Too sexy to fly

I was going to post about this the first time it happened but then figured, eh, it was probably an isolated incident.  But then it happened again! 

Apparently, in addition to checking your bags, making sure you don’t have dangerous items such as bombs, big bottles of liquid, knives and guns, Southwest Airlines wants to make sure you’re not dressed too sexy.  Click on the links above to see for yourself if the women harassed were dressed inappropriately. 

I think it’s silly.  And to think that it wasn’t too long ago when flight attendants were hired primarily on their looks. 

Read Full Post »

Retro Sunglasses, Skateboards, and Single? Talk about the triple threat!

Another installment of Put the Video Camera Down! 

I saw this and wanted to shoot myself.  Would any girl actually respond to this guy?  For the sake of women everywhere, I hope not. 

Maybe I’m wrong.  Is this the future of dating?  God help us. 

Read Full Post »

Um, Mr. President?

Remember that question (asked of Miss Teen USA South Carolina) about how American students were having trouble finding the United States on the map? 

(Via David Kurtz at TPM) Here’s President Bush talking about Southern Louisiana: 

“[T]he taxpayers and people from all around the country have got to understand the people of this part of the world really do appreciate the fact that the American citizens are supportive of the recovery effort.”

“I come telling the folks in this part of the world that we still understand there’s problems and we’re still engaged.”

“We care deeply about the folks in this part of the world.”

In other related news, Bush announces his plan to negotiate a free trade agreement with the state of Louisiana. 

Read Full Post »

Apparently, bars are supposed to stop fights between patrons after they leave…

The Ann Arbor News has an article out today about how the city of Ann Arbor is considering using “public nuisance” laws to close down bars in order to cut down on “after hours fighting.”   

At that meeting, Mayor John Hieftje said that it was believed some bars just throw out violent patrons into the street and don’t take any steps to ensure the fighting doesn’t continue.

[City Council Member Joan] Lowenstein said she has heard the same thing.

“What was happening, instead of calling the police, they would just boot these people out in the street,” Lowenstein said. “Police need to know when a problem is about to happen, not that something has already happened.”

This is beyond stupid.  Of the five bars mentioned, four of them are campus bars, frequented most often by University of Michigan students.  This actually represents a substantial chunk of bar life in Ann Arbor, to be honest.  Those four (Touchdown’s Cafe, Rick’s American Cafe, Scorekeepers, Necto Night club) are pretty much like what you would find near most college campuses. 

The fifth bar, Studio 4, is closer to the downtown area of Ann Arbor away from campus and attracts a much different crowd mostly.  I was there about a year ago and my experience was a little weird.  Me and a couple of buddies weren’t allowed to leave for about ten minutes (bouncers had blocked the exits) because they were afraid a fight was about to break out on the street outside.  When we finally got outside there was a huge crowd of people not being let in the club because they were getting unruly waiting in line. 

As far as I know nothing happened that night.  And I could have sworn I saw Charles Woodson there too, talking to a couple girls, totally oblivious to the tension in the air. 

But back to the article, I have no idea what the angle is here for the city council, the mayor, and the city attorney.  But I do know that their approach and attitude to this issue is idiotic and ignorant.  It sounds like they just targeted the most popular bars in Ann Arbor because somehow or other the most popular bars have the most drunk people who in turn get in the most fights. 

Read Full Post »

Kid Nation – Um, why?

The State of New Mexico is investigating the CBS show “Kid Nation” to see if it broke any laws in respect to work permits, contracts, and refusing to allow inspectors onto the property while filming. 

What caught my eye was the description of the premise of the show. 

Sisneros said officials became aware of the show — which places 40 kids, ages 8 to 15, in the New Mexico desert to build a society without any contact with their parents — when an inspector from the Department of Workforce Solutions notified the attorney general that he was not allowed on the property to inspect work permits.

I really have nothing to say about the particular legal issue. 

But if this were a sociological experiment, it would probably be considered unethical.  But since it’s television, I guess it’s perfectly fine to let kids fend for themselves in the desert.  And yeah, I get that the kids were probably not left completely unsupervised.  But 40 of them from the ages of 8 to 15? 

I saw that television show when it was actually a book called Lord of the Flies.  If it were real, it wouldn’t be appropriate to watch.  And if it’s appropriate to watch, it isn’t real.  So what’s the point? 

Read Full Post »

Attacking Iran

A growing buzz.  It’s been bandied about for awhile now.  Remember “the list?”  And more recently the Seymour Hersh articles in the New Yorker. 

Now former CIA agent Bob Baer says that the Bush Administration will order attacks on Iran within the next 6 months.  And John Bolton, the former U.N. Ambassador and all-around asshole (my opinion), says he sure hopes so. 

We’ve been saber-rattling Iran for so long it’s hard to believe they would not have prepared some sort of coordinated response.  The feeling seems to be that we can just order a few airstrikes to make a point and then force them to “cooperate.” 

This is the sort of colossally stupid approach to foreign policy, warfare, and negotiation that leads to humiliating losses. 

Read Full Post »

You hear that, all you uppity women who won’t sleep with us? We will REPLACE you with ROBOTS.

We all know there are men out there who don’t think women are much good for anything other than being available for sex whenever and however they want it. Roissy in DC takes this one step further and says women aren’t even good for that — at least, not as good as inanimate objects.

It makes you wonder about some people’s sex lives.

The basis of Roissy’s New Theory of Life, Dating and the Future of Male/Female Interactions as We Know It is that, with the increasing technological advances in sex robots (“she’ll move her limbs and gyrate during sex as well as talk dirty and respond to commands,” Roissy explains), men will actually no longer have any need for real live women. Given the choice between a sexbot designed to look like a supermodel or a real live “average-looking” woman, men will, in aggregate, choose the former, Roissy predicts.

His predictions are surprisingly (embarrassingly?) detailed, with sub-predictions for different castes of human beings, as he sees it. The basic premise is that unattractive women will be forced out of the dating/mating pool as unattractive and less-than-perfect men have sex exclusively with their sexbots; averagely attractive women will have to become more subservient to men in and out of bed just to be able to snag one away from his sexbot; and beautiful women will harem-style date the “alpha” males, who are the only ones who won’t rely on sexbots. All in all, this will lead to more polygamy, adultery, and male power.

Sexbots are a very real threat to the established order because men’s sexuality is so visually driven. The entire market structure of dating will shift seismically in the direction of men becoming choosier and less willing to please and women becoming looser and more willing to please.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s the perfect Nice Guy® fantasy, priceless in its equal mix of misogyny, insecurity, and entitlement (for a definitive rundown of the Nice Guy® phenomenon, see here). Yeah, yeah, well who needs all you real women when I can have sex with my Jessica Alba robot? Guess you’re all gonna hafta start putting out more and stop demanding treatment as an actual human being, aren’t ya now?

So let’s even just put aside for a moment here the fact that Roissy and his commenters seem to think that real live women are pretty much obsolete (except for making babies, as a few insightful commenters point out). Moving on to the “And People Say Feminists Hate Men” category … dear god, what kind of low expectations of the male species does it take to posit that a good portion of men, given the choice between sex/love/companionship with a fellow human and an inanimate object, would choose the inanimate object? Roissy Inc. seem to feel that no men actually have the capacity to feel emotions, care about people, desire love, etc. Real men are, in fact, only concerned with finding the prettiest possible thing, living or not, to stick their penises in. I mean, non-batshit-crazy guys, don’t you take offense to that? I’m offended, just on behalf of all the guys I know.

Of course, I take more offense to on behalf of women, who I’m pretty sure would be okay even if the whole futuristic sexbot scenario did play out. I mean, Roissy seems to believe that in a world where men showed no interest in sleeping with them, women would continue to be so desperate to snag a man that they’d either convert to polygamy en masse or revert back to an idealized 1950s style of submission. Sheesh. It’s as if Roissy’s never heard of lesbians.

Read Full Post »

Yes, David. I do.

In response, in part, to my earlier post and to Rick Perlstein (who replies in turn), David Horowitz asks if the left knows who the enemy is. 

Before I answer in more detail, let me also draw everyone’s attention to something else I posted earlier because a similar theme can be drawn from the Minutemen video which shows one of the Minutemen murdering an illegal immigrant crossing the border (the video has since been taken down from Youtube – if I find it again, I’ll post the link in an update). 

First for those who cannot sit through Mr. Horowitz’s “educational” video about jihadism, let me provide a short summary of what you will find there.  Basically, he highlights some of the major terrorist attacks from around the world in the last thirty years or so with dates and summaries and plotted points on a world map of where they occurred.  Interspersed throughout this data (which is perfectly accurate) are disturbing and graphic photos of dead bodies and the carnage from these attacks. 

Mr. Horowitz also provides quotes from various terrorists and muslims which either call other muslims to arms against Americans or simply state the speaker’s wish to humble or kill Americans (again perfectly accurate and sourced). 

All the while dramatic and over the top music is being played and the film graphics are being used to create discomfort and tension to the listener.  It’s extremely disturbing.  It is meant to be. 

Finally the video closes with pictures of muslims in Los Angeles and Chicago marching and demonstrating in support of Palestine or against the war.  The obvious message is that the jihadists responsible for terrorist attacks around the world are the same ones in Chicago, Los Angeles, Iran, and Palestine.  That they are all a part of a world-wide movement to destroy America. 

It’s the kind of sick paranoid fantasy world which allows Mr. Horowitz to believe he’s a soldier on the frontlines just by blogging and churning out newsletters and op-eds.  Because they’re everywhere.  And they’re trying to kill you and you and you and aren’t I brave for standing up and sticking it in their eye and you better watch out and you better not vote for the lib-ruls because they’re a bunch of fucking hippies and remember how they stabbed us in the back in ‘Nam? 

Read Full Post »

“Get the shovel, get some lime, and hey, grab me a 12-pack, too, while you’re up there.”

Via Rick Perlstein. 

Orcinus has a video up which shows a Minuteman actually shooting and (it seems) killing an illegal immigrant sneaking into the country.  The clip is shot with a night vision lens and depicts the Minuteman conversing with a buddy over the radio. 

After shooting the illegal immigrant, for a moment, you get sense of nervousness from the shooter.  He asks his buddy what they should do. 

The buddy replies, “Get the shovel, get some lime, and hey, grab me a 12-pack, too, while you’re up there.”

They giggle and laugh.  Then the shooter yells out, “We fucking nailed him, dude!” 

Disgusting.  Simply disgusting. 

I’m sure this sort of thing isn’t an isolated incident.  How many other crazy conservative nutjobs camp out on the border like it’s Tin Can Alley?  And why doesn’t the albatross of murders like this one hang on the Minutemen every time they hit the news? 

I’d say they were a bigger threat to our security than anti-war Quakers in Florida, wouldn’t you? 

Read Full Post »

Nevermind your position on health care — how nervous were you when you tied the knot?

In response to Brides Decide, a new get-out-the-vote Web site aimed at brides and sponsored by the Knot, the Nest and the Wedding Channel, Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet asks: At what point is it no longer an admirable attempt at targeting female voters but an insult to womankind?

Um, I think this IS that point. Since when are brides their own voting bloc? What in the world would possibly make the political concerns of brides so unique from the political concerns of any other women that they need their own political Web site?

Wait – scratch that question. The Knot et al. know the difference — brides need to pick out political candidates in the same way the pick out table settings!

The site is designed to educate using a one-click, comparison shopping model aimed to simplify the research process for this busy audience alongside fun, relatable editorial about the presidential candidates (like how nervous they were the day they tied the knot).

Apparently brides are also especially concerned by “who’s pro-life and who’s pro-choice” (this dominates the front page of the site) and stuck in 2004 (gay marriage is sited by BridesDecide as being one of the most important issues in the election). The Web site also claimes to cover “virtually every important topic in the 2008 election,” every important topic apparently limited to abortion, education, energy, health care, immigration, Iraq, gay marriage, women’s rights and taxes. Tracy writes:

I am so very, very confused by this attempt at getting young women to vote via summaries of presidential candidates’ platforms alongside detailed descriptions and photos of their weddings. … As a co-worker suggested, this is as clear a sign you’ll get that the wedding industry is out of control (and its friggin’ mind). It isn’t targeting married women versus single women, after all. It’s reducing all young women to the sort who are too busy getting teary-eyed and blubbery flipping through a wedding magazine — either recalling their own special day or lamenting that their day has yet to come — to thoroughly examine the presidential candidates.

Read Full Post »

What’s wrong with New York City?

After banning the use of the word nigger last month, elected officials in NYC are now suggesting banning use of the word bitch as well. Because if people can’t say racist or sexist words, the sentiments behind these words will cease to exist, obviously.

While the bill also bans the slang word “ho,” the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word.

The rest of the article focuses a lot of folks who insist the word shouldn’t be banned because it can be a term of endearment or used in non-negative ways. I like that the conventional reasoning against banning the word seems to be based on its linguistic versatility rather than on the fact that it’s downright loony to ban a fucking word.

Anyway, I’m with Sharon here:

The English language is quite durable and can handle its misuse, even when such misuse is designed to hurt or threaten others.

I don’t like the idea of giving words so much power that they need to be regulated. And in the case of the N-word, society has changed enough that, in my lifetime, that word has a level of offensiveness that’s higher than even the F-word. It seems to me that society has done the best job ostracizing that word and that we don’t need legislation.

Edit: When I first read the article, I thought that some of the council members’ quotes alluded to some pretty heavy underlying racial anxieties/fears or just outright racism, what with the several mentions about how this legislation was designed to combat use of the word bitch by hip-hip artists and rappers. These were just vague thoughts, though, that I was too lazy to flesh out in posting. Luckily, Amanda does the good thinking, as always, so we don’t have to:

The dreaded “rappers” have been brought into the debate, which is basically a badly concealed code word for “young black men” at this point, who are presumably the only people who’ve ever called anyone a “bitch.” “Bitch” and “ho”, being popular in a form of music where a solid majority of the artists are black, are wrong, but “cunt”, which is the favorite word of Bill O’Reilly fans when they’re writing me, somehow passed the notice of the council. To make the irony even deeper, they’ve also gone after the word “nigger”, because it’s all over the place in rap music, too. I’m getting the impression they’re trying to ban hip-hop word by word. The sound of scratching records is an assault on my womanhood, I say, and that should help the process along.

Read Full Post »

Reproductive Choice = perfect demonic system to worship the devil

Oh my god, they’re on to us. That’s right. The largest “pro-life” organization in the world, Human Life International, has stumbled upon us pro-choicers’ dirty little secret.

It was bad enough when people knew we were all just degenerate liberals, dreaded atheists, or — god forbid — baby-hating feminists. But now the president of Human Life International has gone and outed us all for what we really are: SATANIC CULT MEMBERS WORSHIPPING AT THE ALTER OF THE DEAD FETUS, obviously.

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, the world’s largest pro-life organization, has stated that abortion is the same bloodthirsty and ritual sacrifice of babies to a demonic god that occurred throughout history and across cultures.

“And you thought abortion was just a surgical procedure, performed by doctors in a clinical setting, to end unwanted pregnancies,” scoffs Trailer Park Feminist.

Because Euteneuer has years of experience as an exorcist(and thus is obviously completely sane), he knows better:

Approaching abortion from a spiritual perspective, he explained, “The spiritual dimension of this grisly ‘business’ is its systematizing of ritual blood sacrifice to the god of child murder, Moloch.” He also noted that this “bloodthirsty” beast is well known not only through the Old Testament but in many different cultures throughout history as well. “This demon is not content with a single act of murder here and there,” he said. “His insatiable appetite for the death of innocents seeks public endorsement to justify his gruesome deeds, and he needs a systematic expression of it to increase his worship.”

“In short, the abortion industry is a perfect demonic system which offers a perverse form of worship to the devil.”

And then things in the article got scary for a moment:

Referring to July as the traditional month of the Precious Blood, he exhorted people to “cover every abortionist, abortion mill and client of the abortion industry with Christ’s Blood in order to conquer the blood sacrifice of the devil with the greatest force of good known to man.”

I mean, that kind of sounded like a call to violence, no? But then I remembered — duh! my 10 years of good Catholic schooling! — that Christ’s blood is really just wine. And, you know, I’m down with that. Bring on the wine dousing, please ….

Okay, but seriously, how very very creepy.

[Activist Mommy has more here.]

Read Full Post »

How dare you worry about anything else when there are poor people out there and the publishing industry has been hijacked by soap companies

So I know I said earlier that I was sure the Republicans-love-Simpsons-because-it-espouses-family-values bit would be the stupidest thing I read all day, but …

Along comes Cary Tennis, Salon advice columnist extraordinaire and perennial favorite of people who like to point out dumb things in the media …

In today’s column, someone wrote to Tennis about feeling guilty because they had a racist little jingle from their childhood stuck in their grown-up enlightened now-apparently-non-racist head, and didn’t know what to do about it. If you ask me, that’s a pretty dumb problem to begin with (dumb is my oh-so-eloquent word of the day, apparently), or at least a dumb problem to write in to an advice columnist about. But so be it. The letter writer is afraid he’s going to blurt it out at some inappropriate time, which I think is something that enters everyone’s head at some point. As a little kid in Catholic school, I remember thinking, “What if I just ran up on the alter during the priest’s homily and started doing cartwheels?” That’s a pretty lame example, I know, but you get the gist. Everyone has that what-if-I-do-something-completely-inappropriate-just-because-it-pops-in-my-head anxiety from time to time.

So what is Tennis’ advice?

It doesn’t matter anyway because there are homeless people and poor people and do you think it would matter if a man working at a soup kitchen had a racist ditty in his head? Now get out there and end world hunger, and then talk to me about racism.

Honestly, that’s the gist of what he said. That’s not even me taking a little snark liberty with it. See for yourself:

I wish that all we white Americans, instead of skulking around in shame because some ditty from childhood comes unbidden into our heads, could come out and say yes, many of us as children were raised in a racist way and yes, there is racism in white society.
But this is my biggest, fondest wish: I wish we could feed and house everybody. I wish we who are lucky enough to be born and raised in the richest democracy in history could agree on a simple premise: Nobody should have to live on the streets. Not here. Not in this luxury hotel of a country. Not in this gleaming ice rink awash with money.

So you’ve got a stupid song playing in your head. What did you see on your way to work this morning? Did you see any poor people living in the streets? Did you see any people begging for food? Did you see anyone living with open sores because they have no money for medical care? What did you do about that? Did you stop to sing them a song? Did you stop to inquire about their plight?

What could it possibly take to care for all these poor people of all races “ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished”? A billion dollars? Ten billion dollars? A hundred billion dollars? What could it take to build a big building in the center of town and give everybody a bed who needs a place to sleep? What could it take to give everybody a good meal who is hungry? Keep it open 24 hours a day. Staff it with ministers, cooks and bouncers. Have drug and alcohol recovery meetings there. Put all the soup kitchens there. Put all the cots there. Put the mayor’s office there. Put all the deacons and elders and mullahs and bishops and rabbis there. Put all the columnists and communists and free-marketeers and Christian fundamentalists there. Put everybody there who pretends to give a shit. Put me there. Put us all there. Give us showers and hot soup. Keep us there until we make it work. Do the same thing in every city and town. How hard could that be?

The first paragraph here actually makes some sense and seems like it’s going to lead into a non-insane answer, but … sadly, no. And it just gets weirder and weirder from there. It’s not that what he ends up saying is absolutely without merit, it’s just that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question at hand, really. It’s like he just had this tirade planned, and thought, okay, next time someone writes in anything even loosely related to, oh, society or life in general, I’m gonna answer with this nonsensical screed. It gets so bad at the end, if it were on videotape it would probably be the equivalent of Ann Althouse’s don’t-ask-me-about-boobs tirade or Leslee Unruh i-love-babies flip-out. Or, who knows, maybe this is just par for the Cary Tennis weirdness course.

A few choice quotes to end with:

Our publishing industry has been hijacked by soap companies and toy makers.

I’m just standing here watching the empire crumble.

Maybe this tune is a little ray of hope. Maybe it’s a wake-up call from the front desk of the Dignity Hotel.

Oh, if only there was such a hotel, and it’s next wake-up call would go directly to Cary Tennis. I’m not sure what it would say, but something along the lines of “stop being such a fucking crazy-ass weirdo, you crazy-ass weirdo,” would be a good start.

Read Full Post »

Welcome to America, Guvnor. We’ll be watching you.

Is this really necessary to our national security?

Highly sensitive information about the religious beliefs, political opinions and even the sex life of Britons travelling to the United States is to be made available to US authorities when the European Commission agrees to a new system of checking passengers.

The EC is in the final stages of agreeing a new Passenger Name Record system with the US which will allow American officials to access detailed biographical information about passengers entering international airports.

…

Under the new agreement, which goes live at the end of this month, the US will be able to hold the records of European passengers for 15 years compared with the current three year limit. The EU parliament said it was concerned the data would lead to ‘a significant risk of massive profiling and data mining, which is incompatible with basic European principles and is a practice still under discussion in the US congress.’

…

The new agreement will see US authorities gain access to detailed passenger information, from credit card details to home addresses and even what sort of food may have been ordered before a flight. In addition, US authorities will be free to add other information they have obtained about a passenger, leading to concerns about how the information will be shared.

…

‘If you are going to have this kind of agreement it should involve parliament and the data protection supervisor,’ said Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, the civil liberties organisation that campaigns against excessive surveillance.

He warned that under the new system the data will be shared with numerous US agencies. ‘The data protection supervisor and the European parliament are angry that they were not consulted,’ Bunyan said. ‘But they are also angry with a number of elements of the plan such as giving the US the absolute right to pass the data on to third parties.’

Here’s a question to chew on. Is there any underlying theory of government, not fascist or totalitarian, that sees indiscriminate access to this type of information as a legitimate aim of government?

Read Full Post »

One more reason to ban all abortions in Ohio: Because rape babies are just too awesome!

Having a rapist’s baby is so empowering. I mean, imagine you’re raped, right? And then you find out you’re pregnant. Sure, you might feel hurt, angry, depressed, scared, worried about how to take care of the child, etc. You might even consider having an abortion. Or giving the baby up for adoption. But think of the opportunity you’d then pass up! I mean, every time you look at your child, you can be reminded that you were attacked and violated! Isn’t that awesome? I mean, surely that’ll show your rapist who’s boss! Revenge is yours! Ha!

Oh wait, did that last paragraph really make absolutely no sense at all? I’m sorry. I was just echoing the sentiments of Cincinnati pro-lifers pushing an Ohio abortion ban with absolutely no exceptions. Via As Ohio Goes:

Paula Westwood, executive director of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati, [argues] that men win and women lose when a child of rape is aborted.

“What has happened is, men know, ‘Well, if I happen to rape a woman, I can have her get an abortion,’ and then even if he goes to prison he’s free of all responsibility,” she says. “If (victims of rape) can carry the child to term, they’re free from any guilt from an abortion and they’re also freer because the man really has no hold on them, because even though the man fathered the child the woman has some victory over it.”

You hear that? Every time you hold your rapist’s child, Victory! Cause nothing says he-has-no-hold-on-you-now like raising his bastard child for 18 years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, okay, we’ve shown Ohio’s proposed abortion ban legislation shouldn’t have a rape exception, because rape babies are so awesome, but what about an exception for the life of the mother? I mean, “pro-aborts” are always blathering on about how women are, like, actual human beings whose lives we should value and stuff, right? So what about cases where a woman will die if she gives birth?

Ha! Don’t let them fool you! That’s just a myth spread by the Feminist Ministry of Propaganda Planned Parenthood, the creator of the bill assures us.

“It’s a fallacy perpetrated by the Planned Parenthood people,” Brinkman says. “My doctors tell me they’re never in that type of dilemma.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Kos analyzed some of the actual language in the bill Tuesday. My favorite part is probably this:

All abortions are prohibited in this state. Whoever violates this section is liable to the pregnant woman, to the person who was the father of the fetus or embryo that was the subject of the abortion, and, if the pregnant woman was a minor at the time of the abortion, to her parents, guardian, or custodian for civil compensatory and exemplary damages.

Why would the pregnant woman who had the abortion be owed damages? Does Brinkman imagine that doctors are running around performing abortions on pregnant women against their will? Or that women are just too stupid to judge (and be held liable) for their own actions, so even if they requested an abortion it was only because they didn’t know any better and the doctor should still be punished for treating them as if they had free will?

Read Full Post »

Stupidest Quote of the Day (so far)

“If police ever find the pathetic losers who did this, they should be prosecuted for committing a hate crime …. but I’m sure they won’t be.” —posted by Tony Penny at CharlesCountyCafe.com

To what atrocious act is Mr. Penny referring?

The vandalization of an SUV.

According to the Human Rights Campaign.

The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act — hate crimes legislation pending in Congress … describes a “hate crime” as a violent act causing death or bodily injury “because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability” of the victim.

Some of the most well-known hate crimes of the past decade have included the murder of James Byrd Jr., who was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to death because he was black, and the murder of Matthew Shepherd, who was beat to death for being gay.

But smashing the windows of an SUV? Yes. Yes, that’s really the same thing.

Read Full Post »

“If you use a frying pan to hit someone over the head, you don’t call that cooking.”

Erinelizabeth at Advanced Storytelling has a nice comprehensive roundup/summary of the Tory Bowen rape sex trial.

Read Full Post »

Planned Parenthood’s new slogan in Minn.: “building relationships to create future abortion customers”

I’m always utterly flabbergasted when I learn that people really believe (or at least purport to believe) that Planned Parenthood is an evil cabal that actually wants to increase the number of abortions. To hear anti-choicers talk about Planned Parenthood sometime, you’d think all PP did was provide abortions. Maybe even in a drive through, like a car-wash. Drive in, get your uterus scraped out, be on you way. Voila. Except that that’s not how Planned Parenthood works at all. In fact, the majority of its services have nothing to do with abortion. Rather, Planned Parenthood provides gynecological services – including regular annual testing (to make sure women don’t have things like, you know, cervical cancer), STD testing, and contraception services – for low-income women who couldn’t otherwise afford to make sure they don’t have cancer, AIDS, or unwanted pregnancies. Seems like a pretty good mission, to me. And it just so happens that, on top of this, they also perform abortions.

And yet the nut job propaganda somehow persists that Planned Parenthood actually has some sort of inherent interest in upping the abortion rate. Via Pandagon, a lovely quote from a Minnesota article:

“Planned Parenthood has learned how to take advantage of teenagers and young women by marketing its brand and building relationships to create future abortion customers,” said MCCL executive director Scott Fischbach in a statement.

So PP is now branding abortions? Jesus christ. Amanda makes three very good points about why this line of thought is ridiculous:

1) Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization, meaning it doesn’t need to make a profit or increase shareholder value or antyhing like that, and therefore it does not need to seek out more “customers”
2) It’s likely that Planned Parenthood actually loses money on abortions, since it’s a surgical procedure and more complicated than the other services PP provides, but prices are still kept extremely low so low-income women can afford it
3) Disregarding one and two, and assuming that PP is in the market to attract more “abortion customers,” isn’t providing birth control, condoms and other contraceptive services very cheaply (and sometimes freely) kind of defeating that mission, since they’re actually helping decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies?

Amanda writes:

Even if you can be convinced that Planned Parenthood wants to perform more abortions (which seems like they’d lose them money, since it’s minor surgery with prices kept low for pro-choice ideological reasons), it’s going to be hard to be convinced that they are upping the abortion rate with contraception. It’s like arguing that your doctor is setting you up for expensive open-heart surgery by giving you cholesterol-lowering drugs. But reality is no competition to the fever dreams of a misogynist sure that Planned Parenthood is luring the female property of patriarchs into its den of inequity.

So sum this up, some quick facts about PP:

72 percent of those receiving care at PP are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level

81 percent come in to find ways to prevent unintended pregnancy

9 percent receive abortions services

Overall, only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood health services that are abortion services

Read Full Post »

I was just offended by the acting …

All morning/afternoon, people in my office were watching and talking about the new Hilary Clinton/Sopranos spoof ad (which was infinitely preferable to the office talk yesterday, which mostly consisted of, “Gonna be a hot one today, isn’t it?” and “My, is it hot out there!”) Being neither a Hilary Clinton nor a Sorprano’s fan myself (I’m not against the Soprano’s, before anyone leaps on me, I’ve just never seen it), I didn’t much care to about the video. This interpretation by Ann Althouse, however, got me interested:

Bill says “No onion rings?” and Hillary responds “I’m looking out for ya.” Now, the script says onion rings, because that’s what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the “O” of an onion ring is a vagina symbol. Hillary says no to that, driving the symbolism home. She’s “looking out” all right, vigilant over her husband, denying him the sustenance he craves. What does she have for him? Carrot sticks! Here, Bill, in retaliation for all of your excessive “O” consumption, you may have a large bowl of phallic symbols!

Dear god, I knew this woman was weird, but … really??? Onion rings are the new vagina symbols??? And she accuses feminists of reading too much into things ….

I was led to the Althouse post by Matt Zeitlin, who pleads that Althouse must be joking, as there is no other eplanation for such a “convoluted, implausible interpretation.”

Althouse’s attempt at divining the semiotics of the ad makes the post modern text generator read like Hemingway.

I kind of figured Althouse HAD to be kidding, right? Mocking someone, perhaps? Just trying to be silly? But, no, she defends it in a subsequent post, managing to insult your intelligence if you question the viability of her onion vagina theory in the first place:

Maybe you just sit there pleasantly and think: Isn’t it clever for Hillary to use the “Sopranos” scene as a device for informing us about her new campaign song and to include some cute business where she alludes to her concern about health care by having a nice bowl of carrots instead of the onion rings they had on “The Sopranos”? If so, aren’t you the good little voter, accepting the message Senator Clinton hoped to insert in your receptacle of a brain? The famously controlled former First Lady is pleased there are people like you.

That’s right … Clinton intentionally made a video using onion rings and carrots as sexual metaphors but then hoped that you wouldn’t actually realize that’s what’s going on in the video, because … oh wait, that’s where I’m stumped. Because why, Ann?

Me, I’m not so obedient. Even though I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and may very well vote for Hillary, I don’t accept these things at face value.

Huh. Well, that doesn’t really explain it. Nonetheless, good to know you’re not falling for it. Carry on, then.

Read Full Post »

Canadian man found to be Vulcan posing as human

(photo from BBC)

Mr Spock had a human mother, and Vulcan father, from who he inherited his inability to make sense of human emotion, as well as his green blood.

This is an interesting BBC article, in which a canadian man was found to bleed dark green blood. They say it’s from sulfur from a drug he was taking.

*edit*  I posted this because I thought it was really interesting/strange that the BBC, a very widely respected news source, would release an article completely making fun of a man’s medical condition in comparing him to an alien television character.  The article’s facts are very interesting.  A man was bleeding green blood; it’s strange, we want to know why  it’s happening, and the article tells us it’s because of sulfur.  But why does it continue to compare the man to Mr. Spock, and even offer more information about the character’s background than it does about the man with the medical condition?

(PS, sometimes I make really bad jokes and poke fun at things I shouldn’t?)

Read Full Post »