Daily Blend: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 – Leap edition

“Life With Archie #16”

Why’s every calendar telling me to go bouncing around like a rabbit today? So odd.

Boo: 40,000 huffy bigots One Million Moms gripe against gay-friendly Archie comics ^[pictured]. Yay: Archie Comics CEO tells them to fuck off.

Poll: Support for gay marriage in California higher than ever.

Old gem: Neil Gaiman explains why even “icky speech” should be defended in order to preserve everyone’s rights.
(via @foozzzball)

How both amusing and revolting it is to see homophobes go into meltdown over gay love.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: One Million Moms • American Family Association • Archie Comics • Jon Goldwater • gays • gay marriage • same-sex marriage • marriage equality • California • Neil Gaiman • pornography • lolicon • shotacon • First Amendment • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • Vox Popoli • homophobia • U.S. Marines • USMC

Fail Quote: Limbaugh calls contraception-seeking student “slut”

Rush Limbaugh

There really is no depth to which the human stool sample that is Rush Limbaugh won’t sink, is there? (Then again, that probably shouldn’t be phrased as a question.) Here’s what he had to say about Sandra Fluke, a college student who spoke about the need for birth control at a Democratic hearing:

What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.

She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We're the pimps.

The johns, that's right. We would be the johns -- no! We're not the johns. Well -- yeah, that's right. Pimp's not the right word.

OK, so, she's not a slut. She's round-heeled. I take it back.

Oh, please take back a lot more than that, Rushbo. I’d suggest your entire rotten existence. (Or, at the very least, your venomous presence on the air. Though, I feel that may be overly lenient.)

Seriously, what more can be said? That is, other than wondering, preferably with a megaphone, what possible force could have prevented this misogynistic sack of horseshit from being fired years ago? Or is Premiere Radio Networks proud of hosting the single most widely hated personality in America?

I’ll just leave y’all with this marvelous Onion piece, which still treats the purulent hog with more respect than he deserves.

Tags: Rush Limbaugh • Sandra Fluke • contraception • birth control • prostitution • sluts

Most inoffensive atheist bus ad ever gets rejected!

Now this is a controversial ad. (Srsly.)

In brief: Years of seeing perfectly inoffensive atheist/secularist billboards get criticized and vandalized despite often saying little more than “Atheists exist, too” inspired Richard Wade at Friendly Atheist to present this modest proposal:

[T]he assertion that the religious public will claim that they’re “offended” whether the message is strident or mild is frequently put forward.

As a good skeptic, I thought that perhaps this proposition should be put to a test. So in a half-serious, half-lighthearted spirit, I propose that we try displaying billboards that are truly innocuous, so that the only thing that might provoke “offense” would be the word “atheist” in the billboard sponsor’s name. Then we would see if the claim is true that “our mere existence is what offends them.”

In response, the Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) Freethought Society’s Justin Vacula came up with this decidedly minimalistic bus ad design:

Again, the goal was to be as benign and uncontroversial as humanly possible: no statement of opinion, no refutations, not even any random pictures of tasty babies. The only possible explanation for anyone complaining about it, unless it’s erected right in the middle of their koi pond, is if the the very existence of godless folks is enough to challenge their privilege and send them into conniptions.

Well, who would’ve guessed that not only did this ad effectively spark its own little controversy, but that it was deemed “controversial” enough to be rejected outright? As Vacula reveals:

I was told that the board of directors for [the County of Lackawanna Transit System (COLTS)] needed to meet and decide whether they would run the ad...and after a long wait of 15 days, COLTS refused the ad although this meeting certainly wasn't public if it even happened at all because meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month.

Jim Smith, the advertising contact at COLTS, said that the reason for refusal -- appealing to the very questionable and vague advertising policy of COLTS -- was that COLTS does not accept ads which could be deemed controversial or otherwise spark public debate.

Welfare recipients “are slaves to the government and should be reminded of that fact”

Brion McClanahan

Be sure to keep this horrible little proposal by The Daily Caller’s Brion McClanahan in mind the next time you’re told that far-Rightists don’t hate poor folks. That is, unless arguing that poor people should be subjected to their own Jim Crow laws for the sake of humiliating them out of seeking welfare is actually seen as the compassionate approach nowadays:

Dharma-style food stamp reform would have four basic components. First, the federal government would create a government “brand” of essential food items such as milk, cheese, meat, cereal, vegetables, bread, peanut butter, beans, juice, soup, baby formula, diapers, etc., and would package the items with simple black-and-white labels and basic descriptions. The word “Government” would be stamped across the top in bold letters so everyone would know it was a welfare item. These items could be manufactured by major companies through government contracts, thus not creating a net loss to private industry. Because competition is not an issue, taste and quality, with the exception of the baby formula and baby food, would not be a top priority. Snacks, soda, cigarettes and beer would not be available through the program.

Second, the government would lease existing store fronts and set up “government stores.” There are typically several grocery store locations that have gone out of business in any given area; these would make ideal settings for the new government stores. The number of store locations would be chosen based on the size of the area and its number of food stamp recipients. The stores would be placed on public transportation routes for convenience.

Third, and most importantly, all food stamp recipients would be required to spend their government dollars at these stores. Private grocery stores and chains, such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, would no longer be allowed to accept EBT cards, and the money loaded on the cards could not be withdrawn and used for any other purpose. Each card would have a set dollar amount sizable enough to purchase essential items from the government store. For example, a family of four could expect to receive enough government-brand beans, rice, bread, milk, cheese, meat, cereal and vegetables to last a month with careful planning. In other words, they must be ready to stretch a food budget. Families with babies would get a month supply of formula, baby food and diapers.

Fourth, anyone who accepts government aid would have to submit to a monthly tobacco and drug test. Food stamp recipients are, after all, wards of the state. They are slaves to the government and should be reminded of that fact. If a recipient is found to have tobacco or drugs in his system, he would be dropped from the program. People on government aid would also lose the privilege of voting. That way they couldn’t vote for greater benefits or easier terms (most of them don’t vote, but now they couldn’t).

Donohue upset over “Catholic bashing” of Santorum & Gingrich

Bill Donohue

Bill Donohue is really upset (ha) over all the “hatred” being displayed towards prominent Catholic leaders such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich:

Some of the critics of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have gone beyond Catholic bashing.

Garry Wills is so excited he sees Santorum as a modern-day Torquemada, a man who “equates contraception with the guillotine.” That this lunacy appeared on the blog site of the New York Review of Books speaks volumes. On examiner.com, Michael Hughes compares Santorum to the Taliban, arguing he wants “a Christian form of Sharia law.” Mark Morford at sfgate.com says Santorum reminds him of a molester, someone who is trying to save “the dying Catholic church.”

Larry Doyle at Huffington Post went beyond the candidate to slam all Catholics for participating “in a barbaric ritual…a ‘mass’ in which a black-robed cleric casts a spell over some bread and wine…[resulting] in a cannibalistic reverie.” Sexpert Dan Savage said that when Newt Gingrich was married to his second wife, he was “still f***ing the consecrated host out of his ‘devout Catholic’ mistress.”

Notice what’s missing amidst Donohue’s usual bluster: One single mention of the fact that, well, these prominent Catholics actually do say and believe all these crazy things. Santorum says that President Obama and liberals are trying to lead Christian-conservatives to “the guillotine” and that President Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the need for separation of church and state (which he completely misrepresents) “makes [him] throw up”. Newt Gingrich’s (extra)marital record hardly needs explaining; the man has the libido and ethics of a rutting pig (not that it stops him from claiming it was all because of his patriotism). And those are just some of the innumerable examples I can list just off the top of my head; any amount of Googling will reveal countless more still.

These people are complete and utter whackjobs, professional demagogues and shameless Liars for Jesus^TM. This is not a case of opinion, but one of fundamental fact written all over the public record. It’s not bigotry or hatefulness to point this out. But leave it to Donohue to point his castigating finger, not at the actual two-faced charlatans doing their best to pervert and destroy the principles of religious and civil freedom the U.S. was founded on, but at the sane and rational people speaking out against them. “I don’t care if they’re completely full of bullshit; criticizing them is just mean!”

But then, can anyone really expect any different from one of the Catholic Church’s most devoted ass-kissers?

Tags: Bill Donohue • Rick Santorum • Newt Gingrich • Catholics

Daily Blend: Monday, February 27, 2012

Card. Francis George

Dear Fox: Thank you for playing eight minutes of House, then cutting to fucking NASCAR for the rest of the hour. I didn’t really wanna know if the guy who choked on his own tooth lived or not, anyway.

ACLU: MS federal court rules that kids convicted as adults can’t be kept in solitary confinement.
(via @radleybalko)

Cardinal Francis “gay activists = Nazis” George ^[pictured]: Forcing Catholic hospitals to offer contraceptive care like every other hospital is so unfair that they should just shut down instead.

Rush Limbaugh on NASCAR star Danica Patrick’s statement about birth control mandate: “What do you expect from a woman driver?!”

Study: Richer people more likely to act like law-breaking dicks.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Edit (02/28/12 11:25 AM ET) – Replaced broken link for #4. (Thanks, Skwiver.)

Tags: American Civil Liberties Union • ACLU • Mississippi • Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility • WGYCF • solitary confinement • Francis George • Catholic hospitals • Catholics • Catholicism • birth control • contraception • Rush Limbaugh • Danica Patrick • birth control mandate • U.S. Government • misogyny • women drivers • ethics • wealth • rich

Attempted doggycide in Pembroke Pines, Florida [updated]

Baxter, injured

Hey, whaddaya know? This here’s my 50^th doggycide post. Maybe the celebration is that, unlike so many of his kind, the furry victim in this story is going to be all right:

A Pembroke Pines family believes a police officer overreacted when he opened fire on their dog.

The 6-year-old Australian Shepherd was shot at least three times Friday night inside the gated Lido Isle neighborhood.

Someone called police to report the dog, named Baxter, was loose in front of the owner's house.

The dog's owner, Frank Jones, said when police arrived, Baxter was already back inside the house but the front door was open. Jones said when police went to the door to talk to the family, Baxter ran outside.

Cameron Jones, 13, came outside to talk to police. He said Baxter was barking at the officers, but police officials said the dog bit an officer's shoe.

At least one police officer opened fire. Cameron Jones witnessed the shooting, saying he was only standing about 20 feet away from his dog at the time.

Baxter survived and is being treated at a Cooper City animal clinic.

A Pembroke Pines police spokesman said the shooting is under investigation but at this point it appears the officer was justified in opening fire.

"The officer was being attacked," said Pembroke Pines Police Sgt. Chris Chacon-Chang.

Yes, god knows police needs to be afraid of ankle-biters. Seriously – that’s just what shepherd breeds do. In all likelihood, the dog wasn’t even displaying any signs of aggression; shepherds nip at everyone’s feet. It’s their instincts; it’s what they were bred for. Leave it to the cops to interpret a nip at their shoes as a life-threatening situation with the most appropriate response being gunfire.

The article also features a (non-embeddable) video that includes a few more morsels of information, such as how the officers told young Cameron Jones to get his dog just seconds before opening fire on the animal, and how police spokesman Sgt. Chacon-Chang is defending the event as “a good shoot”. Well, that certainly inspires confidence about the department’s investigation being unbiased, doesn’t it?

UPDATE (04/14/12 8:10 PM ET) – Baxter died three weeks later. Doggycide Bingo below unchanged.

Los Angeles considers decriminalizing truancy

Because handcuffs = best way to deal with skipping school

Once again, plans are being made to overturn a blatantly absurd and unjust policy that I never knew existed (or even could exist). The Los Angeles City Council is now considering decriminalizing student tardiness and reducing police involvement in handling school-skipping youths:

Since the 1990s, cities large and small have adopted daytime curfews with monetary fines to force kids to get to school. Now, the City of Angels is at ground zero as the impact of such ordinances in reconsidered.

Next Monday, the Los Angeles City Council’s Public Safety Committee starts a review of proposed amendments to that city’s nine-year-old daytime curfew law. Among the proposals: setting limits on enforcement by police, who routinely search youths and sometimes handcuff them. The proposed amendments would also effectively end $250 fines in favor of negotiated agreements that tardy students submit to counseling.

While I normally support the enforcement of various public safety and well-being policies, I have to admit that I do have a problem with the idea of forcing anyone, of any age, to be at some designated location at any given point and time under penalty of being treated as a common criminal. While public schooling is incontrovertibly crucial, it should be up to parents, educators and other guardians to impart values about the importance of a proper education upon children. I’m all for using parental authority and the likes to get youths to go to school, but bringing in law enforcement to slap anyone accused of something as trivial as truancy with handcuffs and heavy fines is more than overbearing; it’s extreme to the point of being ridiculous.

At any rate, good on the city of Los Angeles for apparently coming to their senses, even if only in increments.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Los Angeles • truancy • school • Los Angeles City Council Public Safety Committee

Formspring: How can a rationalist be an atheist?

I just received this little query on Formspring, and rather than waste a somewhat detailed answer there for two people to glance at, I figured I’d post it here, instead [original question edited for spelling/grammar/coherence]:

Here's my question, Joé: How can anyone who considers himself a rationalist be an atheist? Philosophically speaking, atheism is the weakest stance one can take in terms of pure logic. YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE.

I don’t think you understand what rationalism is. It means the rejection of any beliefs that aren’t supported by credible (logical or empirical) evidence. Now, given that the existence of God(s) is typically implied to have some relevance to our natural world, it thus stands to reason that it can be subjected to critical analysis. And given that there is absolutely zero credible evidence to support the existence of God(s), the only rational conclusion is that God(s) just doesn’t exist (or else that if he does, his impact on the natural world is so minute that it isn’t even worth considering).

Also, I never claimed that negatives can be proven; quite the opposite, in fact. No atheist has proven, and nor can they truly know, that God(s) doesn’t exist. They simply don’t believe that he does. (And those who, like me, actively believe that God(s) doesn’t exist are more accurately labeled “anti-theists”, but that’s mostly just splitting hairs as all non-theists are basically in the same camp, anyway.) It comes down to the old distinction between agnosticism (which is about knowledge) and atheism (which is about belief); ergo, all reasonable atheists are also agnostics (despite the popular and ill-founded resentment towards that label).

In the end, atheism in and of itself really has little to do with philosophy. At it’s basics, it’s limited to asking whether there’s any good reason to believe in God(s), and if not, then why do so. Anything more is really just details, and philosophical battles on the matter are mostly triggered by anti-atheist critics who just can’t seem to understand that people can live just fine without believing in any one or more deity(s).

(Related: See my posts on non-theist labels and common anti-atheist myths.)

Tags: rationalism • rationalists • Formspring

FBI turns off 3,000 illegal tracking devices after SCOTUS ruling

Andrew Weissmann

From the files of the simultaneously satisfying and disturbing: In the wake of last month’s Supreme Court ruling (U.S. v. Jones) that police actually did need to obey the Fourth Amendment and obtain a warrant before sticking a GPS tracking device under suspects’ cars, a new report reveals that the FBI has had to quietly deactivate thousands of such illegally-placed devices all around the country:

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices has caused a “sea change” inside the U.S. Justice Department, according to FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann.

Mr. Weissmann, speaking at a University of San Francisco conference called “Big Brother in the 21st Century” on Friday, said that the court ruling prompted the FBI to turn off about 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use.

[…]

Mr. Weissmann said that the FBI is now working to develop new guidelines for the use of GPS devices. He said the agency is also working on guidelines to cover the broader implications of the court decision beyond GPS devices.

It would be refreshing to hear that the feds are doing the right thing if it weren’t altogether too depressing that it took a ruling by the nation’s top court (!) to get a federal law enforcement agency to obey the Fourth Amendment (!!), which they were already supposed to be following in the first place (!!!) … and, again, that they had violated this blatantly obvious law in approximately 3,000 cases (!!11!).

Even more exasperating is when they talk about supposed difficulties in determining which acts are allowed or not:

For instance, he said, agency is now “wrestling” with the legality of whether agents can lift up the lid of a trash can without committing trespass. The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones held that the agents had trespassed when placing the GPS device on a car without warrant.

Gee. You’d think that the idea that you need a warrant in order to spy on anyone or access their private property were difficult to comprehend or something. Then again, given the innumerable (and counting) cases of law officers blatantly and all-too-quickly engaging in all sorts of “unreasonable searches and seizures”, it would appear that there may well be something to that hypothesis.

(via @normative)

Tags: FBI • Federal Bureau of Investigations • Supreme Court of the United States • SCOTUS • U.S. Supreme Court • U.S. v. Jones • GPS tracking devices

Santorum calls Obama “weak” for apologizing for burnt Qurans

Rick Santorum

You know, I’d love it if I could understand the bizarre notion held by Republicans that apologizing somehow indicates “weakness” and that it’s something so utterly beneath the U.S. President:

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum criticized President Barack Obama's apology for the burning of Qurans in Afghanistan, adding that Afghanistan should apologize to the U.S. for the deaths of four U.S. soldiers during six days of violence sparked by the incident.

"There was nothing deliberately done wrong here," Santorum said Sunday on ABC's "This Week". "This was something that happened as a mistake. Killing Americans in uniform is not a mistake. It was something that deliberate."

More than 30 people have been killed in clashes since it emerged Tuesday that copies of the Muslim holy book and other religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage at Bagram Air Field, a large U.S. base north of Kabul. Protesters angry over Quran burnings by American troops lobbed grenades Sunday at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and clashed with police and troops in a day of violence that left seven international troops wounded and two Afghans dead.

The fact that reactionary Islamists act like a bunch of barbarians at the slightest provocation, while deplorable, is nothing new. But whatever might be said about the necessity for apologizing for burnt copies of a stupid holy book, it was unquestionably the decent and diplomatic thing for the Commander-in-Chief to do in this situation and any other like it. That’s what mature and reasonable people do when they or others in their charge screw up: “Sorry, honest mistake, won’t happen again.” It doesn’t translate to defending the violence from the usual fanatics, but simply taking responsibility for an error, especially on the international scene. Nothing could possibly be more uncontroversial.

Unless you’re a demagogue on the war path in the electoral season, of course. (Or a Republican, which always seems to compound the issue.) And better yet is this typical display of hypocrisy:

"The response needs to be apologized for by (President Hamid) Karzai and the Afghan people for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake," Santorum said on NBC's "Meet the Press". "That is the real crime here, not what our soldiers did."

Daily Blend: Saturday, February 25, 2012

So Derpy has been killed, her body reanimated into a nameless, generic template. Seriously, fuck the whiners. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about … good, I guess.)

Ohio’s latest Drug War craze: $5,000 fine and 1½ years in jail for any car with “hidden compartment(s)”, even in the complete absence of any illegal material.
(via @radleybalko)

Is YouTube ^[pictured] now cracking down on any videos (unjustly) flagged as “religiously offensive”?

Open letter to Bill O’Reilly: “Your economics is wrong and your ethics convenient.”
(via The Agitator)

So, how’d that work out for ya?
(via The Agitator)

What to do when cold-loving artists have too much time on their hands.
(via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Derpy • My Little Pony • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic • Hasbro • ableism • Ohio • cars • John Kasich • thunderf00t • YouTube • Bill O'Reilly • oil • Lou Dobbs • ethics • Don Boudreaux • War on Drugs • Richard Nixon • Nixon administration • Simon Beck • snow

Exposing preachy Christian hypocrites on Facebook is such fun

Once again, please let this be real and not another hoax (from Reddit):

My transcript (all [sic]): (click the [+/-] to open/close →)

[−]

Kyle
If we should give homosexuals equal rights...should we give em to pedophiles as well? After all, freedom of choice...right?
Both are sexual immorality. God speaks against homosexuality. Stop picking up man's laws and man's ideas. The reason we're in this state is because we've gone away from God's commandments.

Then THIS happened...

Courtney So is masturbating in a parking lot on somebody else's truck in front of all your friends but yes its something you did... Dont you think your being a bit hypocritical?

Kyle -_- really Courtney? You gotta bring that up? That was a while ago, and yes it was obviously wrong. I don't get drunk anymore though. Repentance is definitely needed.

Real or not, it’s not like we haven’t all heard of countless proven examples of this exact sort of two-faced dishonesty from these preachy pissants.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Christians • homosexuality • Christianity

Who knew removing drain clogs could be so erotic?

Oh, my:

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Liquid-Plumr Double Impact • commercials • ads

Ontario man arrested, strip-searched after daughter draws gun

Jessie Sansone and daughter

I’ll level with you: I once drew a doodle of a gun as a schoolkid. (What can I say; James Bond and Perfect Dark were my thing.) I’m still annoyed that I got lectured about it by my teacher (because drawing something obviously means I’m going to do it in real life, right?), though in retrospect, I suppose I should count myself lucky that I didn’t accidentally get my parents arrested over it:

A Kitchener father is upset that police arrested him at his children’s’ school Wednesday, hauled him down to the station and strip-searched him, all because his four-year-old daughter drew a picture of a gun at school.

“I’m picking up my kids and then, next thing you know, I’m locked up,” Jessie Sansone, 26, said Thursday.

“I was in shock. This is completely insane. My daughter drew a gun on a piece of paper at school.”

The school principal, police and child welfare officials, however, all stand by their actions. They said they had to investigate to determine whether there was a gun in Sansone’s house that children had access to.

[…]

He said he went to the school Wednesday afternoon to pick up his three children. He was summoned to the principal’s office where three police officers were waiting. They said he was being charged with possession of a firearm.

He was escorted from the school, handcuffed and put in the back of a cruiser.

Hours later, after having been questioned without being given any answers of his own and strip-searched (because he must be carrying that illegal firearm up his rectum, I suppose, unless he swallowed it like I reckon all the real clever illegal-gun-owners do), he was finally released without having ever been charged.

Oh, and that gun the girl was allegedly talking about? Well, surprise, surprise:

After more interviews, police determined the weapon was likely a toy gun. After Sansone was released, he allowed police to search his home.

A partly transparent, plastic gun was eventually located. Stephanie Squires said the gun shoots small plastic pellets that look like “tiny purple candy gum balls.” However, there were never any pellets in the home. The gun had been left behind by her brother, who used to live with the family.

The article also notes that no-one, from school administrators to police officers, actually bothered to even take a look at the drawing that created all this panic. But why let such things as lack of any credible evidence get in the way of a perfectly good for teh children witch-hunt?

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Jessie Sansone • Kitchener, Ontario • toy guns

Daily Blend: Friday, February 24, 2012

Card. Timothy Dolan

Glenn Greenwald on those weak wanna-be politicians who care about such silly things as “the Constitution” and “the law”.

A good start for ethics blog’s claim that vegetarians & vegans have “moral obligation” to eat “Frankenmeat”: Stop calling it “Frankenmeat”.
(via The Agitator)

Empire State Building owners refuse to celebrate elevation of Cardinal Timothy Dolan ^[pictured].
(via Joe. My. God.)

… Which has the satisfying effect of predictably pissing off Bill Donohue.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Glenn Greenwald • U.S. Constitution • U.S. President • Practical Ethics • Julian Savulescu • Frankenmeat • vegetarians • vegetarianism • vegans • veganism • Empire State Building • Timothy Dolan • Bill Donohue

Doggycide in Glorieta, New Mexico

Victoria Baca

You know, it’s been far too long since I last touched on the perennial police-vs.-dog conflict. Here you go:

People in Glorieta will tell you it is not a bad idea to have a guard dog in the yard. Mother of four, Victoria Baca wouldn't live without one - in fact she had two until Thursday morning. She had called State Police to file a report about an online scam and was told that an officer would be there eventually. She told police she had errands to run with her young children and to give her a call when the officer was on his way. A few hours later she got a call, but it wasn't what she expected "That the officer had jumped my fence and that my dog bit him and he killed her," Baca said. State police said the officer thought Baca was home and entered her property - that's when the attack came.

[…]

She said her property clearly has signs warning trespassers of guard dogs and the officer should never have trespassed.

[…]

State Police are investigating the shooting but said the officer was simply responding to a call when he hopped the fence.

They said he was acting in self defense and there is no training for this kind of situation.

"Was there things that could have done different? Absolutely however that's the situation that occurred and so now we'll deal with it," said New Mexico State Police spokesman, Lt. Robert McDonald.

State police said they sympathize with Baca and apologize to her.

"It's too late for an apology. She's gone, an apology isn't going to bring her back," said Baca.

State Police said the officer wasn't hurt in the attack and so far there is no cause for disciplinary action.

I’ve long ago run out of anything particularly new to say with these stories, so let’s move right on to another round of Doggycide Bingo!

Top 20 “unbearable”, “anti-Christian” movies of 2011?

It’s awards season, indeed! The hilariously pearl-clutching Christian film review site Movieguide has released (and crank repository WorldNetDaily is naturally promoting) its “20 most ‘unbearable’ movies of 2011”, selected because of varying levels of alleged “anti-Christian”, “anti-God” and “anti-human” (wuh?) sentiments found within (at least by the fundy eye). Take a look and determine which titles you should watch next:

My transcript (all caps & formatting [sic]): (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

1.	Vile, Vulgar & Anti-Christian Award	"Red State"	Worst Ultimate Christian Bashing
2.	Slimy Pornification Award	"Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star"	Worst Promotion of Pornography
3.	Abhorrent Sexcapade Award	" A Good Old Fashioned Orgy"	Worst Promotion of Orgies
4.	Lurid Transgender Abuse Award	"The Skin I Live In"	Worst Sex Change Revenge
5.	Environmentalist Hysteria Award	"Happy Feet Two"	Worst Radical Environmentalism, Magical Thinking, & Same-Sex Partnerships
6.	Boring, Degrading, Offensive and Lewd Award	"Shame"	Worst Pornographic Portrait of a Sex Addict
7.	Loud & Proud Homosexual Activism Award	"Beginners"	Worst Anti-Christian, Homosexual Agenda
8.	Ludicrous Lying about Shakespeare & Queen Elizabeth Award	"Anonymous"	Worst Revisionist Artistic History
9.	Politically Correct Pagan Hedonism Award	"The Hangover 2"	Worst Debauchery
10.	Anti-Christian Liberal Perversion Award	"Pariah"	Worst Lesbian Anti-Christian Mother Movie
11.	All the Villains Are White Christians Award	"Straw Dogs"	Worst PC Agitprop
12.	Promoting an Immoral, Abhorrent, Atheist Worldview Award	"Paul"	Worst Atheistic, Libertine Bigotry
13.	Tortured Homosexual Fantasy Award	"Albert Nobbs"	Worst Cross Dressing Perversion
14.	Foul-mouthed, Sex-Obsessed Teenagers Award	"Dirty Girl"	Worst Corruption of Teenagers
15.	Lying About The Police Award	"Rampart"	Worst Politically Correct Police Portrayal
16.	Most Despicable Holiday Comedy Award	"A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas"	Worst Mockery of Jesus Christ
17.	Sick Depravity Award	"Hobo With a Shotgun"	Worst Depravity, Gory violence & Revenge
18.	Left-wing Attack Award	"J. Edgar"	Worst Scurrilous Portrayal of a Historical Figure
19.	Satanic Witchcraft Enticement Award	"Paranormal Activity 3"	Worst Movie Leading Children to the Occult
20.	Lewd Sendup of Heroic Fantasy Award	"Your Highness"	Worst Stoner Mockery of Quests

How’s that for a viewing list? I haven’t seen any of the flicks on there – I need to work on fixing that straightaway. (Though I still won’t watch Paranormal Activity 3, no matter how much of a “recommendation” it gets.)

(via Right Wing Watch)

Tags: Movieguide • WorldNetDaily • WND

Fail Quote: Utah rep. promotes abstinence-only nonsense

Rep. Bill Wright (R-UT)

From Utah Rep. Bill Wright (R), spewing bilge in support of his proposed bill to ban any mention of contraception in public school sex education classes:

"We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest," said bill sponsor Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden. "Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?"

Because most people can tell that premarital or extramarital sex is not, in fact, harmful to anyone other than pearl-clutching puritanical ideologues who can’t abide by the fact that other people (even minors!) may live by different moral codes than their own. See, it’s using indoctrination and bullshit en lieu of actual education that most people consider “dishonest”. And until the vast, vast majority of people who fuck outside of marital unions without any negative physiological or psychological repercussions start exhibiting any symptoms indicative of “devastat[ion]”, your argument holds no water and serves only to out you as a blinkered, culturally retarded fool.

But how I hate these regressive demagogues.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Bill Wright • Utah • contraception • safe sex • premarital sex • extramarital sex • sex education

Lawsuit: Obama ineligible for being “mulatto”

Pres. Barack Obama

Scenes from a post-racial America, Presidential eligibility edition:

Tuesday, Gordon Warren Epperly filed a lawsuit in Alaska challenging President Obama's inclusion on the 2012 presidential ballot. What's Epperly's beef? Apparently, he feels Negroes and mulattoes can't be president because they aren't really citizens.

His lawsuit states:

Barack Hussein Obama II, a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama, a.ka. Barack H. Obama has the race status of being a "mulatto." Barack Obama's father (Barack Hussein Obama I) was a full blood Negro being born Nyang'oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya and raised in the Colony of Kenya. Barack Obama's mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) was a white Caucasian woman being born in Wichita, Kansas on November 29, 1942 and raised in the state of Washington and in the state of Hawaii.

The petition concludes:

As stated above, for an Individual to be a candidate for the office of president of the United States, the candidate must meet the qualifications set forth in the United States Constitution and one of those qualifications is that the Candidate shall be a "natural born citizen" of the United States. As Barack Hussein Obama II is of the "mulatto" race, his status of citizenship is founded upon the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Before the [purported] ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the race of "Negro" or "mulatto" had no standing to be citizens of the United States under the United States Constitution.

Contrary to the argument presented in the pleading, the Fourteenth Amendment defined citizenship and granted both civil and political rights to those born in the United States. Moreover, it made it illegal for any state to deny those rights. Also, the Fourteenth Amendment effectively overturned the Dred Scott decision (of 1857), which found that slaves and their descendants could never be U.S. citizens.

I guess when “Birther” bullshit doesn’t work on its own, a bigoted asshat might as well stop trying to pretend it’s about anything other than outright racism.

On a more curious note, why is it these morons never seem to understand that jurisprudence and Constitutional amendments supersede the original text?

(via Pharyngula)

Tags: Gordon Epperly • Barack Obama • Birtherism • racism

Michigan lawmakers want to ban toy guns

If you wanted another example of the increasing absurdity of U.S. gun laws (especially those passed by Republican-controlled legislatures), just take a look at Michigan, where a new bill would try to crack down on hoodlums using toy guns with their orange tips cut off to make them look like real guns by … criminalizing toy guns:

Michigan legislators are moving to make possession of toy guns a crime. The legislation by members is based on the growing practice of criminals cutting off the orange tips and using the toy guns in crime. This way, presumably, they will go and get real guns for their crimes?

The legislation was proposed by State Senator Republican Rick Jones — and his colleague Burgermeister Meisterburger. Jones says “People are taking imitation firearms that look real, cutting off the orange end and then threatening people.” He points to a recent case where a gang member was killed by an officer after pointing a toy gun at a police officer.

While I have no sympathy for any idiots who get shot when trying to threaten cops with fake guns, the real problem arises when officers mistake these toys for real weapons when in the hands of their rightful owners. More than one kid has been wrongfully shot because police thought their plastic toy was a real weapon.

But nonetheless, lawmakers are going about it characteristically backwards. You’d think that the solution to fake guns being mistaken for real guns would be to strengthen laws making it easier for police to differentiate between the two, and that if something were to be banned, it would be the actual weapons, not the imitation playthings.

In other words: Actual firearms = fine an’ dandy. Toy guns = DANGEROUS, SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

“Republicans” should be the new “sigh”.

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Michigan • Republicans • toy guns • firearms • Rick Jones • toys

Daily Blend: Thursday, February 23, 2012

Helen Ukpabio

ImageShack has decided to stop being cool and now demands a paid subscription to remove its new limit of 500 images. As a result, some older images on this blog may go dark on March 01, but given that I use Imgur by default, things should work out smoothly anyway. Stay tuned.

Nigerian child-witch-hunter and all-around deranged monster Helen Ukpabio ^[pictured] is coming to Texas.

Judge to atheist attacked for wearing Muhammad costume: “You were being offensive, even though you fully have the right to do so, and so you deserved to be assaulted, you doofus.”

Scientific American debunks more marijuana myths: “[M]ost people suffer no ill effects from a single or occasional use of the drug.”

Don’t call out reprehensible CNN commentator Dana Loesch with her own quotes, or she might call you a child-molesting sex offender.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Helen Ukpabio • witch-hunters • witchcraft • Marathon Deliverance • Parading Atheists of Central PA • Ernest Perce • Muhammad • Talaag Elbayomy • assault • Scientific American • marijuana • pot • Dana Loesch • Charles Johnson • defamation

BREAKING: Maryland passes same-sex marriage bill!

And the Old Line State makes eight:

A bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland was approved by the state Senate, which advanced a measure that narrowly cleared the House of Delegates last week.

The final vote by the state Senate ended a yearlong drama in Annapolis over the legislation, and marked the first time an East Coast state south of the Mason-Dixon line has supported gay nuptials.

With the vote, the measure moves to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who has said he will sign it.

As always, umbrellas and mops at the ready – there’s gonna be a lot of bigoted heads assplodin’.

(via @BreakingNews)

Tags: Maryland • Maryland Senate • gay marriage • same-sex marriage • Martin O'Malley • marriage equality

Trailer: ‘Bully’

Oh, pleasant memories:

My transcript: (click the [+/-] to expand/collapse →)

[−]

Trailer summary:

A young boy named Tyler faces violent bullying at school, including having his head slammed into lockers, which his parents are worried about. Tyler explains he feels nervous at school; he likes learning, but has trouble making friends. (Insert: “13 million kids will be bullied in the U.S. this year”) We see Tyler being punched and picked on in the bus and on the streets.

Then, we hear about another (younger) boy who was bullied so mercilessly that he ended up taking his own life, an act that made the local news. Parents talk about how cruel kids can be, but that officials deny there’s any real problem to be addressed in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, Tyler describes being routinely attacked in the bus, but when his mother complains to an official, she’s told there’s no problem whatsoever with those kids.

Finally, parents everywhere start to rally for the cause of protecting kids against bullying.

Relatedly, I sometimes wonder what my school life would’ve been like if I’d been intellectual, reclusive, friendless, passive, oddball, and gay. Then I realize I don’t actually want to think about it.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: documentaries • Bully

Mormons posthumously baptize Anne Frank

Anne Frank

Looks like we might need Bill Maher to get those ghoulish Mormon spirits to leave Anne Frank the fuck alone, too:

Annelies Marie (Anne) Frank, a German-born Jew who perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, was allegedly baptized posthumously by Mormons on Saturday, the Huffington Post reported Tuesday.

According to the report, the baptism was conducted using a proxy, by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Dominican Republic .

Whistleblower Helen Radkey, a former member of the church, told the Huffington Post that she discovered Frank's name on a database open only to Mormons, where the Jewish girl who died at age 15 was listed as "Completed" beside categories labeled "Baptism" and "Confirmation" with the date February 18, 2012. A screen shot of the alleged database sent by Radkey is linked to the Huffington Post report.

There are few words I can find to befit the utter contemptuousness of these abhorrent death-cultists and their shameless preying on the memory and legacy of the deceased. Even a 15-year-old Holocaust victim isn’t safe from their despicable clutches.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Anne Frank • Mormons • Mormonism • Church of Latter Day Saints • baptism • posthumous baptism

Reprint: Open letter to Vic Toews

Min. Vic Toews

Americans aren’t the only people confronted with a government that seems to believe that Big Brother is an ideal rather than a deterrent. The Canadian Parliament has been engulfed in a heated debate lately over a new bill that would allow the feds to spy on Internauts through their online tracks under the usual pretense of “protecting teh children”, and the sponsor for the bill is Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

The following was originally published at my friend’s blog, Log of Veritas. Reprinted with permission. Picture is mine.

---

Dear Minister Toews,

I'd like to voice my concern about the Government's intent to pass Bill C30, or as it is known, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. As a Canadian citizen who uses the Internet, I am supremely concerned that the Conservative government is interested in co-opting my Charter rights for the ease of prosecution. While titled to be defending children from Internet predators, the actual bill's language refers only to general situations. We have no assurances that the rights co-opted by your government shall be used only in the situations suggested in the rationale. Perhaps there is only the greatest of intentions with this bill, but you are surely aware of what the proverbial road to Hell is paved with.

My Charter rights are very simple. They state that "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure." This has meant, historically, that in order to obtain my personal records and documentation, the Government of Canada must prove to a judge that they have a legitimate merit in doing so: aka, you have to get a warrant. This has also been extended to corporations; once again, the Government of Canada must prove they have a legitimate merit in obtaining property or information from a company, such as an Internet service provider. The McLaughlin Court has consistently ruled in favour of the individual against the Government in these situations, and it is certainly not outside the realm of reason to suggest that Bill C30 is blatantly unconstitutional.

Canadians do not have a long tradition of Constitutional rights like our southern neighbours, but we do have a long tradition of avoiding government interference. You claimed this moral high ground when dismembering the long gun registry earlier in your administration, but you ignore it now when it comes to the Internet. Minister Toews, the Internet is speech, and speech must be free. It is no business of yours, Mr. Harper, Ms. Turmel, Mr. Rae, or any other politician what happens on someone's computer or over the Internet, unless a Canadian law enforcement agency can make a compelling case to a judge that it should be. I must insist that you remove Bill C30 from consideration.

I have CC'd Messrs. Harper, Rae, Angus, Andrews, Cotler and Sandhu, Mrs. Turmel, as well as my local MP, Mr. MacKay, as I feel this matter is of great import and should be addressed by all parties.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Benjamin Stonier
Antigonish, NS

Send your own copy of this letter to vic.toews@parl.gc.ca, and any other government member you like!

Edit (02/22/12 1:07 PM ET) – Added a little description for context.

Tags: Vic Toews • Bill C-30 • Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act • Canada • Veritas • Benjamin Stonier • Log of Veritas