So, what's changed between now and then?

So, here's how the GOP works.

(April 22, 2004)
(Peter G. Peterson, chairman, Council on Foreign Relations): Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it's a hypothetical, but it's at least possible.

(Sen. John) McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.

Seems pretty clear, right?

OK, so let's scoot forward to last year.

(December 28, 2010)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: "The withdrawal of forces agreement expires on Dec. 31, 2011. The last American soldier will leave Iraq."

(Technically, that's actually a "Status of Forces Agreement," but it's not like English is his first language, right?)

So, obviously, McCain knows what should happen next, right?

(Oct 21, 2011)
"Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world," McCain said in a statement Friday afternoon. "I respectfully disagree with the President: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

McCain said the decision is "a consequential failure of both the Obama Administration - which has been more focused on withdrawing from Iraq than succeeding in Iraq since it came into office - as well as the Iraqi government."

Funny how that works, isn't it?

"Support the troops"? What's that mean?

In 1983, I joined the Air Force because of the educational benefits (and, yeah, because I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at the time); I'd only planned to stay in for one tour. By the time that tour was up, though, I had a wife and two kids, and having a good health plan seemed like the way to go. So I reenlisted.

My second tour ended and I still had the wife, but now I had three kids. Staying in seemed like a much better idea. And by the time that enlistment ended, I had been in the military twelve years - over halfway to retirement.

The military pays the troops less than they would get doing the same job in the civilian world. If it hadn't been for the benefits, there isn't a chance in hell that I would have stayed in, and my attitude wasn't unique. It's almost universal among the enlisted members. (There are some rare exceptions, of course, and officers may be a different story - they're paid significantly more money than the grunts.) If you cut the benefits, your all-volunteer military is going to collapse.

So, what the hell is going on here?

Republicans and Democrats alike are signaling a willingness — unheard of at the height of two post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — to make military retirees pay more for coverage. It's a reflection of Washington's newfound embrace of fiscal austerity and the Pentagon's push to cut health care costs that have skyrocketed from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion.

The numbers are daunting for a military focused on building and arming an all-volunteer force for war. The Pentagon is providing health care coverage for 3.3 million active duty personnel and their dependents and 5.5 million retirees, eligible dependents and surviving spouses. Retirees outnumber the active duty, 2.3 million to 1.4 million.

And some changes are already happening.

We pay a little more to get the Trophy Wife's prescriptions from Walgreens. They'd be free if I got them from the base hospital, but my wife works with Opera Unlimited, travelling across New Mexico to help music programs in elementary schools. If she is 500 miles away, and runs out of, say, Zetia (a heart medication) or Losartin/HCTZ (for blood pressure), Walgreens will get her an emergency supply to hold her over until she gets back to Albuquerque: their database clearly shows what she's taking and how often, and every Walgreens in the country can pull that information up.

But that's apparently going to change in January, because Walgreens and Express Scripts are locked in a contract dispute which may prevent Walgreens from handling prescriptions for Tricare, the Defense Department plan managed by Express Scripts.

But that's just an inconvenience. Thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan, we're getting more injured veterans pouring into the system than we have since Vietnam. And despite the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, they haven't been getting the help they need for years.

Plus, thanks to advances in both military and medical technology, more soldiers are surviving worse wounds than ever before. So, not only do they need more medical care, but their needs are only going to get worse as they get older.

The Pentagon estimates that as many as one in five soldiers are coming home from war zones with traumatic brain injuries, and current studies show that studies show that even a slight trauma to the brain doubles your chance of developing dementia later in life, meaning that many will need around-the-clock care.

Assuming that they can get any help at all.

Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq -- by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

In a little-noticed regulation change in March, the military's definition of combat-related disabilities was narrowed, costing some injured veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits -- and triggering outrage from veterans' advocacy groups.

But we have to cut expenses, right? We have to decrease spending somewhere, and defense spending is one of the larger chunks of the federal budget.

Well, funny you should mention that.

The 2012 military budget includes 134 billion dollars for equipment, but also includes almost 81 billion dollars in research for new weapons systems. You know, I think we kill people well enough already; ask the Iraqi people. (You know, the ones who are left...)

But how much good is that 81 billion dollars doing us, anyway?

Despite improvements, more than half of the Pentagon’s big weapons systems still cost more than they should, with management failures adding at least $70 billion to the projected costs over the last two years, government auditors said Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office, a Congressional watchdog, said the biggest program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, accounted for $28 billion of that increase. Other systems also had significant cost overruns, the agency said, adding that the increases could force the Pentagon to cut the number of ships and planes it buys.

The auditors said many of the problems occurred because the Pentagon began building the systems before the designs were fully tested.

In August of this year, Congress finished a comprehensive look at spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended.
[...]
The commission said calculating the exact amount lost through waste and fraud is difficult because there is no commonly accepted methodology for doing so. But using information it has gathered over the past three years, the commission said at least $31 billion has been lost and the total could be as high as $60 billion. The commission called the estimate "conservative."

But that's OK. That's only the money we've lost in foreign countries.

How often does the Pentagon award contracts to defense companies that have already been proven to be defrauding taxpayers? A report the Department of Defense did at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reveals an answer that should make Washington very uncomfortable.

The report, released today, showed that hundreds of defense contractors found guilty of civil fraud received more than $1.1 trillion in defense contracts since 2001. The study took into account only companies that were found to have defrauded taxpayers of more than $1 million dollars.

More than $573 billion went directly to companies that were guilty of defrauding taxpayers, and when you factor in the awards that went to the parent companies of those contractors, the total is $1.1 trillion. Of that $573 billion, more than two-thirds—$398 billion—went to companies after they had been found guilty of fraud.

So maybe there's a few places out there where we can save money.

But as to the veterans, it's simple morality.

We have an all-volunteer military, but it goes both ways. When they sign on, they put, not just their lives, but their bodies, in harm's way. And if these brave men and women get hurt fighting for their country, we have an obligation to take care of them. For the rest of their lives, if necessary.

If you don't want to pay for wounded veterans, there's only one answer: stop making them. Stop sending soldiers to distant countries, where they risk their lives for some political agenda.

You don't get a choice on this. If you're going to play, you've got to pay; if you don't like it, get out of the game.

Staying on my coworker's good side

So, I'm sitting at work, and Jan, one of the women in our department, reads one of her emails and groans. Just to make conversation, I ask what's up, and she tells me "I'm mad at my husband now."

He'd just sent her one of those idiot jokes that make the email rounds. She wouldn't read it out loud, but was willing to forward it.

Renault and Ford have joined forces to create the perfect small car for women.

Mixing the Renault 'Clio' and the Ford 'Taurus' they have designed the 'Clitaurus'. It comes in pink, and the average male car thief won't be able to find it — let alone turn it on – even if someone tells him where it is and how to do it.

Rumor has it though, that it leaks transmission fluid once a month and can be a real bitch to start in the morning!

New models are initially fun to own, but very expensive to maintain and horribly expensive to get rid of. Used models may initially have curb appeal (low price) but eventually have an increased appetite for fuel and the curb weight typically increases with age.

Not expected to reach collector status… best to lease one and replace each year.

Working in an office full of women, I'm in touch with my feminine side. (Sometimes I touch it inappropriately.) So I made some modifications and sent it back.

(It actually took me two tries - my initial efforts turned to be a little more pornographic than I felt comfortable emailing...)

She cheerfully forwarded it to her husband.

Renault and Ford have joined forces to create the perfect small car for women.

Mixing the Renault 'Clio' and the Ford 'Taurus' they have designed the 'Clitaurus'. It comes in pink, and the average male car thief won't be able to find it — let alone turn it on – even if someone tells him where it is. Usually, this is because his key is too small.

One groundbreaking piece of technology in this model is the Driver Interlock Vehicle Option Response Control Evaluator (DIVORCE), which integrates GPS, social media, and technology similar to the Alcohol Interlock, allowing the vehicle to assess the capabilities of the driver, and if he is, in fact, unable to handle the vehicle properly, it will prevent him from getting behind the wheel, and will even leave him to find a better driver.

A little good news

We got the news today from an Associated Press report that the Pentagon has decided not to keep troops in Iraq after a New Year's Eve deadline. All troops will be removed except for 160 soldiers left to guard the US embassy in Baghdad.

Now, there are some people who aren't going to trust this. "Obama promises a lot. We've heard this before."

Well, technically, what we heard before was a troop reduction, not a complete pullout. And Obama lived up to that.

But some people, ignoring the evidence, have always refused to believe that Obama is acting in good faith in Iraq, and I suspect that they will continue to ignore reality.

Well, I don't know if this will help, but here's a little reality for you.

When I was in Iraq (in the first relief group, replacing the actual invasion forces), the Army had taken over Al-Faw palace, one of the last of Saddam's overly ornate structures left standing.

The Army named it and the area around it Camp Victory. It became the HQ for the US Army, and was referred to by the Army as the Victory Base Complex, also encompassing Camp Liberty, Camp Striker, our Air Force unit in Camp Sather, and a number of other encampments from all branches of the military, and even forces from other countries - we had a British unit right next door, for example.

And how do you know that the military is actually going to pull out by January?



They have closed the main PX in Camp Victory.

You can trust in one thing over all others. You have a buttload of generals in one place, you're going to have someplace for them to stock up on clean underwear, chocolate and cigarettes. And the little black-market supply of Jack Daniels and porn coming in aboard the military aircraft isn't going to be able to expand enough to keep them supplied with all the amenities available. (There are other ways to keep supplied with contraband, but I bought mine straight from the aircrews, and I wasn't in charge of anything...)

They can't shop in Baghdad (OK, they could, but there's rules to keep the military out of town, because of those pesky bullets that keep flying toward them), and they don't want to go all the way to the Green Zone after a long day at the office.

An argument can be made about the lower-ranking troops needing some place to get razors and shampoo, but in the end, the needs of the brass override anything else.

Victoria Falls

I think I'm starting to figure something out.

I’m coming to realize that Victoria Jackson is either a whip-smart satirist in the style of Steven Colbert, or she is so criminally, bone-chillingly vapid and clueless that it’s miraculous that she can navigate her way out of bed in the morning.

I never thought that she was even slightly humorous when she was on SNL: she was, in fact, one of the stupidest members of a particularly unfunny era for the Not Ready for Primetime Players (the only true bright spots being A. Whitney Brown and the early Dennis Miller – as opposed to the current, self-important, pandering Dennis Miller).

But now I think I understand. I suspect she’s actually a world-class performance artist, who’s been pulling off this ditzy blond act for almost thirty years now. Not because she is, herself, a vacuous, inane bundle of stupid wrapped in a little-girl voice, but as a potent weapon to skewer the ignorant and ego-driven. She has been making fun of various groups of unthinking zombies for decades, and has been doing it with such a straight face that nobody has caught on.

In her early career, I think she was concentrating on the female airhead: the woman willing to suppress her own personality and her own needs to fall in line with the 1950's cheerleader/Playboy image, where youth is prized and women have limited options. But she took that image to an extreme, and used as her archetype not the post-pubescent, sexually-charged girl, but the prepubescent, playful child: her original act consisted of reciting bad poetry while doing clumsy handstands and somersaults, while "accidentally" revealing her white cotton children's panties.

She stuck with that parody for most of her career, but now, perhaps noting that she's grown a little too old to pull off her infantile act any more, she's recast herself into a bad stereotype of a Teabagger. She mouths irrational philosophies, and tunes out any application of logic that might refute her poorly-conceived arguments.

That's the only explanation that I can come up with, to explain why Victoria Jackson proudly posted this video. She takes a cab into New York to meet up with members of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, and although she shows a couple of people just out to have a good time, and one extremist toward the end (essentially correct, but still an extremist), she spends most of the video talking to one man, who calmly and patiently destroys every argument she makes.

Her response? To repeat those same arguments, as if their bloodied shreds weren't piled around her feet. She completely ignores everything said by this quiet, good-tempered person, and goes back to her original, idiotic allegations, completely ignoring the past 15 minutes of her life.

And then she posts it on Youtube, as if it was a victory for her side of the debate. She even seems proud of it.

She can't possibly be that eyeball-meltingly ignorant. This has to be an act. A satirical persona that she uses to lampoon the Teabaggers. No person who can manage to navigate a fork into their mouth without impaling themselves in the forehead can be this galactically obtuse, can they?

Is the GOP Abel to raise Cain?

Herman Cain's attempt to position himself as an "outsider" is a key plank of his presidential campaign: unlike the rest of them, he wants you to know that he is not a professional polician, and that's part of why he should be elected.

Perhaps that's the entire problem. Maybe his inexperience is the reason for the abject stupidity of his ideas, and has nothing to do with him being a brainless twatwaffle.

On the other hand, maybe it's both.

One of Hermie's earliest ideas, that as president, he would never sign a bill longer than three pages, was widely derided by anyone who understood that there are, in fact, complex problems that might take a little longer merely to explain, much less fix.

Hermie's response? He explained that anybody who actually listened to him or took him at his word was stupid.

Some of these idiotic reporters thought I was serious. The joke’s on them. The message was short bills. Understandable bills. No it’s not literally going to be three pages. The executive summary will be three pages.

Of course, reporters aren't the only stupid people in Cain's tiny little world - basically anybody who questions him must automatically be stupid, right? In his latest book, This is Herman Cain, Hermie explained how Ron Paul's stupid followers were conducting a systematic conspiracy to make him look bad.

"I get the same stupid question at almost every one of these events," Cain writes. "I know it’s a deliberate strategy. How can a person randomly show up at a hundred events and ask the same stupid question to try to nail me on the Federal Reserve?"

(Apparently, Hermie isn't used to people with more than 5 followers.)

Actually, "stupid" is his favorite word. He loves to describe people that way: he gave a whole speech at CPAC around the theme that stupid people are ruining America. Which is odd. Because, despite having risen from a humble beginning to CEO of a crappy pizza chain, Herman Cain just doesn't come across as the brightest motherfucker on the planet.

Admittedly, his business model didn't take a genius to develop: pay people eight dollars an hour to deliver pizzas that cost less than a dollar to make, and charge twelve to eighteen dollars apiece for them. It's not like it's an original idea or anything. Hermie just put one interesting spin on the idea: if you use cheaper ingredients, they cost less. But then, instead of improving on the pizza, you give it an exciting, all-crime ad campaign. (As in, "I'm stealing from you by charging you money for this crappy pizza.")

Cain is more than willing to spew the most ignorant talking points with great authority, and totally without shame. It's not just that you're stupid if you disagree with him, you're lazy if you don't have a job. Oh, and by the way, this whole "Occupy Wall Street" movement? In Hermie's world, that's not just lazy people (OK, that's mostly what it is), that's lazy people being manipulated by the White House.

Because conspiracy theories go across real well with the modern Republican party.



Cain can't even get his birther talking points right:

"Barack Obama is more of an international," Cain said. "I think he’s out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya..."

(Look, moron, Obama lived in Indonesia, and only for four years - ages six to ten. Were all your ideas set in stone when you were in second grade?)

He can't even spew the standard GOP rhetoric correctly. In the middle of accusing the left of being (once again) stupid, this time for not reading the Constitution, he tries to make his point by quoting... wait for it... the Declaration of Independence.

"...when you get to the part about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, don’t stop reading! Keep reading!"

Gonna be reading a long time there, big fella.



And his current big campaign promise is the 9-9-9 tax plan (9% income tax, 9% business tax, 9% sales tax). A plan which is basically hated by everybody, Democrat or Republican, except Herman Cain.

Bruce Bartlett, an adviser in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, says that 9-9-9 is unfair to working taxpayers. "It's the most upside-down tax plan that’s been put forward to tax the poor and the middle class," he says...

Daniel Shaviro, a New York University law professor who specializes in taxation, calls the plan "not viable." For rich people—defined as those who work for themselves and don’t have to take a salary—it essentially becomes an 18 percent total tax on all money. But for poor people collecting a paycheck, Shaviro says, it amounts to a 27 percent tax.

This plan was developed, not by an economist, but an investment banker with ties to the Koch brothers (unless it was stolen from SimCity). And basically, the rich get taxed less, the poor and middle class get taxed more, and the government gets less money.

This is the kind of "leadership" we can expect from Herman Cain? It doesn't take a lot of logic to rip his ideas to shreds.

If he does, by some miracle, win the primaries, Herman Cain may actually make history, though. He will be the first black man to get another black man reelected.

Missed

From PvPOnline:

Three idiots, balanced by a genius.

Mitt Romney is going to speak before the Values Voters Summit, which is another gathering of God-botherers that happens every year, this one put on by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other evangelical groups.

Now, Bryan Fischer (of the American Family Association) said just last month that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Mormons. So the New York Times asked the Romney's people to comment on that, but the campaign didn't reply.

Why is anyone surprised about that? It's Romney's people! How could they reply? They don't have the right!

Ought to be a short speech, though.

But this move of Romney's is only... interesting (you know - the polite way to say "pandering"). Other people are just outright stupid.

On ABC’s Top Line today, Rep. Paul Broun, a tea party Republican from Georgia, said the ("Occupy Wall Street") protests amount to an “attack upon freedom” — one that he said is now being hijacked by labor unions in attempt to reelect President Obama.

“They don’t know why they’re there. They’re just mad,” Broun told us. “This attack upon business, attack upon industry, attack upon freedom – and I think that’s what this is all about.”

“Attack upon freedom”? Exercising your right to peaceful assembly is now an “attack upon freedom”?

Congressman, please define what you consider “freedom.” And for that matter, define “attack.”

Especially ironic that, having gotten everything bass-ackwards like that, he went on to say that the president’s policies were “ignorant and incompetent”...

Meanwhile, Eric Cantor tried to whip up anger against those same protesters that broke Rep. Broun's brain.

"If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country," he said.

And then, completely straight-faced, he found the perfect follow-up comment.

"Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans."

You mean, like trying to pit Americans against working-class Americans who might be protesting economic injustice?

But, just because there are useless policians out there, that doesn't mean we have to pay attention to them all time, does it?

Instead, join me in wishing a happy birthday, on this late hour of October 7, to the brilliant Tim Minchin.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~~ Aesop.

Well, Chris Christie announced that he would not run for president, probably because he didn't want to spend a year taking hits from the right (saying he was a leftist elitist, and probably a closet Muslim), and the left (pointing out things like the fact that he was a known bully who, when he was working as a lobbyist for Bernie Madoff, got securities fraud exempted from New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act).

And, really, who wants to hear the phrase "morbidly obese" every day?

Sarah Palin, seeing someone else in the limelight, tried to upstage him, saying that she wasn't running either, but since only a handful of drooling nose-pickers still thought she might, she didn't garner nearly as much press as she felt she deserved. So, what does that leave us?

I have never seen a more stubbornly ignorant collection of elitist, pandering fuckknuckles than the current crop of GOP candidates; they’re a glittering panoply of thieves, liars, theocrats and delusional morons.

I mean, let’s take a quick look at these mean-spirited, misanthropic gasbags who believe, somewhere at the root of their overwhelmingly swollen egos, that they could lead this country to greatness by following the noble example of George W. Bush.

And, to be fair about it (because I’m the epitome of fairness, after all), let’s go alphabetically.

Michele Bachmann: This is a woman who is either certifiably insane, or she is openly trying to attract the paranoid constituency to her state, because she believes that there are enough of them to elect her to office.

(Technically, this idea isn't quite as idiotic as it sounds: after all, there are enough mouthbreathers in Minnesota’s 6th congressional district to get her reelected twice. This could, of course, easily be attributed to a genetic aberration. Minnesota's winters are hard; and sometimes you just can't get to town for your twenty-dollar whore, but your sister is right there in the next room.)

Her torch has dimmed a bit, because she has been saying openly ignorant and insane things for far too long. The American populace is beginning to notice that it isn’t a playful glint in her eyes, but the cold hard gleam of madness.

Herman Cain: You can’t say that Herman Cain is a complete idiot, but he is somewhat deluded about his personal magnetism. An idiot couldn't have come from the streets of Memphis, Tennessee (the son of a chauffeur and a cleaning woman) and become the CEO of a national pizza chain, with a personal net worth just south of five million dollars. So I'll cheerfully admit that the man has business acumen.

Americans have a tendency to canonize self-made millionaires, but this odd strain of hero-worship doesn't extend quite far enough to push Herman Cain into the White House. Cain has failed to notice the deep-seated racism in certain parts of the Republican Party, which makes him an unlikely choice to become Commander-in-Chief. There are too many members of the GOP who just cannot force themselves to vote for a black man, even if they’re offered a free order of Cheesy Bread to go with it.

I would suggest that Cain suffered brain damage from a very small stroke, which is not only manifesting as this gaping blind spot, but in the form of some significant tone-deafness. The man actually went on CNN’s The Situation Room and said:

Many African American voters “have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view... I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. It’s just brainwashing and people not being open-minded, pure and simple.”

“Hey, black people! You’re gullible and easily led! So vote for me!”

That’s why Hermie is trying to push the “Rick Perry hates black people!” meme. He’s got nothing else. He’s a one-trick pony, just like Michael Steele: “Look at me! I’m a black republican!” (You know, Herm, Steele got fired for being too black... it’s an ugly road you’re travelling, dude. Good luck with that.)

Newt Gingrich: Good old Newtie. Why does this man think he can be elected? (Oh, right. He thinks he’s the center of the stinking universe. Don't mess with Gingrich: he shut down the entire government once because they asked him to move to the back of Air Force One.)

The man's entire campaign staff deserted this sinking ship - you'd think he'd take the hint. (Hell, half of Bachmann's ran away, too, but you expect her not to notice...)

I’ve dealt with this fucker before. Do I need to bother with him again?

Jon Huntsman: Huntsman is quite possibly the most sane of all the possible Republican candidates. Which makes him the odds-on favorite to be unemployed on January 21, 2013: for the same reason that a few scattered racists make Herman Cain less electable, Huntsman is going to have a problem with the Republican base. They can't accept those pesky sciencey things like global warming and evolution, and the fact that he does? Well, that just makes him a little suspicious, doesn't it?

Of course, as it turns out, Huntsman's status as the only candidate who isn’t actively trying to get his head wedged up Donald Trump’s ass might actually turn out to be a better idea than you’d think: it seems that Trump's endorsement actually harms a politician in the polls.

Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson: (Felt I should throw the his former job in there for two reasons. First, even if you’d ever heard of the man, it’s likely that you’ve forgotten. And two, I live in that particular state.)

The thing that's most likely to sink him is going to be that pro-gay marriage/pro-abortion stance of his. Johnson and Ron Paul will split the legalize-marijuana crowd (or possibly just pass them back and forth), but Johnson’s plan to "reform" (read "gut") Social Security and repeal healthcare reform will keep him from attracting too many independent voters who might be attracted to his vaguely human qualities.

Ron Paul: I’d say he’s huge, but, to be honest, he’s tiny. Apparently 5’9” tall (and potentially bulletproof). Most of the world admits that the man is unelectable, but Ron Paul isn't the kind of guy to back down from a challenge!

We call that a "Napoleon complex."

His biggest (heh) problem is that his followers are rabid, but there really aren't enough of them to get him into a higher office than the one he currently possesses. (Which is sad, because he might actually get my son out of Afghanistan, but there it is...)

Ron Paul seems to be a smart man - one of the few signs that there might actually be a glimmer of intelligence that hasn’t been extinguished in the Lone Star state. Which isn’t to say that he wouldn’t totally destroy the economy with his libertarian idiocy: I’m just trying to be objective, here.

Because that's me: fair, balanced, unbiased.

Rick Perry: Little Ricky is a crazed redneck weasel on meth; he's George W. Bush to the fourth power. The gleam of insanity deep in his eyes doesn't seem as bright as Bachmann's, but that's only because it gets dimmed by the clouds of abject stupidity swirling around in that great hollow area.

There is nothing good about Rick Perry - the more you learn about him, the less you like. He's a vicious theocrat with a tendency toward cronyism

And potentially a sex addict.

Mitt Romney: I've got to say, Mittens is nothing if not predictable. The man is whatever you want him to be. What is electable tomorrow? Vegetation? Then he's a cucumber. Porn stars? He'll rock that Viagra until it screams. He is what you want. No matter what you want.

No, really, it doesn't matter what you want. He doesn't care. Do you want a pro-choice pedophile? He'll yank the fetus out with his bare hands and start fucking it right in front of the camera if he thinks that'll play well in Hoboken.

Mittens literally doesn't care. He has no position that doesn't have a 20-page report from a focus group telling him that people like it. If White Supremacy began testing well with target audiences, he'd grab his pillowcases and start cutting eye-holes before the test results were out of the printer.

Mittens doesn't care that Mormonism is considered a cult by many of the Christian groups. Hell, if the focus groups tell him that Catholicism is on the rise, he'll be sucking off the pope by morning.

Rick "Frothy" Santorum: (speaking of sucking off the pope) It's hard to tell which is the bigger train wreck: Rick Santorum's campaign, or the simpering, shambling shell of a man himself. As one Salon editor put it, he is "the only one of the candidates to participate in all of the GOP debates and still not show any life. He’s at 2 percent in the ABC/Washington Post survey, almost exactly where he was last month and the month before that."

All Obama has to do between now and the election is improve his unemployment statistics, and he won’t even need to campaign. That’s why the congressional GOP is doing everything they can to kick the snot out of the American Jobs Plan.

The president needs to put away his “Let’s Compromise” checklist, and pick up the “You’re Destroying America” stick. Because the only way he’s not going to keep his job, is if the Republican Party can keep more people from getting one.

To the Wayback Machine!

Maybe this is how we should teach history.

Today's recommendation

Go here. Read this guy (it's completely apolitical, for a change).

You'll thank me.

Cooking Comically

A quick thought on economics

Conservatives keep trying to claim that we can't increase taxes on rich people, because Obama shouldn't tax "job creators."

Can we have a moratorium on the use of the term "job creators" for rich people? Because, at the moment, they are verifiably not creating any fucking jobs. That's like calling somebody a "stamp collector" when they don't buy, sell, or keep any stamps. It's just stupid.

In fact, I'll go one step further. I'll support a tax cut for anybody who creates new jobs, in America, which are held by American citizens. Now, this has to be a net jobs increase - if you fire fifty thousand people, and then hire forty thousand, you don't get congratulated for creating forty thousand jobs - you get yelled at for losing ten thousand.

(Also, any jobs you ship overseas? Yeah, that counts as a job loss.)

And by the way, that whole idea that "lower taxes equal more jobs"? It's stupid. Reagan experienced job growth while he was in office. But only after he raised taxes. Three times.

So, can we have a little honesty up in this bitch? For once?

Guess who's back?

Well, Eric crawled out of his hole again. (Slightly updated Dungeon entry here.) Last time he came back, the reason was relatively easy to figure out.

Not quite as easy this time. I'm guessing that the fact that his Teabagger governor is appearing to be a latter day Boss Tweed is a problem. (And the probe is widening...)

It's sad when your heart breaks like that, isn't it, Eric?

(Ah, sweet, sweet boxed wine. Please, save me from a total dick...)

His latest trick is posting the same message ten or twenty times; he's apparently not smart enough to have noticed the Select All button on the Comments page.

Anyway, he doesn't seem like the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I'm not clear why he thinks I would pay attention to him. Not quick enough to understand the concept of delete all, anyway.

On the other hand, his last comment was short enough that I actually read it. He seems to object to the use of the word "Teabagger."

Huh. Imagine that. I really can't imagine where we might have gotten the idea that they gave themselves that name.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He also seems to be delighted by the fact that my son, at one point, said that I can be an asshole. (Well, it's true. I can.) But that's the kind of relationship I have with my son. We're friends, we insult each other, we make sophomoric jokes.

Whereas Eric's son is probably just the target of his drunken rage. Poor little bastard - that's a gene pool he's never going to recover from.

So, now, I'm in for a few more weeks of "Yup, ten comments, all from Eric."

* Select all *

* Delete *

That's how things are going around here: inbred psychopaths ranting incoherently from 1300 miles away. Comments you'll never have to see.

About DADT Damned Time

Well, now he's gone and done it. Obama's just lost the vote of the Religious Right.

(Yeah, I make myself laugh sometimes...)

Starting at midnight Tuesday, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been officially repealed, and homosexuals can now serve openly in the military. We were the last industrialized nation that didn't allow gays to serve openly, until just last night.



I'd like to make a prediction. Approximately one year from today, civilization will not crumble, and the military will be just as good as it is now.

Better, even. The gays in the military (and I knew several) won't have to hide it, won't have to keep lying about what they are (here are some of their stories now). Kevin and Kim's daughter Cat can dance openly in the Officer's Club with her girlfriend. And maybe, for the first time since we went into Iraq, we'll be able to keep some Arabic translators, instead of paying civilian contracting companies millions of dollars every year.

Funny thing about DADT: it was implemented in 1993 as a compromise measure, when Congress (to prevent Clinton from doing what Obama just did) added a requirement to the National Defense Authorization Act which forced commanders to enforce homophobic regulations which stated that homosexuality was incompatible with military service.

At the time, Republicans and other homophobes hated DADT. Odd how they switched to defending it in recent years, huh?



(It's harder to find a copy of that video that you can embed than you'd think...)

I'm going to let my president have the last words here.

Today, the discriminatory law known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is finally and formally repealed. As of today, patriotic Americans in uniform will no longer have to lie about who they are in order to serve the country they love. As of today, our armed forces will no longer lose the extraordinary skills and combat experience of so many gay and lesbian service members. And today, as Commander in Chief, I want those who were discharged under this law to know that your country deeply values your service.

I was proud to sign the Repeal Act into law last December because I knew that it would enhance our national security, increase our military readiness, and bring us closer to the principles of equality and fairness that define us as Americans. Today’s achievement is a tribute to all the patriots who fought and marched for change; to Members of Congress, from both parties, who voted for repeal; to our civilian and military leaders who ensured a smooth transition; and to the professionalism of our men and women in uniform who showed that they were ready to move forward together, as one team, to meet the missions we ask of them.

For more than two centuries, we have worked to extend America’s promise to all our citizens. Our armed forces have been both a mirror and a catalyst of that progress, and our troops, including gays and lesbians, have given their lives to defend the freedoms and liberties that we cherish as Americans. Today, every American can be proud that we have taken another great step toward keeping our military the finest in the world and toward fulfilling our nation’s founding ideals.

An open letter to the ad people for Opera Southwest.

OK, I'm not in advertising, and so I have no evidence to support this. But when you're selecting a picture to advertise your productions, it seems to me that, unless that's actually the effect you're trying to get, you don't necessarily want to use a picture that makes a beautiful woman look like a drag queen.

This is just a theory, and I will freely admit that I could be wrong.

Thank you for your time.

Skinny genes?

In a move sure to enrage Teabaggers everywhere, Blue Cross of California has just been ordered by an appeals court to pay for treatment of anorexia, adding yet another disease to the list of ailments that health insurers have to pay for. (It's shocking - shocking, I tell you! Why should health insurance companies be expected to spend money making people healthy?)

Anorexia is actually not given the respect it deserves, probably because fat people are already ridiculed, and anorexia is thought of as just an extreme extension of somebody trying to get thin. But, really, since studies show that 1 in 5 women (.doc file) suffer from some form of eating disorder, which have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness (the death rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for girls 15-24 years old), perhaps more attention should be paid to it. (More fun facts here.)

After all, it was just last November that Isabelle Caro died, after becoming famous as the face of an Italian ad campaign for fashion label Nolita trying to combat anorexia. She died at age 28, at 5'4" and around 60 pounds.


The problem, of course, is the modern fixation on body image. A normal, healthy body is never skinny enough; more than just fat-shaming, people are constantly mocked for every point of Body Mass Index. This is not to say that we don't have an obesity issue in America; but we have a body-image issue that dwarfs it.

Nobody, for example, would accuse actress and comedienne Aisha Tyler (right) of being overweight. But try to get one of her pictures into a magazine, and a horde of airbrush-wielding Photoshop geeks go to work.


(That last image stolen from here, if you're curious)

And they're proud of it. As one editor put it, without a trace of irony:

"Yes, of course we do post-production corrections on our images," SELF editor in chief Lucy Danziger told "Entertainment Tonight." "Kelly Clarkson exudes confidence, and is a great role model for women of all sizes and stages of their life. She works out and is strong and healthy, and our picture shows her confidence and beauty. She literally glows from within..."

That same story goes on to quote one of many experts who are seeing the dangers of this practice.

"The more and more we use this editing, the higher and higher the bar goes. They're creating things that are physically impossible," said Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College professor of computer science who specializes in digital forensics and photo manipulation. "We're seeing really radical digital plastic surgery. It's moving towards the Barbie doll model of what a woman should look like -- big breasts, tiny waist, ridiculously long legs, elongated neck."

Perhaps the problem is that health and fashion magazines are in an unhealthy universe of their own. But if they're the problem, somebody needs to find a solution.

Cheerleading for a past that never existed

Have I mentioned that RenewAmerica is an unfettered font of feculence? Well, it's true. They don't allow comments on their articles, probably because the sheer weight of the ignorance, stupidity and paranoia expands to fill all available space.

(In the case of some of these columnists, they occasionally reprint their drivel elsewhere, where they do allow comments. But not all of them.)

Case in point: Selwyn Duke. I guess he thinks he looks intelligent, gazing off into the distance (in this case, the distant past) stroking his chin; I think he's contemplating adding more fiber in his diet. But he, for some reason, spewed several hundred words extolling the virtues of this commercial for the "Gung Ho Commando Outfit."

Every toy gun in the commercial looks (gasp!) realistic; there are no sissified colors, no orange plastic piece at the end of the barrel."

(Let's just pretend that the commercial isn't in black and white, OK? That seems like the polite thing to do.)

Yet, in the times that it aired, you never heard of a child being shot after pointing one of these toy weapons at a policeman.

I suppose that, if I was to be completely honest, I have no evidence that his cognitive impairment has a genetic source. After all, one can only imagine the psychological damage caused by a lifetime spent with the name "Selwyn."

My mother always told me not to argue with the mentally challenged, but when did I ever listen to her? And these stories aren't particularly difficult to find.

5-year-old with toy gun killed by officer

(March 5, 1983) A 5-year-old boy locked in his bedroom while his mother was at work was shot to death Thursday night by an Orange County police officer who mistook him for a possible burglary suspect.

The boy, Patrick Andrew Mason, who stood 47 inches tall, was holding a toy gun in his dimly lit bedroom when the officer kicked in the locked door after twice yelling he was a police officer, witnesses said.

The 24-year-old unidentified officer - on the Stanton Police Department 15 months - told investigators he fired his weapon when he saw a "shadowy figure holding a gun" in the room lit only by the flickering light from a television set.

And that's another reason the rule was enacted. Frequently, a cop isn't seeing "a kid with a toy gun," but a "shadowy figure holding a gun." He doesn't have time to assess age, height, weight, or fucking eye color. He's faced with a person holding a gun.

All that, despite Selwyn's assertion that "As for policemen, they could assume that a child wouldn't target them with a real gun." Which is stupid on a number of levels - as a kid, we had a set of brothers living down the street; one of them shot and killed the other, because they were playing with Daddy's gun.

The story I found, by the way, was not, technically, the 1970s (although arguments can be made), when Selwyn claimed he was a boy. But since the rule that toy guns be brightly colored or have an orange plug wasn't enacted until 1992, I'm pretty comfortable with saying he's an idiot.

My son didn't think I was very funny while we were running errands today. I kept wishing the cashiers "Have a happy 9/11!"

(OK, he laughed the first time, too.)

You know, it's funny. People say "Well, you'll always remember where you were on 9/11. Yeah, not really. I was still in the Air Force at that point, working missile field security.

F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming has about 200 missile sites attached to it, and I was stationed there.

I came in from the missile field that morning, having spend the previous 12 hours guarding our nuclear weapons from terrorists. So, when my wife woke me up to show me what was going on in New York with horror on her face, my response was "Oh, crap. Well, I'd better get some more sleep, because this is about all I'm going to get."

And it was true. A few hours after that, I was woken up again, to come get my gun and hang out until the guys at the top figured out where everybody needed to be. So, in uniform and unshaven, I sat against a wall and napped until they came and got me again, and I was stationed upstairs in the squadron building, manning phones in an office where the phones never rang, mostly falling asleep until the door opened and the books (which I'd cunningly placed to get knocked off if the door opened) hit the floor.

So, really, I can tell you where I was on 9/11, but I don't have a lot of clear memories on the subject.

Personally, I have to agree with the Buzzflash editor, who points out that "It's Long Past Time to Get Over 9-11." Because I'm well past it.

I ended up in Iraq because of that whole thing - maybe I have the wrong attitude.

(And yes, I know that none of the people involved in 9/11 had anything to do with Iraq. But that was how Bush sold it, so that is, in essence, why I was there. Over at Consortium News, one writer asked where we might be if there had been a reasonable reaction to 9/11. But that's "what if," not "what was.")

Paul Krugman made an important point on the subject:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. (The) atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

But in the end, how do we react to the events of 9/11?

Well, some people try to make a buck off of it.

A year after the fact, Salon.com examined how people were selling out to the 9/11 demon. But it's gotten so much worse. The Village Voice recently looked at some people who've been able to cash in on the tragedy.

Most news media seem dedicated to crappy memorials to their own picture library. Some work better than others.

Regretsy.com, which spends it's time making fun of people pretending that they have artistic talent through arts and crafts, examines some of the worst attempts to cash in on 9/11. Often in handmade form.

Herman "Hey, I'm a Black Republican" Cain felt he needed to pander a lot, and committed one of the worst examples of mindless meme-stroking ever put into digital form.

(And, you know, since I'm reposting his video, apparently it's effective. I'm told that most progressives can't make it past the 30-second mark. I made it almost a minute. So you know.)

But, then, what's the worst, most cold-bloodedest (yes, it's a word) piece of 9/11 merchandising? Well, my vote would be on this.

It's true

I can be a dick sometimes.

And yes, that's what I'm using as my FB icon these days. You got a problem with that?

Want to eat? Pee in this, please.

As either of my long-time readers could tell you, I have held for quite some time that South Carolina just sucks. And they keep on trying to prove it.

Latest idiocy: Governor Nikki Haley (R-Obviously) wants to drug test people who get unemployment benefits.



In her words (and channeling her inner teenage cheerleader), "I so want drug testing. I so want it."

But, being a Republican, if the facts don't match the "common wisdom," she's more than happy to make shit up.

"Down on River Site, they were hiring a few hundred people, and when we sat down and talked to them -- this was back before the campaign -- when we sat down and talked to them, they said of everybody they interviewed, half of them failed a drug test, and of the half that was left, of that 50 percent, the other half couldn't read and write properly," Haley said.

Fortunately, the Huffington Post reporter did that thing we used to call "journalism" and asked somebody if she was right.

Jim Giusti, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, which owns the River Site, told HuffPost he had no idea what Haley was talking about with regard to applicants flunking a drug test.

"Half the people who applied for a job last year or year 2009 did not fail the drug test," Giusti said. "At the peak of hiring under the Recovery Act we had less than 1 percent of those hired test positive."

The River Site doesn't even test applicants. "We only test them when they have been accepted," Giusti said.

I'll give Haley a little bit of credit, though. She got the one thing right.

"That's what we have in South Carolina," she continued. "We don't have an unemployment problem. We have an education and poverty problem."

The rest is crap, but she's finally figured out one of the chief causes of unemployment. I mean, it's a shame that she couldn't have figured it out a couple of months ago, when she tried to slash education funding for the state so badly that the state Legislature, Democrat and Republican, overturned most of her budget and overrode her attempts to veto. But at least she knows it now, right?

Of course, Teabaggers don't care about facts; they care about ideology. Governor Rick Scott of Florida instituted a drug testing policy for unemployment, which didn't do the state a lick of good.

The law, which took effect July 1, requires applicants to pay for their own drug tests. Those who test drug-free are reimbursed by the state, and those who fail cannot receive benefits for a year.

Having begun the drug testing in mid-July, the state Department of Children and Families is still tabulating the results. But at least 1,000 welfare applicants took the drug tests through mid-August, according to the department, which expects at least 1,500 applicants to take the tests monthly.

So far, they say, about 2 percent of applicants are failing the test; another 2 percent are not completing the application process, for reasons unspecified.

Cost of the tests averages about $30. Assuming that 1,000 to 1,500 applicants take the test every month, the state will owe about $28,800-$43,200 monthly in reimbursements to those who test drug-free.

That compares with roughly $32,200-$48,200 the state may save on one month's worth of rejected applicants.

The paper went on to calculate that Florida will save $40,800-$98,400, an amount which will be eaten up in staff hours and other resources in administering the program. Oh, and they're going to spend over a million dollars defending it in court. So, Rick Scott just cost Floridians more money that they don't have. So that's some awesome leadership, right there.

Now, if you do the math, the national rate of drug use is about 8.9 percent of the population aged 12 or older. (The majority of those users are 18 or older, but that's like math and stuff, so screw that.) Now, if only 2-4% of the people applying for unemployment are drug users, that means that the unemployed population is actually using less drugs than the rest of America. (Maybe because they can't afford them - that might make sense...)

Obviously, Governor Haley can't do simple logic.

Beating up a right-wing meme

There is a fairly standard homophobic meme, which says that decriminalizing homosexuality is a slippery slope which leads to all manner of interesting behavior. The most obvious example of this is our boy Rick "Man-on-Dog" Santorum; I talked about his use of this particular argument yesterday.

But how can you dispute this somewhat idiotic idea?

Answer: You can't. You're wasting your time. The people who find this kind of argument convincing aren't swayed by logic. But personally, I enjoy it, so let's press on.

Well, then, what is the danger, exactly? What is the inevitable result of all this brightly-colored gayness? The usual list includes two or more of the usual suspects.

1. obscenity
2. fornication
3. adultery
4. adult incest
5. bestiality
6. pedophilia (with or without added incestuousness)
7. bigamy
8. the complete destruction of marriage as we know it

And really, that last one, which occasionally stands by itself, is the easiest to rebut.

Just ask "how?" How will marriage becoming more available, to more people, destroy the entire concept of marriage? You'd be amazed how many people can't actually answer that.

Let's consider the rest of these ignorant concepts, in no particular order.

Obscenity: You don't see this one too often. "Freedom of speech" and all that. So fuck it. Let's move on.

Fornication and Adultery: Now, this is a slightly tricky area, and a vaguely sexist one, at that. Fornication is mentioned less frequently these days, but you might run across it. Sex, when not between two people married to each other, is "fornication" if the both partners are single. It's "adultery" if either partner is married.

(Really, it all goes back to the fact that, until fairly recently, women were property. The legal definition just tells you which property crime has occurred.)

But really, both of these are idiotic examples. Fornication isn't a crime, but the results of it can be. Spreading an incurable disease or not taking financial responsibility for the potential pregnancy? That's where the blame should be pointed.

And adultery is a civil matter. In most states, it can be cause for a divorce, but that's between the husband and wife.

So the right answer to this one is simply "You're saying that adultery doesn't go on now? And hasn't gone on since time immemorial? Are you going to claim that more men will fool around on their wives because some other men are in a committed, legally-binding relationship? Why?"

(Notice the pattern here? "How?" and "why?" are the two easiest crowbars to dismantle the argument.)

Bestiality and Pedophilia: You've got to remember that when our idiot wingnut friend try to start listing all the things that homosexuality will lead to, they often like to include these two. (Because, you know, if two men are attracted to each other, they'll be attracted to anything!)

These two examples are stunningly simple to rebut. Just point out the all-important word "consensual." Children and dogs can't consent to anything. If they don't immediately concede the point, go on the attack: "So, by your logic, because heterosexuality is legal, so is rape?"

Incest and Polygamy: Now, these are the only remotely tricky ground that's out there. Because it's true: once you widen the definition of marriage, you have to explain why you don't throw it open to practitioners of either of these activities.

This is particularly true of polygamy. My personal attitude toward polygamy is "why not?" Toss the idea to a couple of lawyers, let them draw up a standard boilerplate contract for multiple party marriages, and let people hook up in whatever polymorphic patterns they want. All kinds of good reasons that this would be beneficial: guidance for the kids, economic stability, and so on. But that's a much longer argument than I want to get into.

Incidentally, the most common polygamous "marriage" in America these days is the creepy cult-like one, with the ugly overtones of misogyny and rape. Those are bad. Of course, it's equally bad when dealing with an overbearing, controlling husband and his wife, too. So, really, that's another, longer discussion that I don't feel the need to open up.

As for incest, well, look into the health problems of purebred dogs: they're just a mobile mass of medical maladies, from hip dysplasia in German Shepherds and Labradors, to epilepsy in beagles, dachshunds and Dalmatians. It's the inevitable result of reinforcing genetic problems by breeding from too small a gene pool.

After all, as we've already shown, these people are making an openly false comparison, and really, there are only two types of people who’d use it:

1. People with limited critical faculties, who never actually think about the talking points they repeat.

2. People who know exactly the size of the lie they’re spewing, and don’t care.

In either case, when you’re faced with this level of lemon-scented bullshit, why should you feel constrained to stick with simple logic, when you can easily turn their own rhetorical style back on them? So, instead of getting completely sidetracked from the issue of gay marriage, I recommend, as I often do, the attack.

Just ask a simple question: Why do you oppose polygamy and incest? After all, the Bible is in favor of both of them.

First of all, Jesus didn't say that "Marriage is between one man and one woman." What he said was "at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female... For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (Matthew 19:4-6)

So, first, he wasn't defining marriage, he was justifying not getting divorced. And it's really rude to take your Lord and Savior out of context like that. Especially since you don't then go on one more verse to where He explains, "you shouldn't get divorced, you shouldn't get married,l and you shouldn't have sex at all." (Matthew 19:8-12)

It was the Apostle Paul who later added, "Well, if you can't keep your pants on, you should marry somebody." (1 Corinthians 7:8-9) And he never even met Jesus, so why are you taking his word?

The Bible can't even figure out what incest is. The definition comes from three different places in the Old Testament: Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, and scattered around Deuteronomy. They're all very specifically written for men (remember, women are property), and the three sources don't even agree.

Best example: nowhere in the Bible does it say you can't have sex with your daughter. Both chapters of Leviticus tell you that your stepdaughter and your daughter-in-law are off-limits, but it's apparently open season on your own girlspawn.

(Also completely available as partners: all your cousins, your step-sister, your niece, any aunt on your mother's side, and Grandma.)

This biblical confusion about incest is emphasized with the fact that Lot, the only good man in Sodom or Gommorah, had drunken sex with both his daughters and conceived two sons: his son through his older daughter founded the Kingdom of Moab, and the one through his baby girl founded the Kingdom of Ammon. (Genesis 19:30-38)

More than that, though, Abraham, the holiest man in the Bible, is considered the father of all Christendom (and all the Jews, and Mohammed); he married his half-sister on his father's side. (Genesis 20:12) His son Isaac married his cousin Rebekah (Genesis 24:15). And both of the sons of Isaac married their cousins (Genesis 28:9, Genesis 29)

I'm not entirely clear what this says about the "Children of Abraham."

And most people already know that the Bible is full of examples of polygamy. Many, if not most, of the major prophets of God had two or more wives - Abraham and Jacob (obviously), Gideon (the guy who put all the Bibles in the hotel rooms), King David and the wisest of all men, King Solomon, are all fine examples.

And if anybody tries to claim that the Old Testament doesn't matter any more, thanks to Jesus? Well, you've just hit the jackpot.

First of all, Jesus said, over and over, that the Old Testament was still important, still valid, and, indeed, "all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16; also see Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17, and Matthew 5:17, among many other places)

On top of which, and possibly more important, if the words of the Old Testament don't matter, then why is it they're opposed to homosexuals again?

Religion is fun.

Speak, Ricky, speak!

In an interview last week on CNN, Rick Santorum got a little cranky when the often-tedious Piers Morgan suggested he (Ricky) might, just possibly, be a little homophobic.



Now, that's a seven-minute video, and if you don't want to wade through all that, the money shot (heh) is as follows.

...the quote that I have been, quote, "criticized" for was almost identical to a quote in a 1980 Supreme Court case where the majority decision basically said what I said. And, by the way, the minority, Justice Scalia in this case -- it was Justice White who was Democratic appointee under John Kennedy who said pretty much exactly what I said and Justice Scalia pretty much said exactly what I said which is that if the Supreme Court establishes a right to consensual sexual activity, then it's hard to draw the line between what sexual activity will be permitted under the Constitution and it leaves open a long list of consensual activities that most people I think would find rather unappealing.

And so, that's what I said. I stand by the comment. Just like I'm sure Justice Scalia and Justice White stood by their comments.

So, here we have a fine example of Frothy trying to lube up his own record, so that he can ass-rape the Supreme Court.

(Note: I left all the meaningless crap in that second paragraph of his, just to show that I'm not taking him out of context. Please compare to the original, as well.)

See, little Ricky is a lawyer, but he's been mouthing meaningless political platitudes for so long that he can't keep his case-law straight. Because that "1980" Supreme Court decision? What he's thinking of is the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision, which upheld an anti-sodomy law in Georgia. (This was the majority opinion, written by Justice Byron White, that Santorum was trying to talk about, but then he got all confused.)


Now, while Santorum is trying to shove his "man on dog" quote down Justice White's throat, what White actually said was, in short, "There are victimless crimes, but they're still illegal. So even if you want to do something in private, there are other sexual crimes that we'd have to start listing and debating, and we don't want to do that." (Or, in his words, "We are unwilling to start down that road.")

So, not quite as extensive as Santorum's statement. And, more important, it was kind of stupid of Frothy to bring it up, since in 2003, Bowers was formally reversed by Lawrence v. Texas (which destroyed a sodomy law still on the books). That case was when Scalia wrote a pissy minority opinion (and that's why Frothy couldn't keep his "minority" and "majority" opinions straight).

Now, in dissenting against Lawrence Scalia whined:

...(the Texas law says that) certain forms of sexual behavior are "immoral and unacceptable," ... the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity...

If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

So that was at least a little closer to what Santorum actually said. He misquoted the losing side of an argument.

Which I think pretty much sums up his candidacy in one fell swoop.