Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

‘Raptors Ahead’ Sign Gets Stares, Chuckles – Indiana News Story – WRTV Indianapolis.

Sports attorney: Phelps could lose endorsements – CNN.com.

You know, I sincerely believe he would not lose any endorsements but for the fact that everybody is now speculating about whether he will lose his endorsements.

Commentary: Ridiculous items in stimulus plan – CNN.com.

Quote of the day:

There is nothing more private — that is, none of the government's business — than the personal decision that a family makes about how many children to have.

Whoa ho ho! That’s a hefty statement coming from a conservative… should I take this hissy fit about the sanctity of familial privacy to imply that Republicans are now going to back out of couples’ private childbearing decisions?

Eh?

Yeah. I didn’t think so.

Phelps admits ‘bad judgment’ after marijuana-pipe photo – CNN.com.

Jesus. Big freakin’ deal. It’s not like the guy was shooting heroin or steroids or something. If he was apologizing over the drunk driving incident, I’d be all about him appearing shamefaced before the media. That’s actually something worth apologizing for. But this? Please.

Okay, I get a LOT of spam, including lots of posts that just say, “I LOVED [blog post title here].” Usually I delete them right away… but this one just made me giggle like a twelve year old…

Oh, Ann Coulter. You always keep me laughing. So long as I don’t look at you. Then I just cringe.

I notice that liberals have not challenged the overall thesis of my rocketing bestseller, “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America,” which is that liberals always play the victim in order to advance, win advantages and oppress others.

Ann, sweetie, liberals aren’t challenging the overall thesis of your “rocketing bestseller” because we have more important things to worry about, and your “book” is, well… not important. Also, we have no interest in contributing to your coffers, and frankly, we don’t want anything in our homes with your face on it. Please. Think of the children.

But since I’m bored, let’s comment on a few of the gems in Coulter’s whining-for-attention article:

Caroline Kennedy tried to Bigfoot her way into New York’s Senate seat while being bathed in the Kennedy light of eternal victimhood. The New York Times began a profile of Caroline by quoting an average citizen who “turns almost maternally protective” upon hearing Caroline’s name, mentioning the assassination of her father — nearly half a century ago.

Yeah. It’s not like Republicans in Congress defend their sex scandals by referencing Chappaquiddick. But CLEARLY the six years between Kennedy’s assassination and the Chappaquiddick scandal makes alllll the difference in terms of justifiable historical references. CLEARLY.

Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy hadn’t lived in New York since he was 12 years old. But the allegedly sophisticated voters of New York were awed by the Kennedy name, and dumped a popular native son.

Yeah. And how long had it been since Elizabeth Dole had truly been a resident of North Carolina when she ran for Senate in 2002? OH YEAH – since 1959! Whoops. If I’m doing my math right, that is about 43 years. Interestingly, that is about the same number of years Robert Kennedy was ALIVE.

But either way, Robert Kennedy was elected as a New York Senator in 1965. Coulter is talking about an election that happened more than 40 years ago. I thought we were leaving history out of this discussion?

The only reason McCarthy was elected to Congress in the first place is that her husband and son were shot by a crazed gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993. Colin Ferguson’s shooting spree wasn’t stopped sooner because none of the passengers had guns. As has been demonstrated beyond dispute at this point, armed citizens save lives.

Well… funny thing. One of the passengers did in fact have a gun. His name was Colin Ferguson.

I don’t know a single conservative who thought America wouldn’t elect a black man.

*SNORT*

Well I’m sure she knows plenty who WISHED America wouldn’t elect a black man – and plenty who wouldn’t VOTE for one.

But ironically, Obama’s father is from Africa: He never suffered from the ancient policies that, today, give his son Victim Gold. To the contrary, if Obama’s African relatives had anything to do with slavery, it was on the business end.

Wow. This woman never fails to go for the low blow, does she? And so what if Obama’s great-great grandparents were not enslaved by the US? Does that mean his father was treated like anything other than a black man during his years in America? Does that mean Obama himself was treated as anything but a black man? Do racist assholes like Coulter go around saying, “Well, please, before I pass judgment upon you, tell me, were your ancestors slaves in the South, or are you of the category of dark Americans who are tolerable and acceptable to me?” No. They don’t inquire as to people’s history. They see black, and they respond.

School can expel lesbian students, court rules – Los Angeles Times.

Fuck letting them stay in the school – they should have a case for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

May this principal be blessed with gay children.

Hullabaloo is reporting on the Christian Coalition’s latest tirade. Sayeth the CC:

Our political leaders should do all within their power to protect, support and encourage America’s children, not crush and destroy them.

This policy would lay the foundation for racism and eugenics because it would seek to reduce the number of children to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.

WOW. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at this sudden outpouring of support for our nation’s impoverished children. After all, everybody knows that social conservatives are ALL about supporting the nation’s poorest and most underprivileged little ones.

Until they’re, you know, BORN. After that, you’re on your own, kids! Have fun storming the castle!

Yeah. Slashing funding for public education, TANF, arts and music programs, and children’s healthcare, on the other hand, has NOTHING to do with crushing and destroying our nation’s children, right? Oh, wait.

How I Made a 1,474-Megapixel Photo During President Obama’s Inaugural Address | David Bergman — ALL ACCESS — sports, concert, and music photographer.

Right now everything is 20% off at SkinStore.com with coupon code YES20. Expires 1/26/09. COOL!

What’s more, if you sign up with eBates you’ll get $5 in your account automatically, plus you’ll get an additional 8% cash back (checks sent 4x a year) if you click through their skinstore.com link – be sure to click straight through from their page to the shopping site. I’ve used it for a long time and can vouch for its legitimacy – I love my “Big Fat Check”!!!

I take it back. THIS is the best comment on that post…

I wish I knew about "provider conscience rules" when I was a teller.

"You want to withdraw how much? And what are you going to be buying? TruckNutz? Billy The Singing Bass? Sorry, pal. But I can't give you the three hundred you asked for, my conscience won't allow it. Here's twenty. That should cover your needs for today."

Pharyngula: They have a conscientious need to control your ovaries.

Great argument from the comments:

The most important reason to keep government out of the abortion business is that, if government has the power to ban abortions, it also has the power to compel them.

Oops, I accidentally pulled out your IUD! – Broadsheet – Salon.com.

Great. Next, wingnut pharmacists will start filling people’s birth control prescriptions with sugar pills… damn, people? Do you want to reduce the occurrence of abortions or not?!

That was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Thank god it finally did.

Playmobil Security Check Point

No joke!

The reviews are hilarious.

Inaugural Irritant: Why Rick Warren’s Prayer Left Me Cold | The Wall of Separation.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt this way about Rick Warren’s speech. Everybody was so busy praising him for not condemning the queers that they seemed to miss how utterly disrespectful Warren was to people of other religions, namely to Jews. As I was watching him refer to Jesus, Jes?s, Isa, and Yeshua, the ABC News announcer noted something to the effect of, “Oh look, he’s being inclusive by mentioning the Hebrew word for God.”

I have just one thing to say to that: FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

Yeshua is NOT the Hebrew name for God. Warren’s speech was inclusive to Latino Catholics, and to Muslims (who see Jesus as a prophet), but it was an absolute slap in the face to Jews.

Yeshua is NOT the Jewish name for God. It’s the fabricated Christian-Hebrew (a.k.a. “Jew for Jesus,” a.k.a. impostor “Jew”) name for Jesus. What Warren was essentially saying was that he is inclusive to everybody so long as they worship Jesus – and for Jews that means conversion to Christianity. It was little more than a follow-up to Ann Coulter’s statement that Jews are incomplete until they accept Jesus. As the old joke goes, “We have religious freedom in this country. Everybody is free to worship Christ in their own way.”

Incidentally, the true Jewish name for Jesus is “Yeshu” – an acronym for “Yimach Shemo V’zikro,” or “May his name and memory be blotted out.” Centuries of forced conversion and wholesale slaughter will make people a little bitter.

Israel Completes Withdrawal From Gaza – NYTimes.com.

Says Hamas: “We are aiming for the liberation of all of Palestine.”

’nuff said. You think they mean Gaza and the West Bank. They know they mean Israel.

107-year-old: ‘Nothing but the greatest!’ – CNN.com.

😀

Congratulations, America!

U.N. chief: Gaza violence ‘heartbreaking’ – CNN.com.

More than 1,300 Palestinians died and about 5,400 others were wounded during Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Authority's Central Bureau of Statistics. Among the dead were 159 children.

And then:

The fighting largely stopped Sunday with a cease-fire. Israel has said 13 of its citizens — including 10 soldiers — were killed during the offensive, which started December 27.

I’m the last person to say that the death of 159 children is acceptable. I think it’s horrendous that so many innocent children died during this conflict. But let’s get one thing straight: The majority of those killed in Gaza were Hamas fighters – CNN never reports this – and at least some of the children killed were killed by Hamas fighters, either by their own rockets and mortars, or by them being held up as human shields against Israeli gunfire.

I do not accept the deaths of these children as necessary or as “collateral damage.” They should not have died. But Hamas, not Israel, is largely to blame. Hamas welcomed an Israeli ground incursion. Hamas welcomed an Israeli air incursion. Hamas has said it “loves death more than Jews love life.” This spate of violence proved that notion. Hamas fighters were quoted in the news as saying they were happy to die, and that they were proud to die, and that others should be happy to die too. That’s not to say they ran in front of Israeli gunfire or anything – no, they wanted to die only if they could take as many people with them as possible. They would run into civilians’ houses to hide. They would launch rockets from the rooftops of heavily-populated apartment buildings, and from outside schools. They would walk around holding children against their will, some of them plucked right off the street. Note in this video that not only does the fighter grab a child off the street, but he runs right for a crowd of people. If he’s going to die, he’s taking people with him.

Hamas’s main base of operations is under the main Gaza hospital: If Israel doesn’t fire, they win by living, and if Israel does fire, they win by dying and having Israel become known as the country who deliberately bombed the hospital.

And finally, while Israel restrains itself (believe me, if it wasn’t exercising restraint, the death toll would be much higher), Hamas directly TARGETS Israeli civilians. If they could inflict a higher civilian death toll among Israelis, it would. If it could wipe out the entire population of Israel, it WOULD. That’s the difference between Hamas and Israel.

For the record, CNN, even the UN was saying that roughly 25% of those dead were civilians. This means 75% were not. Why is this never mentioned on CNN?

Join the First Virtual March for LGBT Equality – Learn the 1138 Reasons Equality Matters.

Lynching in Ramallah – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lest the world forget. Just because Israel has been relatively successful at protecting its citizens, it doesn’t mean the bloodlust isn’t there. This guy looks awfully happy to be drenched in Israeli blood. The mob below him got its taste too. And if they could do it again? I guarantee they would.

YouTube – Anti-Gay Marriage Petition Fraud Caught on Camera.

Hospital in Gaza Is a Scene of Pain, Despair and Defiance – NYTimes.com.

“He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.”

. . .

“They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers.

Joe. My. God.: Hate Crime Or Not?.

There’s an interesting discussion making the rounds of NYC news blogs regarding what happened at a Jewish wedding reception last week. A 23 year-old Christian-raised cater waiter, who for five years had worked for a catering company that specialized in Jewish weddings, decided to express his sympathy for Palestinians by using the Woodbury Jewish Center’s PA system to broadcast some chants he’d recorded with his cell phone at last week’s pro-Palestine rally in Times Square. The chants? “Allahu akbar.”

Isn’t that what they usually yell right before they detonate their bombs? In this context, this is akin to yelling, “NOBODY MOVE!” in a bank. The words themselves don’t constitute the crime – it is the context, and the meanings that are generally attributed to those words in that particular context – that make it a crime. Same as shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater. He could easily have created a stampede among the 700 guests, who likely had their lives flash before their eyes…

Op-Ed Contributor – What You Don’t Know About Gaza – NYTimes.com.

THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.

Oh, gee, that’s funny. I thought the cease-fire broke down WHEN HAMAS DID NOT CEASE ITS FIRE. Did “reduction” and “cessation” suddenly become synonyms, and I just somehow missed the memo? Did 20 rockets in four months suddenly become an acceptable number? When I’m a lawyer and my client receives a “cease and desist” notice, should I write back and say, “Ooops. Sorry. We’ll cut down the number of times we violate your rights. Would 5 times per month be acceptable?”