Daily Blend: Monday, September 05, 2011

Feeling somewhat lethargic today, so blogging will be at a minimum, if at all existent. Expect more tomorrow (including another “Christian nation” debunking).

• I’m not much for “dead people laws”, but this Californian anti-school-bullying effort does sound promising.

• Welcome to Texas! Unless you work for a news channel with an Arabic name ^[pictured], in which case, GTFO.

• FOLLOW-UP: Superintendent Lee responds to aforementioned journalist.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Grieving mother out to ban grain alcohol in Wisconsin after adult son got drunk on it and drowned.
  (via @radleybalko)

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

Tags: California • Seth Walsh • Seth's Law • bullying • schools • Gabriel Elizondo • Al Jazeera • Booker, TX • Lisa Yauck • Michael Lee • Jeff Wielichowski • Luanne Wielichowski • grain alcohol • Wisconsin

Another Foxified headline: Sharia Law edition

Via Drop Fox News comes this latest example of Fox’s legendary devotion to fairness and balance. First, here’s the original headline as it appears at The New York Times:

In a nutshell: A sensible and intelligent treatise on how rampant demagogic fear-mongering over a nonexistent boogeyman leads to division amongst people of different ethno-religious creeds who are all on the same side.

Cue Fox Nation, Fox News’s even more prejudicially partisan branch:

Because on Planet Wingnuttia, asking for tolerance and understanding towards Muslim allies is the same as demanding that Americans bow down to Islamist subjugation.

Then again, Fox & co. don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to keeping their partisan hackery out of their headlines. It makes one wonder why anyone still pays attention to these fundamentally dishonest assclowns at all.

(via @mmfa)

Tags: Fox News • Fox Nation • The New York Times • Eliyahu Stern • Sharia Law • Islam • Muslims

Daily Blend: Sunday, September 04, 2011

The Jefferson Bible

• North Carolina man thrown in jail for being unable to stand in court after cops broke his leg during wrongful arrest.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Mother blames daughter Pamela’s murder on accused killer being high on “bath salts”. New Jersey quickly passes Pamela’s Law banning “bath salts”. Now, tests show accused murderer had no “bath salts” in his system.

• Now, now, isn’t it just a sign that prayer does work – and that God has responded with “fuck off with your annoying prayers already”?

• Here’s one Bible ^[pictured] I might actually want to read.

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

Tags: Lynwood Artis • James Rollins • contempt of court • police brutality • wrongful arrest • wrongful conviction • New Jersey • bath salts • MDVP • Pamela's Law • William Parisio • Pamela Schmidt • Dianne Schmidt • Texas • Rick Perry • prayer • drought • Bible • Jefferson's Bible • Jesus Christ • Thomas Jefferson • Christianity

It’s the Gays’ Fault!

Here’s a funny parody-song performed during last month’s Stockholm Pride and broadcast over Swedish State Television. (On the off-chance that you aren’t fluent in Nordic tongues, be sure to click the “CC” button for subtitles.)

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

[−]

It’s like this: The singalong has become shallow! It has become filthy! FILTHY FILTHY FILTHY, like me and my congregation like to put it. I think it’s unpleasant because there is humping and there is moaning! And when you are up there on stage, even I get sinful thoughts and that’s when it’s gone too far! We need this to end! We need to bring in more morals! MORALS MORALS MORALS! We need to have enough morals for double-standards!

But it’s not your fault, Måns. It’s not your fault and it’s not your publisher’s fault. I would like to put it like this …

Over our entire Earth …
(Oh yeah! Oh yeah!)
Disasters, terror and murder occurs, believe my word …
(Oh my! Oh my!)
But we who walk with Jesus still bear no responsibility
Because the root to all evil isn’t us

No, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
No, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
It’s written in the Bible that it’s the gays’ fault!
I don’t know which line, verse, chapter or part,
But somewhere in here, it’s written that it’s the gays’ fault!

The war in Afghanistan?
The gays’ fault!
The dictatorship in Iran?
The gays’ fault!
Earthquakes, floods and all other horrors?
And [?], Saab and Volvo aren’t even Swedish anymore?

Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The world is on fire
And it’s the gays’ fault!
I stole office supplies from work and somehow get the feeling
That it’s the gays’ fault!

Divorces and alcoholism?
The gays’ fault!
Parking enforcement and atheism?
The gays’ fault!
That kids these days don’t know how to behave?
That the Eurovision song contest never seems to end?

Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
Nothing makes sense …
And it’s the gays’ fault!
My troubled youth has left me mentally ill
But my family agrees …
That it’s the gays’ fault!

Crazy fundamentalism?
The gays’ fault!
Every schism in the history of the world?
The gays’ fault!
In the name of religion, we engage in wars, kill and fight,
But we bear no responsibility for this …

Because it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
We can all agree that it’s the gays’ fault!
One could think it’s Satan himself playing a trick on us …
But even he gets off since
It’s the gays’ fault!

The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!

Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
Everything that is wrong …
It’s the gays’ fault!
I have sat in front of my computer until my neck has gone stiff …
Somehow I get the feeling …
It’s the gays’ fault!

Yes, it’s the gaaaays’ faaault!
(The gaaaays’ faaault!)
The gaaaays’ faaault!
(The gaaaays’ faaault!)
Everything that gives piece …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
All the poverty, all the wrong morals
All the rain and all the fights
There is no doubt that …
It’s the gays’ fault!

Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
The gays’ fault!
(The gays’ fault!)
Everything that is wrong …
Yes, it’s the gays’ fault!
All the poverty, all the wrong morals
All the rain and all the fights
There is no doubt that …
It’s the gays’ fault!

The gaaaaaaaaaays’ faaaaaaaaault!
(The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ … The gays’ …)
(The gays’ … The gays’ …)
The gays’ fault!

Now, play the video, close your eyes, and imagine that it’s U.S. Christians who are singing. Funny how that works, eh?

(via Friendly Atheist)

Tags: Allsång på Skansen • Sing Along at Skansen • Stockholm Pride • The Gays' Fault • gays

Texas judge hilariously tears into incompetent lawyer (yet again)

Judge Sam Sparks

Texas District Judge Sam Sparks is on a roll. Last month, he slammed a couple of lawmakers when they tried to interfere in a lawsuit brought on by abortion rights groups against Texas’s new “24-hour sonogram” law, which the lawmakers, themselves, had passed. Not to be daunted, the same legislators tried a second and even a third time to inject their politics into the court proceedings, at which point Judge Sparks lost his patience and ridiculed them and their incompetent lawyer in what was probably the most brilliantly snarky court declaration in recent history.

Well, Judge Sparks apparently thought that this wasn’t enough and now focuses on the humanitarian task of educating the aforementioned hapless lawyer in the basics of law:

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

[−]

ORDER

BE IT REMEMBERED on this day the Court reviewed the files in the above-styled clauses, and now enters the following opinion and orders.

Non-parties Lance Langford, Erik Hoover, and Brigham Oil & Gas, L.P. invite the Court to quash subpoenas issued to them on behalf of Jonathan L. Woods, in relation to a matter currently pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Lafayette-Opelousas Division, because the subpoenas were not properly served, are overly broad and unduly burdensome, and seek privileged information. In response, the Court issues the following invitation of its own:

Greetings and Salutations!

You are invited to a kindergarten party on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 2 of the United States Courthouse, 200 W. Eighth Street, Austin, Texas.

The party will feature many exciting and informative lessons, including:

• How to telephone and communicate with a lawyer
• How to enter into reasonable agreements about deposition dates
• How to limit depositions to reasonable subject matter
• Why it is neither cute nor clever to attempt to quash a subpoena for technical failures of service when notice is reasonably given; and
• An advanced seminar on not wasting the time of a busy federal judge and his staff because you are unable to practice law at the level of a first year law student.

Invitation to this exclusive event is not RSVP. Please remember to bring a sack lunch! The United States Marshals have beds if necessary, so you may wish to bring a toothbrush in case the party runs late.

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that defense counsel Jonathan L. Woods, and movants’ attorney Travis Barton, shall appear in Courtroom 2 of the United States Courthouse, 200 W. Eighth Street, Austin, Texas, on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, at 10:00 a.m., for a memorable and exciting event;

IT IS FINALLY ORDERED that Mr. Barton is responsible for notifying Mr. Woods of this order by providing him with a copy by mail or fax on this date.


SIGNED this the [26^th] day of August 2011.

SAM SPARKS
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

I’m really starting to rather like this judge.

UPDATE: Just as I post this, it comes to my attention that Judge Sparks has since cancelled the “kindergarten party” as the “movants” have finally settled. Too bad.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Tags: Sam Sparks • Jonathan L. Woods • Travis Barton

First-graders handcuffed & threatened for talking in class

Today’s showcase in why schools and police tactics do not mix:

The attorney for a family suing Chicago Public Schools over the alleged handcuffing of a first-grader in 2010 said Tuesday that the boy was among several 6- and 7-year-olds who were detained and handcuffed for hours for talking in class.

In an email to the Tribune, attorney Michael Carin said school officials at Carver Primary School on the Far South Side authorized the on-campus security guard in March 2010 to discipline some first-graders who were being disruptive.

Giving details not disclosed in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, Carin said the school's security officer removed the students from class and held them in another office on campus where there were no other adults present. Carin said the students were handcuffed for hours and told that "they were going to prison and would never see their parents again."

"There appears to be no reason for an officer to isolate 6- and 7-year-old children, place them in handcuffs and threaten them for hours during a school day, or any other day," Carin wrote.

No shit.

The Chicago Board of Education is now receiving legal action over this. The school’s administrators need to be disciplined hard and that security guard needs to be fired ASAP, along with anyone else who think such a grotesque form of child disciplining is a good idea.

(via @radleybalko)

Tags: Chicago Public Schools • Chicago Board of Education

Daily Blend: Saturday, September 03, 2011

Electric Cab of Austin

• Exposé: U.S. Military spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually on overt Christian evangelism.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Small-time cab drivers ^[pictured] in Austin, TX repeatedly arrested for breaking law that does not exist.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Benign atheist billboard generates typical outraged Christianist reactions.

• Please don’t reshuffle Dick Cheney’s new memoir into the Crime section. You’ll only be penalizing poor librarians.
  (via @todayspolitics)

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

Tags: Christians • evangelism • US Military • Chris Rodda • Austin, TX • taxis • Electric Cab of Austin • atheists • atheist billboards • Grand Rapids, MI • Christians • Rich Valk • Barb Gallert • James Gleason • Dick Cheney • In My Time • libraries • peaceful protest

Daily Blend: Friday, September 02, 2011

Brooke Collins with Fudge

• Where are all the moderate Muslims? Why, right here.

• Australia on the verge of bankrupting its Scientology branch by forcing the church to pay its workers.
  (via RichardDawkins.net)

• Badass of the day: Alaskan woman ^[pictured] punches a bear in the face to save her dog.
  (via The Agitator)

• This is fucking brilliant. Epic kudos to this student (and here’s hoping she never gets caught).
  (via @PersonalFailure)

• Noooo, randomly psychotic beloved celebrities!

• Funniest edition of Emails from an Asshole in a long time.

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

Tags: Muslims • Islam • terrorism • Scientology • Australia • Sea Org • Brooke Collins • Juneau, AK • bears • dogs • Nekochan • libraries • schools • Catholic schools • private schools • Cracked.com • misogyny • Bill Maher • children • Meatloaf • Celebrity Apprentice • Gary Busey • David Russell • Lily Tomlin • Christian Bale • Quentin Tarantino • Emails from an Asshole • Jeep Comanche • funny • trolls

Woman and teen boy investigated over online relationship

This is a giraffe looking through an airplane window. From outside. … Yeah, I got nothin’.

Via 4chan’s /v/ board comes this interesting story concerning the legality and ethics of romantic relationships between adults and minors. Here’s the Google translation of the original French article [edited for legibility]:

Can a 33-year-old woman and a 15-year-old teenager become virtual lovers? This is the question that must answer the judges of the Criminal Court of Nevers (Nièvre) who examined Tuesday a never-before-seen case of “corruption of minor”. A report that has dates back to 2008 with the MSN messenger of one of the most famous of videogames, Call of Duty.
     A war game normally not conducive to feeling, which saw Céline, 33, start a platonic but terribly invasive relationship with Thomas*, 15. The latter’s parents filed a complaint and justice must now decide.

Late 2008, Thomas is a teenager like many others. Located in the south of France, he spends much of his free time on his computer. He joined a group of players on a Call of Duty network. Soberly called Team, this group only contains major players and not “pajamas”, minors in videogame jargon.

But Thomas made himself a place. In addition to the game’s military missions, he converses over MSN with Shoot, the pseudonym of Céline, who lives several hundred kilometers away, in the Nièvre. The latter makes no secret of her mature age. In a few weeks, Thomas and Céline exchange more and more texts, phone calls and messages, sometimes in the middle of the night. But in spring of 2009, while Thomas and Céline live a romance by correspondence, the teen’s parents file a complaint because they worry about the scale of the story. Police officers first examine the hundreds of calls and messages. There are also letters and even photos exchanged. On one of the images, Céline is topless. Quickly, they identify the computer and the phone from which these messages come from and arrive at Céline, a divorced housewife and recently a young grandmother.

Heard on the facts in spring of 2009 by the officers in the Nièvre, Céline acknowledges the facts and takes responsibility this curious long-distance love story. She has never seen Thomas other than in photos, he’s almost as old as her eldest daughter, but she is convinced she loves him. For his part, the young boy saw his grades dip, but he too affirms before officers that he’s in love with Céline despite the age difference. He’s only awaiting his legal adulthood to live with her.

During the investigation, Céline and Thomas both underwent psychological examinations that demonstrate that they have a certain “fragility” in common. Thomas’s is linked, according to the expert, to the usual problems of adolescence.

Friday Canine: The mythical three-headed foxie

[source | full size (1600×1200)]

Tags: foxes • red fox • fox kits

Daily Blend: Thursday, September 01, 2011

• Is the FBI complicit in causing half the terrorism cases it investigates?
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Official gay military magazine ^[pictured] to begin circulation on September 20 (same date as DADT’s official repeal finalization).

• “Psychic detectives” have a perfect record of absolutely zero crimes ever solved.

• Vox Day really needs to learn the rather obvious difference between “originating in childhood” and “of an immature quality”, lest he belie his self-professed genius any further.

• Why, thank you, Cracked.com, for enlightening me about the five most depraved sex scenes implied in Harry Potter.

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

Tags: FBI • terrorists • Outserve Magazine • US Military • DADT • Don't Ask, Don't Tell • psychics • psychic detectives • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • Gloria Steinem • Cracked.com • Harry Potter • centaurs • date-rape

Gene Burmington: Every American a Terrorist

The following is a guest post by Gene Burmington.

---

For the past ten years, terrorism has been a very popular word. But what exactly is it? If I or you truly knew, the United Nations would worship us as a hero for condensing one term from their official definition of several manuals to just one sentence.

As a rule, people assume terrorism means violence directed at civilians for political gain (or destruction of freedom). What it overlooks is that people then assume from there that only Muslims are capable of terroristic threatening. Radical agendas are declared by everyone who uses fear to get what they want. What is the difference between terrorism before and after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union? Muslims help us so they are freedom fighters, yet when America does the same thing, their response is now seen as terrorism?

Americans, who have popularized the term itself, do not see the bigger picture because the media only has one side and sensationalizes this word unto a pedestal as hated and despised as 'pedophile', 'atheist', and others. Words turned into a vehicle for emotion and tainted into ignorant simplicity are loaded and cannot possibly be given to reason.

The side the media ignores is a view which is not American nor kind. Our goal is to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan, but the real question is if the people of those countries want that government or even our help. Case in point, the average Muslim in such countries doesn't have much stock in the government with either a tyranny or a democracy as long as their lives go unmolested and there is enough to eat. The more developed a country is, the more prone to boredom the populace is. Boredom implies lack of work or vital thoughtless tasks to perform, so politics as farmers and the lower class understand it doesn't affect them.

If there is any real reason for lingering in the Middle East, it's a two-fold dilemma: America faced a great moment of shame by pulling out of Vietnam on the verge of victory. Later reports indicate that Ho Chi Minh's regular army was basically destroyed by the Tet Offensive failure, but what we learn by Sun Tzu is that perceived failure of one side can be the implied success in the other, so it ultimately comes to wills and conviction to fight, which the American media utterly destroyed by airing footage of Vietcong in the major cities of South Vietnam despite the fact that our troops overpowered them. In this motive, America does not want to lose face in abdicating the original long-term goal of the region.

The second reason is our sacrifices; the money and blood spent in making a pointless conflict into one that has a purpose. I don't want to put down our troops; they're fantastic, brave guys. Instead, my point is that after losing so much, what horror it would be if we pulled out and accomplished nothing except for the main goal of killing two major enemies of America.