Category Archives: ….just creepy

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

I’m watching one of my favorite movies, and I ran across one of my favorite movie monologues:

“Criminals aren’t complicated. We just have to figure out what he’s after.”

“With respect, Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man *you* don’t fully understand, either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government — they were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in the forest by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months we never met anyone who ever traded with him.

“One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.”

“So why steal them?”

“Because he thought it was good sport, because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

When you run across people like Pastor Numbnuts who wants to imprison gay people for being gay, or Rush Pillhead who is a walking, breathing advertisement for misogynistic hatred, or anyone who uses the Qu’ran or the Bible to forward messages of hate as if they were immutable truths, think about how likely it might be that those people just want to watch the world burn.

“Ignorance: the root and stem of all evil”

Yesterday North Carolina travelled back in time to 1875, and here is the state constitutional amendment that was added:

As ThinkProgress points out, 137 years later North Carolina passed its next amendment dealing with marriage, with just as little foresight and just as much fear and hate.

An old acquaintance reminded Facebook readers last night of Plato’s comment: “Ignorance: the root and stem of all evil.”

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

How wrong-headed could people be?!

Here are two books that every wingnut perv/conservative politico ought to have on the bookshelves:

Here are two books, one written by Karen Santorum (and foreworded by Joe Paterno, FFS!) and the other written by George “Lift my luggage” Rekers. Here are two books involving people who have allowed or encouraged adults to abuse children sexually and/or psychologically.

I thought these were both bad jokes. They are not, and they are both for sale at your favorite bookstore. Be sure to give them a pass today.

What’s sauce for the goose isn’t necessarily sauce for the gander. Right?

In old Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. She innocently opened a buried urn she had found and released the evils of the world that the gods had purposely confined and buried. (Sounds like Eve, doesn’t it?) This was part in parcel with the gods’ efforts to punish humanity for receiving the gift of fire given to them by Prometheus.

Pandora is now a member of the Kentucky state legislature. She’s in the guise of state senator Jimmy Higdon (a Republican, naturally). Higdon is sponsoring Senate Bill 158, which is a proposed state amendment designed to

“…prohibit any human authority from burdening actions that are based on religious beliefs, except in support of a compelling governmental interest using the least restrictive means to further that interest.”

The Family Foundation of Kentucky and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky both endorse this attempt to add an amendment to the Kentucky state constitution that would allow people to legally perform actions based upon religious belief, even if those actions are illegal.

Isn’t it ironic that this same bunch of self-congratulatory nincompoops who want to “expand” religious freedoms (presumably for fundie Christians and Catholics) don’t want those same freedoms allowed for fundie Muslims? All groups would presumably be allowed to arrange for forced marriages, prevent women from owning property, and even presumably allow for “honor” killings.

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?

“How many mistakes must we make before we pay for them?”

One “carelessly-made statement” — okay, anyone can misspeak once in a while.

Two or three “carelessly-made statements”, and doubt creeps in.

Dozens of “carelessly-made statements”, and I would invoke V’s comment:

“…to go on making the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short of deliberate”

Let’s let Mr. Paul speak for himself:

1. “We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

2. “What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn’t that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?”

3. “Six-hundred-thousand Americans died in the senseless Civil War. No, he should not have gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original tenet of the Republic.” (referring to Abraham Lincoln)

4. “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal. These aren’t my figures, that is the assumption you can gather from ‘the report.’ “

5. “Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.” (quoted by Ron Paul’s colleague and collaborator Lew Rockwell)

6. “The criminals who terrorize our cities – in riots and on every non-riot day – are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are.”

7. “I wouldn’t vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws.”

8. “Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action.”

9. “Immigrants can spread diseases for which we may have no immunity. There is also the question of crime and culture. Many immigrants come from countries with different legal structures and are not willing to behave in the way we expect American citizens to behave.”

10. “There is no such thing as a hate crime.”

There is a plethora of Ron Paul quotes on Twitter. Enjoy them, if you can keep your breakfast down.

Words are insufficient

Here is a couple of the videos from PETA’s new advertising campaign. Some gibberish about the “BWVAKTBOOM” phenomenon…

I cannot fathom the depth of depravity required to think that these videos portray anything positive, or something that any sane human would find desirable. Sexual violence isn’t funny, or entertaining, or enviable.

Not one tiny bit.

UPDATE: the gay video for this campaign, while it implies violence (“got the plastic tarp and duct tape…just in case”), it shows no violence unlike the ones featuring women.

Figures.