour of the Democratic jobs bill yesterday, while it might have been in the best interests of his constituents, was an abomination to the tribe of the teabag, and they reacted with vehement, misspelled, CAPITALIZED rage on Brown’s Facebook page:

And the unkindest cut of all… oh, the humanity… they’re all unfriending him.

Christianist ignorance in Virginia

Well, what’s old JJ got for you tonight?  A despicable doubleheader from Virginia, the state for lovers (???), that’s what.

First up is Republican Bob Marshall, who told the press last week that he was opposed to state funding of Planned Parenthood (or Planned “Barrenhood” as those funky Christofascists like to call it).  Marshall drove his point home with a tirade about how kids born with disabilities are “God’s punishment” for women who have abortions.  With that elegant little two-fer, Marshall insults women who have abortions and people with disabilities in one fell swoop.   Take it away, Bobolink:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

“A special punishment Christians would suggest” — I can just imagine.  Or maybe not.   But Marshall didn’t explain why God often lays this same vengeance upon women who haven’t had abortions — *cough*SarahPalin*cough* –  or why most women who have had abortions go on to have non-disabled kids.  Such questions probably call for that cover-yer-ass expression “God works in mysterious ways”.  What’s really mysterious is the fact that, as stageleft points out, the people of Virginia have kept this demented nazi freak in office since 1992.

But wait — there’s more.  Not to be outdone, no sooner was he was sworn into office last month than newly-minted Republican governor Bob McDonnell, another Christoid, got right to work on the state’s most urgent business: removing GLBTs from anti-discrimination legislation protecting state workers.  Priorities!:

Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Gov. Bob McDonnell.

McDonnell (R) on Feb. 5 signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities,” as well as veterans.

It rescinds the order that Gov. Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a “fair and inclusive” administration in his inaugural address, Kaine (D) added veterans to the non-discrimination policy – and sexual orientation.

But hey, it’s not like anyone living in a state that’s run by brainless Christofascist dingbats would have to worry about being discriminated against because they’re gay, right?

Rachel Maddow had more to say about these issues on tonight’s show:

And apparently Bob Marshall was watching, because tonight he’s claiming that his remarks were taken “out of context”.

Marshall said his broader point on Thursday was that he had collected a substantial amount of published medical research suggesting that abortions raise the risk of miscarriage and birth defects in subsequent pregnancies and that those findings echoed the Bible’s teaching that abortion is wrong.

“The point is, there are profound consequences to the act of abortion,” Marshall said.

Translation:  I didn’t mean it, but I meant it, but I didn’t mean it, but I meant it.  And shut up!

Whoops

Did someone forget to write “Renew domain name” in their daytimer?:

Hey, it can happen to anyone:  a 40-year-old, world-famous rock and roll magazine, or even the Conservative Party of Canada (April 1, 2015).   Haha!

(via mashable)

I see nothing has changed

…in “Post-Racial” America.

Last week in far-away Niger a military coup seized the country’s president.  The event was reported on many blogs and message boards, including that bastion of right-wing brain damage, Free Republic.  The Freepers took one look at the headline:

…and erupted into post-racial comments:

Hyuk!  Hyuk!  Good grief, what a bunch of racist bozoids.  I’m starting to have serious doubts about that country (and I don’t mean Niger.)

Via Fark, FTW with this headline:

MIA and Death of a Cake

Sorry for the recent lack of blogging.

I usually try not to drift into negativity, but it happens.  My prevailing mood the past few days can only be characterized as an overwhelming sense of ennui punctuated by moments of utter despondency.  No interest in even reading the news, let alone making my own inane comments about it, so I’ve been staying away from this corner of the www.

But so what?  A friend of mine is having a birthday soon, so I tried to bake a cake yesterday.  I put the thing in the oven and promptly lost interest in it, as is my wont these days… until I caught a whiff of smoke…

…and stumbled back to the kitchen to find the oven engulfed in flames, or “fully involved” as they say in the fire fighting business.  The next 15 minutes was spent in a frenzy of extinguishment — the oven was saved, but the cake unfortunately perished in the blaze.  I’m considering giving my friend the charred remains and explaining that this tragedy befell the cake when I tried to light all the candles.  Haha.

I have a few more cakes to burn, but I’ll be back in a day or two.

Catroversy

Mr. Blue in her favourite “spot”:

There ya go, kitteh lovers.

Wood

When you get a complaint from the city about a dead tree in your yard, what’s the obvious solution?   Well, what else??  Carve it into the shape of a giant 8-foot penis:

An amateur wood carver in Tempe, Arizona recently received a violation notice from the city for having a dead tree on his property and was ordered to remove it. Rather than take it down, the homeowner decided to transform it into a piece of art of sorts. But in the words of Heidi Klum, spoken often on the the addictive Lifetime reality show Project Runway, “We question your taste level.” The former unsightly dead tree is now a giant eight-foot penis. The penis tree in the owner’s backyard looms over a cement wall, clearly visible to people walking by and is causing quite a bit of attention, as word of the giant piece of carved wood has spread.

According to AZ Central, the city has received at least one complaint about the penis tree.

At least one(1)??   Obviously the neighbours appreciate this objet d’art.

Why yes, glad you asked — I do have a picture:

A couple, in fact:

(pics from here)

What he said

The Rev nails it.

I’ve never understood the rabid anti-Olympics sentiment to start with, but it makes even less sense to me when protests spiral into violence or when protesters have so little class that they do things like this.

There are a lot of reasons to criticize the way things were done in the buildup to the 2010 Olympics, and if anyone could have foreseen the global economic crash I suspect different decisions might have been made a decade ago.  But that was then, this is now, and I hope the games are successful because otherwise they’ll end up costing us even more.  The protesters have made their point, so it seems a little futile to carry on protesting even as the games are in progress.

One of the primary goals of hosting an Olympics is to showcase the area worldwide and boost tourism — which happens to be a major source of revenue here.    Portraying BC as a haven of ignorant crybabies and violent flakes won’t do anything to encourage tourists to visit here, and for good or ill, that’s how a lot of us make our living.

That doesn’t mean those opposed to the games should suddenly do a 180 and become happy little Olympics Boosters — just that continued protests are a little self-defeating.  Anyone who’s truly worried about how much money this little shindig will end up costing us should be hoping against hope that it’s a success of epic proportions.

Friday funny & cuteness

(Swiped from Ellroon, who also has the must-see LIVE PUPPYCAM!!!)

I don’t expect cityfolk to get it, but

…this is pretty cool!:

Nothing says “I love you” like a half-mile nearly-kilometre wide heart made out of manure.

A southern Minnesota man created the Valentine’s Day gift for his wife of 37 years in their farm field about 12 miles (19 kilometres) southwest of Albert Lea.

Bruce Andersland told the Alberta Lea Tribune that he started the project with his tractor and manure spreader Wednesday and finished Thursday.

The only way to improve on that would be to make it out of bat shit.  Nothing says “crazy about you” like a massive bat shit heart!  Woo!

Harper protested in Victoria

Protesters were on hand to greet Stephen Harper in Victoria yesterday:

Pick your cause — democracy, seal slaughter, oilsands, safe-injection site, saving Jordan River or medical cannabis.

All were represented yesterday at a diverse demonstration at the legislature, where about 300 protesters chanted and waved placards, hoping to briefly catch the eye of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Good for those who showed up, but here’s what I don’t like about protests in general — there are so many disparate causes represented that it dilutes the main issue, which in this case was the prorogation of parliament:

The protest was spearheaded by the Victoria chapter of Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament with the aim of showing Harper that Canadians are angry about his decision to suspend democracy, said organizer Melissa Farrance.

So why have people protesting about the seal hunt, oil sands etc.?  More bodies only make an event look better when they’re sending a coherent message — otherwise, it tends to make the whole thing look a little disorganized and flaky.   (Or maybe I’m just in a Mood!)

This notes-on-the-hand thing might be catching on

Here’s a guy who thinks we can all learn from Sarah Palin’s handoprompter, and he might be onto something:

Here’s how you can benefit from writing your top three goals on your hand every day:

Identification. It forces you think about what’s important and what you want. The simple act of writing your goals has a transformative effect.

Concentration. We have a limited amount of the other 8 hours in which we can direct our energy and resources. It helps stop the static and allows us to focus with intention at our most significant goals.

Commitment. By writing them on your hand instead of a Post-It note, it shows you are committed.

Declaration. By publicly displaying your goals you are putting a stake in the ground to those around you. You’re saying, “Look folks. This is what I believe and this is what I’m all about.”

Inspiration. Feeling down? Unmotivated? Simply look at your hand to immediately feel re-connected to what’s most important in your life.

I don’t necessarily agree that a note on the hand shows that much “commitment” unless it’s tattooed, but that’s a minor quibble.  Let us play.  What would you write on your hand as your top three goals for today?   Mine are:

Dog

Nap

Silver, sell short

The last one will be there to haunt me if it turns out to be unsuccessful.

Who could have seen this coming?

Seriously, who ever would have imagined that a guy charged with stockpiling weapons because he feared an “imminent Armageddon” would turn out to be a teabagger?:

The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent “Armageddon” appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a “righteous ‘Mission from God,’” as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.

As we reported yesterday, Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was “preparing for domestic and political turmoil,” and feared martial law would soon be imposed.

Girard’s wife said her husband had recently told her: “Don’t talk to people, shoot them instead,” and “it’s fine to shoot people in the head because traitors deserve it.”

And you know who these people are talking about when they say “traitors”.

Keep whippin’ them into a frenzy, Sarah.   If you want to make a $100,000 omelet,  I guess you have to break a few eggs.

Breaking: teabaggers are whacko

Canada was represented at the Teabaggers Convention in Nashville on the weekend by the National Post’s Jonathan Kay, that’s right, Jonathan Kay, our very own, among the Teabaggers, right in the belly of the beast.  And according to an article he wrote about the experience for Newsweek — titled “Black Helicopters over Nashville” — he was less than impressed with what he saw there:

[...]  After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It’s more John Birch than John Adams.  [...]

I consider myself a conservative and arrived at this conference as a paid-up, rank-and-file attendee, not one of the bemused New York Times types with a media pass. But I also happen to be writing a book for HarperCollins that focuses on 9/11 conspiracy theories, so I have a pretty good idea where the various screws and nuts can be found in the great toolbox of American political life.

Within a few hours in Nashville, I could tell that what I was hearing wasn’t just random rhetorical mortar fire being launched at Obama and his political allies: the salvos followed the established script of New World Order conspiracy theories, which have suffused the dubious right-wing fringes of American politics since the days of the John Birch Society.

A somewhat dismayed-sounding Kay goes on to describe the baggers’ bizarre beliefs and conspiracy theories and the extent to which their worldview is driven by such bad craziness — well, who would have seen it coming, that they’re more than just a bunch of concerned citizens worried about higher taxes? He ends on an apprehensive note:

That doesn’t say much for the state of the right in America. The tea partiers’ tricornered hat is supposed to be a symbol of patriotism and constitutional first principles. But when you take a closer look, all you find is a helmet made of tin foil.

Kay was clearly a little taken aback by the magnitude of feverish madness he encountered at the Teabaggers Bash, where conservatism is a lot more Farah than Frum.  Unfortunately the Brotherhood of the Bag mandates that the Frums (and likely the Kays) of the world are flaming liberals unworthy of the label “conservative” who need to be driven from their midst with pitchforks and torches.   As a Canadian conservative — the equivalent of an American Democrat — Kay can’t be blamed for feeling as if he’d entered some kind of weird and scary alternate reality.

UPDATE: Kay also wrote about this little shindig in the NatPo, where he observed:

The smug left-wing take on the Tea Party movement is that its members are nothing but shell-shocked racists. (In the words of Janeane Garofalo: “It’s not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don’t know their history at all. It’s about hating a black man in the White House.”) I saw no evidence of that sort of bigotry in Nashville.

Apparently he missed Tom Tancredo pining for the days of “Literacy Tests” and the crowd enthusiastically cheering the idea.  Can’t be everywhere at once, I guess.

Rachel Maddow: All out of bubblegum

Stand back!  This is what a metaphorical asskicking looks like:

And that’s what I’m talking about when I say I find it fascinating that conservatives can live with such contradictions.   How do they do it?