The Evil Petting Zoo

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

This is it. Clear, simple, concise. The President of the United States- the man whose job it is to ensure that the Constitution remains intact, whose job it is to see that the system of checks and balances are carried out- has repeatedly violated the balance of power time and time and time again. He is such a coward that he won't even risk a single challenge on his bills, adding little footnotes to bills that give him powers that there's no fucking way Congress will approve.

He can't even be a proper tyrant, can he?

Holy fuck. Stephen Colbert just rips into the Administration, and of course Bush isn't pleased.

It's gotten to the point where we need a comedian to directly address what journalists won't. Kudos to your cojones, Mr. Colbert.

Okay, so, Mexico has made it so that carrying small amounts of pot, cocaine and heroin is no longer a crime, as long as those amounts are for personal use.

While I'm glad to see someone's finally realized that the idea of a war on all drugs (and with the Bush administration's obsession with pot, our War on Drugs may turn into a war of attrition) is just plain stupid, I can't say I approve of the legalization of horse. Still, I'll just wait to see how this all turns out.

If this account is true, then Ann Coulter has lost her fucking mind.

The protesting from the balcony only increased with time with shouts of "ANN IS A RACIST" to even an immature, yet mildly amusing, call for "Show us your tits."

Ann addressed her supporters in the crowd with this statement. "You're men. You're heterosexuals. Take 'em out." She chided them further when they did not rise. Before you knew it there was about 25 students marching to the balcony to supposedly "take out" the protestors above. I saw a priest holding students back and deans and security warning the students to go back to their seats.

I... if this is true... this goes beyond racial slurs and direct insults to people who ask her questions. Ann Coulter incited violence. She was paid $24000 dollars to give a speech at a college, and she told her "fans" to attack people who were exercising their First Amendment right.

While I don't like the fact that people like Ann Coulter are treated like a valid political voice in today's America, I'm sure as fuck glad she isn't running for office.

So, they're showing Law and Order: SVU... on the Sci-Fi Channel. I say we quarantine MSNBC and CNBC before it spreads to there, too.

Seriously, Sci-Fi. You cancelled MST3K for this and Mansquito?

FDA official: Plan B will lead to teen sex cults.

I only fucking wish I was joking.

In the memo released by the FDA during the discovery process, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As an example, she stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."

Yes, I'm sure we all remember the fervent sex worship that came around when Griswold v. Connecticut was handed down. Aphroditics going door to door, offering "free samples." Ishtar herself coming down from the heavens, only to make a bad movie. Discordia herself getting in on the action, because that's what she does.

Oh, wait. None of that happened, did it?

One day, I want to write, or at least play in, a RPG that follows the design of the world that the religious right thinks exist. Children's books and D&D give you real occult power, demons cause mental illness, and teenage girls do hold secret rites for the goddess Contraceptive. It would be like Unknown Armies, only really, really fucking depressing.

What the blazing fuck?

Reinhardt substantiates his claim that homosexuals are a persecuted minority, in part, by pointing to Hollywood's Brokeback Mountain and The Matthew Shepard Story - two works of fiction. (emphasis mine)

That, folks, was Tony "Not the Weird Crossdressing Motel Owner... Or Is He?" Perkins of the Family Research Council, making a very big mistake. At least, that's what I fucking hope it was.

Tomorrow is the National Day of Silence, meant to draw awareness for GLBT individuals. By staying silent, we mean to raise awareness about bullying, discrimination, and harrassment.

And of course, there's the Day of Truth, which is meant to shit all over that. Note to the religious right: We are not doing the Day of Silence so that we can put forward the idea of gay marriage, or gay adoption, or anything that big. We are doing it because we don't like being assaulted, beaten up, or harrassed because we are gay. It's that simple. It is not part of "the homosexual agenda," but part of the expectations every child has when they go to school, or every adult has when walking down the street.

Then again, this is still probably too much for some members of the religious right. To which I say, fuck them sideways.

And not in a pleasant way if state representative Ralph Davenport of South Carolina gets his way.

This is a bill that makes sex toys a felony. Not a misdemeanor, but a felony. As in, the same legal category as arson or rape.

Again, kids; it's never about promiscuity, or life, or any of the things people like Davenport say. It's all about making sure that everyone conforms to their view of the world, or gets punished heavily.

My, this is certainly fair and balanced (ganked from Shakespeare's Sister). Going from cannibal child murderers LiveJournals to sex on MySpace (seriously, people; we know that there's sex on MySpace. The only way you can shock us now is to talk about anything else on MySpace that's not related to sex), and those foul, filty commenters on leftist blogs. Of course, I notice that in his cavalcade of filth, Henninger has left out the intimidations enablers and death celebrants on the right. I wonder why.

Henninger doesn't like the language of the blogosphere and thinks we'll all dragging the culture down? Well, then, Henninger, I politely ask you, like a gentleman would, to take this opinion and gently put it in the place that Helios does not alight with his rays.

So, Hu Jintao visited the White House yesterday to discuss trade with Bush. He got all the pomp and pageantry that one would expect the leader of a regime that shits all over civil liberties to receive*. For God's sake, governmental censorship is so bad in China that many people there don't even know the Tiananmen Square massacre even happened.

So, one woman, Wenyi Wang, stood up during the showmanship and yelled about mistreatment of the Falun Gong, a religious group in China that is often arrested for "dissident" activities and, it is rumored, tortured. So, what does Bush do?

Once they reached the Oval Office, Bush apologized to his guest.

"He just said this was unfortunate and I'm sorry it happened," said Dennis Wilder, acting senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council staff.

Hu was gracious in accepting Bush's apology, Wilder said.

"So, uh, why don't you politely ignore the woman who's telling it like it is, and we can get back on to our big important deal?"

And as for Wang?

The Secret Service identified the protester as Wenyi Wang, 47. Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said she had been charged with disorderly conduct and that a charge of intimidating or disrupting foreign officials also was being considered.

I know that, to truly interact in a global economy, we must sometimes interact with unpleasant people. I am not naive. But for fuck's sake, can we stop pretending like they're our bestest friends in the whole wide world?

*Remember, people; unless they're in any way overtly hostile to us, repressive regimes are our friends.

And with that, Scott McClellan abandons the White House, and sets about for a long soak to rid himself of the scent of bullshit. I'm telling you, "point man/excuse maker for Bush" has to be one of the most thankless jobs on Earth, right next to "guy who cleans up police horses' crap."

Well, there's going to need to be a new sacrificial lamb to the media, and it looks like FOX News reporter Tony Snow might be one of the top options. Way to eliminate the middle man, Bush.

Can anyone tell me why Howard Stern has been shunted to satellite radio while Michael Savage still has corporate support to talk about genocide?

Oh, right. Because Michael Savage doesn't use curse words when talking about utterly repellent concepts.

All right. If you have ever considered taking your daughter to a Father-Daughter Purity Ball, then get some fucking help. Talk to a psychologist, talk to Dr. Ruth, or just grab the latest copies of Playboy and lock yourself in the bathroom. Because that shit is not normal.

I mean, read this shit:

"How can you measure the value of your eleven year old looking up into your eyes (as you clumsily learn the fox-trot together) with innocent, uncontainable joy, saying, 'Daddy, I'm so excited!' wrote Wesley Tullis in a letter describing his grateful participation.

Mind you, in return for spending the day with daddy and getting to dress up all pretty, the little girl has to read something like this:

I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.

People, if you want your little girl to make any promises about making sure some boy does not put his hoo-hoo-dilly in her cha-cha until she has a ring on her finger, then do it in private. Make it a personal conversation, one where you communicate your wishes for her and allow her the chance to respond. Do not, for the love of God, turn it into some sort of public spectacle that (as if this needed to be creepier) takes on the airs of the wedding and aims to paint your little girl as prime candidate for volcano sacrifice.

Pam says it best with regards to the gay families at the White House Easter Egg Roll. You'd really think people whose primary concern is to protect children from sexual degredations wouldn't be holding up giant signs with "SEX" printed on them in clear view of an event attended by hundreds of children. Then again, that actually requires logic.

It must be nice to be able to apply an universal truth only to certain conditions, sweeping away all things that clash with your pretty little view of the world. Even if it means threats to the safety of others.

Michelle Malkin, imperator of American safety from those evil brown people, responded to student protests against military recruiters at UC Santa Cruz by posting the contact addresses of the organizers of the protest. This led to death threats. Lots of death threats. When the organizers contacted Malkin, asking her to take down the information, she said that they were "whining" and reposted the info.

Now, you'd think that Michelle Malkin, of all people, would understand about wanting to protect one's own emotional safety, as well as feel that their life is not in danger by people that they've never even met. After all, she often talks about the e-mails in her inbox that use horribly offensive terms for Asian Americans to describe her. I wonder why she isn't applying the same reasoning to the plight of the UC Santa Cruz students.

Oh, wait. I know why. Because she doesn't like them. Because to people like Malkin, the people that you don't like are the ones who should be singled out for abuse. This is why the liberal wing of the Democratic Party can be said to be full of "moonbats" based on the replies by commentators at a few liberal blogs, as opposed to respectable right-wing radio hosts who talk about choking Michael Moore to death and jailing employees of Air America. This is why the Japanese-American internment is a good foundation for modern racial profiling, even though she would probably be arrested and have her property taken away for merely looking Asian.

And this is why it's horrible if she's personally attacked through her inbox, but perfectly okay if she perpetuates similar abuse against other people who are just expressing an opinion, just like her.

Malkin is a victim of racism; I am not devaluing that. But you would think that someone who really cares about how a victim of anonymous intimidation feels, beyond the need for cheap blogosphere street cred, would think twice before calling someone a "whiner" for wanting her to do what she could to make sure they don't get so many threats against their lives.

They sang what? (Ganked from ThinkProgress.)

“Our country’s stood beside us
People have sent us aid.
Katrina could not stop us, our hopes will never fade.
Congress, Bush and FEMA
People across our land
Together have come to rebuild us and we join them hand-in-hand!”

Well, at least even after the American public and the press corps have excoriated you for horribly fucking things up, probably leaving New Orleans to fend for itself should Katrina happen again, having your own appointed officials tear into each other to find someone to pass the buck to, and having a video come out that shows that you were very well aware that things would likely go horribly, horribly wrong, you can have pastels-wearing, easily-brainwashed kids tell you how you did everything right.

Remember the Tyco scandal? One of the more salacious details of the spending was that Dennis Kozlowski had spent stockbroker money on a party for his wife that contained, among other things, an ice sculpture of Michaelangelo's David that pissed vodka. It showed such a fundamental disconnect between not only good taste and bad, but also between what Tyco's employees deserved and his Kozlowski thought he did.

We're seeing it again in the oil business. Gas prices are climbing; while not as bad as the $5 per gallon they were predicted to hit right after Katrina, there's a good chance people will be paying at least $3 per gallon this summer. And what is Exxon Mobil doing about this price hike?

Why, fucking celebrating, of course. They've given executive Lee Raymond a retirement package totalling nearly $400 million in cash and prizes. I believe in honoring those who have accomplished big things, but for people to say, "We're all in this together," then give their friends exorbitant benefits packages while the middle classes pay almost $60 for a full tank of gas speaks to a true divorce of values.

I hope big oil either gets its act together quickly, or Congress makes them get their act together. And if not, well, then I can only express the wish that a poster on a message board long ago whose husband lost her job at Tyco made concering the fate of Kozlowski: "May your own penis forever produce vodka. Chunky, jalapeno-flavored vodka."

The Stranger, Seattle's premier alt-weekly, is reporting on the latest twist in the moralist pharmacist fiasco. Pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for women for things as simple as vitamins and antibiotics. Why? Because they found out the women went to a women's health provider that provides abortion.

This isn't about "life" anymore. This isn't about stepping in to stop what you think is the death of a potential baby by not dealing out Plan B or birth control pills. This is about punishing someone who did something you disagree with. This is about not giving a person the drugs they need, not to stop a pregnancy or make sure they never get pregnant in the first place, but to make sure that they don't get infected after the pregnancy has been terminated.

If you believe in this shit, then you should be waving a sign at a clinic. You should not be behind the counter of a pharmacy.

AT&T loves Big Brother.

Then again, who isn't willing to sell out their fellow Americans' civil liberties for government bucks?

Click. Dial toooone...

The Washington Post had a cover story yesterday about how Bush pushed the lie that they'd found trailers that could be used as mobile chemical labs even though U.S. intelligence had concluced two days before that that was full of shit.

Over 2000 American deaths. An economy in the shitter. A meaningless war that had no means of stabilizing a power vacuum. The blatant violation of people's civil rights. Hopefully, this will finally be enough to put an end to it all.

Of course, as usual, the White House is having an allergic reaction to the truth. The latest spin is that Bush didn't know the truth when he made the statement. Which may be worse than outright fabrication, given everything that has happened since.

Remember what I said about fanatics? That one of the innate traits of fanatics is that they lack the innate ability to take a step back, look at what they are saying, and think, "Wait, are we framing this the right way?"

Well, here's a key example of fanaticism in action. Let's start with the opening sentence of this LA Times article:

Ruth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.

There. "The right to be intolerant." Not "the right to express her opinion." Not "the right to stand up for her religious beliefs." But "the right to be intolerant." At that point, any normal person would look at what's gone on, say, "Well, we screwed the pooch," and go back to finding a kinder, gentler means of getting their point across.

But not a fanatic.

With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical, frames the movement as the civil rights struggle of the 21st century. "Christians," he said, "are going to have to take a stand for the right to be Christian."

Hmm, let's see: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the vast majority of people in this country are Christians, and every single president has been some sort of Christian or another.

People have the right to be Christian. What they don't have the right to be is a person who believes it is their righteous duty on Earth to treat people of a certain subclass like they are shit on a stick. While I may disagree on the "all organizations must have gay people" point, fanatics like Scarborough don't want to stop there. As the list above mentions, they target programs that teach people that gays are just like everyone else, and not disease-ridden child molesters.

Still. Let's not stop there. Let's see what other fanatics have to say about codified protection of gayness:

Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different — a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

This particular meme has mounting evidence against its veritability, but let's examine it as if it is true. That's right, Baylor. Homosexuality is a lifestyle chocie- just as much as religion. If you argue that a Christian has a right to exist in this country and not be "prosecuted" because of their choice of faith, like Scarborough, then you're a hypocrite if you say gays should be specifically targeted for their "choice."

But, hey. Let's not leave Baylor just yet. I wonder what else he has to say about this matter:

"Think how marginalized racists are," said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "If we don't address this now, it will only get worse."

"Think how marginalized racists are."

That's it. This argument, from a PR standpoint, is dead. It's deceased. No more. Tits up. Kicked the bucket. Singing with the choir invisible. This is an ex-argument.

As some wise man once said: "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." There is nothing wrong with being a Christian in this country. There will be nothing wrong with being a Christian in this country for its continued existence, unless we are taken over by al Qaeda or, far more likely at this point, Communists. What there is a problem with, however, is the idea that just because you follow a certain system of beliefs, you have the right to shit all over everyone else who does not follow that same pattern of beliefs. And you don't. You didn't when you were the Nativists, arguing that we shouldn't let people of other nationalities into our land of opportunity. You didn't when you were the Dixiecrats, arguing that America had a fundamental right to keep blacks and whites separate and unequal.

And you don't when you're the kind of fundamentalist Christian that Malhotra and her band of merry idiots are, arguing that you have a right to a state-supported platform for your disgust of gay people.

It's official. The Washington Post, the newspaper that, once upon a time, brought down a crooked presidency, has officially whored itself to the current regime.

The editorial basically says that Bush and Cheney were right to expose Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, and that Joe Wilson is obviously telling lies. Jane at Firedoglake manages to rip this little supposition apart, using mighty things we call "news" and "facts." Of course, after the whole Domenech scandal, I doubt anyone at the Post really cares about facts anymore.

I never thought I'd see the day when the paper of Woodward and Bernstein would stoop to the level of The National Review. Such a fucking disgrace.

"The Dalai Lama is eeeeeevil!"

That is all.

Or, further proof that John McCain really has no fucking clue how America works.

At a speech in front of the AFL-CIO, McCain busted out the following reasoning behind his illegal immigration proposal:

But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain's job offer.

"I'll take it!" one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. "You can't do it, my friends."

Let's see: assuming that conditions haven't changed much since Frontline's 1990 piece "New Harvest, Old Shame" (and really, have they?), the average migrant worker works a day stretching anywhere between 10 to 12 hours. Why don't we go for 10, since that's more reasonable. At $50 per hour, this would equal $500 a day, $2500 a week, and $10,000 a month. Let's say that a migrant family is only able to make three "seasons" a year. That is still $30,000 a year. And this is only for one person working, which is obviously not how migrant families work. Usually, many members are working at the same crop, bringing in multiple sources of income. With three people working in the fields (let's say mother, father, and oldest son), that's about $90,000 per year-- enough to make many "well off" families salivate.

And yet, migrant workers don't get $50 per hour. They get cents- dollars, if they're lucky- for every bucket of crops harvested. A family of three can just barely subsist on the migrant lifestyle, getting enough to not be starving in the streets but not to match up with any concept of the American dream we have. If we did offer $50 per year to migrant workers, things would be a lot fucking better in this country.

McCain has no fucking idea what people will do for money in this country. "You couldn't do it"? Fuck, if there was a chance for me to take a summer job that paid $50 per hour, you can bet I'd do everything I could to get it. How can we have any sort of change for people who can't even get by on minimum wage when our candidates don't think people will take jobs in manual labor that pay annual salaries equal to those earned by people in middle management?

Brian J. Doyle, the guy at Homeland Security who's basically the media's face man, has been arrested for soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl.

A pedophile, a shoplifter, and a bigamist. Then again, when the ringleader is a despot, I can't really expect much else.

EDIT: It gets worse. Another senior DHS official, Frank Figueroa, was arrested a few months ago on accusations of masturbating in front of a sixteen-year-old girl in a mall. Frank Figueroa was the head of Operation Predator, the branch of the DHS dedicated to stopping sex crimes against children. These are the people we're supposed to trust?

As a heterosexual man who once engaged in homosexual behavior for 11 years, I’ve lost numerous dear friends to AIDS. While recent news in the search for a cure for AIDS is promising, I believe this possible HIV prevention pill is only going to push a culture down an already dangerous and risky path. This pill is the equivalent to a drug rehab assisting heroine addicts in their addiction by giving them needles. What is wrong with this picture? Why can’t these intelligent scientists and doctors understand we need to educate people on abandoning their risky, unsafe sexual practices and behavior–not give them a pill to enable and encourage them?- Stephen Bennett, "ex"-gay

...for the love of God, I was joking when I said that anti-sex conservatives blocking an AIDS vaccine would be the next step after blocking a cervical cancer vaccine. But it's true. Here we have a pill that could possibly stop the worst virus the world has ever known. Here we have a pill that could not only protect gay men, but straight men, straight women, gay women, white people, black people, and, oh yeah, the entire fucking population of sub-Saharan Africa. Here we have a pill that would mean that people wouldn't catch a virus that would force them to pay out the ass for an extensive and taxing regimen of drugs that will only stave off the inevitable.

And there are people saying that this isn't a good idea. Why? Because it leads to that dirty, dirty sex.

The megalomania and downright sociopathy of some conservatives still fucking amazes me.

A scaffolding collapse killed three people right by my college. Which meant that everyone was abuzz. In the aftermath of it all, one of my suitemates got interviewed by every major news station in Boston, a friend of mine sold her photos of the accident site to the Globe, and all the school newspaper reporters were gathering around to chase down the construction company.

Life at a comm school, people.

So, let's say you're a journalist in Iraq. In trying to get a story, you've done what few other journalists have- that is, blend in with the locals by learning their language and adopting their style of dress. In the course of your investigation, you are kidnapped and held hostage for months by men who have a reputation for going all French Revolution on American journalists. But you do not lose your cool. Although you are forced to denounce the very nation you stand for on tape, although one of your colleagues is killed in your presence, although the date of your possible execution is dangled in front of you like a poisoned carrot on a stick, you maintain your composure. You do what you have to do to stay alive, fooling your captors into thinking they have power over you. As a result, you survive, and are released back into the loving arms of your home nation.

Now, let's say that, when you got home, you found that people were talking about you turning into a suicide bomber and bearing your captor's baby, or saying you had Stockholm Syndrome. How would you go after them: with a hatchet, or a chainsaw?

These fuckers stand in their ivory towers and talk about war like they've seen it face to face. And when someone who's actually seen the horrors of war comes home and doesn't act exactly as they want her to, they throw her in the trash. You are some real fucking patriots, douchenozzles.