Picture of the Day: Stuff the Bible Bans

Next time someone you know is getting all high and mighty about gay marriage, or some other stuff supposedly banned by the Bible (especially in Leviticus), send this picture to their email box, with a hearty (and spelled out if they don't understand the initials) STFU.

Found at: MyBucketList

Daily Show: FOX "News" Defending Wall Street, Accusing Unions

Since this whole battle between Republicans and unions started up for this round a couple of weeks ago, I've felt a building anger. It's been an anger I was having a difficult time articulating.  It boils down to: whatever bad thing is going on in the country, there seems to be slack cut to big business and rich people, and blame placed on working people and the poor. We've seen this in Wisconsin. Gov. Walker gave a massive tax cut to business, and then he brought a hammer down on union workers. For all the "jobs, jobs, jobs" chanting from the right, there sure is the implication that if you work for a union or for government, you don't have a "real job." Which is strange, given that many of the people saying this are in government.

I've never been in a union, and have in fact had run-ins with them in the past. The Other Half on the other hand is in a union, and yet we almost got into a fight the other day over this issue, mostly because I wasn't articulating my frustration very well (and TOH may have unwittingly internalized a little too much right-wing rhetoric). I was practically yelling, "Yes, the government is in economic trouble, but WHY is the first solution always to stomp on workers and poor people?" TOH started in on property taxes, and long retirement pensions, and whatnot. And there may be areas on that end that need revision and reform. But you can't deny that this big, huge economic crisis was caused mostly by politicians, lack of regulation and enforcement, and greedy Wall Street and banking fat cats.

This was fraud on a massive scale. We already baled them out. None of them went to jail. Corporations continue to get billions in subsidies, practically zero taxes, they're sitting on trillions of dollars, and partisan jackasses like Walker want to clamp down on working people. Nice. Well, I still haven't articulated this very well, but you know who did? Jon Stewart. Take it away, Jon.

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Rachel Maddow: Newt Gingrich is Not Running for President

Doesn't it seem like Newt Ginchrich has been thisclose to running for President practically since he resigned in disgrace as Speaker of the House in the 1990s? We all thought that Sarah Palin was a new political creature, but she's really the female Newt: A former politician who remains relevent by almost running for things, while charging a fortune for speaking events, books and the like. If Rachel is right--and I'll bet she is--Newt Gingrich is not running for President. But if he did, it would be highly entertaining.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BYU Suspends Star Player for Having Consensual Sex

Image from source, AOL

I'm not a sports fan. No, that's an understatement. Except for the Super Bowl, it is unlikely that I catch more than five minutes of sports in any given year. Until a couple of years ago, I had no idea that "March Madness" had anything to do with basketball, let alone college basketball. Sports are just out of my orbit. But not as much as religion is.

As little as I understand sports fandom (except for a brief dalliance with hockey, spurred by my friend Stupid Monkey Planet and my new in 2004 HDTV), I understand religious belief even less. Religious people think that unbelief (disbelief?) is a form of belligerence, a deliberate denial. It isn't. It is a total lack of interest. It rates somewhere with my belief in Santa Claus or gnomes. It doesn't ever cross my mind that there might be something to it. In fact, it rarely even crosses my mind at all outside of political discussions.

So, when in 2011--a year when the world was supposed to look like The Jetsons--we've got a lauded college with a prestigious basketball team who boots their star player right before March Madness, it wouldn't cross my mind that it was for religious reasons. But, aapparently, if you live in Utah, whether you are Mormon or not, you've got to tolerate a near theocracy. And if you go to school at Brigham Young University, you've really got to comply. But I've got a little newsflash for the "elders" at BYU: college kids have sex. Even Mormon college kids have sex. Some of 'em even have the gay sex! It's true! And you can't suspend them all.

[Excerpt]

BYU's Davies suspended for having premarital sex

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that leading BYU rebounder Brandon Davies was booted from the team because he engaged in premarital sex, a violation of the school’s honor code that says students must remain “chaste and virtuous. . .”


Read more (with video) at: AOL

Anti-Abortion Ad: Bunnies in a Blender

Subtle.

[Excerpt]

‘Pro-life’ group puts bunny in blender in push for cuts to women’s health





A new video from an anti-abortion group begins with this tagline: “Imagine the government giving hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to a company that does this."


A nurse then plops a cute bunny into a blender, and the screen fades to black as the blender ostensibly churchs the bunny up. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Thanks to Stupid Monkey Planet for the link.

Support for Gay Marriage Rises Past 50%

Wow, neat. And while I'm growing to dislike the term "gay marriage" and even "same-sex marriage"--it's just marriage, the truth is, more people can find the post this way. Truthfully, if the marriage equality movement is successful, categories of marriage will disappear, and just marriage it will be. I mean, do you still talk about interracial marriage? Didn't think so.

[Excerpt]

A Big Frackin' Deal: For The First Time, More Americans Support Marriage Equality Than Oppose It.



Last week, the General Social Survey (GSS) released data for 2010. According to Sociologist Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois University, who's taken a close look at the dataset, for the first time, more Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage. . .
 
Read more at: Pam's House Blend

FOX "News" Shows Fake Footage for Wisconsin Protests

Palm trees. In Wisconsin.

Westboro Baptist Church Wins Supreme Court Right to be Nasty

Does God hate jerks?
Image from source, Washington Post

There is one thing that most conservatives and liberals agree on: The Reverend Fred Phelps, the Phelps family, and their radical Westboro Baptist "Church" are disgusting. They embody the worst of religion, the worst of political action, and the worst use of free speech. But now, according to the United States Supreme Court, their outrageous "protests" of the funerals of soldiers are officially protected speech.

It's an awful, but probably correct conclusion. It is the disturbing speech, the unpopular speech that needs the most protection. But I wonder. Can some of the actions taken by the Phelps clan be considered something other than speech? Can their actions step out of the lines of "speech," and into threatening behavior? Public disturbance? Incitement to violence? Something?

[Excerpt]

Supreme Court affirms Fred Phelps's right to be ugly



When I read the breaking news alert this morning, I almost fell out of my chair. "Supreme Court upholds Westboro Baptist Church's right to stage anti-gay protests at funerals of U.S. troops." And after the initial shock wore off, I recognized that the near-unanimous ruling was the right decision. . .
 
Read more at: Washington Post

Pro-Labor Political Ad in Wisconsin: Republican War on Workers

FOX "News" Suspends Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum

Image from source, Christian Science Monitor

I've said it many times in the past, but it bears much repeating: five potential Republican candidates for President work for FOX "News." FIVE. Doesn't sound too "fair and balanced," now does it? But if you're running for President, you really can't very well have a job on a news station, even one only nominally news, like FOX. But since all of the potentials are being so cagey about whether or not they intend to run, FOX showed a rare bit of apparently ethical behavior, by "suspending" two of them: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

Interesting that they picked those two, the ones of the bunch who would likely be picked off very early into the primaries. I mean Newt, really? If the other GOP candidates can't dispose of him, they're real sad sacks, aren't they? And Rick "Frothy Mixture" Santorum? There is just no chance of a President Santorum. No, stinkin' way.  But what of Sarah Palin, John Bolton and Mike Huckabee? Bolton is in a category with the first two, so I'm not sure why he wasn't suspended too. Palin has had abysmal polling, but is of course the heavy tea bagger favorite. And Huckabee polls well, but has many (many, many) weak spots. Still, the two biggest contenders are not suspended. What does it all mean?

[Excerpt]

Why Fox News is suspending Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum



Apparently Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are making clear moves toward running for president, but Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, and John Bolton? Not so much.


That, at least, is the conclusion of Fox News, which announced Wednesday that it has suspended the contracts of former House Speaker Gingrich and former Senator Santorum but is holding off on the other three. . .
 
Read more at: The Christian Science Monitor

Hot Shots! (1991) - Original Theatrical Trailer

Posted to prove that at one time, Charlie Sheen was funny, talented, and apparently not crazy.

John Boner Boehner Uses Machine Guns as Analogy

Image from DailyKos

You know, as stupid as Boner's Boehner's little machine gun analogy is, I've really got to come back to something a little more basic. This dude, John Boehner. He always sounds like he's (at least) half in the bag. He's got a very strange complexion for an Ohioan. He has a strange facial tic that nobody but me seems to notice. He speaks in talking points, no matter what is asked. He's one of those politicians who never sounds genuine. And yet, he's the Great Republican Hope! How, how, how could anyone be inspired by this man, ever? Are there actual Republicans out there who like this guy, or do they pretend to because he's all they've got?

[Excerpt]

Boehner likens collective bargaining to guns to the heads of local officials

In some of these states, you've got collective bargaining laws that are so weighted in favor of the public employees that there's almost no bargaining. . .

Read more at: DailyKos

Bi-partisan Lawsuit of Florida Gov. Rick Scott Over Bullet Train

Image from DailyKos

This is only early March, four months since the Republicans' "sea change" election, and they're not faring too well, at least in the court of public opinion. They show every sign of overreaching, and seem to be trying to outdo each other. Rick Scott, hands down the creepiest looking of the 2010 class of GOPers, turned down billions of Federal dollars for high speed rail. Turns out his homies in Florida don't think that's such a good idea. And it isn't just Democrats. . .

[Excerpt]

Bipartisan duo sues Florida Gov. Scott over rejection of federal high-speed rail money

Florida Gov. Rick Scott made two big mistakes when he rejected $2.4 billion federal stimulus money for building the Tampa-to-Orlando leg of the high-speed rail system that would eventually link Tampa to Miami with bullet trains. . .

Read more at: DailyKos

Mike Huckabee Spreads "Birther" Nonsense, Says Obama Grew Up in Kenya

Mike Huckabee was asked by a back-bencher right-wing talker about President Obama's birthplace. Rather than state the obvious--that Obama was born in Hawaii, and that "Birthers" are bananas--Huckabee decided to play it safe. Sort of. He didn't answer the citizenship question, but wandered into a story about Obama "growing up" in Kenya, and how that might affect a person's development. Ahem.



Even the wackiest birther doesn't claim Obama grew up in Kenya, so Huckabee's story is just plain weird. He's even tried backtracking and "clarifying" his statement, but his revised story is no more credible than the original. . .

[Excerpt]

Huckabee backs away from birther claim, badly



. . .Huckabee had clearly thought this entire "Obama influenced by evil Kenya" script out in advance, so there's no way it was just a slip of the tongue. The entire thing was about Kenya. . .

Read more at: AmericaBlog

Wisconsin State Senator Calls Protestors "Slobs"

I was surprised to see Wisconsin State Senator (R-Naturally) Glenn Grothman speak so disparagingly of the protestors in Madison. But there he was, on Last Call with Lawrence O'Donnell, and though the host gave him more than one opportunity to dig himself out of the hole, he kept digging. I predict that the left will be trying to make hay of the statement, and that the right will try to make him a hero.

Frivolity Break: Joan Collins Looked Fabulous at Oscar Party, But Fainted

Image from D-Listed

Back in the 80s, two of my favorite divas (before we even called them that) were Joan Collins and Joan Rivers. In the days since, both women have managed to hold back the hands of time, each in their own way. Rivers by openly acknowledging massive corrective surgery, and Collins by mostly denying it (but c'mon now. . .). The amazing thing is, they are both essentially the same age: 77 going on 78, only two weeks apart. And while Rivers has taken much bashing for looking plastic, I've gotta say, Collins looks fabulous. Up close, there may be cracks in the spackle, but in this article, she only looks slightly older than she did 25 years ago on Dynasty. Whatever work she nearly certainly had to have done, it was pretty spectacular.

Alas, Joan's age can't be erased. All the hoopla of the Oscars tuckered her out, and she got a self-described case of the vapors. I'm just glad somebody caught her!

[Excerpt]

Glamour Hurts!



Joan Collins usually exits a party on a velvet chaise carried by four shirtless pieces, but it was an entirely different scene at Vanity Fair's Oscar party on Sunday night. The most glamorous being who ever glamoured was led into an ambulance at about 10pm after she started to feel woozy. . .
 
Read more at: D-Listed

Sucker Punched

I found this cartoon at Joe.My.God., and it really does just about say it all. Jobs, jobs, jobs my ass.

Selections from The Urban Dictionary: "Batshit Crazy"

[UPDATED to add a picture of Charlie Sheen, because (duh) that should have occurred to me before.]

I don't curse much on the blog. Not because I don't swear in real life, that's not even close to true. But when a person is writing, they should usually be able to express themselves more artfully than they do in extemporaneous speech. And because, let's face it, I don't want people sending complaints to Blogger! But there are exceptions. And there are off-color descriptions that are so perfect, I simply can't resist using them. Case in point: batshit crazy.

Exhibit A. Image from
Alan Colmes' LiberaLand

I use this term mostly for specific actions, or overall political behavior, and rarely use it to describe a person in specific. For example, a person may do something batshit crazy, and may or may not necessarily be batshit crazy. In fact, "crazy" is very often just a colloquialism, and I very rarely allege that a person is literally crazy. Except in the case of Michele Bachmann. She's nuts. "Batshit crazy" could have been invented just for her. If you Google search the term and her name, you get over 5,000 matches, and more than double that if you spell her name like it sounds, rather than the crazy way she spells it.

And as perfect a fit as the term and Bachmann are, the definition given at Urban Dictionary is so perfect, I felt I had to share it.  I don't even care if this is a case of Urban Dictionary cross pollinating with Urban Legends.

1. batshit crazy

Exhibit B.

A person who is batshit crazy is certifiably nuts. The phrase has origins in the old fashioned term "bats in the belfry." Old churches had a structure at the top called a belfry, which housed the bells. Bats are extremely sensitive to sound and would never inhabit a belfry of an active church where the bell was rung frequently. Occasionally, when a church was abandoned and many years passed without the bell being rung, bats would eventually come and inhabit the belfry. So, when somebody said that an individual had "bats in the belfry" it meant that there was "nothing going on upstairs" (as in that person's brain). To be BATSHIT CRAZY is to take this even a step further. A person who is batshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the belfry is coated in batshit. Hence, the craziest of crazy people are BATSHIT CRAZY.


Dude that guy on the corner wears a tinfoil hat and ripped all the wires out of his house so the government couldn't listen to his thoughts.


Really?


Yeah, he's batshit crazy.

Source: Urban Dictionary

Sen. Al Franken's Ideas for Spending Cuts

Image from source, Minnesota Independent



There are names of political figures and pundits, left or right, that will cause an immediate eye-roll, and dismissal by many on the opposiite side of the political aisle. It would be difficult, for example, to convince me that Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh or Michele Bachmann is entirely right about anything. It's not exactly open minded, but I'm not exactly uninformed about those people either. Figures from the left who might arouse the same sort of reaction on the right would be people like Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and Senator Al Franken.
Now, I personally don't think that the examples I gave are opposite sides of the same coin. I happen to think that  the examples I listed are more thoughtful and intelligent, not to mention truthful. I also think that their detractors probably have less of a genuine knowledge of their views, having gotten them mostly second-hand. But I get it, through the political prism, they're seen as opposites.

Even so, take a look at this common sense list of ideas from Franken on places to cut spending in the budget. There's no wild-eyed ranting here, these are straight ahead good ideas. And he didn't even mention the "Franken Donut Hole" that would keep the cap on Social Security Taxes in place at $106,000, but then start taxing again at $1,000,000 and up. That would be a great idea.

[Excerpt]

Sen. Franken offers three ideas to help cut government spending



OpEd piece by Sen. Al Franken – It’s easy to agree that we should cut government spending. It’s harder to agree on what government spending we should cut.


We can’t just say, “Let’s cut $500 billion” or make vague promises about “increasing efficiency.” Serious budget proposals should be clear about exactly what we’d be cutting, saving, and sacrificing. . .

Read more at: HomeTownSource

Gov. Daniels (R-IN) to Slash Spending, Even if it Costs Jobs

"Missed it by that much."
from ThinkProgress

Do you think we will ever learn? For whatever reason--the reason doesn't matter really--the political pendulum swings from left to right. The Republicans win a big election. And then, they become political bulldozers, charging full-steam ahead with their pet agendas, regardless of what their actual "mandate" was.

This time, the pendulum swung faster than it really should have. No political party, no matter how masterful, could have put the economy back together in less than two years. Republicans really won because of a) some of the public is fickle, b) some of the public is uninformed, c) some Democrats are big babies, and sat out the election because of their own pet issues, and d) Republicans promised to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs.

So, the Republicans won a big election for a variety of reasons. And then, once they got in, they've done what they always do: overreached. Plus, they claim that everything they're doing: trying to regulate abortion into oblivion, trying to stomp on gay people, trying to bust unions, cutting taxes for the rich. . .is what "the people" voted for. Oh, and let's not forget that any cutting of taxes and services will nearly always benefit the rich and hurt the working people. Cut Social Security! Medicare! Pensions! But oh no, the petroleum companies must get multi-billion dollar subsidies! Bank of America musn't pay taxes! Bush tax cuts for the rich are essential! See what I'm getting at? 

I sort of predicted this, though it doesn't take a genius. And the hard right pendulum swing in 2010 is likely going to careen back to the left if the Republicans keep this up. Which is probably part of the reason for the Citizens United ruling, Karl Rove's young but powerful PAC groups, the Koch Brothers' muscle flexing, and the new united front of Republican Governors trying to squash the remaining unions. With all of that, Republicans will have far more money to spend on election advertising. Hopefully, that will be an overreach as well, and the all-GOP-all-the-time nasty political ads will just turn people off.

[Excerpt]

Gov. Daniels Says Governments Should Slash Spending ‘Even If They End Up Seriously Costing A Lot Of Jobs’



When asked earlier this month about the job loss that would occur if the continuing resolution passed by House Republicans were actually implemented, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) replied “so be it.” “We’re broke. It’s time for us to get serious about how we’re spending the nation’s money,” he said. . .
 
Read more at: Think Progress