Hyuk!

FD Funniez:

That'll certainly get Jim D. Adkisson's vote... or would have, if he wasn't busy doing time for killing liberals. But I'm sure the McCain campaign will appreciate the humour.

Barbara Kay, unhinged

As I mentioned earlier, slogging through the product of Barbara Kay's delusional sludgetrap of a mind is a trying business for me. Lines like this:

"But win or lose the election, Sarah Palin has already altered the cultural landscape of America, possibly of the Western world. In years to come, social archeologists will mark her speech as the official beginning of an end to the gender wars, and, one hopes, a return to trust and collaboration between the sexes."

...send my bullshit-o-meter screaming dangerously past redline and make it impossible for me to continue reading without serious abdominal upset. Thankfully, others have the bullshit resistance that I do not, and are able to pick up the slack.

US Election: pro-choicers ask the candidates

Now this is frightening.

In the afterglow of what I like to think of as the "Summer of Pro-Choice Vindication", and with an election about to rear its ugly, snarling head, Harper was asked recently by Dion to clarify where he stands on abortion rights. While his reply was a bit nebulous for my liking, Harper obviously cares more about staying in power than he does about that particular issue. Not that complacency is ever an option, eternal vigilance being the price of freedom -- as Bill C-484 showed. But still.

Now compare that happy state of affairs to what's going on south of the border, where pro-choice activists are advising voters to ask the candidates about contraception:

"Access to contraception is the only proven way to reduce unwanted pregnancy rates. It's no wonder that Americans on both sides of the abortion debate overwhelmingly support contraception. Yet few know that more and more candidates vying for their vote don't. Across the U.S., anti-abortion organizations have added anti-contraception activities to their agenda and expect those they help get elected to office to join in these efforts. Since this issue isn't on most voters' radar, most complacently comply." [...]

"The questions being posed to candidates on all other critical issues facing the nation today demand cogent and solution-oriented answers. A candidate isn't considered serious about the economy without answers on how to create new jobs. Who would be labeled pro-environment without a position on fighting noxious emissions? No discussion of escalating gas prices is complete without a candidate explaining his or her position on energy alternatives too. But, oddly, no anti-abortion candidates are ever asked about their position on contraception despite the fact that their views on the matter often differ dramatically from what the public wants and what works." (emphasis mine)

Oh, the dishonesty, the obfuscation, the stealth. Just another thing to watch for, and another reason to be goddamn glad to live in Canada.

After the martyrdom

comes the ecstatic, slavering adoration!!!

If Ezra Levant's mewling little treatise in yesterday's NatPo wasn't bad enough, check out the ensuing comments as the Better-Than-Ezra Fan Club furiously hammers those nails into the cross:

Ezra's a hero!
A modern-day hero!

Ezra's a freedom fighter!

With bravery beyond any award!

Ezra's the Champ!


(Well, I loooooose it! I snap!)

Give Ezra $12 million!


Erect a statue of Ezra! (Good grief. A statue!?)


They finally got so excited they started drooling over each other...

Absolutely! A statue in the town square for "Raze"! And $12,000,000! (No maybe just $11,000,000, since the courage "Raze" had to summon to make that post doesn't quite measure up to the bravery of taking on doughy civil servants.)

Inexorably, a tiny voice of sanity breaks up the furious little circle jerk:

That was the final comment when I last looked; by now "Rob34" has been set upon and driven from the combox by the torch-and-pitchfork-wielding denizens of Ezraville.

Is it any wonder Ezra wants to keep milking this thing?

"WHAT-A-LOAD" UPDATE: There's much whining and whimpering about the $100,000 that Ezra's supposedly out due to his HRC travails. But with the $132,063 the Western Standard got from the Publications Assistance Program (yeah, that's taxpayers' money) the year this little fooferaw started (plus another $63,366 the year before), by my math he's still ahead... and that doesn't include the unknown amount he's hauled in with the good old Paypal button. (h/t Ti-Guy in the comments)

Is he or isn't he?

Only the wingnuts know for sure.

Wingnut response to the horrific Greyhound bus killing has been -- well, I'd like to say "enlightening", but unfortunately it just confirms what we already know about right-wingnuts and those furious little pretzels of paranoid madness they call... "their brains".

At FD, they're in a quandary:

"Maybe"!? No doubt! But who cares, because:

Or a Unitarian Universalist, eh pally? But then again...

Damn straight. A cover-up:


But suddenly, Realitus interruptus:


"Worked hard all week, went to church on Sundays, went insane." D'oh!

Now I'm waiting for someone to notice that in the arrest picture, the killer appears to be wearing ...Birkenstocks!, notorious Official Footwear of Leftoid Hippie Feminist Gay Libtard Barking Moonbats everywhere!

Censorship, hypocrisy and consistency

It's a scenario that plays out with depressing regularity: the religious right spins a bearing and gets all exercised and up in arms about a book, record or film and tries to get it banned, burned or blasted off the shelves of some library. There was a case a couple of years ago where Walmart was selling a book deemed "offensive" by fundies. There ensued a feverish campaign of bellowing, badgering and threatening until Walmart finally caved and stopped selling the book.

So... is this censorship? And further, can people who engage in such activity simultaneously claim to champion free speech? There's an interesting discussion on this topic at Dr. Dawg's place.

In my opinion, the campaign against the "Little Black Book" was absolutely censorship. Walmart is a private business, and their buyers chose to carry the book. Those who were offended by it had the choice to ignore it and not buy it. If the book was really that offensive, all of Walmart's customers would have made the same choice and eventually the "invisible hand" would have removed it from the shelves.

But instead of exercising their freedom to ignore and letting the vagaries of the free market take care of the book, the fundies took it upon themselves to decide for everyone whether this book should be available at Walmart. When the state does that, we call it "censorship". I don't see how it's any less heinous when it's done by a private citizen or group. It's still someone else deciding for the rest of us what we should be able to read. Frankly I doubt I'd buy the book unless someone specifically asked me for it, but that's for me to decide -- I don't need some holy-rolling asshole deciding for me.

I agree with Dawg that the issue in this particular case is also hypocrisy and consistency: how on earth can anyone who engages in a campaign of censorship claim to be a proponent of free speech? It just proves what most of us have known all along -- to some people, the only "free speech" that counts is their free speech.

Early & often

Most of us have noticed and been somewhat amused by the dramatic and exaggerated prose that's been employed by right-wingnuts to describe the Macleans/Steyn/Levant HRC hearings. It started with Ezra on videotape at his hearing, demanding to know when his "interrogation" would begin. Soon expressions like "Kangaroo Kourt", "Star Chamber" and *gasp* "Story Of The Year!!!" were being used to describe the goings-on. This escalated into evermore hysterical hyperbole like "Hitlerian-Stalinite showcourt", "humanoid rites commissars" and "The Trial of the Century". Oh, the persecution, the stomping of jackboots on wingnut faces forever.

The drama and hyperbole around this thing have become so relentless and over the top that it got to the point where there was only one thing to do -- gather up some of the finer examples of all this whacked-out wingnuttery and run a poll (not "pole"). Balbulican at stageleft did the dirty work and, Conucopia-style, 12 overwrought and fetid examples now await your vote. But I warn you: it won't be easy.

The way the sphere spews

Ugh, the common cold has got me in its ferocious grip. My head feels like it's in a vise (remember that scene in "Casino"?), but before I stumble back to bed and collapse into a heap of misery, I must comment on one especially absurd post that I came across today.

Yes yes, we know the upper-right quadrant of the political compass is home to a lot of bugfuck crazy nutbars, we all read their spewage (or should that be "sewage"?) from time to time. Sometimes it's entertaining (in a "can anyone really be that dumb?" kind of way), but sometimes it's just weird, and not in a good way. (Like "Good Naked" and "Bad Naked", there's Good Weird and Bad Weird.) Today's exhibit, from red tory (via CC) is a post that claims gay rights will lead to "pederasts' rights", on the basis of the potential discovery of a "Pederast Brain". Hold on tight, people, we're entering bat country:

"Our secular society says that it is deeply committed to the equality of all human persons, regardless of sexual orientation, hence the urgency to legiitimize homosexuality. However it is worth noting that scientists do not display the same sense of urgency to discover a "pederast gene", or a scientific justification for pederasty. However, iif scientific discovery can be used to justify homosexual behaviour, why can't the same scientific methods, and discoveries, be used to justify pederast behaviour? If they are both unchosen, and innate, why should one be viewed as normal and the other deviant? Why shouldn't both be viewed as normal, or, alternatively, deviant?"

The Coles Notes version of the long and pedantic screed at the end of the link is that if there's a genetic component to sexual orientation, then there must also be a "pederast/child molester" gene. Rights naturally follow.

If my brain wasn't stuck in 2nd gear, I'd address each of the 57 varieties of stupid in this guy's little hypothesis, but fuck it. His theory falls on its face right out of the gate because of one basic reality: pederasty isn't a sexual orientation. The problematic issue with pederasts isn't orientation, it's the pursuit of relationships with physical and psychological subordinates. It's a power trip that happens to involve the genitals. So whatever, dude -- apples and oranges. I think the first commenter had it right when he/she said:

"*sigh* Another sexually-obsessive "Christian" focused on the sex lives of others. Sorry...the rest of us know what that means. Seek help."

Sounds about right to me!

One foot out the door

And the other on a banana peel! Today at Steyn Online:

No doubt this whole Macleans/HRT thing has been a time-consuming exercise that Steyn is understandably anxious to put behind him. The cynical among us might think that he could also be looking forward to extricating himself from the spittle-flecked little support mob of bigots, neo-nazis and Talibangelist whackjobs that have been, as green gooey phlegm is to a cold, the unfortunate by-product of his HRC ailments.

Surprised he isn't sticking around to give the "Freedom Five" (*gag*) some support now that his problems are receding and theirs are in ascendancy? Me neither.

"Little Mosque" goes south

The CBC-TV show that right-wingnuts love to hate, "Little Mosque on the Prairie", is going Hollywood:

"Little Mosque on the Prairie is about to move up to the broadcasting big league south of the border.

WestWind Pictures, the producers of the CBC Television hit comedy, has signed a deal with Twentieth Century-Fox Television to create an American version of the series. Created by Zarqa Narwaz, Little Mosque follows the lives of a small Muslim community in the fictional Canadian prairie town of Mercy. The intent behind the new deal is to remount the series in a U.S. setting."

Err... is this the same "Little Mosque on the Prairie" that the wingnuts shrieeeekingly referred to as "state-funded dhimmitude" (whatever the fuck that is) that was destined to -- "heh" -- expire after 6 episodes due to bad ratings? Why yes, it is. But these people are so consistently so wrong about so many other things, why should their TV ratings performance predictions be any exception? Heh.

Here's the world's smallest violin...

... playing for all the poor, persecuted conservative women in the world. Boo friggin hoo.

The post at stageleft was about some distinctly weird behaviour on the part of a couple of conservative bloggers. Usually sexual weirdness is the exclusive preserve of conservative men, but in this case, the bloggers in question happen to be female (after a fashion). SUZANNE gets her moldy, moth-eaten old feminism on and shrieks about the persecution of conservative women -- not just missing the point but being a good mile and a half away from it. Sorry, there's no double standard, no conspiracy to dump on conservative women, and no, as much as they might get a good buzz off it, conservative women are not persecuted.

Don't like being ridiculed? Then don't be ridiculous. Yep, it's really that simple.

But never mind that, the good!! news is that there are whispers about "Conucopia's" possible revival... as a big fan of Conucopia, I am fervently hoping this comes to fruition. Oh man, there were times when that thing had me laughing so hard I was almost in tears... please, balbulican. The progressive blogosphere needs Conucopia, now more than ever! (No pressure, though.)

CoD Bloggers -- Antonia joins the fray!

Antonia speaks. You listen.

UPDATE: That was the Star (MSM!) article -- now, for your further reading pleasure, the Broadsides Blog Post.

Run, Mark, Run

Posting at FD about the Steyn/Macleans hearing in Vancouver this week, a Mark Steyn groupie momentarily loses his grip:

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Run, Mark, run! Don't look back! And for god's sake, get that "wobbling fromage" of yours into some kind of protective gear before someone puts a lip lock on it. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!!!)

Speaking of sticky keyboards...

I thought I'd check on FD and see how they're holding up under the pile of libel suits they're being buried alive in. (I throw on the hip waders and go there so you don't have to.)

Conventional wisdom suggests it would make sense for all Free Speech Freedom Fighters to devote all their time and energy to neutralizing (without prejudice) any legal salvos being fired their way. But -- hmm. That sounds like it might be kind of... hard work. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just look around for someone else to sue? "We can do that too! Nyeah nyeah!"

Here's a man with a plan:

Huh. This guy apparently spends enough time poking around xtra, looking for action (-able statements) that he's even got some favourite "grist for actionable items"... Suggesting the Bible be banned? -- Actionable! Calling for an end to the taxpayer-funded free ride of Catholic Schools? -- Actionable!! Does this guy even understand what "actionable" means? -- Is that question Actionable! too?

I'm sure I don't have to point out the irony of those bemoaning libel chill and the curtailment of free speech simultaneously going around searching for someone they can sue. Given the litigious nature of some of those they point to as "free speech freedom fighters", I shouldn't be surprised by the cognitive dissonance... and yet, I always am.

But never mind that: "poke around" -- an innocent Freudian slip? I wonder.

Earth Hour shines a light on... right-wing moronitude

Whether last night's Earth Hour saved a pile of energy or not, it was successful -- it was a strategy that raised awareness of the climate change issue better than the holy grail of media time, a spot in the Superbowl, could ever hope to do. Earth Hour was interactive marketing at its finest: whether one participated or not (and apparently millions did -- Ontario's power usage was down by 3-5% -- make that 5.2% -- during that hour), Earth Hour was thought about, talked about, written about, argued about, wondered and worried about, blogged and bullshitted about -- whether it was disparaged or celebrated wasn't the point. Buzz was the point, and Mission Accomplished. There's more awareness of the climate change issue today than there was 24 hours ago.

On a vastly tinier scale, there's also more awareness of The Stupid that oozes from the deranged right-wing jerkoffosphere like pus from a festering sore. Earth Hour was called a lot of things by its detractors -- a commie conspiracy, groupthink, fascism (does that guy even know what "fascism" is?) etc. etc. blah blah blah yack yack yackety yack -- but by far the most ludicrous response was the wankosphere's lame-o attempt to try and offset some of whatever good the initiative might do. As CC noted, an adult who wasn't into Earth Hour would probably just say "No thanks, I think I'll pass", but adulthood is easy: you gotta fight for your right to be a dumbfuck. In doing so, the citizens of Lower Wingnuttia not only helped raise awareness of Earth Hour, but shone a halogen-bright light on their own stupidity.

Imagine if you will, a moderate, non-partisan individual googling "Earth Hour" to find out what all the fuss was about, and stumbling upon The Angry Villagers with their goofy exhortations to fire up all the appliances and lights, let vehicles idle for an hour and maybe put off that welding job until 8pm. It's one thing to say Earth Hour was a symbolic gesture tantamount to nothing, quite another to go out of your way to try to saboutage it (as if that would even be possible). It's like some bozo keying a Prius because they think the owner's an "enviro-weenie".

It's good to keep an eye on these cretins and occasionally point out their absurdity. But sometimes they do the job so well themselves that there's nothing left to do but stand back and avoid the splatter from their intellectual wet farts.

Coming to you from an underground bunker...

Me and da Zerb. And now, Birth Pangs.

From my New Friend:

Yes, it's my intention to ban all pregnancies. When I'm finished with that, I plan to ban satire. And irony! Can't forget that one.

I suspect there are more than a few right-wingers out there who are just a wee tiny bit uncomfortable that this guy is one of theirs. Have a talk with him, already -- even I'm starting to feel embarrassed for you.

Oh-oh

Oh, geez... looks like I caught a flying wingnut, and this one's really spun a bearing. From my Yahoo mail just now, I was treated to a sick and sad spectacle as one Karol Karolak of "Fathers 4 Life", "Fathers_are_capable_too", "Dads In Action", "Mothers-in-exile", "Strangers In Paradise", "Fathers-in-Mothers", "Fathers-in-Fathers", yadda in yadda, put the cheetos aside and stroked himself to a shrieking ragegasm over my "asskicking" post yesterday.

"Karol" (who may or may not be the same "Karol Karolak" that posted 13 incoherent, return-key-challenged replies to this National Post article on abortion a couple of months ago) has thoughtfully taken it upon himself to do a mass-emailing of my post, complete with my picture, to MPs (thanks, pally, but I have a feeling they've already seen it). Failing to get the desired reaction out of the Libs, he's now posted it somewhere on the Snotgun, I mean Shitgun, I mean Shotgun Blog at the Western StandTurd. W00t! Busy guy! (Time to get a job, Karol.) From the initial exchange to the most recent, here we go!

Full disclosure: though Mr. Karolak's e-mails describe me as a "radical feminist", sadly, I'm not what anyone would consider a "radical" by any stretch of the imagination. But Karol, if it turns your crank to think I am, then by all means, knock yourself out. No no, I mean really knock yourself out. Literally. Maybe you'll wake up with a functioning brain stem.

(For the record, I've stricken Nunavut MP Nancy Karetak-Lindell from the shit-list, and offer her my sincerest apologies -- she was absent from the vote due to being stuck in her home riding in a snowstorm. Now that's an excuse I can get behind.)

National Pornst

Here's one for the "SoCons: Stranger Than Fiction" files. Someone is actually offended by this Valentines Day issue graphic on the cover of today's National Post:

When I saw the illustration on the cover of the NatPo this morning, I thought it was a refreshingly cute departure for a newspaper that's usually as staid and stodgy as they cum -- though it didn't set any Porn Alert! bells clanging in my head. However, I didn't pay much attention to the miniscule couple getting it on behind the big X, and upon closer inspection, I must admit to being a little offended by the image's insensitivity -- it completely disregards our gay friends who are also celebrating Valentines Day.

Come now, National Post, equal rights mean equal time -- gays and lesbians have earned their place behind the Big X. After all, if limiting the image to heterosex didn't placate the tender sensibilities of those so creepily sex-obsessed that they were traumatized by it, you might as well go for the gusto and be inclusive.

"Lefties hate free speech!"

Or so goes conventional wingnut wisdom of late.

In following stories about Levant, Steyn, and most recently, MP Keith Martin, I've noticed a strange new urban legend making the rounds of the jerkoffosphere: "Lefties hate da free speak!(!!!)". This toxic turd is dumped in just about every right-wing blogospheric toilet in the known universe despite the fact that "lefties" have expressed virtually no support for the HRC complaints that started the whole free speech fooferaw. Most of the prog-blogs I read seem to agree that the complaints against Levant and Steyn/Macleans Magazine are specious, if not outright stupid, and will be probably be rightly dismissed.

And yet the Bullshit Machine keeps rockin' and rollin' along. Check out the incoherent diatribe of commenter "none" (as in, "how many brains do you have? - none") at SUZANNE's blogpost about RT's blogpost (guest-posting at Scott Tribe's blog -- confused yet?) about the motion being tabled by MP Keith Martin. RT, a progressive, says he supports the motion. Enthusiastically supports it, no less. But that doesn't stop "none-mind" from braying:

Well ya coulda fooled me! So colour me corn-fused... the wingnuts must be getting this idea from somewhere, but where oh where? I really want to know.

Of course Coulter supports Hillary

All the right-wingers do, Ann Coulter is just the latest. Coulter claims she'll vote for Clinton if John McCain wins the Republican nomination -- riiiiiiiight, sure she will. She's just doing her part to cement the horrifying possibility of President Hillary in the minds of the Republican electorate. "Hillary! Hillary! Boo! (9/11!) SHRIEEEK!"

Recall the systematic attacks that were made on Clinton last summer by Karl Rove. Their purpose wasn't to rally the GOP against her, that's a fait accompli if there ever was one. Rove's attacks on Clinton were part of a strategy to initiate a primordial defense reflex that would rally the Democrats in her support, and in the long-term, help her win the Democratic nomination. Rove wants Clinton to win the nomination.

It could be because he originally thought John Edwards was more of a threat than Clinton, but even more probably, it's to capitalize on the mobilizing power of Hillary hatred. The Republican base has been divided and directionless for awhile now, and that's a bad way to go into an election. But nothing unites them like their vicious and inexplicable hatred of Hillary Clinton. Should she win the Democratic nomination, Republicans will turn out in record numbers to vote for whoever her Republican opponent is. Helping her secure the nomination is, for the GOP, the ultimate "get out the vote" strategy.

(h/t: bastard.logic)