Dr. Jack Kevorkian dies peacefully at 83

Dr. Jack Kevorkian with his assisted suicide machine [full size (380×205)]

One of the leaders of the assisted suicide/Right-to-Die movement, the inestimable Dr. Jack “Dr. Death Dignity” Kevorkian, has passed away:

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the audacious Michigan pathologist dubbed "Dr. Death" for his role in assisting the suicides of more than 100 terminally ill people, died early Friday at a Detroit-area hospital after a brief illness.

Kevorkian, 83, died about 2:30 a.m. at William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan, close friend and prominent attorney Mayer Morganroth said.

Morganroth said it appears Kevorkian — who had been hospitalized since last month with pneumonia and kidney problems — suffered a pulmonary thrombosis when a blood clot from his leg broke free and lodged in his heart, according to the Detroit Free Press.

After helping so many suffering and terminal people ease out of their misery, the good doctor finally finds his respite as well. May he rest in peace.

Now, let the “pro-life” sliming begin continue!

Tags: Jack Kevorkian • assisted suicide

Daily Blend: Friday, June 03, 2011

VS Naipaul

• US Health and Human Services Department rejects Indiana GOP’s attempt at axing Planned Parenthood funding with proposed Medicaid changes.
  (via ThinkProgress)

• … So, naturally, Indiana officials proclaim their bold intention to enforce the illegal law anyway, putting all critical state Medicaid funding at risk. Brilliant tacticians, aren’t they. | Update: (06/16/11) – Justice Department now joins the battle against these idiots.
  

• Orthodox Jewish leaders apparently think the way the Catholic Church deals with clerical child abuse cases is the right approach to take.

• You know the report that the ACLU is supposedly suing to give prisoners access to porn? Rightist-spread bullshit, as usual.

• VS Naipaul [pictured]: No woman author past or present writes as good as I do! Me: At least people have actually actually heard of Stephanie Meyer.
  (via @ebertchicago)

• The Courtier’s Reply … in sausages.
  (via Pharyngula)

• Headline of the day.
  (via @radleybalko)

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

Tags: US Dept. of Health and Human Services • Indiana • GOP • Republicans • Planned Parenthood • Medicaid • Orthodox Jews • Catholic Church • ACLU • The Drudge Report • VS Naipaul • The Courtier's Reply • Answers in Genes

Friday Canine: The silent woodland observer

[source | full size (1280×1024)]

Criticizing the criticism of Sarah Palin’s “Statute of Liberty”

Sarah Palin

Look, no-one is more eager to dump on airheaded poseurs like Sarah Palin than I am. We’re talking about a woman who gives even Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), crown stupidest politician in America, a run for her money. But there’s always a line between merited and reasonable criticism, and childish partisan pettiness over things that have nothing to do with the woman as a person or politician.

For a stark example, here’s Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA, attacking Palin because she … tweeted a typo. Seriously:

While tweeting about her visit to New York, Sarah Palin let the world know that she was visiting the Statute of Liberty.

You probably aren’t surprised, but Sarah Palin managed to get the name of the Statue of Liberty wrong.

Here is the tweet:

This woman wants Republicans to believe that she can be president, but she doesn’t know that it is called the Statue of Liberty? What’s worse is that this wasn’t a verbal gaffe, it was written. She could have checked the tweet before she sent from her Blackberry, but that isn’t how Sarah Palin rolls.

No, no, no. For crying out loud, the only thing worse than such a sleazy attack is to then wrap it up in lazy apologetics to defend it. As verifiably idiotic as Sarah Palin is, I am quite certain that she knows the Statue of Liberty is, in fact, a monument and not a law. And the idea that this can’t be an accident because it’s written? I don’t even know how to parse that one. Does anyone who ever lets slip a little typo in something they post on the Internet thereby deserve ridicule for it? Is it really so inconceivable to Easley that Palin might just not have noticed that superfluous little ‘t’ before pressing ‘Send’? Or has Easley himself never posted anything that didn’t contain the tiniest spelling or grammatical error?

Tennessee anti-piracy law bans sharing online passwords

“WARNING! Artist supports filesharing”

Another day, another idiotic and oppressive law in the name of the futile battle against illegal filesharing:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - State lawmakers in country music's capital have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend's login - even with permission - to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody.

The bill, now awaiting the governor's signature, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing. They hope other states will follow.

The bill was intended to prevent hackers and phishers from obtaining and selling passwords in bulk, which immediately tells you just how technologically clueless these lawmakers are. (But then, that’s hardly unexpected.) The very least they could have done was to specify that only the use of illicitly obtained passwords was prohibited; although as tricky to verify and enforce as that would be, it would at least stop the bill from devolving into the ridiculous nonsense that it’s now become. Because, obviously, the best way to combat illegal filesharing – is if that weren’t such a transparently hopeless endeavor to begin with – is to punish people who use legit passwords, with permission.

Maybe they’re just clueless in general.

(via @todayspolitics)

Daily Blend: Thursday, June 02, 2011

Mayor Sam Adams

• Thought so. Phil Plait and PZ Myers both debunk the latest World Health Organization report about a “possible” link between cellphones and brain cancer.

• Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams [pictured] proposes increased transgender healthcare benefits.
  (via @jakiking)

• Republicans scoff and deride the fact that taxes actually are lower now than they were under President Reagan.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Several former world leaders calling for an overhaul of international drug policy. Incumbents unlikely to give a crap, of course.
  (via The Agitator)

• Aside from the obvious and typical church/state issue, why the hell is this Giles County, TN school giving a prayer at a kindergarten graduation?

• I, for one, am shocked to learn that Islamophobic whackjob Pam Geller hadn’t already been hired by the WND.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Awesome: Guy has MacBook stolen, uses secret tracking software to photograph the thief. Then blogs about it.
  (via The Agitator)

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

Supplemental tags: Kooks/Cranks • Computers • Cool

George Lucas Strikes Back

Having recently re-watched the Star Wars hexalogy, I can now say … oh, so true:

(via Roger Ebert's Journal)

Liars for Jesus: Dog-scammers edition

What’s worse than con-artists? Con-artists who target innocent animals – and then try to shield their bullshit behind a cloak of religiosity. Amusement and outrage both guaranteed:

Unfortunately, the cops are right: This couple of assholes isn’t actually doing anything illegal. The dogs’ owners gave them the animals plain and simple, even if under false premises. At that point, the dogs are theirs to do whatever they wish, including sell them for their own profit. But that doesn’t mean we can’t spread word of their con as far and wide as possible, of course – while also pointing and laughing at them for their inability to even spin their own bullshit correctly.

Liars for Jesus: As obvious as they are pathetic.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Facebook protest gets Australian pro-safe sex ads restored

Men embracing at “Rip & Roll” counter-protest

I do love news like this. Only yesterday did I blog about how the Australian Christian Lobby, a typically prudish pearl-clutching group, was able to raise enough of a hissy fit over a new pro-sexual protection ad campaign featuring two men embracing and holding an unopened condom wrapper to get the ads yanked. But while the advertizing company caved in after only 30 complaints, the move created enough outrage, including a massive Facebook counter-protest, that about 40,000 Aussies made their voices heard and convinced the advertizing company to cancel its cancellation of the ads [my emphasis]:

MORE than 35,000 people have joined a "Rip and Roll'' Facebook support group after their safe sex advertisement targeting gay men was pulled down from Brisbane bus stops because of 30 complaints.

The Queensland Association for Healthy Communities started the group after Adshel - the company that provides advertising for Brisbane's bus shelters - buckled after pressure from the Christian lobby and removed the ad featuring an image of a gay couple embracing, holding an unopened red condom packet.

The "Homophobia - NOT HERE - Adshel Caves to Homophobic Pressure'' Facebook campaign has generated a big public response after Michael James who appeared in the ad with his partner asked the public to join their petition.

[…]

A group of about 20 people gathered outside Adshell’s office on Agnes St in Fortitude Valley this afternoon, chanting “equal rights, equal love, equal people”.

The organiser of the protest, Michael O’Brien, said a Facebook event advertising the protest was set up about 8pm last night.

[…]

The protest drew immediate results, with Adshel this afternoon reversing its decision to pull the ads.

Of course, as heartening (and schadenfreudelicious) as this turn of events is, it could never realistically happen in the Unites States, especially in anywhere near the Bible Belt. Any advert featuring a gay couple (!) kissing (!!) while holding a condom (!!!) would never see the light of day, and even if it somehow did, the fundamentalist move against it would undoubtedly garner hundreds or even thousands of pearl-clutching voices of protest that no pro-LGBT counter-protest could really match.

Oh, well. Baby steps, I suppose.

(via Uzza's Notes)

Daily Blend: Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Mess in abandoned Detroit crime lab [source]

• Shockingly, Detroit police chief who left a crime lab open to the elements and intruders [pictured], compromising evidence and sensitive information, will not be disciplined.
  (via The Agitator)

• Miami, Florida cops confiscate and destroy cellphones of witnesses who recorded police shootings.
  (via The Agitator)

• Same-sex civil unions begin in Illinois.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Vox Day: “[A]round 100” children dying from vaccine-preventable illnesses is not enough to warrant vaccinating despite minute risks.

• Planet Earth Doesn't Know How To Make It Any Clearer It Wants Everyone To Leave.

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

What life would be like in Bryan Fischer’s America

The tireless chronicler of Right-wing nuttiness that is Right Wing Watch now offers us a glimpse at what life in the United States would be like if the American Family Association’s Director of Issues Analysis and bigot’s bigot, Bryan Fischer, had his way [sans links]:

Last week Bryan Fischer announced his support for laws banning profanity and blasphemy and followed that up over the weekend with a Tweet calling for laws banning fornication and adultery:

And this got me thinking about what life in America would look like if Bryan Fischer got his way:

• Muslims would be banned from serving in the armed forces.
• Muslims would be banned from immigrating to the United States.
• Muslims citizens would be charged with treason and deported.
• Muslims would be banned from building mosques.
• Muslims would be denied all First Amendment protections.
• Muslims would be prohibited from forming student associations.
• Muslims would be required to convert to Christianity.
• Welfare would be denied to African Americans who "rut like rabbits."
• Medicare and Social Security would be eliminated as "ungodly."
• Religious tests for serving in public office would be allowed, especially for Mormons.
• Homosexuality would be illegal.
• Gays would be treated as criminals.
• Gays would be banned from serving in public office.
• Gays and unmarried women would be banned from serving as teachers.
• Children would be ready for work and marriage at age 16.
• Married couples would be expected to have a minimum of three children.
• Bears would be shot on sight.

Sounds like a few countries we hear of quite often, doesn’t it? Only, it’s not Christian supremacists who are in power, there.

WashTimes’s Charles Hurt’s fetishistic ode to Sarah Palin

Charles Hurt [source]

This piece by Charles Hurt at the Washington Times is quite possibly the creepiest, most fetishistic ode to Sarah Palin’s faux-patriotic jingoistic attention-whoring that I’ve ever seen:

RAPIDAN, Va. — On the very weekend America paused to remember all those whose sacrifices are the blood fruit of our freedom, rolling in like thunder, clad in black leather, was yet another red-white-and-blue bundle of American sacrifice and patriotism.

Just in time to ensure that no backyard barbecue anywhere in America was without joy, debate, rancor, confusion, fist-fights, something.

Back into our lives rode Sarah of Alaska, Maid of the Bering Sea, devoured, ogled and debated by the masses.

She is our modern Joan of Arc, dressed in black leather chaps, hunting camo or fishing boat slicker, unafraid to mount her steed, whether a Harley or a snow machine. She is a woman, bloody hands, capable of any man’s task — even that Holy Grail of politics with which no woman has ever been entrusted.

Unlike sister St. Joan, Sarah does not pass herself as a man. She can do any man’s work, without ceding an ounce of her gas station pin-up babe good looks.

But in most else, she shares with sister St. Joan. Driven by visions from God and destined for sainthood by way of a burning at the stake, Sarah is misunderstood here in her own lifetime.

It goes on for a while like that, getting even dumber and more inane, and devolving into another gormless swipe at those pesky elitist liberals for criticizing her – because they’re scared of her, of course. It’s a good thing Hurt repeatedly specifies how Palin is indeed a woman, or else we might be terribly misled by this passionate, almost loving attempt to fellate her very being by simpering prose.

I need to go bleach my mind’s eye, now.

(via Media Matters for America)