To C.J. Summers and Diane Vespa:  This is what we’re upset about.  Please stop trying to spin the issue.

Hat tip: blueollie.

Not all of them, just most of ‘em.  Case in point:

Tonight I was minding my own business picking up dinner.  I happened to be wearing my Obama/Biden ‘08 shirt.  When I entered the place, the first thing I hear is some pretentious shitbrick CEO-wannabe-looking private college business major dropout saying,”Oh God, an Obama supporter.”

Shitbrick then went on talking shit–at points repeating Rush Limbaugh verbatim–the entire time I was picking up my order.  I’ll bet the boyfriend his wife doesn’t know about was proud.

Really, I guess this post is more dedicated to my new favorite tool, Shitbrick:

Dear Shitbrick,

Damn those liberals and their high taxes!  You’re absolutely right:  those of us making six or more figures a year ought to be bitching about taxes.  As anyone can tell, we make more money than 80-90 percent of the population, which means we need it more than those who support our excessive, irresponsible lifestyles.

I mean, jeez, can you believe there are people out there who don’t play golf with the CEO for a living?  Why should our taxes go to support them?  It’s their own damn faults they’re poor anyway, because as logic dictates (and a fact everyone instinctively knows anyway) everybody on the planet can be millionaires like us.  All they have to do is vote Republican and be free market, trickle-down capitalists.   So when they get it through their stupid, poor heads that all they have to do is give more money to us rightfully rich people, they’ll become rich too.  If they can’t, it’s their own fault.  That’s just simple economics.

By the way, how many houses do you own?  Ever come home drunk after screwing your secretary and forget which one you’re in?  It’s not a big deal, I’m sure every trust fund baby has that problem.  Oh well, keep on ruling the world, you’re doing a great job at it.

Sieg Heil, brother!

Crook:  Pastor plagiarizes in Op-Ed article.

Crazy:  Christians complain that atheists are given same discount as churchgoers at government-sponsored event.

Crook:  The entire GOP.  Go figure.

Crazy:  Scroll down a bit.

Crazy Crooks:  Scientology is exclusively for gullible crazy people and thugs who will do anything for money.

Crazy:  Hell with it, here’s a big god damn list.

Crazy:  Crazy Muslim extremists are conservatives too!  (scroll down to picture at bottom).

Two men from Georgia are making a disappointing claim: they possess a corpse of the legendary Bigfoot:

I’m not disappointed because of some latent desire to find a Bigfoot, it’s just… if you’re going to go through the trouble of staging these hoaxess, the least you can do is use some materials that look convincing. The fur is all wrong and looks too “arts and crafts” to be anything but.

Also, why doesn’t there appear to be any muscular or skeletal structure to this thing? You could have gotten the same results by dumping hair clippings into a box and placing a mask on top of it. Dressing up like Chewbacca would have yielded better results. Nice try guys, but you’re no Jim Henson.

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Saw this in the New York Times today:

Condemning as unacceptable what he called Russia’s “bullying and intimidation,” President Bush said Friday that Russia must withdraw its troops from all of Georgian territory and said the United States would stand with Georgia in the conflict.

“Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said.

Irony. Mr. Bush needs to take his own advice.

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Shitting Christ, here we go again! The LA Times reports that, guess what, Hillary Clinton’s name is going to be on ye olde ballot at the Democratic National Convention. Apparently, the hardcore Hillary-or-bust clowns haven’t been paying attention to the vapid sermons of John McCain and his bumbling aspirations to lead the country into the future–which, to him, seems to be 1950.

Even though the Republican’s plan for getting us on the right track means doing everything exactly the way it has been done, these crybaby pisspants morons who claimed fealty to the Clinton machine are going to betray it by voting for McBush. How pathetic.

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Am I the only one anxious about this McCain/Obama face off being hosted by a pastor? Why a pastor? This is a secular country, wouldn’t it make more sense for someone else to moderate and pitch the questions? Someone distinguished, perhaps, like a provost of a university or a Nobel Prize laureate. What makes this pastor so great? Is it because he’s popular? Rockstars are popular, might as well have one of them. His being a pastor gives him no authority or qualifications on the issues, so why this guy?

Reading the article, he doesn’t seem so bad, he really doesn’t. At least, he talks a good game and I haven’t read about him being involved in any racist/sex/sexist/bigotry/fraud scandals. Their church has had a number of popular non-conservative speakers, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, I came upon this gem while reading the article:

Roberts: As you know, John McCain in 2000 during the primaries ran afoul of evangelicals when he criticized Pat Robinson [sic]. He’s tried to repair the relationship. Has he gone far enough?

Warren: The religious right, fundamentalists and evangelic evangelicals aren’t synonyms for each other. I think John may have been talking about certain groups that he was worried about at that time. But he certainly rebuilt bridges among them today.

Rev. Rick Warren has it wrong. See, they are synonymous and the people within them only vary by degrees of crazy. Average Christian: slightly crazy. Average fundie: moderately crazy. Pat Robertson: hella crazy.

I’m hoping this debate doesn’t become a Jesusfest, and I was hopeful it wouldn’t until I got to that question. Honestly, haven’t you people done enough damage in the past 2000 years?

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I’m not sure what to say about the shooting of Bill Gwatney. The police are looking for a motive as you read this, but one thing is painfully clear: he was shot because of who he was. Deranged or not, this was not a random killing, it was political.

Conservatives, what the fuck is wrong with you? From reports of threatening campaign workers and racist slurs about Obama to the hostage situation at the Clinton campaign office, Raymond Geisel’s threat to assassinate Obama, et cetera, one thing is clear:  your ideology is fucking crazy, and this is the kind of behavior your batshit, alarmist rhetoric leads to.

I’d be surprised if one of you knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers hasn’t already opined,”if he had a gun, he coulda shot back!” Y’know what I’ve realized as a result of the river of hatred and aggression flowing from the right during this election? People who desire guns the most ought to be the least likely to acquire them.

Thankfully, there are still a few sane people on your side.

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The Burning Man festival is coming up soon. I’d really like to attend one of these sometime. Anyone up for a road trip for Burning Man ‘09?

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Other noteworthy items:

Big business continues to measurably fuck up the environment.

McCain Campaign pulls a Napster.

Wingnuts:  still crazy.  Fortunately, it’s easy to spot when they’re desperate.  I was reading an ABC News blog from about a month ago which revealed that Obama had fallen off the non-smoker wagon.

Everyone knows a smoker. To most people, it’s not a big deal… unless you’re a conservative tool and the smoker is a Democrat running for President.

Seriously, people?

I have a love-hate relationship with blog comments on news websites. On one hand, it’s useful for finding out what people are saying. On the other, it is almost always a stunning manifesto of futility.

According to the commenters at abcnews.com, these are the reasons Obama shouldn’t be president, with appropriate responses by yours truly:

“Smoking shows his bad judgment.”

Yes. Because Republicans have been paragons of good judgment. Just look at the decision to fight in Iraq. Or how about the response to Hurricane Katrina? Jesus, that’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet of incompetence. Let’s see, we have the military telling volunteers and aid agencies that they can’t enter the area to help. What else… oh, levy maintenance, the failed implementation of an evacuation plan, formaldehyde-contaminated FEMA trailers…

How about education? Republicans, your judgment has led to all these fine outcomes of the NCLB Act: lowered standards/expectations, a steep decline in the availability of advanced placement courses, lowered taxes causing schools to cut back other programs and activities, and requires schools to provide all the students’ information to military recruiters (caught ya, you warmongering bastards).

If we have a question about yachting or golfing, or things like denying health care to sick children, we’ll come to you. You’re in no position to lecture about judgment. Hell, you don’t even recognize bad judgment when you see it. Per Bush: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!” ‘Nuff said.

“Smoking means that he has a flawed character and an illogical mind.”

…said the guy who thinks teaching Creationism/ID is a viable alternative to teaching science.

“Smoking means he can’t handle stress and needs a crutch.”

It’s better than being a boozed up coke-head throughout your twenties and thirties. Again, no moral high ground here.

“He’s a liar because he said he quit!”

And you’re an idiot who doesn’t understand the nature of addiction.

“He’s sending a bad message to our children!”

This is one I heard a lot of. “What about the children? My kids might start smoking!” Look, if your kids start smoking, it’s because you didn’t teach them not to. Got that? You’re the parent, their failure is your failure. Don’t you have any control over your life or your kids? Why are you asking others to do it for you? Isn’t that what you cons accuse the liberals of doing?

Ah, res ipsa loquitur.

“We condemned Bill Clinton for having an affair, so we should condemn Barack Obama for smoking.”

Yes, because both are ethically equivalent. He might as well have raped a child, right?
“Smoking is not a noble behavior, and we can’t have a man with a non-noble behavior as president. And I hate him.”

Hatred isn’t a noble behavior either.

“He’s not showing us his birth certificate, so he can’t be president!”

It’s good to know that the Republicans still care about the important things in this election.  But wait, what’s that?  McCain smoked two packs a day for 25 years? Go, go gadget Implacable Outrage!!

*chirp*chirp*

Charles Black, a top McCain adviser, said that a new terrorist attack “certainly would be a big advantage to [McCain].”

Ever wonder why there are 9/11 conspiracy theories all over the place?  Ever wonder where they get their ammunition?  Let’s look at the list:

• Government officials acting as if they’re hiding something
• Blocking investigations
• Refusing to testify
• Mishandling evidence
• Lying about trivial things
• Lying about important things
• Refusing to answer questions
• NEW:  Making cynical, dumbass statements like this.

Looks like Mr. Black let the cat out of the bag, confirming many long-held suspicions that the Republicans are lusting after another 9/11 to legitimize their wars, their military budget and agenda, their grievous attack on civil liberties and the consolidation of power in the Executive Branch.  That’s to say nothing of all the Halliburtons out there who would benefit from exclusive, no-bid government contracts for billions of dollars.

I think the fact that this guy wasn’t immediately terminated for the statement reinforces my opinion on the matter.  It’s as if the Cons are saying,”why bother?  They already know, we’re not fooling anyone.”  Fortunately for the CT’s, if we do get attacked between now and November, this statement gives them another argument to support their case:  a motive.  Good job, dumbass.

Ahhh, nothing wakes me up like the smell of wingnut in the morning.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson is one of those crusty old historical revisionist fundiecons who thinks the way forward is to regress.  Like many on the right, he’s a gay-hating, anti-intellectual xenophobe who has the gall to suggest/holds the delusion that Christians are being oppressed and their values diminished.

Today I read that he has attacked Barack Obama for “deliberately distorting” the bible and having a “fruitcake interpretation” of the constitution.  Actually, the full quote is that Obama is “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.”

What the crispy crap?  Hey, that sounds familiar!  Kind of like supporting wars in the middle east as a way to hasten Armageddon, or suspending your literal interpretations of God’s direct words to allow yourselves to support the death penalty, or telling each other to be Christ-like, yet vote for the political party who is traditionally hostile to the poor and consistently favors the rich.  Somebody’s theology is confused indeed.

At least he appears to understand that the bible is indeed something to be interpreted by using the word “understanding,” though “traditional” is highly subjective.  He goes on to say “[Obama] is dragging biblical understanding through the mud,” confirming yet again what we already knew about fundamentalist mindset:  only my interpretation is the correct interpretation.

In light of that, it’s not so difficult to understand their fascist tendencies, considering their refusal to tolerate disagreement, let alone dissent.  I won’t even bother with his statement about constitutional interpretation.  The common fundamentalist delusion of authority with regards to anything constitutional would be comical if it weren’t so damn scary.

Dobson apparently didn’t have much of a defense for his opinion, since he changed the subject by reminding everybody that Obama is pro-choice and abortion is the only issue that matters, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, OBEY, all your base are belong to us, etc.   Cheap.

Some filler for the transition:

“While we may never know the answers, Scott McClellan alone will have to wrestle with whether it was worth selling out the president and his friends for a few pieces of silver.” - comment from Republican Lamar Smith to Scott McClellan over his book chronicling the corruption of the Bush Administration during his time as a White House aide.

The important phrase here is “for a few pieces of silver.” This is what anchors the whole statement–a biblical reference to the betrayal of Jesus by his disciple Judas for thirty pieces of silver.

I’m not bothered by the comparison of McClellan to Judas. From the Administration’s view that one is easy to understand. What I find troubling is the equation of Bush to Jesus in the same reference. WTF?

People, this is the kind of batshit mindset we’re up against.

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Things are coming along with the redesign. Once I get a handle on this whole theming process, everything else should fall into place.