Quote of the Day: Kyell Gold on the Prop 8 debate

From acclaimed furry novelist Kyell Gold, commenting on continuing developments in the labyrinthine Proposition 8 case and its supporters’ persistent efforts to try and get it back on the ballot:

I have to agree with [the US Ninth Circuit Court’s] comment that if the people can't defend their own measure, then the initiative process doesn't make a lot of sense. However, the initiative process doesn't make a lot of sense anyway. I'm not sure why anyone thinks that a measure put onto the ballot by a bunch of people who are not trained legislators, which has been declared unconstitutional by a court and which the elected officials of the state refuse to defend, needs to be further debated. […]

But it continues to baffle me, this legal wrangling over what should be a simple issue: the rights of the minority cannot be beholden to the will of the majority. And yet we apparently have to learn this lesson over and over and over again.

Why search for logic and reason in the motives of people who are clearly (and often self-admittedly) driven by zeal, dogma and money?

At any rate, there is little chance that Prop 8 will ever regain prominence, much less be put back on the ballot in the near future. Public opinion is constantly edging towards civil rights, and add in the facts that A) no competent authority wants to touch it and B) those who defended the gay marriage ban thus far have been thoroughly excoriated for having no credible legal (or moral) grounds, and the measure is quite simply rotting on the vine until someone finally decides to strike the festering thing down once and for all.

Daily Blend: Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Psalm 109:8: “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” [source]

• CBS News has a nice, long, informative list of the various things we’ve learned from the currently released WikiLeaks cables.
  (via The Agitator)

• Douchebag Right-wing pundits distort President Obama’s sympathy speech to victims of a terrorist attack in Egypt to smear him. These are sick people.

• WorldNetDaily columnist Erik “America’s central problem is negrophilia” Rush claims that TV shows are putting too many Black characters in positions of leadership to counteract President Obama. Seriously.

• Prison Sgt. Matthew Neu suspended for praying [imprecatory prayer pictured] for President Obama’s death.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Fascinating little animated graphic of the evolution of the modern alphabet.
  (via @BadAstronomer)

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

Jezebel’s ridiculous attack on children’s shaving kit

[source]

The sexualization of children and the relentless societal pressure to conform to ridiculous aesthetic standards are true banes of our time, leading hordes of impressionable young girls to flock to the skimpy clothes and beauty products aisles at increasingly younger ages. It’s also clear that the brunt of this misleading marketing is carried out on television, where everything from Botox-faced hair care models to the thinly veiled promotion of toddlers as sluts (*coughs*) is presented to young audiences in hopes of raking in ever more dough from the plastification of society.

But sometimes, it helps to remember that not everything is out to pervert our children. Sometimes, innocuous-looking products really are as benign as they seem. And sometimes, going to ridiculous lengths to try and stick a label of subversion of decency to aforementioned benign products makes you look plain desperate and, well, ridiculous. Cue Jezebel:

Toy Lets 3-Year-Olds Shave Their Crotch Like Big Girls

Another teen girl shares naked pictures of herself online, gets her life ruined by authorities

Oops, guess I’m a child porn possessor and disseminator, now [source | full size (400×327)]

And yet another teen learns about the perils of consensually posting nude or sexually charged pictures of themself on the Internet – not because of stalkers or other (often overblown) online dangers, but rather due to what will happen when overzealous adults in positions of authority learn about it:

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self and posting them on the Internet, police said.

The girl, whose identity was withheld, was accused of sending out photographs of herself in various states of undress and performing a variety of sexual acts. She sent them to people she met in chat rooms on the Internet, police said.

Police seized her computer and found dozens of photographs stored on the hard drive. Authorities did not say how police learned about the girl.

She has been charged with sexual abuse of children, possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography.

I facepalmed, hard. And repeatedly.

Unfortunately, as insane as this sort of outcome is, it’s far from a fringe event. In a climate of absolute condemnation of any material showing sexuality in minors, regardless of the nature or source of said material, anyone caught creating, possessing or sharing it is instantly reviled as a pedophile/child molester/general perverted villain, even if the material is as benign as, say, a grandmother’s innocuous photo of a nude toddler granddaughter in a bathtub. If there’s a picture or video showing an underaged boy or girl’s tuchus, someone’s gotta pay – regardless of the circumstances. Such as in this case, when it’s the minor, herself, who willingly and deliberately took those photos and shared them online, sans any apparent coercion or real pornographic intent^*.

Interspecies friends always warms the old heart up

Especially between two types of cuddly furballs with a capacity for horrendous carnage when they want it. Hee.

(via Uzza at Forever in Hell)

Leading Rightists cheer on terrorist group on foreign soil!

Rudy Giuliani [source]

It seems like conservatives’ support of the unwritten rule about politicians not criticizing the United States whilst on foreign soil only extends to liberals. As Glenn Greenwald reports:

Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with -- and expressed vocal support for -- supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein's brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a "Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening.

But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives -- including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend -- did exactly that. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be "terrorist organization" -- and expressed wholesale support for that group. Worse -- on foreign soil -- they vehemently criticized their own country's opposition to these Terrorists and specifically "demanded that Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran." In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced his own country's opposition to these Terrorists as "nothing less than an embarrassment."

So a number of top conservative leaders are now cheering on a US government-designated terrorist group whilst sojourning in France. Not only does this yet again expose these neocons as pathological hypocrites, following their constant and borderline hysterical hammering of any Democratic or otherwise non-conservative politician for daring to proclaim anything less than the gleaming perfection of the United States whilst traveling abroad, but given the MEK’s classification and its long history of violent opposition to the US, this is treading a very fine line between verbally supporting an enemy to the US, which falls under free speech, and aiding them in a way that would then be considered treason as defined in the US Constitution as “levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort”.

Daily Blend: Monday, January 03, 2011

Go on, try and deny it [source]

• Not-at-all racist ban on ethnic studies classes [protest pictured] enters into effect in Arizona.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Rightists wingnuts’ latest crazy “Super death panels” claim: Doctors who receive financial incentives to counsel patients on end-of-life care will advise said patients to die, thereby stinting their desired financial incentives. Yeah … logical.

• Media Matters lists some of the more notable 2010 screw-ups by conservative websites and blogs. Gonna need a dedicated server to handle the page size.

• Atheists Never …
  (via Friendly Atheist)

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

Why you shouldn’t (or should) correct Creationists

And Creationists keep claiming that they’re all about the truth, right?

(via Forever In Hell)

Daily Blend: Sunday, January 02, 2011

Pictured: Excessively violent? [source]

• Online store Zazzle apparently thinks silhouettes of hanging victims [pictured] are more “excessively violent” than gory Jesus crucifixion imagery.

• Before you do some dumb prank on the Internet, always pause and make sure you won’t be thrown in jail for it.

• The 50 funniest, grossest and plain weirdest headlines of 2010.
  (via The Agitator)

• 30 Error Messages You Never Want to See

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

Top Ten Fox News FAILs of 2010

Ranker has a great list of the 10 most ridiculous and self-defeating Fox News moments from the last year, where their anchors and correspondents revealed their incompetence in such things as history, the law, basic geography, technology, and (of course) anything regarding basic honesty and integrity.

However, by far the most poignant bit of outright journalistic retardation was when Fox & Friends used their stalwart tactic of “degrees of separation” to try (rather desperately, as always) to smear the Park51 Islamic cultural center (aka the misleadingly labeled “Ground Zero Mosque”) by linking its funding to terror groups – and actually ended up showing how they are directly linked to those very same “enemies”, themselves. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show practically had a field day with this in what is easily one of the most memorable segments of TDS’s 2010 run:

Non-US readers: Go here to learn how to enable Comedy Central videos.

I almost support Fox News’s existence solely for the entertainment value they bring, and the fact that they so readily provide about half of Jon Stewart’s material. (Almost.)

(via Political Irony)

2010: The Year in Crazy, by This Modern World

The ever dead-on political cartoonist Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World is taking a quick look back at all the crazy stuff that’s graced the news cycles in the past year:

This Modern World: ‘2010: The Year in Crazy, Part 1’ by Tom Tomorrow | CREDO Action

Tucker Carlson: Michael Vick should have been executed

In which Fox News’s Tucker Carlson descends into stereotypical right-wing death-mongering over the news that President Obama personally called the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles and thanked him for allowing Michael Vick a second chance after Vick had fought countless dogs to injury, disfigurement and death for money in his backyard:

My transcript:

CARLSON: President Obama – it has been confirmed by the White House – called the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, and during the course of their conversation, thanked him for giving Michael Vick a second chance. Now, I’m a Christian, I’ve made mistakes myself; I believe fervently in second chances. But Michael Vick killed dogs, and he did in a heartless and cruel way. And, I think, personally, he should’ve been executed for that, and he wasn’t.