Casey Luskin: "Nazi Evolutionists Compared Me to a Holocaust Denier! WAAAH!"

Haven't spent many bits on the Discovery Institute's ferocious attack squirrel, Casey Luskin, but I'm feeling lazy today, and he's pitching softballs in a ridiculous opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, so why not?

Anyone familiar with Luskin and the Discotards has heard the scientists who teach/research evolutionary theory compared to the Nazis, to Soviet and Chinese communists, the Khmer Rouge, bathroom mildew, and anything else negative under the sun. so when one reads this:

In his new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” biologist Richard Dawkins brands those who doubt Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution as “history deniers,” even stooping to compare them to “Holocaust deniers.”

One thinks this:


Casey, you are a pathetic, lying, hypocritical, empty-headed weasel. After you personally, and IDiots generally, have spent years and endless bytes claiming that ET was responsible for the Holocaust, you whine because your childish rejection of sound science is accurately likened to Holocaust deniers' rejection of documented history?

Asshat.

OMFG: and I Thought the Anti-Gay Marriage Crowd was Behind the Times

Loving v Virginia was 42 years ago. Now this.

Twitter Lands G20 Protestor in Jail, Earns Him a Raid on His Home

One of the topics de jour is a raid that occurred in Queens over the weekend involving the home of a G20 protester. The NYT reports the Elliot and Elena Madison's home was raided following his arrest Sept 24th in Pittsburgh. He and an associate were discovered to be monitoring police and EMS communications and disseminating the information on their movements to protesters. They were arrested (on what sound like shaky grounds), posted bail, and were released. Then last Saturday, the FBI descended on the Madisons' home and spent 16 hours tossing it.

What did they discover? Some goggles and gas masks, dark clothing (ooh, sinister!), leftist literature and posters, and a picture of Vladamir Lenin.

According to the New York Post, they found the following:

Assistant US Attorney Andrew Goldsmith argued that some of the items raised alarm, including a pound of liquid mercury in the house, alongside "books about poisons" and a microscope.

The feds also found metal triangles that are used to puncture tires and two boxes of ammunition.

All of this information is presented in such a way as to make Madison appear menacing. Liquid mercury! Poison! Lenin! Bulletts! OMFG a terrorist!!!!one11!

But take a moment to think about the contents of your house, and how someone might portray them in order to cast you in a negative light. In mine, they might find the following "damning" evidence:

• -4 firearms
• -ammunition
• 2 hunting knives that they could probably get away with calling "daggers" before the press.
• various chemicals, in the form of cleaning supplies, that they could contend could be used to make home-made explosives or chemical weapons. And books on chemistry
• winter hats that could be described as "masks"
• flasks and test tubes (from an old chemistry set, used for various craftsy-type stuff)
• small, sharp metal tools for everything from cleaning guns to tying trout flies to fixing watches, which could probably be spun as tire-puncturing tools or even bomb-making tools.
• a copy of The Communist Manifesto (also Mein Kampf, the Qu'ran, several Bibles, the Necronomicon, the Book of Mormon, and whatever the Hari Krishnas hand out at the airport: I forget the title)
• a book on farming techniques that could be spun as a "survivalist guide"
• a small amount of liquid mercury, gleaned from a couple of broken thermometers when I was in high school and kept as a toy.

And this is just off of the top of my head (I shudder to think what they could do with an examination of my computers: I think I had a soft copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook at one time. I'll bet forensic examiners could restore it).

Looking at what they found at Madison's home, it all looks pretty tame. Gas masks and goggles? Considering the glee with which police toss tear gas around when they encounter left-wing protesters, that doesn't surprise me at all. "Metal triangles"? They're obviously implying that these are caltrops, but who knows: they could be bits of sheet metal from a construction project (edit: they apparently were, indeed, caltrops. But those still aren't illegal to posess). A microscope? Puhleeze. The mercury could just be for amusement, as is my own; "books on poisons" is so vague as to be meaningless (they could say that of my Audubon Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms), and I think you'd find ammunition in a great many homes across this country.

Finally, a bit of a disclosure: I know Elliot Madison. He was my room-mate years ago, and he's about as menacing as Elmo from Sesame Street. At worst, he's guilty of having really dorky stuff in his house (lord knows he did back then). But the authorities and the sensationalist media want a scary story, so they present the data in such a way as to villianize an essentially harmless man.

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Edit: Madison and his lawyer were interviewed for Democracy Now.

Look Up. Really. Astronomy is Wonderful.

Been away for a while. I'm thinking I need to tone it down a bit and get a damn hobby.

Just bought this sparkly new toy. I'm going up north to spend some time enjoying the fall colors, and will hopefully put it to use.

I love Autumn. The smells, the crisp air, the leaves crunching underfoot... I think this time is the main reason I could never move down south. I like winter, but I could never live without autumn.

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and yes, I know that autumn doesn't necessarily have anything to do with astronomy: it's just that both topics tend to be on my mind this time of year.

Introducing the Revelatorium: the Time Cube guy has some competition!

Whew. Check this out.

Gene Ray better step up the crazy: Cliff Livingstone is at his heels.

August Matthew Stucky Award: Steven Anderson

This was pretty much inevitable, really. Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church and the personal pastor of our award's namesake, recently gave a charming sermon subtly titled "Why I Hate Barak Obama". It should really have been titled "Why (faggots are evil) I (really hate fags) hate (fags: they're trying to rape me in my sleep) Barack (Sadddam Al Qaida Muslim Atheist Communist Fascist Fag-Lover) Obama (Oooh! I really feel dirty saying that name!)". It's a textbook example of paranoid uber-christian delusion. An example of his "teaching":

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they're multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there's more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They're reproducing right? No, here's a biology lesson: they're not reproducers, they're recruiters! And you know who they're after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That's who they're after. You drop them off at some daycare, you drop them off at some school somewhere, you don't know where they're at. I'll tell you where they're at: they're being recruited by the sodomites. They're being molested by the sodomites... Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting 'em.

Sounds like sodomites are an awful lot like christian ministers.

Can We Just Stop Having These Stupid Town Hall Meetings?

I just about fell over backwards when I watched this. An Israeli man is talking to reporters about Israel's national health care system, and some vile harridan starts yelling "Heil Hitler".

This is the face we're showing the world. My God.

I'm opposed, for the most part, to nationalized health care: but at this point, I'd kind of like to see the Dems just push it through just to stick a great big thumb in the collective eye of the people at these "meetings".

Kiva Microlending is Awesome. Do it.

I can't stress it enough.

DO IT.

Take Back the Beep! Pass it on!

I hate having to wait through cell companies' canned voice mail instructions: there should be an easy, standard way to bypass them, but there isn't because those seconds we burn having to listen to the make oodles of money for the carriers. Never thought about doing anything about it, though, until I read this.

Forward it everywhere!

NY Air Force 1 Flyover - Col. Scott Turner is STILL an Idiot

Looks like it's time for me to pop out of my gopher hole: my absolute fave pilot and government official is back in the news.

So This week's Friday dump was documents concerning the dumbest thing one hopes the Obama administration will ever do.

One hopes. But it is government, after all.

How the flying-for-god-sake-jesus-h-christ-in-a-chicken-basket-FUCK does this moron still have a job?!

This is the document he signed to authorize the flight.

Here are a bunch of pretty pictures that don't show you the panicking citizens evacuating their homes and offices because they thought they were being attacked.

I haven't gone through all of the documents yet: more on this later. But Damn:

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Edit: Oh, and incidentally, why in the shiny, new, transparent, open Obama administration was it necessary for someone to file an FOIA request to get the data on this incident?

Why Must Religious Morality Always Be Negative?

Over at Paryngula, PZ takes Minnisota columnist Katherine Kersten to task for a pretty batty rant about New Atheism, or atheism, or materialism, or something. It changes. She trots out a many of the tired old gambits many on the religious right have been riding to death for years (If there's no god, how come there's altruism? How can we believe that life has value if there's no afterlife?), puts a bow on them, and sets them out there as if she came up with some fresh new line of reasoning. Our Squid Overlord fisks her better than I ever could, but a thought occurred to me as I read her article which kind of struck a chord: perhaps because I'm a recovering Catholic.

Why the growing audience for notions like these? Religion poses a serious challenge to our cherished idea of personal autonomy. Unlike our forebears, we define freedom as the right to live as we choose -- to "be ourselves" -- unconstrained by social norms or a morally grounded sense of guilt or shame.

It says a lot about the religiously devout that when they speak about morality, it is almost always about constraint and control, about shame, fear and guilt. That's a pretty sad way to live your life. They can't be moral on the grounds of love? Of concern or empathy? They can't do the right thing out of simple kindness?

Why is it that they feel incapable of behaving themselves if they're not constantly beaten over the head with accusations of fault and dire warnings of eternal torment?

So I'm apparently a "Bo"

Ben Loves Babies is not pleased with me:

Is this blog a Bo?

http://www.landoverbaptist.org/2009/january/boslaw.html

I really can't tell. Like most atheists, this blog is vulgar and low-brow, and demonstrates no critical thinking abilities whatsoever. It results to name-calling ("assholery"? Are we 12?) instead of intelligent discussion.

Ben, let me clue ya in to a thing or two.

1) This blog is not "an atheist", nor is it's author (not yet, anyway: but people like you are pushing me there).

2) There are circumstances under which name calling is entirely appropriate. Scott Roeder's crime is one such circumstance (as is any circumstance in which a Stucky is given out: you have to be a gigantic douche bag to even be considered).

3) Landover Baptist Church is a spoof. It's making fun of you, and "Bo's" law is a reference to Poe's Law (Landover's website itself is a Poe), of which you are obviously blissfully ignorant (big surprise there).

As for my blog's popularity (or lack thereof), I really couldn't care less: it's just a place for me to vent (hence it's "low, vulgar" nature)

But thanks for playing.

June 2009 Matthew Stucky Award: Scott Roeder

Well, that didn't take long.

Asshole.

Maddow and Isikoff on Obama Recalcitrance on Prosecutions of Bush Officials

I think I'll let this stand on its own: very informative. One comment I'd like to make, however: when have Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or any of that crowd been so honestly, frankly critical of anyone on the right?

OK, Science Can Stop Now: There's Nothing More to Accomplish

Now that we have achieved glow-in-the-dark monkeys.

HT: Drug Monkey

Mindless Right Wingers so Worked up over Over Sotomayor, They Forget Basic Math.

This is why I can't vote Republican anymore. Stupid overload.

So Tuesday afternoon, the Washington Times (Motto, "All the news everyone else would be embarrassed to print") cries to the world that 3 out of 5 of the decisions that Sotomayor was involved in which came before SCOTUS were overturned. That, they claimed was a 60% reversal rate.

AHHHHG! EVERYONE RUN AND HIDE!!!!!!!!! ACTIVIST JUDGE COOTIES!!!11!!!

But even a casual perusal of the data easily shows that the Times is (surprise!) full of it. Sotomayor participated in 380 cases as an appellate judge. That's a helluva body of work. Of the decisions in which she participated, only 5 were granted a Writ of Certiorari by the SC. Of those 3 were overturned. That's a 1.3% review rate and only a 0.79% reversal rate. Pretty damned impressive, actually.

May 2009 Matthew Stucky Award: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

Haven't given an award out lately, but I felt I needed to when I read this. The good cardinal who oversaw a Church which systematically brutalized generations of Irish children has declared that the greatest evil facing us is... atheism.

Really.

Not priests who anally violate little boys.

Atheism.

Fucker.

New Leap Forward in Tech: Artifical Gravity!

Honestly, the state of science reporting in this country is deplorable. This bit of drivel today from David Perlman of the SF Chronicle:

Working two at a time, spacewalkers Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, John Grunsfeld and Andrew Feustel labored tirelessly through five ventures into the large and weightless cargo bay of Atlantis. Their colleagues, comfortable in the artificial gravity of the shuttle's main cabin, guided, encouraged and applauded them as they worked.

Mr Perlman, artificial gravity only works in Star Trek. I suppose it might be possible to spin the shuttle end-on-end to simulate a small gravitational force in either end of the craft, but that would cause chaos for the astronauts trying to work in the cargo bay. Exercise a little gray matter when you write, dude.

Oh, Goody: a Sarah Palin Memoir!

Well, this should be all of seven pages.

In 26 point Comic Sans

Oh, Sarah, the epic tale you have to tell. The salons, the boutiques, the racist trailer-trash rallies: Sean Hannity trying to crawl head-first up your skirt on national TV...

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi "commits suicide": oh, isn't that convenient?

Just when the hue and cry for an investigation is heating up... this.

Can we send Bush and Chaney before the Hague NOW?!

US Air Force Col Scott Turner is an Idiot

So now we know the name of the twit who decided that the public didn't need to be notified about the Obama administration's little Air Force One photo op. USAF Colonel Scott Turner, commander of the Presidential Airlift Group.

It's somewhat satisfying that Cabrera was forced to resign over this fiasco, but in the end, his wasn't the decision that fucked everything up: it was Turner's. Turner was the one who decided that the information regarding the flyover was to be for "Official Use Only", meaning that it would not be disseminated to the public unless someone specifically asked for it:

The White House report states that while some officials decided on “public outreach efforts” to notify people in advance about the flight, the commander of the Presidential Airlift Group, Col. Scott Turner of the Air Force, decided that the memo warning New York-area officials of the flyover would be marked “official use only,” and that it would tell government agencies not to disclose the event. Information would be provided, the report said, “only if asked.”

Sorry, but 30 years of service or no, this man needs to lose his job. There is no conceivable reason that a flyover by an empty airplane, which is equipped with high tech defensive systems and is being escorted by TWO FUCKING FIGHTER JETS, needs to be secret. The decision this man made casts serious doubt on his fitness to command a McDonalds, much less act as the pilot for a plane that carries the President of the United States and who knows how many foriegn heads of state.

Adventures in Cluelessness: or, "Let's fly a Great Big Plane Around NY Without Warning Anyone"

W.

T.

F?!

Somebody in the White House needs a wedgie. A great, big, atomic wedgie. The freakin' Mother of Atomic Wedgies. How did this seem like a good idea?

Those poor bastards in New York. I can just imagine the sinking feeling people had when they looked out the window yesterday and saw a big-assed jet flying at low altitude around the city. That "Oh dear God, not again" feeling. The panicked rush to the stairwells, the trying to get outside before the shit goes down. Wrestling wheelchair-bound co-workers down 20 flights because no one wants to be stuck in the elevators when the plane hits.

What the Fuck?!

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Update: Well, this took longer than I expected, but at least it happened.

Gee, Why Doesn't This Surprise Me: or I FVCKING WARNED YOU IDIOTS!!!

Speaking for all of us who railed against the institution of the ridiculous executive power expansion under the Bush Circus, Glenn Greenwald points out the, erm, slight inconsistency of the right's objections to the DHS comments on growing right-wing fanaticism. Money quote:

Indeed, thanks to the very people who are today petulantly complaining about politically-motivated federal police actions (now that they imagine it's directed at them rather than at people they dislike), the Federal Government today has the power to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read the emails of American citizens without warrants; monitor bank records without court approval; obtain all sorts of invasive personal records, medical and financial, without Subpoenas; and obtain and store a whole host of other personal information about American citizens who have not been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong. Also thanks to them (and things like the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, etc. etc), most of this is carried out without any real oversight or safeguards, left entirely to the judgment and good faith of federal officials to wield these powers carefully and for proper ends. And, better still, federal officials can hide behind sweeping claims of secrecy and National Security to prevent courts from scrutinizing what they did and determine if it was illegal (we call that "the state secrets privilege").

So what's the problem? As the National Review/Bush-following-Right has been telling us for years now, there's nothing to worry about if you've done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide. The first duty of the Government is to protect us all -- keep us safe and warm from all the scary things out there, like a Good Daddy does -- and if they need to trample on some lofty privacy ideals and so-called civil liberties concerns and supposed Constitutional safeguards, well: that's just how it is. It takes a real paranoid hysteric to think that federal government officials have nothing better to do than target domestic political opponents. And besides, what good is the Constitution if we're all dead at the hands of domestic McVeigh-like Terrorists? After all, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact. Remember all of that? I certainly do.

A. Fucking. Men.

Seven years of warning against this. And the stupid, drooling GOP automatons ignored us, or said we were 'supporting terrorism'. Goddamn idiots!

Now the fruit is ripe. But it is ever so bitter.

Tweenbots: fun with robots in New York

A friend forwarded me a link to a fun and interesting study of human behavior. A woman in New York releases a small robot that is only capable of rolling forward. It has a message on it asking passers-by to help direct it to a distant goal. It is entirely dependent on the help of strangers to accomplish it's task. What do you think might have happened?

Tweenbots

Corruption in the Phoenix Police Dept: "Dis us, and we'll take all that you own"

This is unbelievable. A guy starts a blog critica (apparently with ample reason) of the Phoenix Police Department. With the help of numerous inside sources, he uncovers misconduct ranging from sexual harassment to evidence mishandling to racism to concealing borderline criminal activity. The department's reaction? Not an investigation.

They raid his home, handcuff his girlfriend for 3 hours and basically take everything he owns.

But we don't live in a police state: no way!

Spread this story around: don't give the Phoenix cops any slack.

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Don McLeroy Doesn't Like What the Words Mean

Over at Dispatches, Ed links to an unbelievable mountain of stupid opinion piece in The Austin American-Statesman by the chairman of the Texas Board of Education, Don McLeroy. McLeroy has been smarting lately over wide-ranging condemnation of his efforts to modify the state science standards for Texas public schools in such a manner that creationists can sneak their doctrine into science classes without constitutional challenge.

I popped over to read it. It's mostly standard creo fair blowing all of the typical dog-whistles:

The controversy exists because evolutionists, led by academia's far-left, along with the secular elite opinion-makers, have decreed that questioning of evolution is not allowed, that it is only an attempt to inject religion or creationism into the classroom.

Yawn. Heard it before.

This line, however, caught my eye:

The first step is to define science in a way that is satisfactory to both sides.

Umm. OK... might I point out, hopefully without undue emphasis,

BULLSHIT!

A wise man once said "You don't have to respect both sides of an argument when one side is a load of crap." Creationists are not owed some sort of concession to their vapid theology insofar as how science is defined. Science is what is, and tough titties if that doesn't fit into your mythos. Scientists investigate and describe the natural world on its own terms, without the pesky interference of miracles and fairies and folklore. And what they do does not intrinsically have anything to do with your religion: any incompatability between the two is not the result of "left-wing secular" anything. It has to do with the fact that your belief system does not accurately describe reality.

Your religion has nothing to bring to the science table, so you have no say in how it's defined or conducted. Sorry, you lose.

Beaker for President and Pope and King of Everything

Game, set, match: Frank Oz wins human history:

And a bonus:

Comedy has been fully accomplished: every one can pack up and go home now.

The Sixth Sense: a trifle scary, but also awesome

Pattie Maes of MIT showcases a developing technology which could vastly alter the way we interact with the world around us. It has some privacy implications that raise the neck hairs a bit, but the technological capability involved is breathtaking.

The Single Gratest Meta-Thread Ever,

Just sayin'.

Let the Right One In: Watch This Movie!

OMG. This is the best movie I have seen in a looooonnnnnnng time(trailer here).

Beautifully shot, perfectly casted, brilliantly directed. This movie has no weaknesses whatsoever. There are not enough superlatives to describe it adequately.

I keep a collection of books and videos I read around Halloween, which I refer to as my "October Shelf". This movie is on it, prominently.

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Update:
I notice it's already being remade by Matt Reeves, the genius who brought us Cloverfield and Lost (I cannot fathom how Cloverfield got a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Sigh. Is there anything Hollywood won't sully?

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Upadte II:
I meant "genius" sarcastically. In case there is any uncertainty.

Breatsfeeding in Public: Why is This Even an Issue?

A local talk radio ass-hat by the name of mark belling recently drooled some amazingly stupid comments regarding public breastfeeding out into the Milwaukee airwaves. He apparently believes that breastfeeding a child is akin to public masturbation (I'm not kidding: he describes the mothers as 'getting off' on it).

Now, I understand that this man, like most of American society, is rather manically puritan. I don't like it, but I know that this is the reality I have to deal with. An inordinate number of my fellow citizens believe that there is a great caucasian sky-fairy watching our every move and taking a deep and rather disturbing interest in the disposition of our genitalia. Stupid, but unfortunately true.

WHAT THE JESUS-GODDAMNED HELL DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH BREASTFEEDING???!!!

(pant, pant) OK. Calm down.

It's a boob, folks. In the grand scheme of things, no different from an ankle or an elbow. And breastfeeding, rather than being "crude", as this half-comatose jackass described it, is actually a very complex and elegant method for supplying energy to a young human. And no more sexual than any other child-care activity. Only a sexually repressed, emotionally stunted twit like belling would find it a subject to remark on AT ALL. Sad to say, we have a large number of sexually repressed, emotionally stunted twits in our midst.

March Matthew Stucky Award

The coveted Matthew Stucky Award for the month of March 2009 goes to archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Rio De Janero Recife, Brazil, whose callous, cruel condmenation of a 9-year old girl for being raped by her stepfather very nearly equals the insane misogyny of the Muslims who execute sexual assault victims for adultery. A condemnation which is being defended by the catholic church's chief perpetuator of pederasty, pope benedict xvi.

Jose! Why don't you pull out all of the stops, bury her up to her neck, and hit her in the head with rocks? Oh, wait: stoning is to quick and painless for her, isn't it? Much more fitting for her to be slowly torn apart by the development of twins her body is not physically capable of bearing.

Fucker.

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Update:
I'm tempted to add, mostly out of pique, the Sydney Morning Herald as co-recipients for this headline:

Vatican defends excommunication for 'raped' nine-year-old girl's abortion

Why exactly is the word raped in quotes? Is there some uncertainty about whether a 9-year old girl is capable of validly consenting to sex? WTF?!

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Update II:
The Herald has removed the quotes.

Vatican: "Of COURSE We're OK With Child Molestation! Duh!"

From the BBC Online.

I just can't get my mind around this shit. The church is blaming the mother and doctors for this, and not even mentioning the perverted bastard whose disgusting behavior set the situation up in the first place.

This is just disgusting.

Brazil Girl, Alleged Rape Victim, Aborts Twins.The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church.

Fuck me sideways. This poor girl is raped by her stepfather and is in danger of being slowly torn apart by the twins developing in her, and the bastard archbishop not only condemns the termination of the pregnancy, but excommunicates the girl's mother and doctors?.

And my family wonders why I am no longer a practicing catholic.

I must note, without much surprise, that the father, who raped not only this girl but her disabled older sister, is still all right with the church. But then, that's only child molestation, and we know where the church stands on that.

AND HOW IS IT 'ALLEGED' RAPE WHEN SHE'S NINE!!??

Bastards.

Support Wisconsin Citizens for Science

At last, we have one of our own: WI Citizens for Science. Sign up and lend a hand.

Thanks again, Ed Brayton.

Seems Matthew Stucky May Be My Ticket to Fame

I keep this blog mostly as a place to vent. I get nearly zero traffic, but then, that doesn't bother me much: I'm pretty much just hollering off a cliff and I know it. But like most boon dock bloggers, every once in a while I write a post that catches someones eye and gets itself linked in a high traffic area. Such was the case with the Stucky post. My traffic went from 4 visitors a day to a whopping 60 after I was linked to a forum called The Fighting Fundamentalist Forums. 60 hits in one day! WIN!

Careful, PZ, I'm hot on your tail.

Playmobil Introduces New "Police State" Expansion Packs

And I'm not kidding: this is sad but funny (read the reviews: they're the best part).



I know, I'm a little late on this one: could have made a great stocking stuffer. But there's always next year!

But wait, there's more! You can also teach your kids to submit to unreasonable searches with the Police Checkpoint set!


I can hardly wait for the 'Lil Gitmo Expansion set with optional water-boarding room!

Poor Little Sarah Palin: "I Was Exploited"

What a tool the woman is.

I wasn't believed that Trig was really my son. You know, that rumor persists today even. We're still receiving calls in our state press office regarding Trig and who is the real mother of this child. When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers especially? It's a sad state of affairs in the world of the media today, mainstream media especially, if they're going to rely on anonymous bloggers for their hard news information. Very scary.

Hmm... kind of like your accusations against your opponent when you were running for mayor of Wasilla? That he wasn't legally married because his wife retained her maiden name? When you harassed him and demanded that he make his marriage license publicly available? Or maybe like your numerous accusations that Obama was/is a terrorist?

My heart's trying hard to bleed.

I've been interested also to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled, and if she'll be handled with kid gloves, or if she will be under such a microscope also.

The idea of her appointment has already been lambasted by numerous people across the political spectrum. If you ever read the news, you'd know that already. Oh, that's right: you read all the newspapers and magazines already, don't you?

The woman's hypocrisy and dishonesty are breathtaking.

Help Cuttlefish Battle AIG

No, not the insurance company. The idiot creationist site.

Cuttlefish is part of my regular blog tour: his poems are clever, funny, and timely: show some love and link him on your blog to try to bump his Google rank!

First Recipient of the Matthew Stucky Award: Matthew Stucky!

We have a new candidate for the title of 'Dumbest, Vilest Person on the Internet'.
And his name is apparently Matthew Stucky. Matthew has uncovered an insidious plot to infect children with Teh Gay:

Faggot reindeer (GASP!)

Yes, because the reindeer in the Rankin/Bass version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" which, in truly scholarly fashion, he mistakenly attributes to Disney Studios (see edit below) are apparently male, and some of them have names Matt thinks are less than acceptably masculine, they must be gay, and the movie is trying to promote homosexuality, and of course, because conservative xtians have the discernment capacity of a wilted cabbage, pedophilia.

Really. I'm not kidding. But that's not all. Matt sees Teh Gay everywhere, even on Scooby Doo:

People are going to read this & say I'm crazy but hasn't Hollywood always been trying to pump in homosexual themes into kids movies & cartoons. One of the teletubbies is gay. Bert & Ernie are gay. In Scooby Doo Greg is gay. Hollywood has always had agendas they are trying to push and one of those major agendas is homosexuality is ok. It's no big deal. Another one they are trying to push is "It's ok for women to work."

Matt, please let me be the first to tell you that whether Hollywood has an agenda or not, you're crazy. Bat-shit insane. Howl-at-the-moon, run-around-naked-playing-a-kazoo-with-a-flower-pot-on-your-head bonkers.

What motivates people like you? Why are you so ridiculously obsessed with anal sex? I know a number of homosexuals, and if they spent half the time thinking about gay sex that you do, they wouldn't have any left over to feed themselves. Honestly, don't you have anything else to do?

And then Matt, you close with this little gem:

I would be overjoyed if every single queer in the entire world died today. The Bible makes it clear they are reprobates who are past the point of salvation. The Bible also makes it clear they are rapists & very wicked people. They have no chance to get saved and no saved person could ever become a queer. Therefore, I would be overjoyed if they all died tonight & our government would actually follow what the Bible states. The death penalty should be enacted for the queers.

I hereby announce the establishment of the Matthew Stucky Award for Uncompromising Religious Insanity. It will be given out to those people whose theological views are so extreme that they test the limits of Poe's Law, entering a sublime region of nut-space which arguably lies beyond parody.

Hat tip: Dispatches From the Culture Wars

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(Edit: apparently, I falsely accuse him of misidentifying the producer: he was referring in that comment to Peter Pan, not Rudolph. I hate it when one of these human hemorrhoids gets one over on me, but fair's fair.)

Michael Newdow is a Gigantic Asshat

Would someone please duct-tape this idiot's face shut? Literally?

It's no great secret that the US is an overly evangelical country. We require all of our congressional representatives to indulge in empty, fawning religious obeisance before we will elect them to office. We structure much of our lives around religious practices. We invoke God or credit him for helping us achieve the most trivial and asinine goals, like scoring a touchdown. And it can get damned frustrating for a person who does not indulge in Armband Religion (thank you for that phrase, Kathleen Parker).

But come on. It's a stupid little ritual that occupies a few minutes of time and will not be remembered a year from now. At least, it wouldn't have been, if this self-important jackass and his capering sycophants hadn't decided to pop up from under their collective rock and make fools of themselves. Now, Bill "War on Christmas" O'Reily and Sean "Brain? What brain?" Hannity will be regaling the nation with tales of how evil secularists are persecuting poor, helpless Christians. And for what? NOTHING.

There are real, tangible separation issues occurring in our society. People lose custody of their children because judges apply religious dogma in their decisions. Prisoners are differentially sentenced, or granted or denied parole on the basis of whether they are "saved". Military personnel are targeted for proselytization and abuse, and denied promotion on religious grounds. And the inauguration invocation is the best gripe this band of morons can come up with?

Mr. Newdow, please go back to playing in your sandbox and let the grown-ups do the heavy lifting. We don't need your interference.