Hilarious outrage over DADT repeal at Free Republic

I love it when this happens

So, I trust I don’t need to inform you about that little, quasi-insignificant LGBT rights victory we’ve gotten today, do I? It’s easy enough for you to figure it out; for one thing, the media is buzzing with it, bloggers everywhere are cramping at the fingers writing about it, pro-LGBT activists are having victory banquets all over the United States, and best of all, the night is filled with the sounds of social conservatives’ heads exploding like an excited puppy stumbling upon a bubble wrap factory. It’s truly schadenfreudelicious, and makes for fabulous blogging material.

For good measure, here’s a tasty sampling from one of the numerous hives of conservative bile-spewing, the Free Republic comments section:

Join the Army - test positive for AIDS/HIV - draw 100% disability for the rest of your miserable life.

If you don’t believe me check the VA regulations.

Yeah, because who doesn’t dream of being jobless, stuck with a cap of $41,000 a year with no prospect of advancement, and battling AIDS for the rest of your gradually deteriorating existence? Not to mention how this strategy (if one can even call it that, dumbass as it is) isn’t even affected in any way by the existence or repeal of DADT. Any hypothetical idiotic sleazeball could still do that whether they were homosexual or not.

So which is it? Did they end the ban or did they repeal DADT?

Um … you do know those are the same thing, right? DADT is the US Military’s gay ban. Which was just repealed. Which means ‘ended’. Ergo, the gay ban was ended. Logic isn’t that hard, honey. Try to keep up.

(Unless, of course, he meant in the sense of “the repeal was approved but the ban hasn’t yet been officially lifted”, but that’s no more than a technical matter, now.)

It’s called orientation for a reason. It’s under your control.

DADT is dead

Sayonara, bitch

The measure to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has passed the US Senate with a 65-31 vote, with only eight Republicans voting for the repeal. The bill is now en route to President Obama for a final signing. Even he can’t screw this up. (Okay, that was harsh. But frankly, this issue has been exhausting, and his constant pandering to both sides of the debate – as if there were two equal sides to the debate – hasn’t helped matters.)

I’ll let everyone else, most of whom are far better qualified and informed on the matter than I am, take care of writing the essays on the origins, life and long-overdue demise of that wretched policy, and what a more open and fair armed forces will do for the US in the long run. Me, I’ll just here and blog away with a smile on my face for most of the day.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

New poll: Most Americans still reject evolution

While the (hopefully) final vote on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” gets underway, I thought I’d take the time to remind you how the US education system still deserves its solid “F” rating: Less than 20% of Americans believe in secular evolution and four in ten adults still hold onto the fairy tale that some intangible force in the sky just magicked us all into existence. From a new Gallup poll:

Well, that’s depressing. I suppose the silver lining is how there’s still a slim overall majority (54%) who do believe in evolution, one way or another. But that’s hardly more than damning with faint praise, considering the massive 46% left who either believe in their chosen fairy tale or who don’t even have any particular opinion on the matter.

The end of “DADT” appears to be nigh

After all these years of turmoil and struggle, of thousands of perfectly capable and honorable servicemembers being kicked out because of nothing remotely relevant to their military aptitudes, of constant protesting and blocking and bullshitting on the part of knuckle-dragging bigots and equally ceaseless campaign and electoral promises on the part of grandstanding politicians who never seem to really get anything done (and every so often actually go directly against their word), it seems that the legislated homophobic discrimination in the US Military that is “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is finally about to meet an end – for real this time. SFGate reports:

(12-18) 09:50 PST Washington - -- In a major victory for President Obama and gay rights activists, a measure to end the 17-year-old ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the miliary won a bipartisan vote in the Senate today that paves the way for repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The Senate approved the repeal bill on a 63-33 test vote, which assures that a final, landmark vote to end a tumultuous chapter in American civil rights history will happen as early as today and send the measure to Obama for enactment by year's end.

Pushed by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Leiberman, an independent from Connecticut, the legislation won more than the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster.

On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, pushed an identical repeal bill through the House by a vote of 250-175.

The ban had forced the dismissal of more than 13,500 openly gay and lesbian service members, including Arab linguists, medical personnel and combat soldiers, through the course of two ongoing wars.

As I write this, the final vote to bring in the guillotine on “DADT”’s scrawny neck will take place at 3 PM sharp on C-SPAN. I won’t be watching simply because watching deliberative bodies gives me brain aneurysms, but I’ll be the first to post as soon as I receive any info on the outcome. (Well, one of the first.)

Daily Blend: Saturday, December 18, 2010

Amanda Yust

• And PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year award goes to … “Government takeover of healthcare”!

• Shocking! Vatican actively tried to prevent the defrocking of an Irish priest who’d been known to commit serial child rapes.

• Breaking? Study Finds Fox News Viewers Are The Most Misinformed …
  (via @ebertchicago)

• … to which Fox responds: “Pfft, whatever.”
  (via @ebertchicago)

• San Francisco DMV clerk who sent letter damning transgender woman [pictured] to hell has resigned. Was hoping for a prosecution, meself.
  (via Fark)

• Why we still can’t watch live TV online. I honestly never wondered about this, but it is curious. Naturally, has everything to do with a potential loss of audiences and profits.
  (via @ebertchicago)

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

Awesome tech of the day: Introducing World Lens

For those who say that increased implementation of technology will kill human jobs … well, okay, they’re still pretty nutty. (So far.) But it seems that the days where human translators are preferable over automated systems may soon become limited. Introducing the iPhone app and the latest in mind-blowing gadgetry, World Lens:

And that’s just a relatively simple text recognition and translation software. Imagine where this sort of intuitive technology can lead in the near future and beyond.

Ooh, I love the technological age.

(via The Maddow Blog)

Google says this blog is for intermediate readers primarily

Jen at Blag Hag has uncovered an interesting new feature of Google Search’s: Under “Advanced search”, you can now choose to filter your search results by the reading level of their content. Wonder what rating Preliator would receive …?

[Taken: 12/17/10 4:40 PM]

Wait – “Advanced” is at 0%? Travesty! Iniquity! Opprobrium!

(Score gone up yet?)

Oh well. At least I’m doing fairly better than Jen is. My virtual pen is even superior to PZ’s! So I can – and shall! – brag about that. High school dropout, away!

Oh, come on, lemme have my moment of fun.

Powerful: Jon Stewart and 9/11 first responders react to Republicans’ Zadroga Bill filibuster

Last night (Thursday) was the year’s final episode of The Daily Show, and Jon Stewart finished 2010 off by ending his one-man crusade for the Zadroga Bill, aka the 9/11 health bill, which would give affordable healthcare to the heroic first responders who sacrificed their own health to save others at Ground Zero after the attacks. It’s a poignant segment featuring a roundtable discussion with four 9/11 first responders who are suffering from various illnesses, and they discuss the shamelessly dishonest hackery of Senate Republicans as they filibuster the bill over naught but political games.

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

If you haven’t already, check out the preceding segment where Stewart examines – aka excoriates – Senate Republicans for their filibuster. Also watch last Monday’s clip, which I’ve already posted here, because it’s so perfect in contrasting Republicans’ purported support of 9/11 heroes with their actual acts of stabbing them in the back the second it becomes politically advantageous.

Friday Canine: Another handful of fuzzballs

[source | full size (720×540)]

A crocodilian’s shocking encounter with an eel

Edit: (12/20/10 2:05 AM) – Replaced the deleted YT video with a new one.

What happens when a crocodile/caiman/whichever tries to steal an electric eel from a fisherman? Well, what you would expect, only cooler (in a morbid sort of way):

I’ve heard that someone people actually got angry at the fisherman for his apparent role in the reptile’s supposed death (though the croc’s sudden movements at the very end of the video suggests he comes out alive, if not exactly unhurt). I see no reason to see it that way; by all accounts (including the man’s own retelling of the story), he had no idea the stupid ambulant pair of jaws would try to take a bite out of a deadly creature once he’d hooked it. This is just an interesting video, and perhaps a cautionary tale: Stay the hell away from those things. (Both of ’em.)

(via The Agitator)

Daily Blend: Thursday, December 16, 2010

Rev. James Meeks

If I’m posting this late today, it’s only because I just got back from being accepted into an equitation center. I think my face is cramping from all that beaming. Too bad classes only begin a month from now …

• Julian Assange goes free. Now for Pvt. Manning, please.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Chicago mayoral candidate Rev. James Meeks [pictured] asserted – and is now backtracking – that only Blacks should receive minority contracts because women, Asians and Hispanics “are not people who have been discriminated against”.

• Brilliant animation of the state of healthcare in 200 countries over 200 years. The trends do look promising, overall.
  (via @donttrythis)

• The decade’s top ten newly discovered animal species.
  (via The Daily Grail)

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

Bonus Links: Evangelicals, No Negro’s, Dear Abby, & more

Classy storefront sign

Also, trying to go to sleep at the hour when the world wakes up is not a fun experience.

• Note to Catholic League’s Bill Donohue and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins: You aren’t representative of even the majority of White American Christian evangelicals when it comes to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Maybe one ought to take that as a hint.

• Boys’ clubs have signs saying “No Girls Allowed”; this Abbortsford, Wisconsin gentlemen’s club has a sign saying “.No Negro’s Allowed!”^[sic] [pictured].
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• I’m not sure whether to read this latest press release by Bill Donohue about Christmas parties as serious or a farce.

• Correcting “Dear Abby” and offering some real advice. I laughed.
  (via The Agitator)

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