Michelle Malkin is a Taint

She’s a taint stretching between a sloppy, floppy carnie penis and a messy pass-around party bottom.

Just thought you should know.

War is (Almost) Over… Maybe

Iraq II: Electric Nukaloo is coming to a close.  President Obama has set a timeline for getting our combat troops out and, later, getting our “transitional” troops out.

Now I have more questions than I started with.

First off… I thought we were already in a transitional period.  We’re training the Iraqi police and army and Iraq is already holding elections… I thought that was transition. If we’re not in a transitional period right now, what are we in?  And if we are in a transitional period, what period will we be in when we leave behind the transitional troops?

Second, what the fuck is a “transitional” troop?  Is that a group of soldiers who are trained to kill people with guns who don’t kill people with guns?  What are they for, then?  If the transition troops aren’t supposed to kill people with guns, can we replace them with people who are trained to “transition” rather than people trained to kill people with guns?  Or is “transitional troop” a euphemism for “same ol’ kill-people-with-guns troop, repackaged”?

Third, why are we waiting 18 months and why are we leaving 50,000 soldiers for almost a year after?  I’m sure there’s a reason, but what is it?  Why so long and why leave behind so many?  If I had a uterus, I could make 2 babies before we even reach this mysterious “transitional stage” (16 if I had Nadya Suleman’s OB/GYN).

Fourth, what about Afghanistan?  Do we have a timeline for Afghanistan?  Do we have any clear goals in Afghanistan now or are we still wandering around in the rubble, shooting blindly at anyone browner than this paint chip?

Fifth, what about Pakistan and Iran?  President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei are more bat-shit than Saddam Hussein ever was, and the Taliban has taken over the Swat region of Pakistan, just northwest of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capitol city.  Iran is the new (worse than) Iraq and Pakistan is soon to be the new (worse than) Afghanistan.  Does the President have a better plan than Bush did to deal with these current and upcoming threats?  Are the politics of Iran and Pakistan any our business?  Pakistan has nukes.  Lots o’ nukes.  The Taliban is inching toward Islamabad, where the guys who control the nukes live.  Eep!

Sixth, what about North Korea?  Sure, they aren’t brown, but they’re kind of yellowish and their leader thinks he’s Jesus.  What are we going to do with them?

Seventh, How do the Iraqis feel about us leaving so soon?  Do they want us there longer?  Do they want us out now?  We aren’t hearing much from them.  Come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything from Afghans.  What do they think of us leaving Iraq but not Afghanistan?

Lastly, What are the chances that a soldier will be brought home from Iraq and shipped off to Afghanistan a week later?

I’m sceptical about this whole thing.  Something about it strikes me as unrealistic.  But maybe that’s just because I’m so used to being at war with countries that didn’t do anything to us that I’m scared of what the alternative might be.  Yeah… maybe that’s it.  Is it true that the sun is brighter, the rain is warmer and the grass is greener when there are no wars?  I’ve been told that by people old enough to remember such times, but I don’t believe them.  What do they call that thing?  Piece?  Pees?  Something like that.  Meh… way before my time.

Conservatism is Dying, Painfully and Violently

What happens when Conservatives fall apart and go completely bat-shit insane?  Moderates like me run as far as we can away from the horrid disaster.  Conservatives are worshipping morons like Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Pretzelfucker (or whatever his real name is) and Sarah “I Don’t Even Know What The Vice President Does” Palin and Bobby “Something Called ‘Volcano Monitoring’” Jindal.  (Bobby, it’s when scientists monitor volcanoes to make sure people who live near them have adequate warning before they a splode.  You would do well not to scoff at government trying to prevent mass catastrophe regarding natural disasters, you know, since you’re the governor of Katriniana and all that.)

Republicans who formerly identified as moderately-conservative, who I formerly supported, are running away from the flock faster than a ninja-cat that is on fire.  Rudy Giuliani, Zell Miller, Christopher Hitchens…  They’re leaving quietly… but they’re breaking land speed records to do so.

And who is now the lone rational Conservative?

RUN!  Run far away, conservatives!  Your flock is so dumb that it took a 13-year-old boy to tell them what they actually believe.  Run!  The only intelligible one among you is so young he still remembers what breast milk tastes like!  RUN!!!

I can now unashamedly call myself liberal.  I support gun rights and I think some business decisions are best made by the business owners, but I can no longer call myself a moderate.  Being a moderate is too close to being a Conservative.  Until they come up with a new category that isn’t liberal or libertarian but is equally far away from conservative, I will have to call myself a liberal.

Sigh.  Goddamn hippes.

I Will Never Give Up My Freedom of Speech

 

I have the freedoms of speech, press and expression.  I will never let go of those freedoms.

Muslims, once again, are poisoning the planet.  They pressed for a UN resolution to make it illegal for any member of a UN nation to blaspheme a religion.  They got their resolution.  Now they want it to be binding.  It is expected to become binding.

As such, my first tattoo this year will be on my left bicep and it will be this image of Muhammad with a bomb for a turban that was originally published in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.  It has become an unofficial symbol that freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press shall not waver in the angry face of religious extremism, no matter how vile the religion is and no matter how violent the protests are:

The United States needs to stop dicking around with the UN.  The UN is a good source for human rights advocacy (when it’s not directly impeding human rights), but we can advocate human rights on our own without an external organisation telling us how to govern.  The United Nations does not, and never will, trump the Constitution of this land.  If the resolution becomes binding, I will not shut up.  I have rights in the Constitution and I adhere to the Constitution, not to radical bullshit forced on our nation by a dying organisation.

The following are satirical comments that would be illegal under this new binding resolution, should it pass:

Fuck Allah.  Allah is a fucking twat.  Allah raped my father and killed my mother.  Muhammad (scabies be upon him) can, and frequently does, suck on my testicles.  Muhammad himself (boils be upon him) flew the planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.  If the Virgin Mary, the Buddha and Mother Teresa were alive today, I would lock them in a giant cage, cover them in KY Jelly and tell them that no one gets to eat until the other two are dead.  Jesus and Xenu are gay lovers.  Shiva is a freakish cunt with far too many arms.  What the fuck is that all about?  The Pope is a paedophile and he runs a child-sex trafficking ring known as Catholicism.  There are rufies in the communion wine.  All nuns are lesbians.

The following are statements of fact and they will be illegal to point out if this binding resolution passes:

Scientology is a cult.  Catholicism is a cult.  Evangelicalism is a cult.  Hasidism is a cult.  The Catholic church protects known paedophiles by moving them from state to state.  Shiites are responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children.  Sunnis are responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children.  Muslims in general are responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children.  Christians are responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children.  Jews are responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children.  Even Hindus and Buddhists are responsible for the deaths of millions of men, women and children.  The attacks on New York, Washington DC, London, Madrid, etc. were perpetuated by Muslims.  All of the people who died in those attacks would still be alive if Muhammad continued selling rags instead of starting a religion.  Islam is responsible for almost all of the female genital mutilations on this planet.  Muhammad was an epileptic and an illiterate shyster.  Joseph Smith was a known fraud and also an illiterate shyster.  Elements of the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Qur’an and Hadith are blatantly stolen from other pre-existing religions.  There is no more evidence for any god imagined by people than there is for unicorns and faeries.  Gods are fictitious beings.

And if this law passes in the US, I will continue to say these things.  If I am taken to court, I will say them in front of a jury.  If I am taken to jail, I will say them in jail.  If I am taken to the gallows, I will shout them as my last words.

Fuck the UN.  Fuck your gods.  Fuck your religions.  Don’t fuck with my freedom.

Additional blasphemy below the fold:

I Overhear Things…

…and one of these days, I’m going to get my face punched in.

Guy in trucker cap entering the bar I’m leaving, on cell phone: “So did you catch what that Ba-lack Osama said in his talk—“

Me, interrupting: “Ha ha ha!  Oh my god, sir, that is the funniest racist thing I’ve heard all day!  No, really!  You should go into stand-up!  They’d love your stand-up act in Germany 1942.  Yeah.  Sweet Jesus, you are one funny-ass racist.  God DAMN!  Ba-lack Obama!  Ha ha ha ha!  Witty.  So witty.”

When Metaphors Attack

The first meeting of the Southwest Virginia Nietzsche Fan Club:

Me: Contempt for people is much easier and more fun than giving everyone a shit.

B: well i mean i allow myself more emotions and such, but when it comes to like romantic relationships i just don’t have it in me to give a shit

Me: I’ve come to the conclusion it’s healthier to let people fuck off on their own time than caring enough to tell them when and how to fuck off.

B: i did, i never really tell anyone why they’re terrible, i just know that they are terrible and they deserve to be told, even if i don’t care to spend the energy doing so

Me: I tell people they’re hideous beings that oozed forward from the slime, but only if they start it.
If they try to get in my face about shit, I let it loose. Otherwise, they’re not worth my time.

B: i don’t even go that far….i just say okay…..or thank you if it’s a worse insult than usual and go on
i never burn a bridge

Me: But it’s fun to stand in the river and watch the burning chunks fall into the water through billows of steam.

B: it is…..but i might need that bridge one day….

Me: Nah. When you come to a gorge and there’s no bridge, the other side is probably just as terrible as the side you’re on. So just say, “Fuck it,” and throw rocks into the gorge.

Dating Geriatrics: Explained

Comment of the Century:

Submitted on 2009/02/25 at 1:35pm by Lemming

The fact of the matter is the standard creepiness rule (http://xkcd.com/314/) is valid regardless of sexual orientation. If the rule does not appear to be widely known in the gay community, it is because gay people are associated with artsy things. Now, people in the arts are associated with not liking anything to do with math, which leads to stubborn people refusing to do a little arithmetic to ensure that the aged person they’re dating is not comparatively a corpse.

Conversely, the people that can do math are incredible nerds with aspergers and nobody likes them. However, this is what led to the invention of the global pornography delivery system known as “The Internet”, which replaces interpersonal interaction with images and videos of naked men 24/7.

An alternative explanation was once proposed to me by means of an ancient race of homosexuals from antiquity. The tribe is known as the Homosexualites and mentioned in Dudeanatomy, one of the lost apocryphal books of the Bible. The Homosexualites were a race of men created as chosen people of YHWH who could only be killed by having vaginal sex, by having their heads cut off, or (presumably) by having their heads cut off while having vaginal sex. Otherwise, they would age to 20-25 years and simply stop aging for all time. Thus, when one sees a gay couple comprised of a spring chicken and an old coot, the young lad is older — by a few millenia. The couple has simply been together for decades and one party has aged while the other hasn’t.

XKCD

So, I was right about my actual non-creepy dating range with no prior knowledge of the XKCD Standard Creepiness Rule.

Minimum: (19/2)+7=16.5 [Raised to 18 because of Commonwealth law]

Maximum: (24/2)+7=19 [Anyone older than 24 who dates me would be a creepster.]

My previous stated range of 18-24 was spot-on.

Excellent.

As for the ancient race, my neighbour’s new puppy, Tucker, has already started excavations in our yard and has yet to find conclusive evidence of a lost race of homosexuals, although a stone tool that appears to have been used as an ancient buttplug was found this morning.

Everyone who supported abominable creepster relations on the other post is a creepster enabler and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Ewwww.

Make Your Own Ignorant Protest Signs

I’ve been having fun with the Westboro Baptist Church sign creator:

 

The Best Christian Holiday

The best thing the Christians ever gave us is today, International Pancake Day.  Today, at International House Of Pancakes restaurants across the nation, you can get three free pancakes without having to buy anything else.  Free.  No strings attached.  (Although they do ask that you donate to some bullshit about kids.)

From ihoppancakeday.com:

About National Pancake Day
February 24, 2009

Known also as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, National Pancake Day dates back several centuries to when the English prepped for fasting during Lent. Strict rules prohibited the eating of all dairy products during Lent, so pancakes were made to use up the supply of eggs, milk, butter and other dairy products…hence the name Pancake Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday.

Since beginning its National Pancake Day celebration in 2006, IHOP has raised nearly two million dollars to support charities in the communities in which it operates. With your help, we hope to raise $1,000,000 for Children’s Miracle Network in 2009!

Thanks, Christians.  I’ll think of your silly Lent crap while I’m feasting on my pancakes today.

Oscars

Dustin Black won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for writing Milk, the story of Harvey Milk.

But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us thirty years ago, I think he would want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are “less than” by their churches, or by the government, or by their families that they are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you God does love you, and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours.  Thank you.  Thank you.  And thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk.

The God stuff is a little annoying, but not excruciatingly so.

Sean Penn won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in Milk.

Finally, for those—two last ‘finallys’—for those who saw the [Oscar protesters’] signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support.  We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.

A little less elegant, but poignant nonetheless.

It’s refreshing to hear things like these—and the deafening applause following—on national television on one of the most-watched nights of television.

Dating Geriatrics

I’m 19 years old.  I don’t date or have sex with people older than 24.  That’s one of my few rules and, as much as I joke about wanting to be Kieth Olbermann’s Beau, it’s one that I intend to keep.  Five years’ difference is my limit at this time of my life.  (Sorry, Josh.)

Am I weird to have that standard?

I met a lot of gay couples at Pride in the Park here in Roanoke last year and I was shocked to see how many of them were couples with more than a fifteen- or twenty-year difference between them.  Surely there must be some stress in these relationships in regards to having different cultural backgrounds, being privy to different sets of medical issues, public scorn, etc., and that doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship to me.

Then, if the relationship ends in marriage, the stress of having your spouse die decades before you’re ready to go must be absolutely devastating.

Am I completely wrong here?  Is it healthy to be in an intimate relationship with someone that old?

Why is this so much more prevalent in gay culture than in straight culture?  Or am I just overlooking massive swarms of straight cougar-hunters when I’m people watching?

Weaverism

How Religions Get Started: Explained from Overheard in NYC:

Girl #1: I saw Sigourney Weaver!
Girl #2: Really?
Girl #1: Yes! She walked right past me!
Girl #2: Did you die?
Girl #1: Yes, I did.
Girl #2: That’s awesome.
–55th & Lexington

I’ll be having my first debate with a Weaverist July 12.  I liked their god in Galaxy Quest.

The Reincarnation of Joe McCarthy is Black

Keith Olbermann is flabbergasted.

And to what do we owe this adorable look of incredulity?  Get out your tinfoil hats, people, because this one’s a serious loony:

“[President Barack] Obama is a radical Communist and I think it’s becoming clearer.  That’s what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realises it’s true.  He’s going to destroy this country.  We’re either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.”

And the person saying this?  A lunatic in a trailer park with eight kids, seven shotguns, six jars of moonshine, five teeth, four pick-up trucks, three pick-up trucks without wheels, two wives and a mullet?  No, these comments are direct from Alan Keyes!

Remember him?  He was the GOP’s token black guy last year.  He ran for President three times.  He really likes the group Christian Exodus which encourages all the fundies to move to South Carolina and then secede from the Union.  The GOP takes this guy very seriously for some reason.

But wait, there’s more!

“Is [President Barack Obama] President of the United States?  According to the Constitution, in order to be eligible for President, you have to be a natural-born citizen.  Uh… He has refused to provide proof that he is, in fact, a natural-born citizen.  And his Keenyan [sic] relations say that he was born in Nairobi at a time when his mother was too young to transmit US citizenship.  So I’m not even sure he’s President of the United States.  No, that’s not a laughing matter.  Neither are many of our [white] military people now who are going to court to ask the [racist] question, ‘Do we have to obey a [black] man who is not qualified under the Constitution?’  We’re in the midst of the greatest crisis this nation has ever seen, and if we don’t stop laughing about it and deal with it, we’re going to find ourselves in the midst of chaos, confusion and civil war.  It’s time we started acting like grown-ups.”

Oh no!  Did he really just say all of that?  Quick, Alan, throw a bunch of “allegeds” in there for safe measure!

“The person you call President Obama—and I, frankly, refuse to call him that—at the moment, he is somebody who is kind of an alleged usurper.  Who is alleged to be someone who’s occupying that office without Constitutional warrant to do so.”

Let it be said that Mr. Keyes made these remarks after leaving an anti-women’s-rights convention, so his mind was still in cottage cheese mode.

So Senator Chris Buttarse of Utah thinks we’re in the greatest crisis in American history because gay people exist, and perpetual failure of a GOP Presidential candidate Alan Keyes thinks we’re in the greatest crisis in American history because we have a black guy in the White House who isn’t Alan Keyes.

Just a reminder:

• 8% of Americans are unemployed;
• the current national debt is $10,802,021,982,124.74;
• we’re in the middle of two failing wars in a region where all wars in the past never really ended, but rather faded into other wars;
• our Christian fundamentalists are getting more and more bloodthirsty and are branching outward into Europe where they are not welcome (see, Westboro Baptist Church and the UK);
• the entire world hates us;
• we’re under constant threat of nuclear terrorism;
• Pakistan is inching toward extremists taking hold of the government and they have nukes;
• North Korea is test firing long-range missiles every second and third Tuesday of every month and they have nukes;
• Iraq wants us to get out of their country and we don’t know how to do that;
• Afghanistan wants us to get out of their country and we don’t know how to do that;
• 10% of southern Americans, in my best estimate, are likely suspects for the eventual assassination of our current President;
• partisan politics are so ingrained in our government that we can’t pass any bill that is aimed at saving the economy;
• climate change is causing severe changes in weather patterns that are destroying crops and freezing towns and cities for weeks at a time;
• our roads, bridges, utilities and power grids are crumbling before our eyes;
• our education system is on the verge of a complete collapse;
• Americans think Snuggies are the most amazing invention ever (IT’S A FUCKING BLANKET WITH ARMS!);
• and Lil Wayne is releasing a rock album. 

And what are our nation’s two biggest problems?  Buttsex and a black guy.

Alan, dear, President Obama released the proof of his citizenship months ago.

(Tip of the hat to Keith Olbermann, who doesn’t read this blog.)

Senator Chris “Takes It Up The” Buttars on Gays

Sen. Takes It Up The Buttars had a very traumatic childhood experience and now he thinks gay people look like this:

Here are his latest remarks about the gay community, compiled by the Human Rights Campaign:

“They’re probably the greatest threat to America [unintelligible psychobabble] that I know of.”

Awww, baby, you’re cute when you’re afraid of us.  I would think with the recession, global terrorism, climate change, crumbling infrastructure and two ongoing wars, homosexuality should at most be the 6th or 7th greatest threat to America.

“Homosexuality will always be a sexual perversion, and you say that around here now and everybody goes NUTS…”

What do you mean by perversion, dear?  Do you mean that us bum-punchin’ queer-os are perverting the natural way of sex?  Because nature would disagree with you there.  Are you saying that we’re perverting the Christian perception of sex?  Because the only parts of the Bible that condemn homosexuality are the Old Testament (if you choose to follow the OT, you must keep kosher and grow a beard [Leviticus 18-19]) and the Epistles of Paul (if you choose to follow the Epistles, you must cut your hair short [1 Corinthians 11:14] or go to Hell), but Jesus said nothing about homosexuals, but much about loving everyone.  So you’re either cherrypicking nature or you’re cherrypicking the Bible.  God must really love you, Sen. Butt-arse, since you keep taking his creation and his bestseller out of context.

Oh… and I like the way you emphasised the NUTS.

“…But I don’t care.”

You will, Sen. Takes It Up The Buttars, you will.

“What is the morals of a gay person?  You can’t answer that.”

Yes I can.  Being gay has nothing to do with a person’s morality.  Of all the people I know personally, the five most moral of them are gay.  Know that my slightly-Catholic, virgin friend who never says anything worse than crap or even masturbated is straight (and therefore, not in the top five), and you will know exactly how sickeningly moral the top five are.

Being gay has only to do with who you love and who you are intimate with.  Even if you choose to form your moral code obsessively around your version of ideal sexual health, which is your right, there is much more to morality than love and sex.  A close lesbian friend of mine adopted two Guatemalan brothers.  One has PTSD and severe anxiety.  She has given up more time than most mothers I know to care for her children and help them grow up in a free society with good mental health.  That, to me, is the epitome of morality.  She has given up the majority of her time to raise someone else’s children, even though they have major psychological issues.

Gay people can be just as moral or as immoral as straight people.  What “is” the morals of a Senator?  Where are your Guatemalan children, Sen. Butt-arse?

“Because anything goes!”

Honey, if anything went, I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this blog.  You breeders seem to think that gay people have awesome sex all the time.  If that were the case, you wouldn’t have a problem with gay bloggers and activists.  We’re only barking up your butt because no one is pounding us in ours.  You’re acting out in jealousy against something that isn’t even true!

“You wanna talk about being nice, they’re the meanest buggers I’ve ever seen.”

Have you ever seen an actual gay person?  Aside from the ones you pay to blow you at the airport?

I guarantee you that, yes, all of the gay people you come in contact with are very mean to you.  That doesn’t mean that they’re always mean to everyone.  It’s the same concept as this:  Do you know of a single black person who was nice to a Klansman?

Senator Takes It Up The Butt-arse, if you want to meet a real gay person, drop me a line.  I’ll find a way to make you come to your senses, cutie.  ;-)

Our Students Are S.O.L.

S.O.L. (commonly, “Shit out of luck;” in education, “Standards of Learning”) is a double entendre that really holds true to our education system.

It’s the middle of February, which means that the teachers in Virginia’s public schools are preparing for the end of the year and really focusing on covering their required curricula for the SOL exams at the end of the year.  In doing this, they are also telling any student who legitimately wants to learn that they are S.O.L.

In high school, I had a few good teachers and many lousy ones.  I found that the worst teachers were the ones who followed the SOL curriculum the most closely.  The teachers I learned the absolute least from were those who copied the SOL teacher guide onto overhead transparencies and taught us the questions we could expect to see on the test and what the answers are.  The two teachers I learned the most from ignored the SOL guides and taught us how to think, rather than what to say.

The SOL guidelines were not designed to teach students to think or to give them tools of reasoning and critical thinking that would actually help them later in life.  It simply gives the students a big pile of facts to memorise and recite, which helps no one.  Why does a high school senior care that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt constructed the New Deal to revive our nation from the Great Depression?  They don’t.  They’re taught it as a trivial fact to retain until the SOL exam and then promptly forget.  It does not benefit a student to know that piece of information as much as it would benefit them to learn why it matters.  Why did FDR need to create jobs and spend money to revive our national economy?  How did FDR decide where the money should be directed to?  How does this affect today’s America now that we are in a similar situation?  What other options did FDR have?  Were there any methods of stimulus that would have been a better choice for FDR, in retrospect?  These are not questions we’re teaching our kids to ask, and these are questions that Americans should be asking.

Who discovered that pea plants pass on their traits to their offspring and is known as the father of genetics?  That’s in the SOL curriculum.  Gregor Mendel.  You learn it, you answer the question and then you forget it.  Why is it important that we understand genetics?  What is the real-life application of understanding genetic inheritance in plants?  Does this discovery undermine any beliefs that we still hold relics of in our common superstitions such as religious belief or astrology?  How do we know that Gregor Mendel’s theory of genetic inheritance is true throughout the various kingdoms of life?  These are questions our students aren’t asking because they don’t know that they’re allowed to question what they’re taught and they don’t know how to ask these questions.  They jot down Gregor Mendel’s name next to a doodle of a Punnett square showing green and yellow peas and move on to the next fact.

We’re wasting our kids’ time.  If all our school system is meant to do is simply teaching our children a vast assortment of trivia question answers, we should just let them stay home and click the “Show any page” link on the Simple English Wikipedia.  We’ll be a nation of Jeopardy contestants with none among us worthy of being asked questions about on Jeopardy.

It’s time to scrap the SOL system and start teaching our kids to think, not to recite facts.

Catholic Bishop Isn’t Funny

A Catholic Bishop wrote a fake interview with President Obama where he tried to be funny.  It wasn’t funny at all.  It’s like when your grandmother tries to make a joke that you know is going to be really bad, but then she forgets the punch line so you jab your appendix out with the stupid little pointy metal centrepiece that some fool thought would look good on the dining room table, and everyone in the room reacts to your sudden act of self-mutilation instead of focusing on your grandmother’s faux pas, which, of course, was your intent because you love your grandmother and you don’t want her to be embarrassed, except in this scenario, you don’t love your grandmother, nor does she love you.  And the joke was a dead baby joke.  And your grandmother has a penis.

I quoted the whole interview on Golden Face Cancer, because Christians are well-known for pulling things from the Internet when they become the focus of controversy.

Here’s a few sections of Rhode Island’s Bishop Tobin’s unfunny “interview”:

TOBIN: I think we’d all agree that your goals of unity and hope are very worthwhile. But for that very reason, many of us were surprised, and even disappointed, that you signed an executive order overturning the so-called “Mexico City Policy” within the first few days of your administration. As you know, your action directs that American tax dollars be used to fund abortions overseas. Why did you have to act so quickly on such a controversial policy?

OBAMA: Well, I believe it was important for me to fulfill the campaign promises I made to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. After all, they’re among my biggest supporters and I don’t want to disappoint them.

REED: Actually, that’s a gross misrepresentation of the Mexico City Policy.  While the policy was enacted by Republicans to stop federal aid to international agencies that provided abortions to women, it also prevented the United States from supplying condoms to nations where AIDS infected large percentages of the population.  And while it may look good to a Republican’s constituents for their elected representatives to block international women’s healthcare, have you stopped to think about what then happens to those women?  In countries where the healthcare system is appallingly below the safety standards we set for our own, women are still going to have abortions, but they will have dirty, back-alley abortions and increase their risk of dying from infection or having a botched abortion that later results in complications for the mother. Most of those deaths could be prevented if it weren’t for the Mexico City Policy.  Under the Mexico City Policy, we weren’t even allowed to tell women that back-alley abortions were dangerous.  Our aid workers had to sit back and watch women perforate their uteruses without being able to tell them about safe alternatives.  We aren’t introducing abortion to other nations, they are already having abortions overseas.  We’re funding proper and safe abortions and education about women’s healthcare.  Do you really think that the world would be better off with that policy still in place?  If you do, then you truly lack any feeling of human compassion, something Jesus spoke of rather highly.  You’re over-simplifying the gag-rule policy in order to smear the President because you can’t find any other dirt on him that hasn’t already been thoroughly debunked.

Also, the President’s decision had nothing to do with Planned Parenthood.  It had to do with his clear conscience and his moral superiority to your Church’s poisoned teachings.  President Obama cares more about the safety of actual people than the imagined rights of potential people… that’s an ethical no-brianer that didn’t require the help of Planned Parenthood for Obama to decide..

I’m back.

Thanks for your patience.  I’ve been dealing with a bit more than usual lately and it helped to take the time off from blogging to get things a little more organised.  Blogging might be a little bit scarce here for the next few days because my computer is in the intensive care unit with PC AIDS, but I’ll try to publish as often as I can get ahold of a computer.

You’re all wonderful people and half of you smell like the world’s most beautiful flowers.  The other half of you smell so wonderful I can’t even describe it. If Jesus actually existed, he would love all of you, and he wouldn’t stop loving you until you were completely satisfied.  Then he would massage your feet until you fell asleep. And he would do it every single night but change it up every now and then so you don’t get bored.  I hope you like whips.  That’s how amazing all of you are!  If I could meet you all individually and give each of you a gigantic chocolate bar and a blow job, I would.

Defend your sexual rights!

This is Jay Friedman. Jay Friedman likes to talk about dirty things, like how putting lubricant inside the condom makes for a much more enjoyable experience.

Thankfully for my university our lovely student activities board invited the man to come talk to all the good ol’ boys here in Oklahoma about sex. He talked about everything: homophobia, blue balls, sexism, the consequences of Sarah Palin’s negligent sex education. We even got to see a Scandinavian sex education video normally shown to middle school kids that included graphic depictions of sex organs, intercourse, and premature ejaculation. It was all in good fun and a little educational at least for those old enough to handle the subject.

wait this isn't real, oops

But of course there are the usual fun-suckers, the moral high-grounders, the Jesus police, and everyone else that plagues the states not touching the Atlantic or Pacific ocean. I think Jay made a significant observation about how state-awesomeness correlates with whether or not the state borders an ocean. This observation comes from his own experience, when a student nearly had him banned from the campus because he teased her hero, Former Attourney General John Ashcroft (what the christ?), for wanting to have tax dollars go toward covering up an “offensive” statue.

There is an anomaly, however! A lovely contributor to Winthrop University’s college newspaper in South Carolina proclaims that “sex speaker fails to educate,” and describes Jay as “sexually ambiguous … and goofy-looking.” He goes on to complain that Jay “advocated gay marriage” and “provided useless commentary” on Palin’s situation, while blissfully missing Jay’s entire point about the topic in question. While the column is littered with other bits of useless nastiness, it characterizes a deeply-rooted contempt for the kind of evidence that points to an emerging sex-ed crisis in the U.S. He mindlessly understates the U.S. as “more reserved” in comparison to other industrialized countries and bluntly denies the overt anti-sex attitude in the U.S. Meanwhile there is a profound backlash against decent sex education in schools that goes beyond “don’t participate” and a surge in the teen-pregnancy rate. Oh, and remember that 1 in 4 teen girls have an STD nationwide?

Single-payer universal healthcare reform

By Dick

Our entire healthcare system needs reform, especially the way we go about research and development. An example:

Scientists from the University of Maryland are hammering away at the rhinovirus genome, and have had some surprising results. Essentially, they are trying to identify stable islands in the rhinovirii genetic code that are resistant to mutation. Once they find a few of those, vaccines can be tailored in such a way as to provide protection from most, if not all, of the common cold strains.

If, for some reason, you do come down with the flu, French scientists have figured out how the damn thing is hijacking your cells. They now have a target that can stop replication of the rhinovirus; they merely need to develop a drug that interrupts the process.

So, yeah, this means that you probably won’t contract the rhinovirus; but, even if you do, you can take a pill that stops the damn thing in hours, instead of days. That is, of course, assuming we work on the damn thing. According to the NY Times, “Because colds are mostly a minor nuisance, drug developers say, people would not be likely to pay for expensive drugs. And it would be hard to get the Food and Drug Administration to approve a drug with any serious downside for so mild a disease.”

So, okay, it might cost upwards of $700 million dollars to develop a drug or vaccine. (Although I believe that number to be inflated, let’s use it for the sake of argument.) Given the costs to develop a cure for influenza, drug companies don’t think it is likely that they will make enough profit on the drug. It’s not that revenues won’t exceed costs; it’s that the profit will be higher on other drugs for other diseases.

The cost of the 400 million missed work and school days each year due to influenza? Twenty billion dollars. Forty billion, after you include doctor visits and drugs. So, $700 million to develop the vaccine, plus $700 million for the drug, plus, let’s say $10 times 300 million people for the actual cost to produce, that’s, let’s see, $4.4 billion dollars the first year total costs. (In reality, the R&D costs are amortized over 20 years or so and spent over 5-7 years.)

Still, this is something that makes perfect economic sense to do. Raise taxes by a few billion a year, end up saving the taxpayers 17 billion a year, and increase the US’s GDP by 20 billion a year. It won’t be done, though; people are going to whine and bitch about socialized medicine. Dumbasses.

On another topic, I find sublime irony in this story from the backyard of the Center for Inquiry; hugs and kisses to DJ*.

*I feel kinda guilty not writing about gay atheism sometimes, I mean, it is the title of this blog. It’s just that I don’t feel the need to contribute much to those conversations– other people tend to say what I don’t have the patience to say.

Happy Darwin/Lincoln Day

I just returned from a short, impromptu vacation and I need to take some time off to work on a few stories I have floating around in my head and polish up some of the ones I have scribbled on notebook paper, so I’m going to take a short break from blogging.  This week’s Two Smokin’ Hot Freethinkers podcast, originally scheduled for Tuesday, will be up some time Friday or Saturday including an interview with Jack Scanlan of Homologous Legs and Young Australian Skeptics.

Also, happy 200th birthday Charlie and Abe.