Well, We're Still All Here
Not only did the world not end, but from the way people were driving and behaving at the mall yesterday, it's obvious we didn't even transition to a higher plane of consciousness.
And I was so hoping for rampaging winged beasts, or at least an armada of UFOs.
Stupid Mayans.
"It Looks Like Santa's Balls Exploded!"
Be Careful What You Ask For
A Letter to Texas
If that isn't enough ammunition to use when beating back the st00pid, you can grab a lot more here.
A Day in the Life of Joe Republican
From my friend Mark:
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water for his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging, commie liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil, lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of Joe's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some fire-breathing, lazy-ass union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it, too. Never would turn it down.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some cry-baby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is healthy because some wacko, trouble-making, militant environmentalist fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
Then Joe walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants, limp-wristed, freethinkng asshole fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some fire-breathing, Viet Cong-loving union members fought and died for these working standards.
Joe's employer pays these high standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union in. So Joe benefits from what others have gained.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a workers compensation or unemployment check because some stupid, pinko troublemakers didn't think Joe should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.
At noontime Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless, liberal red wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. He can thank that Stalinist Franklin D. Roosevelt for that.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist, pointy-headed liberal decided that Joe and society as a whole would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. That's okay, but the bastards tricked him because he has to pay taxes. Romney will fix that, he tells himself.
Joe gets home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government, New Deal, Stalinist liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating Marxist made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that over the decades the beloved Republicans have fought to defeat every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.
Joe agrees with the talk-radio loudmouth: We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man and a good Republican and I believe all Americans should take care of themselves, just like I have!
Flow Chart
Word.
Religion
Why Is It That…
Dan Cathy's View of the Apocalypse
Douchebaggery
But then, I've come to expect it from the Republicans.
Ain't It The Truth!
If It Weren't for Bronze Age Extremists…
…and their fucking adherence to 6000 year old myths, we'd be traveling to the stars by now.
Punching the Nose of a Bully Does Not Make You a Bully
A week ago Dan Savage gave a speech at Winona State University. In part, he said:
LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide. The Family Research Council promotes anti-gay bullying in homes and opposes all efforts to combat anti-gay bullying in schools. (Here's Perkins on the "It Gets Better" Project: "According to Perkins, [the campaign] is "appalling," "disgusting," and an attempt to "recruit" kids into a perverted and "immoral" "lifestyle.")
Tony Perkins and the FRC point to the LGBT youth suicide rate as proof that the "gay lifestyle" is dangerous and unhealthy… while at the same time doing everything in their power to drive up that suicide rate.
Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids
This of course, got all the usual right wing nut jobs panties in a bunch and the unquestionably heterosexual Tony Perkins responded:
Hate-filled leftist gay activist Dan Savage was at it again last Thursday. In a presentation at Winona State University in Minnesota, Savage went on another vulgarity-laden tirade in front of students this time saying that "every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council" and that "Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary, serious vulgarity warning).
Miss Perkins then went on fellow Christianist nut job Mike Huckabee's radio show and continued to beat this horse:
As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control…. This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.
Naturally, in his indomitable style, Dan responded, basically telling Perkins to "bring it":
Yes, Tony, I have issues.
I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are "pawns of the devil." I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely "upholds moral conduct."
But having issues with you, Tony, isn't quite the same thing as "having issues." Please make a note of it.
And during your chat today with Huckabee you didn't address the issue I raised. You and Mike called me names—because you were angry that I called you names?—but you didn't address my issue. So here it is again:
LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide.
Sue me, Tony. I'd love to see you talk about my "issues" on a witness stand.
I realize that this isn't how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe—and you're old enough to remember a time when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren't allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity—we're all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we should have to shut up and take it because… well, I'm not sure why you think we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us.
Maybe that's something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.
I would love to see Tony's sagging ass handed to him in courtroom.
Me Too, Rachel. Me Too
Really?
Really? REALLY?
Although not unexpected for Colorado Springs, where I spotted this today.
Subtext: OMG! The communist, homosexual-loving, Kenyan Antichrist who hates 'murika N-word in the White House is gonna sneak into your bedrooms, rape your wives and then force—force—them to get abortions!
Damn Right He Is
Faces of the 47 Percent
Stupidity Gets Another Smackdown
From The Ed Show:
Another defeat for the hapless birther movement: President Barack Obama will be on the November election ballot in Kansas.
All three Republican members of the State Objections Board voted today allow Obama to be listed as a candidate for re-election, despite the protest of California lawyer/dentist Orly Taitz, one of the most prominent birthers in the country.
The board's action came four days after Joe Montgomery of Manhattan, Kansas, filed a complaint, saying he believed Obama was not a natural born U.S. citizen and therefore was ineligible to qualify for re-election. But Montgomery withdrew his objection on Friday because of what he called intimidation directed at him and people around him.
When Taitz showed up at today's meeting, State Objections Board member Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told her the deadline to file an objection had passed.
You Can't Make This Shit Up
Submitted Without Comment
We Considered Them Sacred
10 Questions to Help Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened
From a great little post over at Alternet:
This simple quiz will let you know if you're being oppressed.
1. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.
2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.
3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.
4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.
5. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.
6. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.
7. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.
8. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.
9. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.
10. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.
Scoring key:
If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality—not your superiority.
If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.
Speaking of Leaving a Mark…
Fucking brilliant:
"I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children.
"You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you? In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterfuck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I'm fairly certain you might need it.
"P.S. I've also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your 'I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing' and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. Asshole." ~ Minnesota Vikings kicker Chris Kluwe, in a letter to Maryland state Rep. Emmett Burns, who has called for sanctions against a Baltimore Ravens player for supporting same-sex marriage.
Oh Suh-NAP!
This is gonna leave a mark:
"Barney Frank is a distinguished and honorable public servant. He has faced nearly 40 years of unspeakable hatred and persecution for being the most prominent and outspoken openly gay elected official in the country. Regardless of what he has to say about Log Cabin Republicans, the notion that they would suggest a man as brave and upstanding as Congressman Frank is either cowardly or a bully is both deluded and absurd.
"The true bullies are the hate-mongers in the GOP who want to strip us of our rights and shove us back into the closet. And 'cowardly'? Cowardly is making pathetic excuses for the backward and misguided anti-LGBT policies of your Party. The Log Cabin Republicans are the most weak-kneed, sycophantic apologists I've ever encountered. After their dismal performance at the RNC convention driving the GOP platform even farther to the right, they should give back all the money they've fleeced from their donors and close the doors." ~ Jerame Davis, National Stonewall Democrats executive director, via press release, in response to this.
Terrifying!
I Will Answer Any Questions…
…except those related to abortion.
And Todd Akin.
And my years at Bain.
Also I will not be answering any questions about my family, my residences or my term as governor of Massachusetts.
Questions about my religion or my taxes are also off-limits, as are all questions about my vice presidential nominee's positions, my Party's platform and the entire Bush Administration.
Also no questions about droughts.
Word.
How to Destroy Your Organization's Reason for Existence in a Single Sentence
"Because you believe something is wrong, doesn't mean you make it illegal." ~ Brian Brown @ 47:55
After watching this, I am convinced Bryan Brown, Maggie Gallagher and the rest of these "protector of traditional marriage" buffoons will never move out of the 16th Century, no matter how many facts are presented to them.
And y'know, I kind of feel sorry for them, living out their pathetic little lives locked in such a rigid mindset, totally unable or unwilling to admit they're wrong.
Sad, really.