Category Archives: Dumbass of the Day

Pig-Ignorant Republicans vs. Grammar Nazi; or, Black People Are Scary, Part 248

The Republican Party of Greene County, Virginia, is showing the true colors of ignorance and belligerence for all of us to see.

The March 2012 issue of their newsletter calls for:

The ultimate task for the people is to remain vigilant and aware ~ that the government, their government is out of control, and this moment, this opportunity, must not be forsaken, must not escape us, for we shall not have any coarse but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November

The real treat, though, is to see at just what level of ignorance the source comes from.

Click to enbiggen

I just thought I’d throw in a few helpful hints on grammar, spelling, syntax, legibility, and sentence construction. (The rest of the newsletter is in about the same shape — but then, I’m sure that comes as no surprise to anyone.)

How the hell are we supposed to take anything these wackaloons say at any serious level?

Do you need *another* reason to reject Catholicism?

Just so you all know just where the Jews have fitted into the world picture:

This is what happens when religious wackaloons like Australia’s Archbishop George Pell start winging it during a debate:

Cardinal George Pell said ‘the little Jewish people’ were shepherds who lacked intellectual development during a debate with atheist Richard Dawkins. He went on to claim that Germans had suffered more than the Jews during  the horrors of the holocaust in the Second World War.

The remarks came during a televised debate with Dawkins on Australian TV in which the pair became locked in a heated discussion on religion and evolution.

Here is the entire debate (about an hour in length):

If I may, let me call “bullshit” on George:

On the other hand, the Catholic Church (among many other Christian denominations, and Islam) has a long history of actively fighting against progressive movements, in particular the areas of women’s rights.

…and people wonder why I won’t read Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card, author, member of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, and poorly-disguised closet case, is at it again:

Those signs on people’s lawns, warning you that the [North Carolina] pro-marriage Amendment One will harm children.

Of course it’s a lie – in fact, it’s really designed to fool careless people into thinking that the amendment is against traditional marriage. They’re co–opting the language of conservatives in order to trick conservatives into voting against their moral values.

But they’re inadvertently tipping their hand; they’re letting us see what’s really at stake.

There’s no need to legalize gay marriage. I have plenty of gay friends who are committed couples; some of them call themselves married, some don’t, but their friends treat them as married. Anybody who doesn’t like it just doesn’t hang out with them.

It’s just like heterosexual couples who are living together without marriage. Their friends still treat them like married couples, inviting them places together; they’re a social unit. Those who strongly disapprove leave them alone.

There are no laws left standing that discriminate against gay couples. They can visit each other in the hospital. They can benefit from each other’s insurance.

No, legalizing gay marriage is not about making it possible for gay people to become couples.

It’s about giving the left the power to force anti-religious values on our children. Once they legalize gay marriage, it will be the bludgeon they use to make sure that it becomes illegal to teach traditional values in the schools.

Our children will be barraged with the deceptions of the left. Parents will be forbidden to remove their children from the propaganda.

Any child with any gender or sexual confusion will be pushed inexorably away from the decision to establish a traditional family. They’ll be told, again and again, that any sign of effeminacy or gender confusion or same-sex attraction is an irrevocable, lifelong compulsion and they might as well shape their lives accordingly.

The left is at war with the family, and they want control of our children’s education. That’s what those signs on the lawns are about.

I’m not making this up – it’s already happening wherever the left has complete control of education. Parents in those places are already forbidden to opt out of sexual and gender propaganda.

And with the teachers’ unions absolutely under the control of the extreme left, don’t kid yourselves: Legalizing gay marriage will make the false claims of the gay lobby the established religion of the American school system.

If there were even a shred of science behind the absurd claims about gender and sexuality coming from the left, there might be a case for allowing this to happen. But there is no science behind it.

In fact, the scientific evidence we have points in the opposite direction: Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people’s desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles.

Heterosexual pair-bonding has been at the heart of human evolution from the time we divided off from the chimps. Normalizing a dysfunction will only make ours into a society that corrodes any loyalty to it, as parents see that our laws and institutions now work against the reproductive success (not to mention happiness) of the next generation.

But your children will never hear any of that information, true as it is, because it contradicts the dogmas of the left.

Legalizing gay marriage is about driving all contrary evidence or argument out of the public discussion. That’s why the gay-marriage lobby tries to stifle discussion – they have no arguments that stand up to serious investigation.

They brand their opponents’ arguments as religious, and therefore illegitimate; but in fact their own arguments are just as faith-based, just as lacking in evidence, as any Bible-based argument.

So a vote for the amendment is a vote to keep alive the possibility of educating our children without having the false dogmas of the extreme left drilled into them, while contrary arguments are barred.

It’s a vote to allow actual research into human sexuality to continue (or begin again), because the question will remain open.

It’s a vote for freedom of religion – the only right that is in serious danger in America today.

Like black people, gays are reeeeeally reeeeeally scary to some people.

I wouldn’t demand that people not buy Card’s books or read his stories.

But I sure as hell won’t.

“Mommy, why does Firefox always go to this ‘cleen-yur-regerstee’ page?”

So, you’re cruising down the internet freeway, and you’ve been reading funny comics, catching up on email, copying down recipes for tomorrow night’s dinner, and (quietly, while the kids are at the movie theatre) watch a little soft-core porn.

You know that porn sites are just rife with viruses and malware and such. So you’re careful about what you click on.

Just before the kids get home you clear your browser history (you’ve learned how to do that after little Jimmy wanted to know about the funny “toy site” that Mommy had visited — “Mom, those toys look boring!”), and you go to a safe, family-friendly religious site and leave the browser open.

The next morning, you find that your machine has malware/trojans/viruses/generallybadbadsoftware loaded onto it.

Welcome to the real world.

How soon the Republican Party forgets about St. Paul…

News item from the U.S. state known as a major depository of dumbshit thinking:

In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said this week that banning handguns from downtown Tampa during the convention, as the city’s Mayor Bob Buckhorn requested, “would surely violate the Second Amendment.”

“It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law,” Scott said in a letter to Buckhorn Tuesday, emphasizing the words “law-abiding.” “It is at just such times that the constitutional right of self defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.”

Tampa officials are expecting thousands of protesters to descend on the Florida metropolis for the GOP convention. While no handguns will be allowed inside the convention, which is being protected by the Secret Service, concealed carry license-holders will be able to carry their weapons in the streets surrounding the convention.

It painfully obvious that the Republican Party (and its numbnuts Florida governor) has forgotten the lessons of St. Paul in 2008:

Now, mix in a healthy dose of licensed firearms carriers, and watch a few cops and a mess of bystanders die (something no one wants).

(Thanks to The Spouse for the tip!)

Honesty just doesn’t come easily to some people

There is a kerfluffle going on in North Carolina these days.

For those of you not in the know, there is a state amendment up for popular vote on May 8th in the Tar Heel State. It would dictate that valid marriages could only occur between one man and one woman.

Let’s ignore the fact that same-sex marriage is already illegal in North Carolina; the legality of the issue is not at heart here.

And now the spouse of the amendment bill’s author dished on what the real issue is:

Chad Nance, a Winston-Salem freelance journalist who is currently active in electoral campaigning, says poll workers outside the early voting site at the Forsyth County Government Center in downtown Winston-Salem reported to him that the wife of NC Sen. Peter Brunstetter remarked today that her husband sponsored legislation to put the marriage amendment on the primary ballot ‘to protect the Caucasian race.’

Nance paraphrased the remarks, as told to him by those who were present: ‘During the conversation, Ms. Brunstetter said her husband was the architect of Amendment 1, and one of the reasons he wrote it was to protect the Caucasian race. She said Caucasians or whites created this country. We wrote the Constitution. This is about protecting the Constitution. There already is a law on the books against same-sex marriage, but this protects the Constitution from activist judges.’

So there ya are. Much like Minnesota, the homophobes and wingnuts are trying to prevent a select minority from enjoying the same civil rights that everyone else enjoys: the right to be married, with all the legal privileges therein. In order to short-circuit judicial review of such blatant violations of the 14th Amendment, these yahoos demand a popular vote (a popular vote on civil rights??!) and then solicit massive funding from out-of-state interests.

Being honest just isn’t in their blood.

(Thanks to Joe for the tip.)

“Crystal energy is high on the vibrational scale of Angstrom units”??? What the *hell* does that mean?

Sometimes blog posts practically write themselves.

The Spouse pointed out this exquisitely beautiful pile of selenium crystals, and an exquisitely high pile of pseudo-scientific horse manure:

(Notes: #1–I refuse to redact the names of the guilty. #2–My Facebook language setting is “Pirate”.)

The picture of the crystals is real; it was taken in the selenite crystal chambers in the old Naica Mine in Mexico.

The commentary about the crystals is not real; it’s from the mind of someone who cannot take her reality straight without a chaser of wishful thinking and a tumbler-full of complete bullshit.

Allen West, channelling Joe McCarthy

“I have here in my hand a list of 205 that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” — Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1950

…and the new, unimproved, 21st-century version of fear-mongering, Allen West style:

…and two parting thoughts on the matter:

“The junior senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears and hatreds and prejudices of the American people that he has started a prairie fire which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.” –  Senator William Fulbright, 1969

Riddle me this, children.

I am doing work at a customer site, and I decided to scan through my favorite webcomics while waiting for a meeting to start.

When I try to go to the website that would show a cartoon like this

I get this instead.

However, the same customer allows this webcomic that contains material like this…

…and this.

The forbidden comic states a truth about apostasy in the Muslim world, and the second one contains obscenity.

I have no objection to obscenity itself, as long as it’s appropriate to the situation.

However, I also have no problem exposing uncomfortable truths about religions either.

But I’m guessing somebody does.

Uncovered asshattery over at NOM

Anyone who doubts that the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is an evil, divisive, and disruptive group of homophobic morons (whose bills are being paid by a few rich donors who refuse to publicly admit who they are) should take a gander at these excerpts from a confidential study done by NOM and purposely hidden from public view until the Maine court system forced the document’s release:

  1. “Drive a wedge between gays and blacks” by convincing them to fight over the language of “civil rights”.
  2. Bait Latino voters to oppose marriage equality as “a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation”.
  3. Interrupt the “attempt to equate…sexual orientation with race” so that marriage inequality is not perceived as discrimination.
  4. Draw attention to the “bigotry and intolerance” displayed by equality advocates and “document the victims” through a rapid response media team.
  5. Emphasize the importance of “religious liberties” to limit the impact of marriage equality’s legislative advancements.
  6. “Develop side issues to weaken pro-gay marriage political leaders” like pornography, “protection of children”, and religious liberty at the federal level.
  7. Expose Obama administration programs that “have the effect of sexualizing young children” or threatening “childhood innocence”.
  8. “Find, train, and equip young leaders” to become a “next generation of elites” capable of opposing marriage equality.
  9. Foster closer relationships with Catholic bishops to “equip, energize, and moralize Catholic priests on the marriage issue”.
  10. Focus on “the consequences of gay marriage for parental rights”.

I find #8 particularly chilling; I can imagine training films for such groups of young people, but I keep hearing the narration spoken in German.

If NOM ‘fessed up and admitted that the Catholic Church is their big mover and shaker, and used that as the reason for their proselytizing, I could understand them.

I’d still kick ‘em in the stomach at my first opportunity, but I’d understand them.

 

Right, but for a large number of wrong reasons

I’m not going into this tonight, but while I think big-L Libertarians are a bunch of pie-in-the-sky numbskulls and I agree with a number of the entries, I  have quibbles with portions of the content:

My biggest argument is that Libertarianism would be morally correct if we lived in a world populated by nothing except morally correct angels who can live in complete isolation from any other social networks.

But we don’t and they can’t.

“I’m not going to have sex until I’m married. I can guarantee it.”

Bristol Palin: reality show star, walking advertisement for ironically moronic advocacy, indulger of plastic surgery at the age of 21…

and clueless media “star”:

[To President Obama]
You don’t know my telephone number, but I hope your staff is busy trying to find it. Ever since you called Sandra Fluke after Rush Limbaugh called her a slut, I figured I might be next.  You explained to reporters you called her because you were thinking of your two daughters, Malia and Sasha.  After all, you didn’t want them to think it was okay for men to treat them that way:

“One of the things I want them to do as they get older is engage in issues they care about, even ones I may not agree with them on,” you said.  “I want them to be able to speak their mind in a civil and thoughtful way. And I don’t want them attacked or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens.”

But here’s why I’m a little surprised my phone hasn’t rung.  Your $1,000,000 donor Bill Maher has said reprehensible things about my family.  He’s made fun of my brother because of his Down’s Syndrome. He’s said I was “f—-d so hard a baby fell out.”  (In a classy move, he did this while his producers put up the cover of my book, which tells about the forgiveness and redemption I’ve found in God after my past – very public — mistakes.)

(Note: I’ve found no reference to Maher making fun of Trig Palin.)

What Ms. Palin doesn’t realize (no great surprise) is that Malia and Sasha Obama are children, under the care of their parents. Bristol Palin is an adult. Making fun of children for political or entertainment gain is morally repugnant; ridiculing adults who freely take bad actions (advocating teenage sexual abstinence but not practicing it personally) and make a failed effort to ignore the consequences is not.

UPDATE: Mr. Obama already made an effort to defend Bristol Palin.

The universe didn’t implode, surprisingly

Senator Richard Lugar is one of the two senators from Indiana. He’s running for reelection this year.

However, he does not have a residence in Indiana — hasn’t had one since he sold his house in Marion County in 1977. He’s been living in Washington DC all this time.

In February, the Indiana Election Commission refused by a 4-0 vote to review a legal challenge to Lugar running this year, despite the fact that he has not owned a house within or resided in the state since 1977, when he was first elected to the Senate.

However, the Marion County Election board this week voted 2-1 that Lugar cannot vote in Marion County since he does not reside within the county.

It’s kinda like dividing by zero — the operation is not defined and has no existence in reality.

The rush to dump Rush

I have been staying out of the latest Limbaugh misogyny debacle. He’s an ignorant toad that thrives on the attention of the media, loathes women/gays/minorities, and as such deserves no notice at all. (Notice he has the wet end of a large phallic symbol shoved in his mouth at every photo op?)

However, there are those on all points on the political spectrum who claim that the movement to devoid his media presentations of advertising dollars has gone too far:

However, those who demand a cessation to the “witch hunt” fail to recognize something. Other media celebrities have made disparaging remarks about women they don’t like, but Limbaugh has made a career out of fear, hatred, and misogyny. This rush to strip him of the ability to speak on his own public forum (which is not censorship — a fact realized by anyone who knows how to use a dictionary) is nothing more than a reaction to his lifelong career of woman-bashing:

Don’t you loathe Limbaugh’s claim that a woman “wanting sex” = a woman “with no morals”?

Now do we all understand why Limbaugh’s tepid apology hasn’t been accepted by so many advertisers? Particularly in light of his latest verbal attack on a woman?