Fail Quote of the Day: Doocy claims Obama administration cares more about midterms than victims of 9/11

From Fox “News”’s Steve Doocy at Fox & Friends:

My transcript:

DOOCY: Meanwhile, switching gears: Almost nine years later and still waiting for justice, the White House continues to delay the decision about the “Gitmo Five” trail. Where’s it gonna be? So, does the administration care more about the midterms than the victims of September the 11^th?

Um, two little points there, Doocy. First, that the administration is waiting to come up with a clear decision of how to proceed with the case of the 9/11 terrorists is not an indication that they’re relegating it as a lesser priority in the face of the upcoming elections. It means they’re weighing their options and trying to settle on the best method to proceed. It takes a bit of a paranoid fool to think otherwise.

And second, you might wanna choose not to talk about “not caring for the victims of 9/11” in light of the fact that your own party, the GOP, once again succeeded in their obstructionist clownery by actually killing a bill in the House of Representatives that would have offered billions in various healthcare programs to the heroes of 9/11 who were injured or fell ill as a result of the attacks and the subsequent rescue efforts. Asshat.

(via @mmfa)

Tags: Steve Doocy • 9-11 • Obama administration • terrorists

Liz Cheney calls on Obama to shut down WikiLeaks, calls Julian Assange a traitor

Liz Cheney [source: Raw Story]

She really does seem to share a brain and moral center with her father. Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick^[1], really doesn’t like that WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of secret US Military messages that revealed, as expected, hundreds of cases of abuse of prisoners and civilians, unmitigated murders, widespread corruption, and other instances of general lawbreaking amongst the troops and foreign aides. But as usual, rather than address the problems revealed (or merely confirmed) within her country’s armed forces, she’d rather just shoot the messager and sweep it all under the rug as she calls for President Obama to force Iceland, where WikiLeaks is centered, to shut the whistleblowing website down, and also dubs WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, a traitor who deliberately aided and abetted al-Qaeda.

"I would point out that although you've got the news about the WikiLeaks documents that that came out this week and clearly Julian Assange's effort was to change course for the US policy in Afghanistan," Cheney told Fox News' Chris Wallace Sunday.

"He was unsuccessful in that. He does clearly have blood on his hands potentially for the people whose names were in those documents who helped the US and I think that's something he will have to live with now," she continued.

"I would really like to see President Obama to move to ask the government of Iceland to shut that website down. I would like to see him move to shut it down ourselves if Iceland won't do it. I would like to see them move aggressively to prosecute Mr. Assange and certainly ensure that he never again gets a visa to enter the United States," said Cheney.

"What he's done is very clearly aiding and abetting al Qaeda. And as I said, he may very well be responsible for the deaths of American soldiers Afghanistan," she concluded.

Got that, folks? Committing yourselves to truth and accountability is outright treason and merits the President himself doing everything he can to silence you so you can never throw the military’s and its allies’ numerous illicit behaviors and widespread corruption into relief ever again.

Here’s the thing, Lizzy. Julian Assange is a fearless and doggedly self-sacrificing journalist who goes far, far beyond the duty of reporters and puts his life at risk, over and over again, for the sake of exposing the truth and revealing the corruption and various evils that are eating away at the government and the military from the inside. As for you, you are openly advocating censorship of truth, silencing the few individuals courageous and intellectually honest enough to do whatever it takes to let the people know what is really happening, and are quite happy to violate all the basic principles and ideals your country was founded upon – honesty, integrity, freedom of speech and of the press, to name a few – just to pursue a dishonest political agenda.

Julian Assange is far more patriotic than scum like you will ever be. If you really want to see a traitor, Liz Cheney, you only need to look in a mirror.

As I said on Twitter, I shall from hereon out refer to this amoral coward by that which characterizes her personality the most: Lizard Cheney.

(via @todayspolitics)

^[1] That sounds creepily appropriate on a number of levels, depending on your interpretation.

Tags: Liz Cheney • WikiLeaks • Julian Assange • US Military • treason

Daily Blend: Monday, August 02, 2010

“Capsalou” That doesn’t look like water … [source: WebDesignBooth]

• The End is upon us again! … on May 21, 2011. As predicted by Harold Campaign, who, you may remember, also got it wrong back in 1994. Just remind me when the new date rolls around so I can permit myself a lazy little chuckle.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• House of Representatives passes bill to establish a commission to review and hopefully revamp the broken US criminal justice system. Note that the Innocence Project strongly supports this as well, which may indicate this is the real deal.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• Most common marijuana test, NarcoPouch, may be critically unreliable and responsible for tens of thousands of wrongful convictions. When you get sent to jail due to a faulty test that said you’d used a harmless drug … there’s a problem.
  (via The Agitator)

• Problem is, she’s probably gonna get several calls.
  (via The Agitator)

• Doggycide: Cop responds to mistaken 911 call, shoots and kills family dog on-sight. Lawsuit alleges “excessive force, damage to property and deliberate indifference”.
  (via The Agitator)

• Is there anything more amazing than long exposure photography ^[pictured]? Sure, but not much.
  (via The Agitator)

• What does 70,000,000,000 pixels look like? Something like this.
  (via @ebertchicago)

• Hemant Mehta points to two examples where atheists are making money off of the gullibility of fundy Christians, one where they promise to safeguard their pets should they get Raptured, and another that’s the same, but for their children. Hemant asks if this doesn’t breach ethics in some way. I say: No. It’s not lying, conning, stealing or otherwise cheating if you convince people to pay you for a service that you genuinely would perform, but that you know that you’ll never have to. They aren’t double-crossing the theists; merely playing their own silly beliefs to their advantage. Sneaky, maybe, but legit.

• This is one reason why I love Rachel Maddow. Cool, geeky and classy, all at once. Now that’s my kind of journalist. (And, yes, you know this is only in this link dump because I couldn’t embed it, dammit.)
  (via Fark)

• Robots now know how to flip pancakes. How long before they get rid of us with rat poison in our soups and take over the world?
  (via Fark)

• Apply for a promotion, get fired (and lose your credit score and house).
  (via Fark)

• The Miranda warning going through death by a thousand cuts.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Great piece by Lawrence Krauss in the Scientific American about how religious leaders ought to be held accountable for the ignorance and irrationality they spread.
  (via @rdfrs)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tags: Doomsday • Rapture • Apocalypse • End of the World • Harold Campaign • House of Representatives • criminal justice system • Innocence Project • marijuana • NarcoPouch • false convictions • death threats • classified ads • lawsuits • dogs • photography • Budapest • atheists • ethics • Eternal Earth-Bound Pets USA • pets • Rapture Orphan Rescue • children • Rachel Maddow • lightsabers • funny • robots • pancakes • Rory Armstrong • Miranda warning • Lawrence Krauss • ignorance • science

xkcd on how atheists and Christian fundies are the same, really

One of the great things about xkcd (and there’s no shortage of them to list) is how marvelously subtle it can be when making a point on certain touchy subjects:

‘Atheists’ | xkcd Alt text: “'But you're using that same tactic to try to feel superior to me, too!' 'Sorry, that accusation expires after one use per conversation.'” [source: xkcd]

Touché.

Tags: atheists • xkcd • cartoons • anti-atheists • arrogance

Vampire bat on a treadmill. Need I say more?

Please, don’t make vampire bats run on treadmills – for their sake, as it looks very silly.

No danger that it’ll pull an Adam, at least.

(via Fark)

Tags: vampire bats • bats • treadmills • science • research

The MythBusters get ‘South Park’-ized!

This is just so farking cool:

MYTH PARK Group | ~njr75003 on DeviantArt [click for full size (1400×350)]

And thus, the mathematical formula ([cool thing] + [cool thing] = full of WIN) is proven once again. He got them down perfectly.

Now counting down to when we see an equally epic MythBusters + The Simpsons crossover … (Hell, we already have Adam.)

(via @BadAstronomer)

Tags: MythBusters • South Park • funny

PETA: The unrivaled masters of PR failure

I have to admit, I laughed like an idiot for over a minute after a few moments of staring at this:

[source: Very Demotivational]

My God … is there anything – at all – that PETA can’t or won’t turn into a PR fuck-up? Seriously? It’s like they’re totally incapable of not making assclowns of themselves on a regular basis or something.

Unbelievable.

(via Forever in Hell)

Tags: PETA • misogyny • BDSM

Please, don’t tell us it was “God’s plan”

I only half-agree with this:

[source: Friendly Atheist]

Whilst it is certainly adding insult to injury (almost literally) for atheists to be told that whatever horrible thing happened was the result of the whim of a supposedly omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent sky-fairy, one must remember that those who express these sentiments generally do so with the best of intentions and with utmost compassion. Most likely, it’s their idea of a way to lessen a victim’s anguish, by telling them that it was out of their control, anyway. The problem is, the only alternative presented is that it was in the hands of a deity who supposedly has the foreknowledge and the power to avoid such tragedies and make things right in a jiffy. In which case we’re only presented with some variant of the Epicurus dilemma relating to suffering. And that is no comfort, I can assure you.

In the end, Christians and other non-atheists, if you wish to comfort a grieving non-believer, the best way isn’t to bring up your God, but simply to be there for them and provide physical and emotional support. It’s the passage of time will heal the wound, not the referral to a deity we believe to be entirely fictional.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Tags: Christians • God • atheists • God

“Burn a Koran Day” church says Islam is violent; Islamists respond with threats of violence

Burning Koran [source: Orlando Sentinel]

If there’s one thing that’s amusing about religious fundies, it’s how incredibly predictable they always make themselves out to be. Open a reproductive health clinic, watch the Christian anti-abortionists come out in droves.^[1] Attempt to fight the peddling of Creationist nonsense in schools, watch the calls of “religious discrimination” go up. And, perhaps most ironically of all, whenever someone decries a certain group for being violent extremists, they shall inevitably respond with … well, love and peace. What do you think?

Such is the case with the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Center church out of Gainesville, Florida, who recently launched what you may know as “International Burn a Koran Day”. Because nothing speaks of modernity, compassion, acceptance and outreach (which is in their name, no?) like hosting a worldwide burning of a religion’s sacred book.

The Dove World Outreach Center says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, it invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

"We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Pastor Terry Jones told CNN's Rick Sanchez earlier this week.

As much as I am all for pointing out and ridiculing religious silliness and opposing dangerous fundies and radicals, there must be a point being made that contributes to society in a meaningful and productive manner, such as upholding free speech and the right to criticize religion (which is what such things as “Blasphemy Day”, held on September 30, and “Draw Muhammad Day”, are all about). Launching an event based on calling an entire religion “of the devil” will accomplish absolutely nothing other than to rile people up for no good reason. It’s plain intolerance and nothing more.

Wanna feel old? Today is Lisa Simpson’s wedding

From ‘Lisa’s Wedding’:

Wedding invitation from ‘Lisa’s Wedding’ | The Simpsons [source: unknown]

Mr. & Mrs. Homer J. Simpson
request
the pleasure of your company
at the marriage of their daughter
Lisa Marie
to
Hugh St. John Alastair Parkfield
at the
Springfield Meadow
Sunday, One P.M., August 1, 2010

Now that our beloved triangular-haired nerd is married off, expect her to crank out those kids any day now and subsequently increase the global average IQ tenfold.

(Or, if you’ve seen the episode … perhaps not.)

(via @BadAstronomer)

Tags: The Simpsons • Lisa Simpson • television

Daily Blend: Sunday, August 01, 2010 – New record! (18)

Francis Hajosy [source: AOL News]

Just a little rant about taxes, in two points. First, I find it silly that people keep whining about how “their” money (when talking about public funds) is used to invest in or subsidize venues they don’t agree with. When your money is taken by the government in taxes, it becomes theirs, not yours, and they can do whatever they see fit with it whether you appreciate it or not. Don’t want the gov’t to spend your money in ways you don’t like? Make yourself heard in the polls and voting booths.

“But,” you may ask (particularly if you’re a diehard Libertarian or something), “how is this fair, for some overarching entity to force you to hand over a percentage of your money all the time under threat of legal punishment?” Well, if you care at all about having schools, hospitals, electricity, water, roads, highways, airports, various oversight departments to make sure you don’t get screwed or killed, and any other civic service in existence, then yes, it’s fair. It’s your duty as a citizen to help finance all that the government ensures is provided to you, so pay the relatively tiny price and deal with it.

• Just over a month after being kicked off the Washington Post when his private opinions came to light in leaked JournoList emails, Dave Weigel joins Slate – which is owned by the WaPo.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• On the censorship at The Huffington Post. I still follow and regularly link to its top-notch socio-political commentary, but that’s really pretty much it.

• So I’m an I-89% S-1% T-25% J-11%. What’s your Myers-Briggs typology?
  (via Blag Hag)

• Fairly troubling list of things best left unsaid during fornication.
  (via Forever in Hell)

• The only thing worse than this sort of a horrible worldview is the realization that it’s far, far more common than one would like to believe it is. It’s only too bad this sort of brainwashing isn’t yet legally recognized as a form of child abuse, because it fucking well should be. Stories like this make me very grateful to have grown up in a relatively open-minded and science-respecting family.
  (via Blag Hag)

The 290 greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes

Is there a bigger icon of badassery than Arnie? (Hint: No, there is not.^[1]) If there’s one thing that’s even more characteristic of his roles than bulging biceps, an amusingly heavy Austrian accent and enough firepower to make Rambo weep with pride, it’s his always-timely usage of those unforgettable (and adorably corny) one-liners. If you thought they couldn’t make a 10-minute video packed full of quips retorts … wrong!

Whoo, that was good. Wait, hungry for more? No problemo:

Must … find … suitable … one-liner … Oh, rubber baby buggy bumpers.

Also, he ought to be hit with a shovel for his role as Mr. Freeze. So should the writer who created that horrible character. And so should anyone who participated in making that bucket of diarrhea that has the gall to call itself a movie.

(via Fark)

^[1] Chuck Norris is disqualified for also being a dumbass, which kills his badass cred dead.

Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger • one-liners • funny