Daily Blend: Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Caged dog [source]

• Missouri Republicans poised to repeal the state’s voter-approved Puppy Mill Cruelty Act [pictured] over bullshit claims that new basic standards would “put every dog breeder out of business”. (Have I mentioned I hate Republicans yet?)
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• House Republicans kill amendment that would’ve affirmed that global warming – not anthropogenic, just climate change itself – even exists. (But, no, not anti-science at all.)

• Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) now pushing to make FCC net neutrality regulations into actual law. Good.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Note to scammers: A good target might not be someone you found billed at a top-ranking skeptical conference. Just sayin’.
  (via @BadAstronomer)

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

Conservative upset over liberals saying Republicans are against the things that they are against

Here’s one of the more amusing displays of right-wing blindness to irony (and immunity to logic) that I’ve seen in a while [original emphasis]:

There is no shortage of exaggeration and hyperbole in politics. Republicans will routinely point out that Democrats are wrong, but only Democrats make these kind of rhetorical leaps:

• Skepticism over global warming is evidence that Republicans are anti-science
• Removing collective bargaining rights for public workers means Republicans are anti-union
• Cutting funding for the Department of Education means Republicans are against improving schools
• Passing tax cuts for everyone who pays taxes means Republicans only cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires
• Cutting funding for the Environmental Protection Agency means Republicans are against clean water
• Ending unemployment benefit extensions means Republicans don’t protect the poor and want people to lose their homes
• Cutting subsidies to Planned Parenthood means Republicans are trying to ban birth control and abortion
• Improving our border security and enforcing immigration laws means that Republicans hate minorities
• Cutting subsidies for school lunch programs means Republicans want children to go to sleep hungry at night
• Failing to legislate levels of CO2, a greenhouse gas that we all exhale, means Republicans are anti-environment
• Opposing teachers unions means that Republicans are against teachers

I thought progressives were supposed to be more nuanced…

Yep; according to this secular conservative^*, it’s a lack of “nuance” to say that people who consistently oppose certain things are, in fact, opposed to said things. Because denying established scientific facts, cutting off the poor and jobless from critical governmental aid, shutting down reproductive health providers and treating minorities like second-class citizens – amongst many other things – isn’t indicative at all that the GOP has indeed become the “Party of No”.

What world are these right-wingers living in?

(via Forever In Hell)

* More evidence that one doesn’t need religion to be a right-wing dolt.

Michigan to reform sex offender list!

This is the first significant bit of good news we’ve heard on this particularly thorny matter in ages. The Michigan Senate has approved a sweeping reform to its sex offender registry intended to curb the all-too-frequent demonization of harmless acts and the victims who commit them, from teenagers engaging in consensual sexual relationships despite one or more partner(s) being underaged, and others doing such dumb but clearly non-dangerous things as mooning or urinating in public.

From an editorial at The Detroit News:

The Michigan Senate has adopted necessary reforms making Michigan's sex offender registry less brutal and stigmatizing to teenagers. The reforms ought to be quickly adopted by the state House.

We have long argued that the state's sex offender registry is too all-inclusive and damaging to the life chances of teenagers engaged in consensual sexual experimentation.

Currently, all those are placed on the list must remain on it for 25 years. This includes youths who have been convicted of statutory rape after engaging in consensual sex with an underage partner. The age of consent is 16.

A 17-year-old who has intercourse with his 15-year-old girlfriend, if convicted of statutory rape, in which consent is not at issue, can now find himself on a list with rapists and child molesters.

The Legislation adopted by the Senate would prevent such teens from being listed, as long as there is no more than four years between the ages of those engaged in consensual sexual activity and neither of the partners is younger than 13 years of age.

The legislation does not legalize underage sex; the age of consent remains at 16. And those convicted of statutory rape would still have to be on a police list for a period of time. Underage sex, after all, remains a bad idea.

[…]

The sponsor of the bills is Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, who noted that federal legislation has spurred this move to change state law.

Daily Blend: Monday, March 14, 2011 [updated]

Houses being carried out to sea on Japanese coast

Mea culpa for the lateness. No idea how I forgot to make today’s Daily Blend for so long.

• The Atlantic’s In Focus blog presents 48 amazing (and heart-wrenching) photos [pictured] from the Japanese quake.
  (via The Agitator)

• Today in “disgustingly deluded crackpots I really, really hope are poes”. (Updated below)
  (via Pharyngula)

• Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer shows how to respond with class to an insult from some has-been.

• The Mormon Brigham Young University (BYU) apparently has some authoritarian, hypocritical and plain weird policy about … beards.

• http://ifyouwatchitbackwards.com/ – am so adding this to my RSS reader.
  (via The Agitator)

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

---

UPDATE: (03/15/11 4:20 AM) – The “Thank God for Japan quake” video has been taken down after being hit by a (presumably bogus?) copyright claim and the video’s creator’s YouTube account has been closed. Here’s a transcript at the Examiner, instead. (Pity the poor bastard who had to type that out word-for-word.)

State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley forced to resign over Manning case comments

PJ Crowley

Only last Friday, it came as a pleasant surprise to freedom-minded commentators everywhere to hear that State Department spokesman PJ Crowley had condemned the Military’s long-term persecution and humiliation of alleged WikiLeaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning as being “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”. Many took it as a promising sign that Obama administration officials were finally starting to stand up to this disgusting travesty of justice.

Well, wouldn’t you know it …

Crowley resigns as State Department spokesman

WASHINGTON (CNN) - P.J. Crowley abruptly resigned Sunday as State Department spokesman over controversial comments he made about the Bradley Manning case.

Sources close to the matter the resignation, first reported by CNN, came under pressure from the White House, where officials were furious about his suggestion that the Obama administration is mistreating Manning, the Army private who is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico, Virginia, under suspicion that he leaked highly classified State Department cables to the website Wikileaks.

In other words, Crowley was forced to leave his post for speaking against the Obama administration’s gross mistreatment of a hitherto untried and unconvicted prisoner. More plainly, he was fired for speaking against his bosses … despite these same bosses’ many and long-enduring claims to transparency and accountability.

You know, President Obama really has accomplished a great number of equally great things since taking office. Why must he always undercut himself by doing so many shitty, dishonest and cowardly things as well? The moment we have honest people in his group speaking their minds about clear-cut injustices taking place under his watch, his chosen course of action is to silence them? It’s becoming clearer every day that Obama’s promises of accountability only apparently apply to anyone who dares speak against his executive machine, at least from within.

As usual, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has more details, including more on the transparent hypocrisy of President Obama and his administration on such matters.

Daily Blend: Sunday, March 13, 2011

Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) [source]

• House Republicans doing their best to gut the EPA from regulating pollutants. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) makes fools out of them.

• Corpus Christi, Texas school that banned all clubs to prevent a Gay-Straight Alliance club now temporarily letting them form after facing legal heat from the ACLU.

• House and Senate Republicans continue to focus on jobs … that is, their jobs of not doing anything remotely productive.
  (via Fark)

• Shocker: SEC probe into Lehman Brothers “has hit so many snags” that officials might never bring company executives to justice.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• While this doesn’t seem as thuggish as anti-union Rightists make it sound like, it certainly is somewhat disturbing.
  (via Fark)

• I decree that every single moron who claims the Japanese quake was retribution for the Pearl Harbor attacks be shot up into space.
  (via Pharyngula)

• Amazing amateur video footage of Japanese (Tokyo?) skyscrapers swaying after the Japanese quake.
  (via Fark)

• Abandoned trailer for Monsters, Inc. 2: Lost in Scaradise.
  (via Fark)

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

Supplemental tags: Monsters Inc. • Movies

Badass Quote: Veritas on Rep, Bachmann’s grasp of history

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

As tweeted by my Twitter pal Veritas, concerning Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) latest history screw-up:

It's interesting that this woman is the darling of the Tea Party, professes to love the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, etc...but has no sweet fucking clue what those people actually did or meant. She's made it clear over the years that she doesn't understand her own country's history - the history she verbally masturbates for political gain.

As Virginia Tech political science professor Charles Walcott put it: “Michele Bachmann will appeal to those who like Sarah Palin but wish she would be a little less intellectual.” Dang.

Fail Quote: Preventing news broadcasters from knowingly lying on the air is “censorship”?

From Libertarian blogger at Political Culpa, Taylor A. Barnette, waxing sanctimony over Canada’s refusal to let Sun TV News (“Fox News North”) poison the airwaves as Fox has in his own country:

And so, while Canada might be a Fox-free, Michael Moore-approved Promised Land where healthcare flows like milk and honey, it certainly isn't free. I trust my fellow liberal Americans (excluding Kennedy) understand this. I trust that even though Fox (or Faux?) News might be the scourge of lefties everywhere, we can agree that its presence is healthier than its absence.

Much of the post is inane grandstanding devoid of logical argumentation, yet while that in itself isn’t worthy of a mention, I thought that last bit was just too savory. So, according to this latest radical Libertarian^*, stopping an entity known for spreading little more than misinformation and smears, a group that (along with others like it) has successfully and thoroughly polluted the American political discourse, from going on the airwaves and knowingly, deliberately, spouting the same false crap here is unwarranted censorship. And in doing so, Canada is no longer “free”.

Okay, two little pointers. Firstly, censorship is when the government or similar authoritarian body prevents a person or group from speaking their minds as they see fit (as long as this does not fit under certain types of threats and criminal defamation, which I think everyone will agree are well beyond the pale for any sort of discourse). If Sun TV was not allowed to say things that, whilst true (or, at least, not knowingly false), somehow embarrassed the government, then that would be textbook censorship.

However, that is absolutely not the case, here. Sun TV is not being prevented from speaking their minds and sharing their opinions. It is being stopped from claiming things they know are bullshit to be news. One’s understanding of censorship and extents of free speech may vary, but anyone who honestly believes that people should be allowed to go on the air, knowingly and deliberately disseminate falsehoods, and escape all accountability for it, is someone with a very skewed, absolutist and frankly dangerous understanding of what “freedom” entails.

Could be put to use as a doggy sundial

[full size (613×408)]

(via The Agitator)

Daily Blend: Saturday, March 12, 2011

DA Richard Brown [source]

• In addition to forcing women to undergo an additional rape, Texas Republicans also want to ban all elective abortions in the state.

• Great: Oregon kills legal protections for parents who pray for their sick kids rather than get medical help.

• Maryland same-sex marriage bill sent back to committee until next year in “strategic step” to secure more supporting votes. Good, I guess.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Queens, New York district attorney [pictured] wants to continue tricking people out of their Miranda rights.
  (via The Agitator)

• Peeved photographer tries to legally intimidate Regretsy into removing her pics from their site. Hilarity ensues.
  (via The Agitator)

• I shiver at the thought of how many hard-ons Christian-Rightists will get reading this Onion piece.

• When Human Evolution Adapts to Modern Gadgets. Some of them had me LOLing.

• Could be put to use as a feline sundial.
  (via The Agitator)

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

Supplemental tags: The Onion • Christianity • Cracked.com • Technology

I, Equitator: Day Eight – More gonadal bruising

I, Equitator: Day One • Day Two • Day Three • Day Four • Day Five • Day Six • Day Seven • Day Eight • Day Nine

Another fun day spent at Equi-Sens today, though that’s becoming rather expected. Which is rather the point, really. (Is that a digression speed record?)

Charlotte was already in her box when I came in, though spending a night in the rain (yay Québécois spring …) left her in a sad, soggy state that resulted in an unusually thorough brushing to dry her up a bit that still managed to eat away at my allotted time. (So much for forging ahead.) Anyway, a quick saddling-up and I was relaxingly pacing my faithful albeit hardheaded (and endlessly drooling^*) steed through the gradually warming interior arena. However, today was trot practice day, and lemme remind you that at least in equine parlance, ‘trot’ is not the same as ‘walk’. Oh, noes.

Anyway. I don’t have that much to say about it, so here are two quick pics I thought of snapping. First, the royal little kitties:

Watching, or sleeping? You’ll never know. [full size (1200×900)]

Debunking FCR’s “Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage”

Peter Sprigg

The intrinsically bigoted religious-Right group Family Research Council has released a pamphlet purporting to describe the “Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ ^{[PDF, 1.50 MB]}” (original scare quotes). I thought it would be fun – yes, this is my idea of idle amusement^* – to take a look at this latest collection of nonsense and see it had anything new at all to offer us in terms of rational reasons why gays and lesbians shouldn’t be allowed to marry those they love.

In the end, though, it’s all as silly and predictable as one would expect from anything authored by the FRC’s Peter Sprigg, known to argue that homosexuality should be outlawed and even that homosexuals should be deported (amongst other things). Now, I have limited patience and an even more prohibitive tolerance for tedious bullshit, so I’ll only glance at the claims rather than whatever endlessly-debunked lies, falsehoods and smears he includes to support his arguments.

1) Taxpayers, consumers, and businesses would be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships.

If that sounds rather bizarre at first glance, Sprigg’s argument is that those greedy homos want to marry so that they’ll then be able to enjoy the legal rights and protections shared by heterosexually married folks, such as Social Security benefits for spouses who lose a partner to death and the likes. So, yes, Sprigg is actually kvetching that allowing gays to marry will give them the right to seek financial aid for themselves and/or their family should their loved one die. Because that’s wrong of them. They don’t deserve that financial support. ’Cause they’re gay. Yeah.

Pleasant start, isn’t it?

2) Schools would teach that homosexual relationships are identical to heterosexual ones.

Because they are most definitely not both socio-legal (sometimes religious) unions between loving partners who commit to spending the rest of their lives together (or, at least, a decent part of it). Because one of them is between two people who have the same kind of junk between their legs, so, of course, that makes them different. As in, inferior. And therefore, unfit for classroom exposure. Think of teh children!