Maybe George Allen should just stay away from cameras

No macaca moments in this one, and there IS something kind of cool about seeing a politician (or a would-be one) show his true colors after he thinks the camera has been turned off. But if this goes viral, George Allen's attempted comeback could find itself in trouble:



Every time I see George Allen, I think of Bob Roberts:

Oh fer God's sake....

Actual headline at Foxnews.com:



I'm with Zandar on this one:

...whenever the right pulls out ACORN to try to discredit anything, they have automatically lost the argument.

Don't be a Pepper

Remember the good old days, when the adorable David Naughton urged us to join him in being a Pepper?



Times have changed, and with over 14 million Americans out of work, many of them men who now wonder if they will ever work again, and if they don't, just who they are, concern about masculinity is at an all-time high. Enter Dr. Pepper, with a 10-calorie drink that they're marketing specifically to men, because 0-calorie questionable-tasting soft drinks sweetened with poison just aren't macho enough for them. No more wussy-ass song and dance guys who looked like the cast of Glee long before Glee was even a gleam in Fox's eye. No, in the new Land of Pepper, ten calories = one penis:


But this ad isn't the worst of it. The worst is the "10 Man-Ments" that are part of the ad campaign. Apparently you have to "Like" it on Facebook to get to it, so we'll let Chicagoist reveal it for you.

The intrepid Amanda ventured into the fetid swamp of male anxiety so you don't have to:

Obviously, Dr. Pepper rolled out this campaign before there was a mass shooting that left 8 dead, in which the murderer was apparently motivated to get revenge on his ex-wife over not getting his way in a custody battle. But if they'd done a little market research, they would have been able to predict the reaction from the very same misogynists they hope will buy up their soda. David Futrelle gathered some at Man Boobz. The theme of the comments he collected was, "Children are the property of men who create them all by themselves by ejacualating into incubators we call "women", and when you're done with your incubator, she shouldn't be able to get custody over your child-property, no matter what a judge says. And anyone who disagrees only has themselves to blame if they get shot in the face."  A sample:

E]nough of this type of offensive action might just start making women and their supporters* think twice, especially if they also become targets. (* Divorce attorneys, child services workers and counselors, family court judges, and other enabling cogs in the feminist legal system)......

Essentially men need to tell feminism to shut the fuck up, give it a vigorous slap across the face thus reminding it who is the biological superior, then order it back into the kitchen/bedroom.......

What options other than overt acts of physical violence are there for a man to deal with a shrew ex and corrupt family court system?....

Most men will just lay down and be resigned to the state-enforced kidnapping and extortion plot, but some are made of tougher stuff and for you to whine about this dead ex-wife or that is inconsequential and no loss to humanity.

I submit that women … are much more likely to pay attention when they’re being threatened.

In case you were wondering what's going on in the mind of the Tea Party male who's blaming everyone else for his troubles, there you go.

I'm quite sure that when the "creative" and the account guys at Deutsch, Inc. (the ad agency that perpetrated this monstrosity) got together in a room, they imagined themselves to be Don and Pete and Roger and Kenny and Paul in the halcyon days before that kiljoy Peggy got all uppity on them. It would not surprise me if the Mad Men ethos permeates today's ad agencies, as the denizens therein, many of them not around during those days when ad guys, not finance guys, were the masters of the universe, try to capture those long-lost times.

If the name "Deutsch" sounds familiar to you, it's because yes, it's THAT Deutsch -- Donny Deutsch, most familiar to political junkies as the guy on Morning Schmoe who obviously gets up in the morning and thinks that because he looks a little bit like Jon Stewart, if he just combs his hair the same way people will think he IS Jon Stewart. Here's a classic Donny Deutsch moment, which tells you everything you need to know about him:



That's just what Occupy Wall Street needs -- for a bunch of kids to get killed. Yeah, that's the ticket. you can't BUY that kind of publicity. Of course, this shouldn't surprise anyone who in this day and age creates an ad that's nothing more than a retooling of this:

How we know that Rick Perry's ascension to the presidency has already been decided

We knew that the media were already in love with Rick Perry. Even though we've already had a theocratic moron from Texas with a full head of hair and a glad-handing manner and cowboy boots in the White House, one who took control of a country with a surplus from eight years of peace and prosperity and wrecked it with tax cuts and wars that go nowhere, the men of the media loves them some good hair and cowboy boots. And it wouldn't matter if Barack Obama were somehow able to get unemployment down to 4% in the next fourteen months, these guys want them some cowboy and they're going to get it.



Bear witness:

Let's repeat David Gregory about four minutes in, shall we?

You know, Perry talked about potentially seceding from the union. You think that's extreme. Well people on the other side think that introducing health care reform for the whole country is akin to European

And there you have what passes for punditry: Talking about the possibility of secession is EXACTLY THE SAME as thinking that people who are poor should have the same right to health care as the rich do.



Coming next: Rick Perry's saying that there's nothing we can do to fix things other than to just pray to Jesus is the very definition of strong leadership.



There's nothing to do with David Gregory except throw our hands up in the sky, say "Hasa diga eebowai", and link to some Driftglass Photochoppin' here and here.

OK, I wanted to do this, but I'd look like a copycat so just click over

IT'S PEOPLE!!!

Sperm does not carry the ability to do journalism

It does, however, seem to carry the self-satisfied, smug, I-Got-This-Job-Because-My-Dad-Was-Revered-At-NBC gene:



(via)

The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get

And teabagger "family values" representative Joe Walsh (Hypocrite - IL) is quite the player...so much that he's forgotten he has kids to support:

Tea party hero Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) wants to wipe out the nation’s debt, but he’s got some major personal debt that his ex-wife is demanding he take care of — $117,437 in child support, according to a lawsuit reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The suit charges that Walsh enjoyed foreign vacations with his new girlfriend while claiming he couldn’t pay support for his three kids because he was out of work.

[snip]


Walsh’s attorney, R. Steven Polachek, told the Sun-Times the claim of unpaid child support is unfounded.

“I dispute that he owes the child support that she’s claiming or anywhere near that amount,” he said. “Joe Walsh hasn’t been a big-time wage-earner politician until recently — he’s had no more problems with child support than any other average guy.”

In other words, so-called anti-government deficit hawk Joe Walsh was just another unemployed loser until he lucked into a nice fat government-issued paycheck, augmented by nice campaign contributions from the companies at whose beck and call he serves.

And now, Joe Walsh's theme song, sung by the OTHER Joe Walsh -- you know, the one who ISN'T a useless hypocritical POS:

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

It's a hack. It's not funny. And why is it still up?

Sorry, but if the people who hacked Fox News' Twitter feed think this is funny, they should guess again:


This BBC story on the hack was timestamped 5:32 AM Eastern Time. It is 11:30 AM Eastern Time as I write this. Why is it still up? Fox News is aware that this Twitter feed was hacked. Why are there no later tweets disavowing these posts? And don't you think Twitter has an obligation to take these down?

(As always, Mr. Olbermann is the beacon of truth...even when it pertains to his bête noire.)

Today in WTF

No, not Marc Maron's terrific podcast (though you should check it out if you haven't already), but just general What the Fuckness: Ben Stein on why Dominique Strauss-Kahn could very well be right that "she asked for it":

1.) If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn't he ever get charged until now? If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn't his opponents get him years ago?

2.) In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.

3.) The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

4.) Did the prosecutors really convince a judge that he was a flight risk when he was getting on a flight he had booked long beforehand? What kind of high-pressure escape plan is that? How is it a sudden flight move to get on a flight booked maybe months ago?

5.) Mr. Strauss-Kahn had surrendered his passport. He had offered to stay in New York City. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker's Island? Couldn't he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly. Was Riker's Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn't he earned slightly better treatment than that? Any why compare him with a certain pedophile from France long ago? That man had confessed to his crime. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has not confessed to anything.

6.) People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

7.) In this country, we have the presumption of innocence for the accused. Yet there's my old pal from the Ron Ziegler/ Richard Nixon days, Diane Sawyer, anchor of the ABC Nightly News, assuming that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty. Right off the bat she leads the Monday news by saying that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is in Riker's... "because one woman stood her ground..." That assumes she's telling the truth and he's guilty. No such thing has been proved and it's unfortunate for ABC to simply assume that an accusation is the same as a conviction. Maybe he's in jail because one person didn't tell the truth. I don't know one way or the other, but I sure know that there has been no conviction yet.

8.) In what possible way is the price of the hotel room relevant except in every way: this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that's what it's all about. A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He's got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.

Let's go down the list, shall we?
1) Perhaps because he's a very powerful guy? Or because it's is extremely difficult to get a rape conviction, especially in Europe, where in 2006 France had a conviction rate of only 25%, despite the fact that reported incidents had seen a steady rise over 15 years. With 75% odds against conviction, can you blame women for deciding not to bother?

2) This sounds like code for "Only black people commit crimes". But as Randall Munroe notes, Paul Bernardo was an economist. The name Paul Bernardo doesn't ring a bell? Here's what HE did. And again: He's an economist. James Urbaniak has more criminal economists.

3) Where does one even begin with this one? I've written before about what happened to me in college. I chose not to define myself as a rape victim, but today what happened would qualify as rape. There do not have to be life-threatening weapons for there to be rape. Fists and the ability to twist a person's arms so they can't fight back works just fine. And as for "un-intimidated", well, that's the most insulting of all. What Stein is saying is that a REAL rape victim would have gone home, taken a shower to get rid of all evidence, and then, when it's too late to get any evidence, reported the crime. Perhaps this woman was "un-intimidated" enough to report the crime because she comes from a country where rape is rampant. But I guess Stein would say that since she was used to it, it's not a crime.

5) Stein bemoans that a man of such power and prestige is held at Riker's Island after surrendering his passport. Has Stein ever heard of the Hudson River? Is he aware of how big a country this is? It would not be difficult for Kahn to hop a ferry to New Jersey, take a Greyhound to Florida and hop on a friend's boat -- and out of the country. Not saying he would, but surrendering a passport doesn't mean shit for a determined sociopath.

6) Stein talks about how he loves hotel maids (maybe too much...is that why he's coming to Strauss-Kahn's defense?). He loves them the way Trump gets along with "the blacks" -- by stating such and then talking about those who were "complete lunatics", robbing him blind. I guess if the woman Strauss-Kahn assaulted had been a wealthy socialite, it would have been OK to put him in Rikers. But because this woman is "just" a hotel maid, the perp should be allowed to walk around.

7) Regarding the presumption of innocence: There are tens of thousands of people in jail even as I write this, who have not yet been convicted of any crime. They are held for various reasons. Why should this mean be treated any differently?

8) When all else fails, play the class war card. I guess because Strauss-Kahn could afford a $3000/night hotel room, he doesn't have to play by the same rules as someone in the same income level as, say, the victim in this crime.

Ben Stein's essay tells us more about him than about either of the people involved in this case. And what it tells us is that Ben Stein is a repulsive piece of shit.

Not to know him is to love him

New Jersey's embarrassingly crude bully of a governor may make a thrill go up teabaggers' legs, but those of us who have had direct experience with his policies say, "Thanks but no thanks", or (dare I say it, as a horizontally-challenged person?) We Don't Want Him You Can Have Him He's Too Fat For Us. Because when you have to live in Chris Christie's world, it's not a very nice place, as Jerseyans are finding out:

New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie, beloved by some and despised by others for his bluntness, has a Minus 18 job approval today as speculation continues about whether Christie should run for President. 38% of NJ adults approve of the job Christie is doing, 56% disapprove.

According to this latest Eyewitness News Poll conducted by SurveyUSA exclusively for WABC-TV in New York City, NJ voters by 5:1 say Christie should not run for President.

* By 2:1, NJ voters say Christie would be a worse president than Barack Obama.
* Obama carried NJ in 2008 by 15 points. Obama's approval rating in NJ today is Plus 14 (54% approve, 40% disapprove).
* Voters split evenly on whether Christie would be better president than George W. Bush.

Christie has cut state spending on education. In those Jersey homes where a school teacher lives:

* Christie's job approval is Minus 30 (33% approve, 63% disapprove).
* 6:1 say Christie should not run for president.
* 5:2 say Christie would be a worse president than Obama.

In union households:
* Christie's job approval is Minus 36 (31% approve, 67% disapprove).
* Obama's job approval is Plus 15 (55% approve, 40% disapprove).
* 8:1 say Christie should not run for president.
* 2:1 say Christie would be a worse president than Bush.

Republicans and Conservatives have mixed feelings about whether Christie should stay focused on the Garden State or allow himself to be talked into putting both feet onto the national stage.
* Among Republicans, Christie's job approval is Plus 29. But: by 2:1, Republicans say Christie should not run for President.
* Conservatives by 2:1 and Republicans by 3:2 say Christie is qualified to be President.
* Conservatives and Republicans by 3:1 say Christie would make a better President than Obama.
* Even among the state's comparatively few Tea Party members, where Christie's approval is Plus 49, there is division: 38% say Christie should run for the White House, 39% say he should not.

* Among Independents, Obama's job approval is Plus 7, Christie's is Minus 11.
* Among Moderates, Obama's job approval is Plus 28, Christie is Minus 23.
* Among lower-income voters, Christie is Minus 32. Among upper income voters Christie is Minus 5.

Now if he wants to be Governor of Iowa, THAT we'd support.

UPDATE: Here's Chris Christie's kind of leadership:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he won’t criticize the state’s Democratic U.S. senators for a lack of federal funding for a vital bridge repair. Nope, that just wouldn’t be fair.

“I feel badly about it,” the Republican governor said Thursday, reflecting on the lack of federal funding to replace the aging Portal Bridge, ”because I wish they would have been more powerful and more successful in being able to get more resources for New Jersey, but obviously they failed in that regard.”

Christie said he was sure New Jersey Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez did the “best they could” to secure federal money to pay for the train passage over the Hackensack River, which needs a $750 million replacement.

The state will benefit from a $2 billion federal injection announced earlier this week into high-speed rail projects, which includes nearly $800 million along in the corridor connecting Boston and Washington through New York.


But, as the Journal reported earlier this week, the bridge was not funded in part because U.S. officials were reluctant to start another major project with Christie after he killed a trans-Hudson rail tunnel that was partially federally funded, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bully and bluster has consequences, as Mr. Christie is just now starting to find out.

This may not be as silly as it looks on the surface

After all, Republicans have been able to claim, with some success, that the 9/11 attacks were Bill Clinton's fault, that TARP (instituted in 2008) was Barack Obama's program, that George W. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifBush'shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif presidency was a success, and that Bush deserves the credit for capturing Osama Bin Laden.

So with their ability and willingness to rewrite history, why WOULDN'T Newt Gingrich run as a devout, devoted husband to his lovely wife Callista, whom he was fucking on the side while married to his second wife, whom he was fucking while married to his first? http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Still in her 20s when they met, Ms. Bisek had been raised in a town of 1,500, the only child of a meat packer and a secretary. A churchgoing Roman Catholic, she had attended a Lutheran college where she practiced piano five hours a day. “Is this the wisest course for you to be taking?” Karen Olson, her best friend, recalled asking.

Today, Ms. Bisek is Mrs. Gingrich, married for 11 years, but perhaps best remembered for the six-year affair that contributed to her husband’s political downfall. His critics cast Mr. Gingrich, the former House speaker, as a hypocrite who sought to impeach a president over infidelity while engaging in it himself with Ms. Bisek, who was a Congressional aide.

Yet in a curious tale of Washington reinvention, the onetime congressman from Georgia is counting on the third Mrs. Gingrich for his political redemption.

As he prepares for a Republican presidential primary run — he said Monday that he would formally declare his intentions on Wednesday — Mr. Gingrich is presenting himself as a family man who has embraced Catholicism and found God, with his wife as a kind of character witness. Depending on one’s point of view, she is a reminder of his complicated past, or his secret political weapon.

Barely a sentence goes by without Mr. Gingrich uttering the words “Callista and I.” They are constantly together — at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, at conservative political conferences, at book signings and screenings of their documentary films. She is the voice on his audio books; her face is all over his 2012 Web site, where visitors can read “A Note from Newt & Callista.”

At Villanova University on a recent Thursday night, Mrs. Gingrich warmed up the audience for a showing of the couple’s movie about Pope John Paul II by signing books and DVDs in her left-handed curlicue. But when asked whether she is ready for the scrutiny a campaign would bring, she smiled tightly and grew silent.

Mr. Gingrich answered for her. “Seems to be,” he said, with uncharacteristic tentativeness. “We’ve talked about it for a year. It’s difficult.”

Mr. Gingrich is well aware that social conservatives are skeptical of him because he did not emphasize their issues in Congress, but also because of his two divorces and admission of infidelity. He has been meeting with religious leaders around the country to address their concerns.

What concerns could they possibly have? After all, didn't Jesus die on the cross so that Newt Gingrich could fuck whoever he wants? Isn't that what Gingrich means when he talks about his belief in a "forgiving God"? That HE's allowed to do whatever he wants to because a Jewish guy some two thousand and some-odd years ago went through unspeakable agony so he could do it?

Chuck Schumer needs to just STFU

Who needs Republican fearmongering when you have a grandstanding moron like Chuck "Where's the Camera?" Schumer:

A senator on Sunday called for a "no-ride list" for Amtrak trains after intelligence gleaned from the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound pointed to potential attacks on the nation's train system.

Sen. Charles Schumer said he would push as well for added funding for rail security and commuter and passenger train track inspections and more monitoring of stations nationwide.

"Circumstances demand we make adjustments by increasing funding to enhance rail safety and monitoring on commuter rail transit and screening who gets on Amtrak passenger trains, so that we can provide a greater level of security to the public," the New York Democrat said at a news conference.

U.S. officials last week said evidence found after the raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan indicated the al Qaeda leader or his associates had engaged in discussions or planning for a possible attack on a train inside the United States on September 11, 2011.

Schumer, citing U.S. intelligence analysts, said attacks were also considered on Christmas and New Year's Day and following the president's State of the Union address.

He called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to expand the Secure Flight monitoring program, which cross-checks air travelers with the terror watch list in an attempt to prevent anyone on the "no-fly list" from boarding, for use on Amtrak.

Such a procedure would create an Amtrak "no-ride list" to keep suspected terrorists off the U.S. rail system, he said.

What a fucking moron. Hasn't he ever seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?

Now, in fairness, Paul Newman and Robert Redford DID get on that train, not just put a bunch of dynamite on the tracks. But do you think a "no-ride" list would have stopped that train robbery? Hardly. And it wouldn't stop a terrorist from putting a piece of C4 explosive on a train track either. So what purpose exactly does Chuckie Cheese think a "no-ride list" would serve?

It's enough to drive a person mad. I have family in North Carolina, and I'm running out of ways to get there. I don't like to do a 10-hour drive alone in a car with eighty thousand miles on it. I don't like the idea of flying in a tin box piloted by someone who gets paid less than an assistant manager at Abercrombie & Fitch. Now if Chuck Schumer has his way we'll go through the same pointless bullshit at Penn Station that we do at the airports. So what's left? Greyhound buses?

And yet, I'm sure there are people out there, the same frothing morons out in God's country who have lived the last ten years terrified that Muslim terrorists are going to blow up the local Hardee's while they're in there enjoying a Monster Thickburger and a caramel crunch hand-scooped ice cream shake, who are going to be shown on the evening news saying, "Well, if it makes us safer....".

So what's next? Backscatter scans in order to pick up a bottle of White Citrus lotion at Bath and Body Works at the mall? Checkpoints at state borders on highways? Strip searches in order to pick up a venti skim vanilla latte at Starbucks at the Molly Pitcher Service Area? How far are we going to take this? And for God's sake, why is a fucking Democrat advocating this?

What Glenn Greenwald said:

So Al Qaeda breathes the word "trains" and Schumer jumps and demands the creation of a massive, expensive and oppressive new Security State program to keep thousands and thousands of people off trains.  The "no-fly" list has been nothing short of a Kafkaesque disaster: with thousands of people secretly placed on it without any explanation or real recourse, oftentimes causing them to be stranded in faraway places and unable to return home.

To replicate that for trains -- all because some documents mentioned them among thousands of other ideas Al Qaeda has undoubtedly considered over the years -- is hysteria and ludicrous over-reaction of the highest order. Trains can obviously be attacked without boarding them (indeed, these documents apparently discussed tampering with the rails, which wouldn't require boarding the trains at all). And if there's a "no-ride" list for Amtrak, why not for subways and buses, too? If Al Qaeda is found to have discussed targeting restaurants, will we have a no-eat list? If Al Qaeda is found to have discussed targeting large intersections or landmarks, will we have a no-walk list? How about a no-shop list in response to the targeting of malls?

But this, more or less, encapsulates the U.S. response to Terrorism since 9/11: the minute Al Qaeda utters a peep about anything, the political class collectively jumps to restrict our freedoms, empower the Government, and bankrupt ourselves in self-destructive pursuit of the ultimate illusion: Absolute Security. Al Qaeda has caused us to do more harm to ourselves than it could have ever dreamed of imposing on its own. And even in death, Osama bin Laden continues to serve as the pretext for all of this.

Word.

Why do they have such a need for hell?

Just in time for Easter to be over, Ross Douchebag over at the New York Times makes himself an almost-too-easy punching bag in an essay in which he laments the decline of belief in Hell.

In part, hell’s weakening grip on the religious imagination is a consequence of growing pluralism. Bell’s book begins with a provocative question: Are Christians required to believe that Gandhi is in hell for being Hindu? The mahatma is a distinctive case, but swap in “my Hindu/Jewish/Buddhist neighbor” for Gandhi, and you can see why many religious Americans find the idea of eternal punishment for wrong belief increasingly unpalatable.

But the more important factor in hell’s eclipse, perhaps, is a peculiar paradox of modernity. As our lives have grown longer and more comfortable, our sense of outrage at human suffering — its scope, and its apparent randomness — has grown sharper as well. The argument that a good deity couldn’t have made a world so rife with cruelty is a staple of atheist polemic, and every natural disaster inspires a round of soul-searching over how to reconcile with God’s omnipotence with human anguish.

These debates ensure that earthly infernos get all the press. Hell means the Holocaust, the suffering in Haiti, and all the ordinary “hellmouths” (in the novelist Norman Rush’s resonant phrase) that can open up beneath our feet. And if it’s hard for the modern mind to understand why a good God would allow such misery on a temporal scale, imagining one who allows eternal suffering seems not only offensive but absurd.

Doing away with hell, then, is a natural way for pastors and theologians to make their God seem more humane. The problem is that this move also threatens to make human life less fully human.

Atheists have license to scoff at damnation, but to believe in God and not in hell is ultimately to disbelieve in the reality of human choices. If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either. They’re like home runs or strikeouts in a children’s game where nobody’s keeping score.

I understand the need to feel that there's a reward for the tribulations we experience in life. Without the promise of goodies at the end of it all, it would have been difficult to do things like convert slaves to Christianity, but it's Douchebag's insistence that there be a Hell to go with Heaven that is so emblematic of the conservative mind.

I'm not necessarily an atheist, but I sure as hell don't believe in some Great White Alpha Male in the sky who micromanages people's lives, knocked up a girl and then told his son "I'm going to let them kill you so that 51-year-old John Ensign can screw around with his best friend's wife and then ask his parents for money to keep said best friend quiet," and who told Abraham to sacrifice his son to him and then just as the latter was about to do it, said "Kidding! Just wanted to see if you'd do it! Hahahahaha!" But I have about as strong a moral code as anyone I know. I would cite the Incident of the Bell Pepper at the Grand Union as evidence. I once found a bell pepper wedged in my shopping cart when I took it out to the parking lot. I found myself with three choices:

1) Put the pepper in my bag and go home;
2) Leave the pepper in the shopping cart;
3) Take the pepper back into the store and put it back;
4) Take the pepper back into the store and pay for it.

Almost everyone would agree that Option 1 would be the wrong thing to do, except those who believe that as long as I believed that Jesus died for my sins and that I was saved and forgiven, I could have taken the pepper, gone home, and had a clear conscience. It's arguable that option 2 might be a moral choice, because I wouldn't be taking something I didn't pay for. But the pepper would be out in the hot sun and wouldn't be saleable, which from the viewpoint of the store (if it were, say, a mom 'n' pop shop instead of a supermarket) is the same. To me, Options 3 and 4 were the only moral choices, so I took the pepper back into the store and paid for it.

It wasn't God who made me do it. It wasn't some Jewish guy getting nailed to a tree that allowed me to do it. It's simply being able to tell what is right and what is wrong.

Douchebag's insistence that "If there’s no possibility of saying no to paradise then none of our no’s have any real meaning either" may be the most profoundly twisted thing I've ever read. Are we simply infants who respond only to carrot or stick? Maybe Ross Douthat needs to have the threat of punishment hanging over his head to keep HIM on the straight and narrow (and given some of his columns, it wouldn't surprise me, as you can see from this Tbogg compendium of Doutiana), but some of us are capable of making moral choices on our own.

And that's what infuriates culture war conservatives, isn't it? This idea that someone might actually be able to navigate a path through life that involves honesty, hard work, fidelity, and truth, for its own sake rather than because of some punitive parent figure we conjure up who also offers unconditional forgiveness? What are we, five-year-olds?

It certainly explains their insistence on implementing laws to keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow -- because they can't do it without the threat of punishment, and the simply cannot understand how some of us can -- and do, every day.

Pap Smears at Applebee's

It isn't so much that I want to write about the fact that the biggest pair of doofuses ever to appear on a cable TV show (and I'm including Snooki and JWoWW in that consideration too) think that you can get pap smears at Walgreen's. It's just that I can't pass up the opportunity to point out the latest example of right-wing idiocy when it also provides the opportunity to once again flog David Brooks for his "salad bar at Applebee's" observation about how Barack Obama can't relate to "the common man" as well as a pundit who deludes himself that he has a brain in his head.

And I think "Pap Smears at Applebee's" would be the greatest name for a rock band since the Fountains of Wayne were left orphaned by the closing of, well, The Fountains of Wayne.

If YOU decide to name your band "Pap Smears at Applebee's", please e-mail me a link to your YouTube video and I'll post it. But until then, here are the Fountains of Wayne:

What's next, a ban on kosher food?

There are many Jews in this country who live according to Jewish law. There are restaurants in Teaneck, New Jersey where you can't order a steak sitting alongside other restaurants where you can't get a glass of milk. In Paramus, New Jersey, you see people walking home from synagogue on Shabbos, because they are not permitted to drive. In Tenafly, there was recently a big foofarah over an eruv, which the town finally allowed to stay in place. The eruv is simply plastic markers on telephone poles. Observant Jewish couples who divorce have an extra step required to dissolve the marriage, one which can only be granted by the husband.

Except for the concept of the get, which is alien to most people, the observance of Jewish law usually goes unnoticed by most people. Even in Tenafly, the markings of the eruv are simply more crap on a telephone for most people. You do not see conservative legislators crying out for a ban on the practice of Jewish law.

And yet, if you are Muslim in this country, and you practice sharia law (which was intended only for Muslims anyway), you are fair game for the scoring of cheap political points:

Sharia law is quickly becoming a hot-button topic on the campaign trial, as conservatives debate the role of Islam in the United States and the conservative movement. The exact mechanics of how sharia, or Islamic jurisprudence, is threatening the United States are unclear, but some conservatives point to cases in New Jersey and Florida that they say underscores the need for a blanket ban on using foreign law in the United States.

The issue resonates with many GOP primary voters and legislators in the early primary state of South Carolina is considering a ban on sharia law that might force some more 2012 contenders engage on the issue. We've rounded up how the various 2012 candidates have positioned themselves on the issue so far.

You can read what this parade of morons thinks here.

Do any of these people even know what's IN sharia law? Because what they're talking about could by extension be applied to any kind of religious practice -- including the keeping of a kosher home.

About fifteen years ago I worked with someone who was a Catholic Latino. He once asked me, "We have the Ten Commandments. What laws do you Jews have?" He was absolutely serious.

How do you answer a question like that?

The only way you can to that level of ignorance: "We eat Christian babies on Shabbos, what do you think we have?"

And this year's winner of the Clarence Thomas I Got Mine And F*ck You Award goes to...

Current Washington press corps blowjob recipient and Eddie Munster clone Paul Ryan, whose college education you and I paid for -- a benefit he can't wait to deny others:

One day as a 16 year old, Ryan came upon the lifeless body of his father. Paul Ryan, Sr. had died of a heart attack at age 55, leaving the Janesville Craig High School 10th grader, his three older brothers and sisters and his mother alone. It was Paul who told the family of his father’s death.

With his father’s passing, young Paul collected Social Security benefits until age 18, which he put away for college. To make ends meet, Paul’s mother returned to school to study interior design. His siblings were off at college. Ryan remembers this difficult time bringing him and his mother closer.

(via)

Hey, don't feel so bad about it. You think you got problems? James O'Keefe went to high school on my property taxes.

The company they keep

Republican media darling du jour (because the bar has become so low that any Republican who isn't batshit crazy or a Mormon can be a media darling) Tim Pawlenty has some 'splainin' to do about the people he hires:

ANKENY, Iowa -- A 15-year-old girl found a campaign worker from Alabama banging on her Ankeny family's back door early Wednesday morning.

Chloe Steward told KCCI she heard her dog barking around 3 a.m. and went to investigate. She said she found a man trying to get into the back door...

"His arm was in my back door, trying to get in and I screamed and went upstairs to my parents room and I continued screaming," said Chloe Steward. “He shoved his arm in here and kept touching the wall, looking for something. I don’t know what he was looking for."

Dad grabbed his gun from a safe and went downstairs.

“The guy was still trying to come in when my husband had a gun on him. My husband must have realized that something is not right – he’s drunk of something,” said Stacey Steward, Chloe’s mother.

Stacey called 911.

“My husband has a gun on him,” Stacey told the dispatcher.

“Your husband has a gun on him?” asked the dispatcher.

“Yeah, my husband’s in our house because he freaked out our daughter. My daughter came upstairs streaming because the guy’s at the back door trying to get into my house,” Stacey told the dispatcher.

Stacey’s husband held Foster at gunpoint until police arrived.

“He kept telling my husband, ‘I’m trying to find Johnson, Johnson.’ He kept saying Johnson. Well, I find out he’s trying to get to Johnston (the town,” said Stacey. “He was so drunk, he thought he was at his friend’s house – is what he told officers.”

Foster isn't just an over-the-transom volunteer, he's a paid staffer. The article doesn't say if Foster is an evangelical Christian. If he is, then it's all good. After all, that would mean that Jesus went through unspeakable torture so that Ben Foster (not the amazing actor Ben Foster, but a chump with the same name) could get so shitfaced that he doesn't know where he is.

But even if he isn't, he doesn't have to worry. Because Foster is only 24, which means that when he runs for Congress himself in five years on a platform of moral restraint, he can call his youthful indiscretion a youthful indiscretion and not sound utterly ridiculous doing it.

(via)

What about the poor people who elected you, moron?

From ThinkProgress:

Last week, Rep. Rob Woodall held a tele-town hall meeting with his constituents, allowing them to call in and ask questions. At one point, a constituent called in and challenged Woodall’s belief that all we need is spending cuts to move towards a more balanced budget. The caller pointed out that closing corporate tax loopholes on big companies like Exxon Mobil — which paid zero federal corporate income taxes in 2009 — and Google, which only paid a 4.2 percent rate in taxes, would do a lot to help balance the budget as well.

Woodall replied by saying he’s “not a fan of class warfare” and that the only people who’ve ever employed him are rich people. He then went on to say that corporate taxes are really taxes on the customers of these companies and that we need to get “corporate taxes as low as we can in this country”:

CALLER: I have a quick comment and then a question. I certainly agree with moving towards a balanced budget, and containing costs, and cutting where we can, including the Defense Department, which I think is terribly bloated, but I just don’t think it’s feasible to balance the budget with cuts alone. I think you’ve got to also include income and place a fair tax on the wealthiest two percent and closing corporate loopholes that allow huge corporations like Exxon to pay no taxes. For example, Google earned eleven billion dollars last year overseas and paid 4.2 percent in taxes. So I think a fair tax on the wealthy and those who can chip in a little more has to be part of the bigger picture.

WOODALL: Bill, I absolutely agree with you that we can’t do it on spending cuts alone. [...] Now you talk about raising taxes. Now I’m not a fan of class warfare. Now the only people who’ve given me a job in my life is rich people. I’ve never had a poor man offer me a job. [...] At the end of the day, it’s going to be one of us, individuals, that pays every nickel in corporate taxes. I want use to get corporate taxes as low as we can in this country. Which means businesses don’t want to be here, they don’t want to provide jobs here. [...] We have to attract new businesses to our shores, the way to do that is with the lowest corporate tax rate we can get, to make sure folks want to come here.

This guy has clearly forgotten that he is supposed to now be a "public servant", which means that he is an employee of the people of his district. I'm sure some of those people are poor. Now, is he saying that rich people gave him his current job as a legislator? If so, is he saying that they bought him a Congressional seat and that he is a bought and paid for Congressman?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Making Taxpayers for Christ

In the World According to Man-On-Dog, if it weren't for all them dirty sluts not doing their part of the American tax structure, there'd be no problems with Social Security revenues today:

WASHINGTON – Long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said Tuesday that America's "abortion culture" is harming Social Security, reviving an ages-old argument largely confined to the fringe.

"The Social Security system, in my opinion, is a flawed design, period," Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told the New Hampshire station WEZS Radio. "But having said that, the design would work a lot better if we had stable demographic trends."

The problem, Santorum explained, is that "we don't have enough workers to support the retirees," because "a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 22 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.

"We have seven children, so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system," Santourm said.

In the long-run, of course, the boon to Social Security from more young people at any given time will be offset by the benefits they collect upon retirement, so the logic that that abortion is a drag on the program is contentious at best.

Yet the notion isn't new -- it's been around for many years, floated mostly by dogged social conservatives gifted at developing theories to blame abortion for just about every one of the nation's woes.

Perhaps someone should ask Santorum where the jobs are at which all those aborted babies would work to pay into the system, when there are fourteen million unemployed Americans today as it is.

Time to stop giving your eyeballs to Huffington Post

I suppose we should have known, given how effortlessly Arianna Huffington went from being a right-wing conservative to being a liberal. We thought it was the persuasive powers of Al Franken, from the "Strange Bedfellows" bit that they did on the old Craig Kilborn-helmed Daily Show. But no, it was just opportunism.

From Veracity Stew:

Bloggers have been coming and going very rapidly over at Huffington Post since Arianna Huffington sold out to AOL last month. There has been mounting speculation about the death of the once liberal-leaning HuffPo in light of editorial changes. Well, we can now confirm that the old HuffPo is dead and something hideous is sprouting in its place. We know this because of the revelation today that right-wing extremist Andrew Breitbart is now blogging for Huffington.

And what has Breitbart chosen to write about in is premiere post? His friend James O’Keefe.

The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.

Yes, folks -- this is what HuffPo has come to -- giving Andrew Breitbart a podium to defend a sniveling little rat-faced git who ought to right now be a prison bitch for a 350-pound mass murderer.

I vowed to stop linking to HuffPo when it was sold to AOL. Now I refuse to even read it.

(via Melina)