Count Four

The Straw That Broke It

The Washington Post finally got me to cancel my subscription after publishing this little fluff piece on the head of the “National Organization for Marriage” moving to DC. One choice bit:

“I have gay people who are friends and family,” he says. “We can disagree on all sorts of things and still care about each other.” And later, “Of course, I have to take their arguments seriously. This issue is important. Ideas have consequences.”

Ah yes, the old “I have friends” like these people whom I’m actively working against. Because you really care about people when you want to deny them civil protections under the law. Right.

Nary a critical thought in the article, nothing illuminating on his organization’s goals, just a little fluff piece that makes his form of bigotry look oh-so-normal-and-rational. Thanks, Washington Post, I won’t miss having this crap delivered to my door.

Right Wing Fraud

Orchestrated “grass-roots” intimidation of Congressmembers regarding health care reform.

A shame this can’t/won’t get prosecuted.

Shame and Feminization

I’ve been meaning to write about the Thai cops and their new “Hello Kitty armband” punishment regime, but as usual Morford has beaten me to the punch and written a lovely bit of satire about this ridiculous practice. I especially love his introduction of the cutest kitty around:

We speak, quite naturally, of Hello Kitty, perhaps the most unspeakably evil icon of horrific cuteness since that time My Little Pony and Smurfette had a dirty threesome with a Cabbage Patch Kid at Circus Circus back in ’98, resulting in a mutant bastard offspring so repulsively adorable the U.S. government must now keep it locked away in an ironclad Area 51 bunker lest humans see it and instantly explode into bloody piles of candy canes and glitter and 2 billion pink Swarovski crystals.

Go read the rest here.

The thing he doesn’t mention explicitly is the inherent sexism at work in this “punishment.” The sexism that declares that somehow having to wear a Hello Kitty armband will make these (male) cops less manly, more feminine, and that this is somehow a bad thing. It’s a ludicrous practice, and it deserves every bit of ridicule it’s receiving.

A Study, Examined

An interesting examination of the new report from from the New England Journal of Medicine on obesity, courtesy Slate, and on the conclusions reached therein.

And Isn’t It Ironic…

Driver ODs, crashes into drug rehab center

A Rose By Any Other Name

In honor of the Live Earth concerts, I’d like to point you to this comic (Prickly City).

Good Bye

While I do not rejoice in Mr. Falwell’s passing, I certainly do not mourn him, either.

Don’t Tell the Kids

OMGWTF, txt msgs r mkng ppl dumb. LOL

Irrational Hatred

So, Why Are Whites So Homophobic?

The Right to Bear Arms

I can’t decide if I’m more amused or appalled at the reactions here in DC to the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia’s ruling that specific parts of the District’s multi-layered gun ban were unconstitutional. The lack of understanding of basic civics when it comes to the status of the District within the overall Constitutional framework is just plain silly, especially among citizens of the District itself.

The majority opinion did a very good job of rendering the history of the second amendment, and of ripping apart the fallacious arguments in the dissent. It’s most certainly going to be appealed, first to the full court of appeals, and then likely to the Supreme Court. I’ll make no bets on whether or not SCOTUS would accept cert in the case (given that they’ve not addressed the second amendment in any meaningful way since 1939), but I’d wager the majority opinion is upheld by the full court of appeals.