Daily Blend: Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Geoff “Dangerman” Mackey in volcano

Whenever you think some situation is too ridiculous to ever come about, remember item #4, below. Never forget humankind’s capacity for assholery

• Geoff “Dangerman” Mackey meets the beating (or boiling) heart of a volcano [pictured]. Awesome video.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• I think this sort of burn-out is the eventual result for anyone covering US politics.

• Radley Balko guest-stars in Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! Criminal Justice System episode.

• South Fulton, TN firefighters stand by as woman’s house burns to the ground because she forgot to pay an annual $75 fire protection fee. Good to know your home, personal effects and household animals aren’t even worth $100 to these first responders’ eyes.

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

Tags: Geoff Mackey • Dangerman • volcanoes • US politics • Ken Silverstein • Ed Brayton • Radley Balko • Bullshit! • firefighters • tragedies

Daily Blend: Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Andrew Shirvell

• Ten Inventions That Inadvertently Transformed Warfare.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• On how the Obama administration’s demands that software developers implement a backdoor for the government to spy on their users with is also a hacker’s wet-dream.

• Seriously, find me one single liberal/progressive news or parody site that embraces this sort of stupid, sexist garbage as actual “humor”.
  (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

• President Obama’s approval ratings divided into subgroups in one convenient (and telling) little table.

• My guess about Andrew Shirvell [pictured]? It’s only a matter of time.
  (via The Agitator)

• I dunno why, but something tells me you may be in a sticky spot when you have to start off your campaign ad by declaring that you are not a witch.
  (via @hemantmehta)

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

Tags: Obama administration • hacking • Human Events • Barack Obama • approval ratings • Andrew Shirvell • Christine O'Donnell • campaign ads • witchcraft

Teen commits minor offense, gets 12 months; thug rapes her and others, gets probation

Ashley, rape survivor

Just how flagrantly, atrociously, catastrophically broken is the US’s criminal justice system when something like this is allowed to happen?

15-year-old Ashley had no inkling of what was to come on the day in 2005 when she was in Manhattan Family Court on a minor charge.

"You want to believe everybody's good, everybody wants to help you," she told me last week.

A hulking juvenile counselor named Tony Simmons led her in handcuffs from the girls holding area to the elevator.

She expected Tyson, as Simmons was called, to bring her up to the courtroom where she was scheduled to be sentenced for filing a false police report.

Instead, the elevator descended to the basement. The 42-year-old counselor pulled down her pants and raped her with calm, practiced precision that made him all the more terrifying.

"He knew exactly what he was doing," Ashley said. "Everything."

When he was done, Simmons pulled her pants back up and the elevator ascended to the courtroom. He raised an extended index finger to his lips in a mute command for her to say nothing.

"I was very scared," Ashley said. "I was terrified. He was a very large man."

Just moments after being violated, Ashley was seated next to her mother and before the judge. She was too shocked and terrified to report the attack.

"I knew I was just raped. I knew it wasn't supposed to happen," she recalled. "I didn't think anybody would believe me."

She kept silent as she was found to be a juvenile delinquent and sentenced to 12 months. She says her only crime was initially reporting to police she did not know who had jumped and cut her on the way to school.

Daily Blend: Monday, October 04, 2010

Dennis Markuze (aka David Mabus)

• My immediate reaction upon seeing this 100-year-old color photograph (no trickery involved!) is … why is that cabin so crooked?
  (via Diaphanitas)

• Doggycide: Oakland, California cops respond to false burglar alarm, shoot & kill 11-year-old arthritic Lab while owner is out.
  (via The Agitator)

• Gotchya: Dennis Markuze [pictured], aka David Mabus, DM, etc., has been exposed! He’s apparently as loony in person as he is on the Webz.

• “We do not walk around with bodyguards because we love this country.” — Park51 Imam Rauf’s wife Daisy Khan, who sadly seems to confuse loving her country with loving her staying-alive-ness.
  (via @religionnews)

• Some Republicans’ strategy for dealing with the 10%+ unemployment rate: Refusing to hire new workers as long as Obama is president.
  (via @todayspolitics)

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

Tags: photography • Harris Shutter Effect • Dennis Markuze • David Mabus • Daisy Khan • Feisal Abdul Rauf • Park51 • Ground Zero Mosque • Republicans • unemployment • douchebags • Barack Obama • Donald Trump • Newt Gingrich • Rush Limbaugh

Weird, gory pro-eco-friendly video: Funny or disturbing?

10:10 campaign logo [source]

There are any number of ways one can push their pro-environment philosophy and encourage others to take action and reduce their toll on the planet. This film, No Pressure by English filmmaker Richard Curtis for the 10:10 campaign, seems to strike precisely the wrong chord in using lots of gratuitous gore in what was obviously intended to be a comical short and instead caused a (not-so-undeserved) wave of controversy. [video below the fold | Content Warning: Blood & gore; probably NSFW]

Daily Blend: Sunday, October 03, 2010

One Nation rally signs: “Obama! Stand with Obama!” and “Axis of Ignorance: Tea Party, Republicans, Fox News”

• Raw Story has a list of at least 78 Republican candidates who refuse to make any exceptions for abortion, including in cases or incest or rape. Or, when Republicans really do become a public health hazard.
  (via @ebertchicago)

• Looks like the only time Congress can ever do anything bipartisan, it’s to further restrict free speech and Internet content.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• A collection of useful Internet charts. (I don’t get the first one.)

• This crowd [pictured] is curiously lacking in Hitler/Nazi comparisons, self-defeating misspellings and general clownery. Also present: More than old White (straight) people. That’s it, liberals, keep giving me hope.
  (via @ebertchicago)

• Mexico turning mayorship into an extreme sport (with a very high fatality rate).

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

Tags: Raw Story • Republicans • GOP • Congress • Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act • GraphJam • funny • liberals • Democrats • rallies • One Nation Working Together • Mexico • drug cartels

Newspapers refuse to publish cartoon that satirizes media’s fear of Muhammad cartoons [updated]

Muhammad cartoon by Kurt Westergaard I post this to make a point

If you’ve suddenly gone deaf, that’s due to the atomic-level conflagration created by every single irony meter in the world exploding simultaneously as a result of this spectacular show of media cowardice:

Universal Uclick has confirmed that several papers (upwards of 20) have asked for a replacement for this Sunday’s Non Sequitur because it mentions the word “Muhammad.” The cartoon by Wiley Miller depicts a lazy, sunny park scene with the caption, “Picture book title voted least likely to ever find a publisher… ‘Where’s Muhammad?’” Characters in the park are buying ice cream, fishing, roller skating, etc. No character is depicted as even Middle Eastern.

Responding to the news that his strip may not appear in some papers, Wiley tells me, “the irony of editors being afraid to run even such a tame cartoon as this that satirizes the blinding fear in media regarding anything surrounding Islam sadly speaks for itself. Indeed, the terrorists have won.”

It used to be pathetic and frustrating that papers (and TV broadcasting channels) were too scared of provoking the threat-flinging Muhammad fetishists to post some harmless little cartoons that merely (albeit sometimes in a crude manner) pointed fun at the Islamic prophet-who-must-not-be-depicted. But now, the media is actually caving in without any threats even being made – and they’re doing it by refusing to feature a cartoon that, itself, mocks the media’s fearful censoring of satirical depictions of Muhammad.

Don’t bother going to the irony meter workshop; all their reserves have blown up as well. Nothing can survive irony radiation this debilitating.

Be sure to keep an eye on Non Sequitur’s syndicate website where the aforementioned strip should appear sooner or later. I’ll be sure to post it when it does (and if I remember to – kindly remind me if I forget to, will ya? I love the scent of deliberate, merited blasphemy in the morning).

(via Friendly Atheist)

---

Update: (10/03/10 2:12 PM) – As promised, here’s the “offending” strip:

Daily Blend: Saturday, October 02, 2010

Rick Sanchez

Oh, Jon Stewart is gonna have a field day with the first item …

• CNN’s Rick Sanchez [pictured] fired for butthurt rant where he called Jon Stewart a “bigot” against “everybody else who’s not like him” and claimed that Jews run CNN and all other media networks. Sanchez, the reason Stewart slams you all the time is not because of your creed. It’s because you’re an idiot. See ya.

• Upcoming Medal of Honor game developer removes references to the “Taliban” after much whining and moaning about “insensitivity”. Political correctness run amok (again) or just plain stupidity?

• Another day, another misleading Fox News poll on President Obama.
  (via @todayspolitics)

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

Tags: Rick Sanchez • Jon Stewart • Jews • Medal of Honor • Taliban • Fox News • Barack Obama

Fail Quote (Question?) of the Day: Vox Day asks about the morality of homosexuality and rape

Vox Day [source]

In which Vox Day comes up and presents a question:

I note that despite 300+ comments still no one has yet managed to answer the perfectly straightforward question: by what recognized moral or ethic does one conclude that a) homosexual activity is moral, and b) rape is immoral?

I ask merely for informationpersonal amusement, you understand.

By the metric of how much harm is tangibly caused towards any affected individual(s). A) “Homosexual activity” is part of a consensual relationship between two (or more) people that harms no-one. B) Rape, by definition, is an act that deliberately and directly harms at least one person (the victim(s), family and friends, etc.).

I respond – even in length! – because I have an irrepressible SIWOTI syndrome and because I like to answer stupid and admittedly facetious questions with answers evident to anyone possessing a shred of morality jab sharp, pointy sticks at idiots and cretins like Vox Day. (Hey, it’s in my profile and everything.)

Tags: Vox Day • rape • homosexuality

Donohue’s reprehensible response to clerical abuse claims

Bill Donohue

If you’re a masochist like I am and you like to keep in touch with the happenings on the “other side” (of the spectrum/debate/sanity aisle/whatever you wish to call it), you may have subscribed to the Catholic League’s mailing list where, nearly every day (and sometimes more than once daily), you receive a whiny missive in which League president Bill Donohue gripes and snarls at whatever pet peeve happens to be bothering him and his precious (and oh-so-sensitive) religious sensibilities that day. The man is a walking, talking and incessantly complaining anti-Catholicism detector set to eleven, and while most of the time it’s merely boring or even inanely amusing, it sometimes gets a bit offensive in how mean-minded and -hearted his rants are. This is one of those times.

You may recall that Donohue is not exactly happy with the Catholic Church’s reigning clerical child sexual abuse scandal. And by “not exactly happy”, I mean how he prefers to defend the Church, attack the critics and actually try to trivialize the abuse suffered by the young victims. You can’t get a much clearer example of this than his response to the original blow-up of the scandal in Ireland where a decades-old pattern of systematic abuse from rapes to beatings were uncovered, and all that Donohue had to say was, “well, only some were raped and the rest probably deserved it!”. I think “despicable” would describe this sort of a reaction aptly.

These sorts of blithe defenses of widespread child abuse have been fairly consistent with Donohue, and I thought this would be a good time to examine his latest, which is fairly representative of the rest and tellingly titled “NOT ALL SEXUAL ABUSE IS EQUAL”:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a news story about a former priest who molested a male listed as John Doe:

On September 28, the Chicago Tribune reported that "former Chicago priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormick sexually abused him [Doe] while he was a grammar school student." We then learn that the student was really a middle-school student, in the eighth grade, when the abuse began. The abuse reportedly continued for five years. According to the lawsuit, "McCormack inappropriately sexually touched, hugged, rubbed and/or abused Doe."

Daily Blend: Friday, October 01, 2010

Andrew Shirvell

• Vox Day puts on his Sooper Armchair Shrink cap and launches into a profoundly deranged analysis of Tyler Clementi’s suicide where he actually blames LGBT rights advocates. No, seriously.

• The origins of 13 weird (and patently false) superstitions.
  (via The Daily Grail)

• On the highly disturbing case of Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell’s [pictured] war against a gay college student.

• Meet Rush Limbaugh, defender of women. (Well, not really.)

• Kansas City cop viciously beats innocent man, conspires with other officers to cover it up and falsely charge victim with “leaving the scene of an accident”. Only one cop was disciplined (fired, lost his health insurance and part of his pension) – the whistle-blower who exposed the cover-up, of course. (Judge clears beating victim of charges, awards him $830,000.)

• Alleged child molester cleared after spending two decades in jail because police interrogator grilled the then-5-and-9-year-old children until they falsely admitted suffering abuse and tampered with evidence. Bitch-of-a-mother actually helped the children deny their father’s innocence.

• If this is confirmed, then a monster stuck living in caves for the rest of his life and whose best education is a black-and-white TV set is more scientifically informed than most US politicians.
  (via @BreakingNews)

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

Tags: Vox Day • Tyler Clementi • LGBT rights • superstitions • Andrew Shirvell • Chris Armstrong • Rush Limbaugh • women • misogyny • cover-ups • Barron Bowling • Timothy McCue • Clyde Ray Spencer • Sharon Krause • Matthew Spencer • Kathryn Tetz • Osama bin Laden • Global Warming

Friday Canine: Motherhood really sucks it out of you

[source | full size (1024×682)]

Note: Best to avoid reading the source post, especially if you’re the easily saddened type.

Tags: foxes • red fox