Overheard in New York:

Three-year-old boy: Mommy, I want a little brother, let’s get one.
Mom: You can’t just go to the store to get a baby.
Seven-year-old girl: I know where babies come from.
Mom: Oh, man!
Three-year-old boy: From where?
Seven-year-old girl: God. God made everything, people and animals.
Three-year-old boy: Who’s god?
Seven-year-old girl: I don’t know, some dead guy who lives in heaven.

I haven’t been keeping up with the blog as often as I’d like and will probably be just as absent in the next four weeks.  I’m helping lead and building sets for the Mill Mountain Theatre Conservatory Summer camps and classes and I have a job starting soon at an excellent local barbecue restaurant.  I also had a wonderful date with a guy in Covington, VA.  Here’s a week’s worth of crap I’ve missed with some short commentary.

From The Advocate:

N.Y. D.A. Hopeful Calls for Hate-Crimes Unit:  I urge all of my readers in NYC to vote for Cyrus Vance for District Attorney.  New York has the most LGBT citizens of any American city (although it’s not even in the top 10 of gays per capita) and is also a highly racially diverse city.  The fact that there isn’t a hate crimes unit in the NYPD yet is mind-boggling.

Mullen Tells Obama to Slow-Walk DADT:  Almost every serviceman and woman I’ve heard from on the news and online has shown that they don’t believe Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is good for anything, and state that they would work just as well with openly gay personnel as anyone else because when you’re focused on a war, the sexuality of your fellow soldiers is the last thing on your mind.  The only people in the military who seem to care about this are the 60-year-old-and-up veterans in the upper echelons of command. 

Md. Gov. Would Recognize Gay Marriages:  One of the best and most sensible quote I’ve heard in the past decade regarding gay marriage rights: “I think that it’s very difficult to deny equal rights to people when it comes to rights that are disbursed by a government rather than a faith or a church”  However, Gov. O’Malley only supports recognising out-of-state marriages at this time.  He supports the segregationist opinion that gays should have “civil unions” instead of “marriages,” but it’s still a snazzy quote.

Obama "Wrestling" With Faith and LGBT Issues:  Where was this wrestling on the campaign trail, Mr. President?  Had I known you would have been so reluctant to support equality, I would have voted for Hillary.  When your imaginary beliefs stand in the way of my very real rights, we’re going to have a problem, Mr. President.

Mass. Files Suit Against DOMA:  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is suing the federal government over the anti-gay Defence of Marriage Act… because the act is dumb.  That’s about it.

Marriage Equality Reverend Under Fire:  Does the name Southern Christian Leadership Conference mean anything to you?  That’s probably because you learned in high school that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. founded it as a civil rights organisation in the late 1950s.  Well, now it’s trying to fire its Los Angeles chapter president because (GASP!) the president supports civil rights!

From Pink News:

Gay men ejected from Texas restaurant for kissing: This is similar to the more recent story of two gay men who were detained by the Mormon cult after kissing in Salt Lake City, Utah for kissing at Temple Square.  Both of these are eerily similar to when restaurants and other private locations in the US could ban blacks and other non-whites.  The only difference is it’s harder to tell a gay man from a straight man than it is to tell a black man from a white man… so they just have to wait for a kiss to prove it.  My advice to queers in Southern towns that are unfriendly to them is to move.  We can use the legislature to make it illegal for people to bar us from their businesses but we can’t make it illegal for them to hate us.  We won’t change them.  Move.  We’ll see how well their “traditional weddings” go without gay decorators, hairdressers, wedding planners, wedding singers, organists, tailors, dressmakers and florists.

Senior Church of England Bishop says gays must "repent and be changed": Once again, the connection between the black civil rights movement and the gay civil rights movement is clear… but this time in an ironic way:  Bishop Nazir-Ali is black.  He’s a bishop in a religion that used to believe that black people were inherently tainted by the “Mark of Cain” and were inferior to whites.  A religion that blessed and perpetuated the slave trade that kidnapped massive amounts of Africans and shipped them around the world to be bought and owned.  And now this black Christian is railing against gay people and saying that they (or, as Christians will claim, not gay people just the act of being gay, as if there’s a difference) are inherently sinful and inferior to straights.  Keep it classy, bishop.

Colin Powell: ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell should be reviewed’:  Colin Powell is a Republican who was a key member of both Bush Administrations and a buddy of Ronald Regan… yet whenever he speaks about civil rights, he gets it right.  Often, he’s more correct than Democrats on issues of gay rights.  Why can’t more Republicans be like him?  If the Republican party was full of Colin Powells and Meghan McCains, I would be an out and proud Republican.

Queen sends message of support to homophobic church movement:  Can someone please explain to me why this royal cunt or her Dumbo-eared, alt-med-loving, Islam-appeasing son have any influence whatsoever?  Why do you folks across the pond still have a monarchy?  Isn’t the idea that one’s accidental lineage gives one an innate ability to lead a bit outdated?

Out-of-state gay marriages become legal in DC:  Throw a party, but not a big one.  It’s a win, for sure, but a very small win.

Peter Tatchell: ‘Bruno will make both bigots and gays squirm’: I saw Brüno and definitely did a lot of squirming… out of laughter.  It’s immediately obvious that Brüno is a caricature of the most extremely flamboyant gay men, so I didn’t see Sacha Baron Cohen’s prancing as an insult to the gay mainstream but more as a tool to use the maximum flamboyancy to coax the maximum of homophobia from people.  The only parts of the movie that seriously offended me were the parts where ex-gay ministers were allowed to speak.  Brüno is not a realistic representative of the gay community but the reactions coaxed out of people were very real and very frightening.

Mother of gay son berates Irish minister over civil partnerships: A passionate letter from the mother of a gay son.  I wish my mother was half as supportive.  Kudos to the mum!  (Also, her last name is Doody.  He he he!)

Massachusetts senator reveals he’s gay: I’m not sure how many gay Representatives there are, but this news makes Senator Rosenberg the only openly gay Senator… and he wasn’t open about it when he was elected.  So now 1% of the Senate is openly gay and, what, 10-15% of the US is openly LGBT?  What a great representation of the American people, folks!  And I just got a mental image of this guy doin’ the do with Barney Frank.  Excuse me while I vomit.

Gay support group told: ‘Gay men are confident enough already’: Umm… no.  Gay teenagers have one of the highest rates of suicide.  Gay people in general often are only open about their sexuality with a few close friends and will lie or pretend to be straight if the topic comes up.  As a public health issue, the government of the UK (and the US) should most definitely fund any project or group that aims to improve confidence and self-esteem in the gay community.  When teenagers are cutting themselves and killing themselves, it’s not time to play games with their self esteem.

In the 1940s to the 1960s it was appropriate and funny for male coworkers to play grabass with the few brave females who decided to go to work.  It was quickly decided that such shenanigans were not charming in the least and sexual harassment, the former fun office game, was banned from the workplace.

Now, David Brooks is putting the, “Absolutely hilarious,” back into the, “Absolutely not, Mr. Brooks, this is hilariously distasteful and unfunny.“

Damn Straight!  It’s 04:05:06 07/08/09!

At least in America it is.

Brits and other folk who put the day before the month will have to wait until 7 August.

I’m on a dating site now and making some (non-sexual) connections through that now… and I think I can safely exclude gay Christians from my ever-dwindling list of people who I want anything to do with.

Gay Conservative Christians:  I’ve only met one of you.  I don’t know how you homos live with yourself.  Living as a gay man who believes that a book that talks about how gays should be stoned to death is the inerrant word of God must make you cry yourself to sleep on a nightly basis.  Sorry, buddy, but I can’t share a bed that I know is going to be soaked with tears in the morning.  And if you cry in my bed, it damn well better be tears of joy and ecstasy or I’m kicking you the fuck out of my apartment!

Gay Moderate Christians:  Okay… so you play the church organ and take Communion but you disregard the anti-gay passages (even the one in Paul’s New Testament Epistle to the Romans which isn’t covered by Jesus’ weird, ‘The OT is both invalid and valid,” spiel).  That would be okay with me except my anus has the words, “No hypocrites,” tattooed above it (that’s a lie) and a “Christian” who doesn’t believe the Bible is the infallible word of God is not a Christian according to every reputable theologian I have ever heard of.  I don’t fuck (or get fucked by) hypocrites and I certainly can’t have any sort of real relationship with you if you’re living a lie.l

Gay “Spiritual” Christians:  The day you successfully predict my future with palm lines, tarot cards, auras/chakras or astrology, I’ll marry you and join your starry-eyed Jesus cult.  Until then, fuck off, you blithering whore.

Gay “Only In Name” Christians:  By all means, call the character of Jesus a great moral teacher.  Even I admit that some of the quotes attributed to him are fantastic.  Just don’t call yourself a Christian.  PLEASE!  There are two major drawbacks to being gay and calling yourself a Christian out of tradition:  You add numbers to the side of the war that hates you and, more importantly, you can’t have sex with me… both of which are terrible things that should make you feel empty inside (heh heh…).  Stop being a pussy and call yourself what you really are

All of the Above:  And don’t start bitching about me being closed-minded.  I’ve tried relationships with Christians for years and none of them worked out.  I just can’t love (or have sex with) a self-hating hypocrite… so stop trying.  You won’t convert me and you won’t get in me.

What I’m looking for:

• If you’re a gay Atheist or apathetic-agnostic;
• you like to play Scrabble with advanced, self-created rules (like choosing a theme and having to justify your words by that theme);
• you can explain to me what happens in a black hole and why the LHC won’t destroy the world;
• you can summarise The Brothers Karamazov, The Canterbury Tales, Oedipus Rex and Watchmen;
• you can recite long passages from Beowulf (Old English, please), Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Raven, anything by John Keats and at least three Shel Silverstein poems;
• you can tell the difference between unknown Prokofiev, Bartok and Dvořák pieces just by their musical style;
• you have a penis that’s not too big or two small, you’re adventurous in bed and you like morning sex but you don’t growl cheesy or disgusting bad-porno-dialogue at me in bed;
• you prefer topping but could go either way;
• you enjoy doing dishes by hand with someone you love;
• you look good in a suit;
• you can listen to Edith Piaf, Ella Fitzgerald, Regina Spektor and Ben Folds on repeat for days at a time;
• you don’t mind the occasional insulting joke as long as it’s balanced with self-deprecation;
• you aren’t so skinny and fit that you make me feel bad about myself but you’re at least attractive enough to make any ex I run into in public exceedingly jealous (6 ft., 190 Lbs. with a good face is about right);
• you either play an instrument or sing well
• and you would prefer a cat to a child, we definitely have a shot at a successful relationship.

Maybe I should lower my standards?  Bad idea.  No compromise.

Applications must be submitted in person.  Christians, virgins and minors need not apply.

A week ago I gave a talk at a Secular Humanist group at a Unitarian Universalist church in Lynchburg, VA.   This brochure caught my eye, so I took it:  "Is Our Church Gay?"

I lol’d.

The inside offers sample questions regarding gay people and homophobia that children could ask their parents and suggestions for how Unitarians should answer.  Of course, I disagreed with the woo-woo, "God made us different," bullshit, so here are the questions in the brochure, along with the Unitarian parents’ answers, the Evangelical/Baptist parents’ answers, a Catholic priest’s answers and what I would say if asked by my future children.

Disclaimer:  I am not responsible for your fucked-up children if you follow my parenting advice.

Question: How many of these images were found on websites that automatically played music?

Answer: All of them.

GOD BLESS AMURRICA!!!!!!

HAPPY AMERICA FREEDOM INDEPENDENCE LIBERTY AMERICA JESUS AMERICA DAY!!!  FUCK YEAH!  BEER AND CAPS LOCK ALL DAY LONG!!!

EVERYTHING IS FREEEEEDOM!!!!!!!

Once again I came across one of those fun, “If you’re an Atheist then you believe in nothing,” emails and started thinking about all the things I do believe because of massive amounts of evidence, and that led me to ponder a lot of things I do believe but that have very little or no evidence supporting them.  This list isn’t all-inclusive, but it’s some of the first that come to mind:

I believe

• there is no god or supernatural realm.  This is not to say I don’t believe in a god, but that I believe there is no god.
• there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but I do not believe we’ve yet been visited by aliens.
• humanity can continue long after the Earth is destroyed if we begin colonizing other planets soon, and our time to start this project may be running out in the next century or two.
• human thought will one day be interfaced into a single computer so that our collective conscious can outlast our species by billions of years.
• the origins of all religions are born not in ignorance, but in authority figures knowingly taking advantage of ignorance.
• science will never conclusively prove to the believers that there is no supernatural realm or that there are no gods.
• while a valid case for pre-determination can be made using biochemistry and physics (or maybe not with physics… with the advent of quantum theory, anything can be evidence for everything.), sentient beings have free will.
• as many religions fizzle out or turn into a weak blend of humanism and tradition, fundamentalist and extremist sects will be ubiquitous throughout the future of humanity.
• Michelle Malkin is actually the perineum (or taint) of a middle-aged gay whore from Van Nuys, California that somehow achieved sentience.
• there is no solution to global warming that does not require immediate cessation of all technological progress and a global reboot.  I believe subtle transition is not a viable option.
• racism, sexism and homophobia are ingrained in humanity and will never be defeated.
• evangelists like Pat Roberson, Jerry Falwell and his son, Billy Graham, etc. know that what they preach is a lie and are motivated by power and greed.
• the Bush Administration knowingly refused to act on intelligence pertaining to 9/11 to use the attack to justify ousting Saddam Hussein, but the events of 9/11 were almost exactly as described in the 9/11 Commission’s report and not a US government conspiracy.
• the US and UK governments are hiding massive amounts of material pertaining to UFOs and abduction reports, although none of the hidden material coincides with legitimate alien contact.
• the majority of the events in the Old Testament, including the captivity in Egypt, were fabricated out of earlier myth and flat-out lies.
• Jesus was a man who actually existed, but none of the acts or words attributed to him are accurate.
• bacon is the single most delicious food in the universe.  If we ever do make contact with extraterrestrials and they discover this fact, all of our pigs will be stolen by every other race of spacefaring creatures within 100,000 Ly of Earth.

Alaska can breathe easy.  Finally, Sarah Palin, the Witless Wonder, has resigned from office as Governor of Alaska.

Everyone should drink a Purple Alaskan Thunderfuck tonight in recollection of how we almost got landed with that idiotic creature as President.

Most of you already know that French President Nicholas Sarkozi is prepared to ban the wearing of burqas in France because, “the burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience.”

I disagree that the burqa isn’t a sign of religion.  It is quite clearly a symbol of the Islamic religion, and many Muslims who immigrate to Western countries proudly flaunt it around as such.  And because it is a symbol of religion shouldn’t give it any sort of special government protection.

But laws work on punishing actions rather than judging intent, at least on the level of police intervention.  A ban on burqas, while meant to suppress the intent of emotionally abusing women, would suppress the action of wearing a burqa, no matter the intent.  If a woman has a clear-minded desire to wear a burqa, she should have the right to do so.  If I wanted to wear a burqa ironically at a drag show, I should have the right to do so.  (There will be photos and I will share them if I am lucky enough to get my hands on a burqa any time soon.)

It also raises the question of what constitutes an illegal robe in France after this ban goes into effect.  The burqa, as I understand it, completely covers the face and body, with mesh fabric over the eyes that women can see through but men can’t see into.  Would a hijab that has a slit over the eyes where the eyes are visible to everyone be acceptable?  Would head scarves that cover the hair and ears but not the face be acceptable?  Would this distinction be up to the police to make (which is always a bad idea)?

What about non-religious displays of subservience?  If I wanted to hire a professional dominatrix to walk me around on a leash, could I not do that anymore in France?

Should anyone be allowed to wear the headpiece of a burqa at a bank or when getting her drivers license or passport photo taken?  Fuck no.  My security waiting in line at the bank or DMV means more to me than your stupid self-hating religious views.  But should we outright ban the burqa?  I don’t think so.

Remember: Only bad guys cover their faces.

Apparently, if BNO news is to be trusted, Governor Sarah Palin is not seeking re-election.

This could mean that she’s planning on running in the next Presidential election however, but probably is because her daughters are getting verbally raped by the media.

Al Franken was finally declared the winner of the Minnesota Senate seat by the state Supreme Court.

Eight months later.

(Facepalm)

What the fuck? If Twitter is to be believed, Billy Mays died this morning. His son said he didn’t wake up and people are reporting that Fox News is reporting that he died.

Billy Mays was the television “pitch man” who was known for his iconic blue shirt and loud voice. He was best known for his commercials for OxyClean and products from the Mighty brand. He had just begun a show the the Discovery Channel Pitchmen.

This was completely unexpected.

Update: Confirmed!  This has to be a celebrity-specific strain of Swine Flu!  Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays… who’s next?

I got back from seeing a play which starred my wonderful friends Kris and Gina, and the last thing I expected to happen happened.

Someone designed a perfume for me.

Mr. Braden,

I’m sure you know now that Richard Dawkins and Hemant Mehta have their own fragrances.  Even Jenny McCarthy has her own! Bullshit! lol Well I read your blog and (SORRY!) imagined what you smell like, and, well, see attached.

In good fun!

Jackson

First, don’t call me Mr. Braden.  The name’s Reed.  Second, that is NOT what I smell like!

(Sniffs self)

You forgot cat hair.

Anyhoo, links to Hemant Mehta, Richard Dawkins and Jenny McCarthy’s stink sprays are here, here and here, respectively.

I like that my fragrance looks like they peeled the label off the Jenny McCarthy fragrance and stuck a new one on.  I guess it’s what they do with all the bottles that won’t move off the shelf.  Jenny, you can’t sell too many cosmetics when your target audience is dying of measles.

Well, I’m off to the store to buy 300 sticks of deodorant.  I hope CVS sells Right Guard in bulk.

Richard Stevens responded via email to a post I wrote about a cartoon of his that offended me.

Your first commenter is dead-on correct!

My first commenter suggested that, “The better value joke is not a negative view on gay people, it’s the joke that being Bi gets you laid more than anyone else.”

Okay.  I thought too hard about the comic, trying to figure out the meaning behind the specific word choice in the last panel.  I would just suggest that Richard Stevens be a bit more careful with the word value when used in jokes pertaining to gay people.  We’re still licking our wounds (and others gays’ wounds… sorry…) over damage inflicted by other meanings of that word.

I was wrong.  To the stocks with me.

An update on the gay exorcism story: CNN scored an interview with the pastor of the church that performed an exorcism on an allegedly gay member who looked like a teenager or a young adult.

This looks long and outrageous, so I’m going to semi-liveblog my reaction.

The beginning of the video.  The host said the video shows, “a young man being ministered to, I suppose.”  No you do not suppose!  You see a young man being held down, beaten and yelled at by a delusional cult of retards!  If that’s what we call the ministry these days, no wonder why the Christian church is in trouble with keeping asses in seats!

First question was when it happened.  Patricia McKinney, the pastor, wasn’t sure when she held down the homosexual, beat him and screamed that he was possessed by a demon.  Funny… that seems like an event you would remember clearly if it was a one-time deal.

She is whoring and advertising for her church rather than answering the question of if the man wanted to be beaten, shout at and sexually harassed.

Now she answers:  “All of a sudden, he hits the floor.”  THEN CALL A MOTHERFUCKING AMBULANCE YOU IGNORANT CHRISTTARD!  Falling to the ground and shaking violently does not mean, “I’m gay. Heal me.”  It means, “I’m having a SEIZURE!  Call the fucking paramedics!”

Now she says he came into the church (doesn’t put it on the timeline with the filmed incident) and said he didn’t want to live the life of a gay man.  Why the sudden change of story?

The next saying I hear echoed a lot from family and those who surround me where I live and it really boils my blood:  “Manifested Glory is not against homosexuality.  We do not hate them.  We don’t come up against them.  We just don’t believe in their lifestyle.”

Pause.

Let’s replace some words to make a point.  The following does not reflect what I actually believe.

I am not against the nigger community.  I don’t hate them.  I don’t come out against them.  I just don’t believe in the niggers’ lifestyle.

Anyone who can explain how my statement is any different from hers gets a cookie.

Being gay is not a lifestyle, any more than being black is.  Yes, there is a stereotypical lifestyle that some gay men participate in that involves fashion, pride parades and celebrity trash news, but that is not what it means to be gay.  And that’s not what she is talking about either.

Whenever you hear someone saying that they don’t agree with, “the homosexual lifestyle,” they are saying that they hate homosexuality.  If you dosed this bitch with sodium thiopental and interrogated her, you’d come out with the truth, that she is disgusted by gay people and she shares the same virulent hatred that her parents and grandparents faced from white racists.  Her hatred is just targeted at gay people instead of black people.

They use the word lifestyle because it sounds like something you choose.  And the irony is this:  The people who say that homosexuality is a choice are often the best evidence against that idea.  Why would I choose to be gay if the world is full of Pat Robertsons, George Bushes and Patricia McKinneys who will hate and discriminate against me for that choice?  Their very existence disproves their own argument.

Patricia McKinney may not hate certain gay people, but she hates them in general.

Carrying on.

If you are gay, “You can come in our church, but you can not live that lifestyle in our church.”  Remember, “live that lifestyle” means “be gay.”  You can not join the church if you are gay.  It’s discriminatory.  It loses tax exemption.  Call the IRS.

The host asks for further clarification and she states that the only way a gay person can be a member is if they are “cured” first.

“We do not like the lifestyle of a man with a man or a woman with a woman, and that’s our beliefs[sic].”  Funny.  My sister told me the same thing when I asked her why she voted to ban me from getting married.

All people, even gays, are allowed to come into the church, but they have to, “get delivered.”  As we saw in the video, the “delivery” of a gay man looks just like a lynch mob.

The fat bitch is comparing homosexuality with alcoholism, crack cocaine and adultery.

She just said that she’s a prophet who, “declares the word of the lord.”  The word of the lord has gone down the tubes a loooooooooong way since the Old Testament.  She hasn’t uttered a single sentence so far that would pass a 1st grade grammar test.

Oh… she’s a recovering crack and heroine addict.  That explains everything.  I’m done with her.  I don’t waste my time refuting the delusions and spiritual hallucinations of drug users.  When half of your brain cells are dead, I have nothing rational to discuss with you.

(Via The Gay Atheist)

There are certain people who have died that I could not find it in me to mourn.  Those are people like Saddam Hussein and Timothy McVeigh who made me kick the dust at me feet and mumble, “good riddance.”  I think all humans, at least those who are honest with themselves, have moments like that.

Only a few of us chosen people (not to be confused with Chosen People®) can admit that there are a few deaths that, either because of the timing or because of the person, caused them to laugh relentlessly and unashamedly.  My list is short:  Jerry Falwell, because he died on my 18th birthday as God’s present to me; Anna Nicole Smith, because she was Anna Nicole Smith; and Michael Jackson, who several sources (TMZ, Perez, LA Times) are reporting has just died from the rare and fatal face-sliding-off-in-chunks disease cardiac arrest.

I was in mourning for the great actress and sex goddess Farrah Fawcett who was reported dead this morning when Jack-O appeared out of nowhere to brighten my day.

Does this make me a bad person?  In all probability, yes.  Will calling me a bad person for laughing at the 75% freakshow make me laugh even harder and direct some of that laughter toward you, his fans?  Abso-friggin-lutely.  Laugh away, my friends.  The biggest joke in the world has reached its punchline.

Now that the 80’s are officially dead, can we go back to good music now?

Okay… now that we’ve got all the laughs out of our system…

Today is a day to mourn the loss of the brilliant, attractive and wonderful entertainer Farrah Fawcett, whose loss will overshadow any of today’s other media jokes in my book.

Several people have asked me about my recent #hashtag on Twitter, #ridethesnake.  The term has no real definition and let this image of @accostherwilde be all the explanation you’ll ever get:

If you have never ridden the snake, this is not you.  But is it FOR you?

Probably.

Riding the snake is the most awesome thing in the world.

I knew these things actually happened in the US, but this is the first time I’ve seen video evidence.

The video is from a church in Connecticut called Manifested Glory Ministries.  They put it n their website, obviously proud that they could muster the audacity to put their knowingly fraudulent and psychotic practices to work as a tool for homophobia.  I wonder if the shysters made any money off of scaring this possibly gay child for life.

The FDA needs to crack down hard on these dangerous and bogus blowhards for offering (and perhaps selling) a dangerous medieval “therapy” that claims, and consistently fails, to cure ailments.  They might get away with it if the conditions they claim to cure are imaginary (Our Name is Legion. Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!), but since homosexuality is a real thing, and they claim to cure it, the FDA needs to bring the hammer down hard.  And they can.  The same goes for Benny Hinn and the other lunatics who think that pushing old ladies in the head and knocking them down will cure cancer.

After seeing this, I have no doubt that what you are seeing in this video is violating at least a dozen laws relating to advertising, medicine, child abuse, harassment (could the gay person walk away or stop the hazing at any time?), physical abuse, emotional abuse, slander, discrimination, etc.

If I don’t start hearing about some very strong legal cases brought against the psychos, I’m going to be extremely angry.  This is not something that is or should be protected by the First Amendment.  Freedom of religion is not the freedom to abuse.

Or are we going to wait until this kid is older, and, as churches are known to do, he is intimidated with everlasting flame to stay in such an environment where he eventually kills himself?  Press charges, State of Connecticut.  Put these errant frauds in jail.

I went 24 hours without a cigarette and smoked one.  Next goal:  48 hours.

The tremours and tics have mostly gone back down to normal (at least normal for me) levels.

Last night’s dreams were awful though.  I dreamed that I had a romantic relationship with my ex Nigel–not the bloody motherfucking asshole who recently broke my heart, but an old high school boyfriend I haven’t even thought about in months.  We were walking hand-in-hand from my apartment to Pop’s, an ice cream bar on my street in Roanoke, when a man leaving Spike’s, the bar next to it, pulled a gun on us, shouting, “Faggots!  Queers!  Everywhere I go; these fucking queers!” and shot us both, wounding me and killing him.  I woke up screaming and crying.

After I went back to sleep, it was the same story line—which was odd—but I was in court testifying over what happened and wept on the bench.  After I couldn’t stop crying the judge called me a, “blithering faggot,” and held me in contempt of court.  He then dropped the murderer’s charge to “voluntary manslaughter.”  Then I led a million-man march on Richmond to urge the inclusion of the LGBT community into Virginia hate crimes law.

This was the first dream I’ve had on the patch that wasn’t patently absurd—although the thought of me dating Nigel again is personally absurd, even though I do consider him a friend.  It could have only been made less horrifying if there was something absurdist about the dream… I don’t know… Sarah Palin shooting an octopus cannon at the march from a zeppelin or something.  And now that I wrote that, I guarantee she will at least have a balloon-oriented cameo in tonight’s 3-D IMAX mindfuck.

Nothing too interesting or entertaining to report, I’m afraid.  My last few posts garnered enough attention that I almost didn’t post an update today out of fear of boring/depressing my readers today… but liveblogging my recovery from addiction is something that helps me and I hope helps other quitters as well, so I’ll continue doing this as often as possible.

One helpful tip to fellow quitters:  As tempting as it may be, never sniff the back of a NicoDerm patch.  Shit stung my nose for five minutes after one short sniff.  The smell is comparable to a paper mill and the stinging comparable to a jellyfish… a jellyfish the size of Rhode Island who is currently PMSing inside of your nostril.  Don’t sniff the patch.

I’m a big fan of the webcomic Diesel Sweeties by Richard Stevens, but today’s comic made me cringe.

Here’s the final panel of the comic:

I’m not one to decry an artist’s entire collected works over one bad or tasteless moment. (What do I look like?  The Vatican?)  Diesel Sweeties is usually a very tolerant and progressive—not to mention hilarious—comic, but this comic brought up a serious question:

Does Richard Stevens really think that being bisexual is really, as his character Indie Rock Pete says, “a much better value,” than being gay?  I’ve heard some unpleasant dialogue in the South that was much like this, usually along the lines of, “Well, at least he likes pussy too,” or, “It’s only half as bad,” but to see that sentiment echoed in a progressive webcomic as the punch line of a joke is just tacky.

I understand that this joke would be killed if the punch line was replaced with, “It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re gay, Clango, but if you discover that you are gay, bisexual or transgendered, that would be just fine with me!”  But sometimes if you can’t change a joke to make it less offensive or divisive, it’s probably best to not do the joke at all.

Also, I’m not going to argue that I was offended by Clango’s subtle fear that he might have had (GASP!) a gay thought about Indie Rock Pete’s exposed nether-regions, but it really doesn’t help people who are struggling to find their sexual identity to see moments like this as something to be feared or ashamed of instead of the start of a journey into honest exploration of one’s self.

I would like to state, for the record, that I’m not easily offended and I usually groan when I hear news stories about some gay group getting up in arms over a tiny gay joke in a TV show… but this was just unexpected and unappreciated.

Richard Stevens, I really want to know if you feel that bisexuals have “a better value” than gay people, and if not, why would you use such a commonly-held and poisonous belief as the punch line (rather than the butt of) a joke?  If this was the first comic I ever saw of yours, I wouldn’t read on.

Wikipedia has a short list of people who have died from laughing too hard on their article about death from laughter.  I almost needed to be added to the list after watching this:

Buzz Aldrin: Rocket Experience

The “making of” video is even funnier.  It features Snoop Dogg.

(Via Susan Lendroth, Planetary Society Blog)

Not that you’re going to have very many more opportunities to lie to the public again…

SC Governor Mark Sanford (R, no matter what Fox calls him) went missing from his wife and children (and, you know, that whole state he was in control of) over Father’s Day.  He didn’t tell anyone where he was going.  Not even his family.

First, his wife lied for him, saying he “often” takes these trips because he likes solitude when he’s writing.

Then his staffers came up with another reason why no one, not even law enforcement, can find him and why he is unreachable on his cell phone:  He’s hiking the Appalachian Trail!  Duh! … Wait… what do you mean the 21st, when Gov. Sanford went on his hiking trip, is the day when avid hikers hike on the AT completely naked?  What?  And the stimulus money goes to trail upkeep?  Oh dear, this looks very, very bad.  Can we retract that last excuse please?

So with the media (with the exception of Fox “News,” who claimed of the Republican Governor that they don’t care where that lousy Democrat is), law enforcement and his family trying to reconcile the myriad different stories and getting stuck with, “Well, he was lugging his writing desk up the Appalachian Trail so he could write, alone and naked in the woods, as Democrats are oft wont to do, when he accidentally threw his cell phone off a mountain… as Gov. Sanford is ‘often’ prone to do,” Gov. Sanford (R!) exits his plane with a nice golden tan and an Argentinean woman’s hickies all down his neck.  And, as we all know, Argentineans are second only to Brazilians in terms of rape beauty and the Gov.’s wife looks like Susan Boyle.

Quick, Team Sanford, come up with another lie!  Your jobs are at stake!

As the Gov grabbed his whore, as he started to grope,
He heard his whole state, as they all tried to cope.

He turned around fast and he saw all the press.
CNN, MSNBC, Fox and the rest.

They stared at the Gov and said, “Governor, why?”
As his wife, Susan Boyle, and his children all cried.

But you know, that old Gov was so smart and so slick,
That he thought up a lie and he thought it up quick.

“Why my sweet little press,” the Republicrat lied,
“There’s a dick ‘twixt my legs that won’t cum for my wife.

“So I’m taking it to South America, my dear.
I’ll get it up there, then I’ll bring it back here.”

This came out today from the CBC:

HIV, chemo therapies combine for new AIDS-fighting approach

Treating HIV/AIDS with a combination of antiviral drugs and chemotherapy seems to destroy both the circulating virus and immune cells in which the virus hides, a team of Canadian and U.S. researchers has found.

Read more.

I finally got some sleep.  My dreams were incredibly fuck-all real and I woke up after each one, pissed off that they didn’t really happen.  I remember them all in excruciating detail.

In one, I was trying to operate an crazy steam-punked DC Metro train that had to be continuously fed quarters and my friend Kyle Moir was there, kicking a vending machine.  Every time he kicked it, a different brand of Reese’s candy came out, but not the Reese’s FastBreak which is what he wanted.  Even in the world of dream steam punk, coin-operated machines never work how you want them to.  In the first car of the train an ensemble piece of pitchy, creepily enthusiatic, racially diverse vocalists performed a version of The Threepenny Opera accompanied by a small brass band with four trumpets, two trombones, a picolo trumpet and a tuba; an old family friend Becky Wallenborn with a full grand piano, a grand harpsichord and an old Hammond B-3 organ and Colin Meloy from the Decemberists with a whole slew of old antique string instruments including an old steel guitar, a banjo, a massive sitar whick he never played and a beat-up acoustic guitar signed by John Coltraine, who, as far as I and Colin knew, never actually played guitar.  There was a clarinet part, but it was played on the Hammond organ.  Both the car and my memory of the dream were uncomfortably cluttered with the musicians.  It didn’t seem unusual since we were on a steam punk Metro train.  At one point, I helped improve the Balladeer’s choreography on “The Ballad of Mack the Knife.”

In another, I was sitting in a garden, not unlike the garden where the newt-enthusiast Gussie Fink-Nottle proposed to Madeline Bassett in one of P. G. Wodehouse’s novels, with my friend Heather Creel, baring my soul and weeping.  She was wearing a top hat.  At the end of the dream, and completely out-of-character for Heather, she beats me about the head with a banjo taken from a polka musician who was serenading us with a small, lederhosened polka band near our bench in the garden.

The last one was so bizzare that I still feel like it should be Groundhog Day again.  My phone rang and I woke up, ignored the call, and saw it was 11:58 PM and that I had slept for the whole day.  I waited, and when the clock on my phone switched over, the date stayed the same.  So I went back to bed.  I actually woke up at 3:10 PM when my mom called me, ignored the call and lay in bed extremely confused that the sun was back up.

As an added bonus, the nicotine patch fell off while I was asleep.  I just applied a new one, but until this fucking thing kicks in, fuck you all.  I hope all of you are in a North Korean death camp being tortured with bamboo chutes up your urethras!

That’s about it.  I hope you’re enjoying my misery.

Last night began my attempt to quit smoking via transdermal nicotine patches.

Since applying the patch at 9 PM, I’ve already noticed several intense effects:

• My usual tics and tremours have intensified to the those expected of a chipmunk with cerebral palsy trying to do an impression of Michael J. Fox, no offense to palsy-suffering chipmunks or Michael J. Fox.  Walking is a laughable and whimsical goal.  I should give up on that one.
• Sleep is simultaneously the most hateful, unattainable and coveted thing on the planet.
• My attempt at sleep may or may not have worked.  I’m not really sure.  It was less what I would call “sleep,” and more of what I would call, “Whoa!  Where did that hour between 5:00 AM and 6:30 AM go?  Did my clock (and the sun) mysteriously jump ahead without my permission?”  Experts have informed me that there is actually an hour and a half between 5 and 6:30 in the morning, but since I was not there to witness this phenomenon, I am inclined to doubt their claims.
• My mouth tastes like I have been sucking on copper pennies—as if there was any other kind of penny.  And not clean, freshly-minted pennies, either, but the kind of pennies you find coated in greenish-brown sludge at the bottom of a drawer in a second-hand armoire that may or may not have previously belonged to an old woman who allowed her multitude of cats to use its moulding drawers as a litter box.
• Okay. Poop is decidedly not coming out now.
• My pulse is no longer keeping a steady beat.  It is instead pulsing the syncopated 7/8 rhythm of “And The Money Kept Rolling In” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita.  The Mandy Patinkin version, not the terrible Antonio Banderas travesty.
• I am actually deeply offended that my spell-check did not recognise the surname Patinkin, but amused and overjoyed that it did not recognise the surname Banderas, which is only given to talentless prettyboys.  I know that the instantaneousness and intensity with which these emotions overcame me is not normal.
• Food smiles at me in the most repulsive Cheshire Cat way.  I wish to eat the food, but it constantly evades the sharp stab of my fork and I know that eating it will not make that sickening grin disappear.
• My skin itches and burns as if a thousand tiny larvae, not unlike those who are currently munching on the least of the Baldwin Brothers, are burrowing under my skin.  Scratching the itch is impossible as the moment my fingers touch my skin, the itch moves ever-so-slightly out of the way of my fingers and intensifies, giggling inaudibly at my futile efforts to achieve the ridiculous and fabled result of “comfort”.
• There is a tightening in my throat, not noticeable enough to cause serious medical concern but noticeable enough to make me want to perform corrective surgery on it myself with a hatchet and my severely shaky and unstable hands.
• Okay.  Poop is coming out now, but never in my life has poop wanted to leave me so quickly and urgently.  I’m interpreting its hasty and hateful exodus from my body as a personal insult to my gracious hospitality that allowed it to stay in for longer than I had anticipated it would.
• The remaining cigarettes in what should be my last pack ever have actually and literally turned into menthol-infused maggots.  I want nothing more than to burn them and punish them for the personalised Guantanamo Bay they have forced me into, but the very idea of inhaling their fumes as they blister and crackle to their painful death is less appealing to me than having prolonged sexual intercourse with this very NSFW individual.  You have just been StankVagRolled™. Pass it on.

I can safely and unequivocally say that Nicoderm CQ is a dreadful product that is almost certainly comprised of crystal meth and Post-It note glue.  Lung cancer is looking pretty good right about now.  Is this how being a non-smoker feels?  How do you people put up with this madness?

No… I’m not telling Lily Allen to fuck herself… that’s the name of the song.

If you ever are under the misconception that when I’m trashing people on my blog, I’m doing so with malice and hate, just remember that this melody is constantly running through my head.  I’m never more cheerful than when I’m telling Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, Anarchists, Communists, Socialists, Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, New-Agers, conspiracy theorists, Jennifer-McCarthyists, Oprah, Humanists, Agnostics, white supremacists, black supremacists, Splendid Elles, Robert Pattinson, patriots, ex-patriots, nationalists, traitors, Brian “Sapient” Cutler, conservatives, liberals, myself, anyone who isn’t Lily Allen and people who like Rocky Road ice cream to fuck themselves.

As you might have already guessed, the lyrics aren’t work-appropriate.  But if you’re coming here for work-appropriateness you’re in the very, very wrong place.

I was going through my RSS reader, trying to knock out the rest of this morning’s news before I head to my mom’s house to raid the pantry.  I was not expecting an emotional rollercoaster.

Perhaps it was because the background strings had just picked up on Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year” when I saw the headline, but tears started to well up when I read this:

US census to count married gay couples

US Census Bureau officials have said that the 2010 census will count married gay couples, despite previous statements that they would not be recognised.

I know… I know… I’m such a big pussy that my nose bleeds every 28 days.

But then I came across this headline:

Gay New Zealand man beaten to death with banjo

The trial of a Hungarian tourist who allegedly killed a 69-year-old gay man with a banjo has begun today in the Auckland High Court.

The man on trial, Ferdinand Ambach, is accused of beating Ronald James Brown around the head with a 2.7kg banjo, before shoving the neck repeatedly down his throat.

And one of the buttery and soy-saucy noodles I was munching on shot out of my left nostril like a floppy SCUD missile.  I can’t stop laughing.

Is that wrong?

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass a short resolution decrying the recent violence in Iran.  The resolution passed 405 to 1.

Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes.
Resolved, That the House of Representatives-
(1) expresses its support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law;
(2) condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones; and
(3) affirms the universality of individual rights and the importance of democratic and fair elections.

Glory Hallelujah! God bless America!  Sign me up!

And the single nay vote:  Dr. Rep. Ron Paul PhD MD BS.  That BASTARD!

Why would Rep. Ron Dr. Paul support violence, oppression and voter suppression?  You know… aside from being a Texan?

Then I reluctantly read his ignorant, putrid statement on the vote, seething as I did so:

I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about “condemning” the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.

What a coward!  What a traitor!  What an ignorant baboon!  How dare he speak out against freedom and justice, and how dare–

Wait. What?

Oh dear.

[Quickly re-reads Rep. Paul’s statment.]

Mr. Dr. Rep. Ron Paul PhD MD Esq. XVI is… umm… hmm… what I mean to say is… he must have… err… goddammit, he’s right.

I… agree… with something… Ron Paul did.

[Waits for the gasps, muffled screams and hysterical sobbing to die down.]

Eww… now I need to go take a shower.

Barack Obama warms up the stage for John Hodgman.

I often write posts while I’m angry.  A lot of bloggers I talk to have a personal rule that they don’t blog when they’re strongly emotional.  I tried to follow that rule but the stats showed me that my most angry posts were often the most well-received and always the most read.  So I came up with a simpler rule:  I won’t blog if I’m sitting in a pool of my own vomit or tears or someone else’s blood.  It’s worked so far.

Interesting side note:  I did once write a post while sitting atop of a large pile of dead male prostitutes, but I mopped up the blood first so I still haven’t technically broken my rule.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out what post it was.  Hint:  It’s this one.  But that’s beside the point.

However, I’m about to break my rule.  I’ve been a sobbing, emotional wreck for the past couple days and I’m writing this post now.  I promise it has something to do with Atheism/naturalism.materialism/whatever.  Hang on.

Long story short without too much personal information:  My ex-boyfriend, who I, as of a couple of days ago, still loved, asked me to drive an hour out of my way and back to pick him up and take him to the bus station in Roanoke so he could go “visit some friends” in New York.  I did so happily.  While we were killing time before the bus arrived, I discovered that the main reason why he wanted to go to New York was to have sex with a guy he was talking to online and had never met.  Knowing that I still had feelings for him, he asked me to take him to the bus station for this.  As you can probably tell, if I didn’t have the strange habit/fetish of running a catheter from my tear ducts to my mouth during times of great distress so I can constantly taste the sweet aroma of misery, I would be so dehydrated that Lot’s wife would look like Arial from Disney’s The Little Mermaid in comparison.

Another interesting side note:  This chaotic experience brought up the memory of me to another old friend who is cuter than my ex and he offered up some snuggle time, so it’s not an entirely traumatic situation.  It’s still fairly shitty though.  But that’s also beside the point.

Now that we have the background out of the way, the point:  I’m a cold and analytical bitch.  I’m friendly in person (@accosterwilde, if you laugh at that, I’ll smother you in your sleep.  In a friendly manner.), but I over-analyse emotions and see them as either unnecessary pleasant or uncomfortable chemical imbalances.  The impotent theist argument that science can’t prove that love exists or that Atheists are incapable of feeling love, since God is Love and all that tripe has had no effect on me whatsoever.

Love, to me, has always been just a chemical imbalance that was left over the evolutionary necessity of keeping children with their mothers until they were old enough to go out alone.  And I still hold that outlook.  But for the first time in my life, I actually felt more of the human aspect of love when I met this man.  In fact, that strengthened my resolve that science completely explains the phenomenon.  No one will do something as foolish as driving two hours to deliver a person from point A to point B or annoy his readers with a long personal rant without being at least marginally chemically imbalanced.

See?  That was sort-of on topic enough for the blog.  Anyway, it was on topic enough to justify ranting here.

To any prospective dates out there:  I’m rarely this vitriolic to ex-boyfriends.  I’m on good speaking terms with all of my exes (except this one now).  Don’t judge me by this post.  I’ll only seethe about you like this if you do something so outrageous as to take advantage of my love for you to get a free ride to the bus station to go fuck some Internet guy you’ve never met before.

I was very proud of the Iranian people for how peaceful their protests against an obviously fraudulent election were.  I turned on the television a few moments ago and saw news of a suicide bomber somewhere in Iran and crowds were being held back with tear gas and water cannons, and now there’s talk on Twitter of shots being fired into a crowd on Amir Abad, one of the major avenues in Tehran.

MSNBC and Fox ‘News’ aren’t giving any background on why the protests have escalated to riots.  I know that Khamenei was supposed to give a speech on the protests today.  Did he say something to start this?

Cable and online news sources don’t seem to know anything and I can’t milk anything but the repetition of reports of violence from Twitter.

To the anti-fabulous Carrie Prejean:

Carrie, dear, you’re desperate to stay in the news, aren’t you?  Your recent rabid fit of female empowerment BAWWWing like a bitch to the media does nothing but make you look like a freak of nature.  You’re suing Donald Trump’s Miss California USA Pageant for causing, as your lawyer said, “severe emotional distress,” over them firing you for breaching your contract and them making public the details of your tit job.  Fine.  Sue them.  We live in a backwards country where you can sue anyone you like for anything they do.  But don’t think you’re going to win any public sympathy out of this.

By the way, Carrie, from the first time I saw you open your mouth, I automatically assumed that you were at least 20% plastic in the body and 75% plastic in the brain.  I worked tech crew for the Miss Roanoke Valley Pageant, a subsidiary of Miss America, for four years, and there were always two classes of women: gorgeous women with incredible intellects and talent who lost the pageant for being 5 pounds too big, and plastic, snivelling bimbos who look like a burlesque caricature of a serious disease who won.

They look like this, but with painted-on abdominal muscles and fake, perky breasts.

You, Carrie, look like this, but with painted-on abdominal muscles and fake, perky breasts.

So forgive me for automatically assuming that you were outwardly fake in addition to your obvious internal fakeness.  That’s just something that goes along with being in pageants like this:  Everyone knows that you’re a fake bitch simply for being a part of the pageant.  However, I didn’t know anything about your tit adjustment being confirmed until your lawyer told us so.  So who’s causing the real emotional distress here?  Who turned that molehill into a mountain?  Methinks it’s your shyster lawyer.

Anyhoo, Carrie, get over it.  You were fired because you were a vapid, lazy twat who refused to go to to contractual gigs.  Even if your homophobia coloured their decision to toss your size 0 ass out onto the curb, you still violated contract and should be terminated.  As for suing for the pageant releasing info about your chemically-enhanced tits, blow me.  The Miss America pageant, as much as I hate this fact, offers retarded emaciated role models to young women.  They shouldn’t be supporting contestants who spend thousands to cut open their boobies and shove them full of polyethyltitplastica.  The pageant is about finding beautiful women, not shallow rich women who can fake beautiful.

All in all, Carrie, you’re an uninteresting, stupid cunt, and if I had a daughter I would do all that I can to keep her away from fake whores like you  You are no role model.  You are Skeletor.  If my theoretical daughter or any of my readers’ very real daughters want a role model who is both sexy and smart, I would suggest someone like Emily Lakdawalla, Rebecca Watson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Lucia Guatney.

Carrie, I would pity you if I knew you weren’t so pitiless yourself.

You disgust me,
John Reed Braden

Barack Obama showed his crazy ninja moves by swatting a fly on his hand during a CNBC interview.

I posted that video on my Facebook wall and what started out as a joke about PETA’s reactionary false outrage at every act of violence not performed on KFC employees or scientists became real.

AP: PETA wishes Obama hadn’t swatted that fly.

That’s right… PETA is pissed that President Barack Obama swatted a fly.  They’re sending him a “humane fly catcher”.

I’m used to PETA being hilarious joke fodder, but when hilarious jokes start becoming PETA fodder, PETA is slipping.  Seriously, how can you be for “animal rights” and a professional shark-jumper?I want to give the President of PETA a shotgun and put her in a room with a rabid wolverine, a hungry grizzly bear, three menstruating cougars and a velociraptor.  We’ll see how quickly she reconsiders her stance on the animals’ “rights” to eat her entrails.

PETA is the only entity I can think of that is more media-whorey than Sarah Palin.

(Via Lisa)

Yesterday, President “Fierce Advocate” “Grovelling Bipartisanship Whore” Obama issued a permanent executive order signed an all-too-temporary memo granting a small number of the full benefits currently enjoyed by heterosexual couples to gay couples where one partner is employed by the federal government, including Social Security, healthcare and retirement benefits something cryptically called, “Relocation expenses”.

Last week, his administration also abolished upheld the unconstitutional, anti-gay Defence of Marriage Act which ignored the previous laws that agreements such as marriage contracts issued in one state must be accepted by all states, comparing gay marriage to paedophilia and incest in a Department of Justice memo.

President Obama has also stated that he will has no immediate plans to abolish the nonsensical military policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” that bars openly homosexual men and women from serving in the armed forces, citing long-rebutted conservative arguments about “troop cohesion”.

Today, I am proud thoroughly and deeply ashamed to say that I am an American citizen who voted for President Barack Obama and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else on the planet fuck this noise, I’m moving to Canada.  God bless the USA! Can my rights not be used as a political volleyball please?

I’m going back through my music collection to the crap I listened to five years ago.

I would like to publically apologise now for my former bad taste in music.  I’m sorry.

Via The Advocate

We all know that Carrie Prejean is a homophobic Conservative crackpot who posed naked, missed a bunch of contractual events, fakes her hair colour and got fired by Donald Trump.

Today’s big gay news is that Tami Farrell, the new Miss California, is also a rabid anti-equality wingnut bitch.

Why do any of us give a shit?  These skanks are paid to gallivant around in stilettos, showing off their plastic tits and chemically-treated blonde hair in the minimum amount of clothing allowed by federal law.  They aren’t known for their intelligence and are usually, like, not the smartest US, uh, Americans because, uh, often, they don’t, like, have maps.

Why are these bitches allowed to open their mouths?  And why do we care what comes out of said mouths?

Ahmadinejad’s own people counted the votes in the election of President of Iran and came up with the same number as last time the people of Iran tried to vote out the Hitler of the Middle East (Godwin be damned).  According to Ahmadinejad, 62.6% of Iran loves him and the other 37.4% thought they were supposed to check the name of the person they didn’t want to be President.  Because everyone loves Mahmoud! 

Of course, his opponents are nowhere to be found and are probably buried in the desert with bullets in their skulls, but YAY DEMOCRACY!

So what does the right-wing jizz rag Politico say about the “election” in Iran?

Ahmadinejad won fair and square and anyone who doubts the election results is a queer hippy liberal.  Never mind that people in Iran are being beaten and sent to labour camps for disagreeing with the polls, Mahmoud won.  Because Mahmoud said so.  Get over it.

And the cats in the house across the street love being dressed in bonnets and forced to have a tea party with Sherl, the crazy cat lady of Grandin Village.  Because Sherl said so.  Get over it.

And Bush won two Presidential elections.  Because Bush said so.  Get over it.

Politico is a tasteless heap of lying garbage.  Get over it.

I’m home.

I would just like to state that if ever I get behind in my rent, if any of you ever call my landlord and tell him that I have no intention to ever pay him and I should be evicted, I will find out who you are and sue you for every penny you have.  Then I will move into wherever you lived before I sued you into poverty and stay three months ahead of my rent there with your hard-earned money while sending weekly postcards to your cardboard-box hovel with pictures of the wild raves and orgies I will be having in your house.  I don’t fuck around.

That said, Congressman Mark Kirk (Republican, of course) went to our nation’s biggest creditor and told them to no longer trust our country.  That creditor is the nation of China, and according to the Washington Post, he told Chinese officials that, “the budget numbers that the U.S. Government has put forward should not be believed.”

This man, who was visiting China as an elected representative of our country, told the people who we owe the most money to that we can’t ever pay them back and, essentially, that we have no intention to.  While the Chinese officials are figuring out what to do with our debt in a time of global economic disaster, Mark Kirk is telling them to adopt the “Fuck America” outlook that so many right-wingnuts and doomsayers are holding in America now.  And why?  Because he disagrees with the politics of the current President.

If China decides to take any unfriendly action towards America in the near future, I believe Congressman Mark Kirk should be held entirely responsible.  He should be tried for treason.  He should be tried for endangering the economy.  He should be tried for abusing his position of power.  He should be tried for unbecoming behaviour by a US Congressman.  He should be censured and impeached by Congress.  I have my tar barrel at the ready and my feather pillow cut open.  The US government shouldn’t fuck around with this.  They should send a clear message to the party that keeps forgetting it’s in the minority:  Disagree with the Administration all that you want, but when you cross the line into treason we will fuck your shit like shit has never been fucked before.

For the millions of Americans who, like myself, are not in the best of economic situations right now, Mark Kirk just made it worse for all of us.

The Treasury and State Departments now have their work with China cut out for them… and it now has the potential to be a million times worse than what it was.

And if he’s still a Congressman when I become elected to the US House of Representatives, I will make it my first act of office to punch Mark Kirk in the face, because a vote for John Reed Braden is a vote for punching Mark Kirk in the face.

I’m leaving tomorrow with my friend Laurie for a few days in the woods, hours away from home with no electricity, cell phone signal, cigarettes, booze, Internet, junk food or television.

If I’m not back Tuesday night I was either eaten by a bear or I bought a shotgun and decided to become a scary, bearded mountain man.

Shepard Smith occasionally poops out something nice.

DonExodus epically pwns the smarmy, anti-intellectual Discovery Mental Institute stooge Casey Luskin and the greasy, dishonest Fox Noise troglodyte Steve Dookie in this fantastic video.

There are people whose only science education comes fom these jackasses.  We need to do something about that.

I got a package in the mail today that totally made my day 10 million times better than it would have been had the post office been prompt and delivered it before the worst day of my life.

TankGrrl, the most awesome person in the world, designed me a t-shirt that says, “I listened to the Two Smokin’ Hot Freethinkers Podcast and all I got was the Flying Mexican Pig AIDS,” after listening to episode 47 of the podcast.  It finally came in the mail today!

My torso hurts too much to wear clothes after fucking up my right arm on a column (Listen to me bitch about it in the first story of TSHF Ep48.), roasting my flesh for hours in a kayak (see the outline of the kayak on my thigh in inset) and getting hit by a white SUV (IT WAS O.J.!) on my bike a la Rebecca Watson, so I won’t be modelling the shirt for you tonight.  You’ll have to settle for this crappy cameraphone picture:

TankGrrl is now officially the first H.G. Awesomeass of the Week.  And she will be the only H.G. Awesomeass of the Forever.  Because I love her.

Everyone should support TankGrrl and buy the shirt here. Proceeds go to hosting the podcast files.  DOOO IIIIIT!

If anyone wants to make me even happier, I hear there’s going to be an auction of the Unabomber’s shit.  I want the hoodie and sunglasses.

Well, Terry McAuliffe lost the primary election to Creigh Deeds for Governor of Virginia.

Creigh Deeds supports being able to buy as many guns as you want per month, where even most Republicans in the state say one each month is enough.

He also supports people being allowed to carry concealed guns into bars where alcohol is served, jealousy prevails and brawls are frequent.  Creigh Deeds thinks concealed firearms would make these places safer.

In Virginia… home of Virginia Tech.

Creigh Deeds is also wildly homophobic.

So thanks to Deeds being even more right wing on several issues important to me than Republican Bob McDonnel, I’m going to abandon my previous slogan of “Keep Virginia Blue” and vote for Republican Bob McDonnel for Governor of Virginia this year.

Creigh Deeds is an insane man who could not receive my vote for fucking dog catcher.  Watching the polls over time showed that the only reason this crazy gunman won the primary is because some idiot at WaPo was able to pronounce his name more easily than Terry McAuliffe’s.  President Bill Clinton, DailyKos, the Virginia Professional Firefighters Association and almost every Democratic Governor in the country supported Terry, but the starry-eyed barely-literate nutsack who wrote this nameless editorial had better timing.

I saw this travesty against humanity on Skepchick in my RSS feed yesturday, and my anger piqued higher than it has in the glorious months  since Dubya left office.  The jist of the story is, some superstitious crap in Zimbabwe has people believing that if you rape a virgin girl, you’ll cure your AIDs/HIV. This story, in a way, goes back to what I was saying about the pope, wherein Moron Religious Leader (of whatever woo-woo fits the current story, be it Christianity or Shamanism), takes it upon him/herself to disregard the accepted facts about the spread of HIV and AIDs, which are of course that the best means of prevention are though abstinence, or failing that, condoms. They choose to spread instead, some misinformation that directly leads to the spread of AIDs, in the case of the Catholics, the “condoms are bad because birth control is murder” rhetoric, and in the case of the whacky tribal leaders, they’re just outright saying spreading the disease will cure you of the disease. This is abhorrent and intolerable. The HIV/AIDs epidemic in Africa is a global issue, and should be handled with global attention. We need a well-funded, deeply-invested effort to promote proper prevention in such a way that the people understand that it is the truth, and stop listening to the idiots who tell them what to do because God said so. The problem is, for most of the more isolated parts of the continent, these are the only people who tell them any means of stopping the disease. If we as a planet, we as a race of human beings, do not act soon, an entire continent will be lost to an unspeakable plague, resulting in what I think should in future times be referred to, as the laissez-faire Holocaust. Because that’s the attitude of every country in the world, to give only enough to meet appearances, but never actually trying to solve the problem.  If we don’t dig in, and put this issue on the front burner soon, it won’t be an issue we’ll be able to do anything about.

-CJ

I learned something today:  The more to the right of the political spectrum a person is, the more of a pompous dickass a person is.  And if that’s not the case in actuality, the protesters today at Planned Parenthood sure did make anti-abortion conservatives look like assholes.  Great job, guys!

CJ and I went to our second Planned Parenthood protest today so I could take pictures of all of the adult protesters and send them to Planned Parenthood for future reference.  I have a friend who works there, so I would prefer that any Roeder-copycat assassins be recognised and apprehended at the door before they get the chance to kill people.  I made it clear, when asked, that this is what I was doing and was very courteous about explaining that I don’t think anyone there was planning an assassination (except one guy who was an angry old extremist who claimed to be a cop) but I just wanted to be safe.

Oh… and just because I can, here’s a picture of the epic turd who claimed to be a cop and was very aggressive and bitter towards me.

Like Clint Eastwood, but angrier, uglier and stupider.

If you ever see this man, you should assume he is a mentally incompetent violent extremist and possibly armed, based on my encounter with him.  I would strongly suggest to anyone working at an abortion clinic to deny him entrance to your clinic, even if he is in uniform.  You have the right to deny him entrance even if he has a warrant (especially if he has a gun on his person!).  Call 911 and demand they call him off and send another police officer.  All of that assumed that his loud, angry claim that he was a police officer was true.  Based on his actions today, this man is angry and violent and should be viewed as dangerous.  I’m sorry I don’t have any name or any other contact information for him.  Trust me, as far as tools go, he’s pretty much the worst.  I would name him Homosecular Gaytheist’s Dumbass of the Week, but I’m afraid he might kill me with guns or something.

Okay… if I write in this light colour, there’s no way his old geezerly eyes can read it.  I would now like to award “Officer” Clinteastwood Womanhater Heston this week’s Homosecular Gaytheist Dumbass of the Week.  Honestly, I can’t think of a more deserving person than this angry, violent old man who came very close to breaking my camera while trying to tell me that it was illegal to photograph people in public… which it’s absolutely NOT.  I did manage to snap this one picture of him milliseconds before he requested I not take a picture of him… so I should be legally in the clear on that one.  But seriously, you have no idea how angry I would be had he broken my camera.  I love that camera more than I love every single potential baby ever aborted in the history of unwanted pregnancy.  Is that wrong?

Did I mention this guy was angry?  Because he was.

Anyway, there was a small handful of people (three out of the thirty-two protesters there to be exact) who were rational and tolerable today.  We tried to have a pleasant conversation with them, trying to find common ground on our opinions of abortion but we were rudely interrupted every several minutes by a trio of obnoxious homophobes and racists with bad hair with such ignorant nonsense as, “If you’re not a woman, you can’t have an opinion on this,” “If you’re not a doctor, you can’t have an opinion on this,” “Tiller was one guy, they kill thousands of innocent babies in there,” etc.

One of the three nice protesters let me hold her baby, Judah, after all the angry, screamy, grumpy old farts went off to the Western Sizzlin’ for the lunch buffet.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

The baby was absolutely adorable and tasted wonderful.  I think the parents were a bit upset when I ate it, but the mother was going to abort it anyway until some lame poster about fingernails changed her mind, so I guess it all evened out.  Still, I’ve never heard such whining in my life.  I guess she never heard of Thomas Malthus’ Iron Law of Population which says, “If I can beat it in a fight, it’s mine to eat.  Pass the coriander.”

By the way… that is the only picture in existence of me holding a baby under 1 year old.  Let’s hope, for the sake of the children, it’s the last.

Oh… and I guess this means I’m off break now and I have to start blogging regularly again.  Damn.

Click to embiggen.

Six states!

A reader sent this to me via instant message.  (Forgive me, I forgot who it was.)

SEX WITH DUCKS!!! OMG!!!

This song is in response to Pat Robertson’s recent ejaculation that making it illegal to hate gay people will make it illegal to hate people who fuck ducks.

Somehow, this video might be related: