Goddamnit Bill Maher

Anyone else remember when Rush Limbaugh called President Clinton’s daughter Chelsea a dog? It wasn’t just petty and cruel, but it was an attack on a child, and it was disgusting. It was symptomatic of the derangement of the right wing that people actually laughed and defended it.

Now Bill Maher is laughing at Sarah Palin’s Down syndrome child. It’s the same thing.

Futrell didn’t think he’d hear the HBO personality mock former Gov. Sarah Palin’s special needs child or hear the crowd laugh right along.

Futrell, a former Las Vegas sports broadcaster and Breitbart News contributor, says on his blog that Maher used the term "retarded" to describe young Trig Palin during the comedy performance.

The one thing I can respect about Palin, that she seems to treat all of her children equally, is a joke to Maher. Thanks, guy, for being such an awful, ghastly, horrible liberal, and for lowering yourself to mocking the children of your political opponents.

(via Joe.My.God)

Is it a Godwin if it’s accurate?

Yet another Republican has once again argued that the trauma of rape makes women infertile: Trent Franks of Arizona claimed “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are [sic] very low.” He’s just one more in a long line of thugs spouting pseudoscientific lies.

“In the aftermath of Akin’s statement, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a 1972 essay by an obstetrician named Fred Mecklenburg, who cited a Nazi experiment in which women were told they were on their way to die in the gas chambers—and then were allowed to live, so that doctors could check whether they would still ovulate. Since few did, Mecklenburg claimed that women exposed to the emotional trauma of rape wouldn’t be able to become pregnant, either. (He also argued that rapists are infertile because they masturbate a lot.) The essay was published in a book financed by A.U.L.”

A.U.L. is Americans United for Life, a pro-life advocacy group with increasing clout because of its success in drafting model state laws to restrict abortion. The line from the Nazis to Mecklenberg to Akin and Frank runs through Jack Wilke, a doctor who is the former head of the National Right to Life Committee. He said, "What is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that’s physical trauma." And he stuck with this when the Los Angeles Times called to ask him about Akin last year. When I asked A.U.L. head Charmaine Yoest about the claim that rape rarely results in pregnancy, she was smarter and called it “a distraction.” Abortion opponents sure do keep bringing it up, though.

Right, the “argument from hideously unethical evil Nazi experiment” is just what I’d expect Republicans to do.

Oh, let’s pile on a little more

Colin McGinn may be pompous and privileged, but he also writes philosophy papers. Philosophy papers that get reviewed. Philosophy papers that get scathingly hilarious reviews (pdf). An excerpt from Strohminger, in Emotion Review:

Another property of McGinn’s text, of which potential readers should be aware, is its unintentional hilarity. The humor derives less from the unblushing content than from the unblushing purpleness of his prose. Of the male genitalia, McGinn writes: “Life and death coexist in complex and subtle ways in the penis and testicles, telling a story of triumph and tragedy.” On feces: “I have no wish to romanticize the turd.” Pubic hair is referred to as “nature’s furry bounty.” Semen is a “pointless sticky daub once it is spilled on the ground, only to be consumed there by unfussy insects or whatever.” Or whatever. Unfussy cavemen, perhaps.

In pursuit of a grand unifying theory, Freud saw phalluses everywhere; McGinn sees only crap. Snakes, being dun-colored and slithery, are deemed unmistakably poop-like. The brain “resembles nothing so much as a mound of dung”, a proclamation that forces us to ask whether McGinn has ever actually seen a brain. “The rectum is a grave [obviously!]… but is the grave also a rectum, with corpses featuring as large turds?” These are the questions McGinn is not afraid to ask, not that the answers could be anything other than nonsense.

I almost want to read the original paper, except that it’s 200 pages long.

Pretentious philosophers, here’s another reason not to abuse your graduate students, besides the obvious one of basic human decency: it encourages deeper scrutiny of your work.

Gun control now

How many more stupid tragedies will it take?

Authorities in northern Arizona say a 4-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his father at a Prescott Valley home.

Prescott Valley police say the shooting occurred just after noon Friday.

The 35-year-old man and his young son were visiting from Phoenix and were at a friend’s house.

Police say the boy somehow found a gun in the home’s living room and accidentally fired it and a bullet hit his father, who was rushed to a hospital where he died.

“Somehow” found a loaded gun lying about in the living room, in a place where a child can find it. “Somehow”. Maybe the gun fairy dropped it there, or perhaps Jesus miraculously poofed it into place.

Is the “friend” facing criminal negligence charges? Or is this just part of the freedom of owning guns?

What? No! Really?

I can’t believe…YOU CAN DO WHAT IN TEXAS? Jesus Fuck, but it’s time for a national intervention in that goddamn state. Redirect the drones from Afghanistan to this bloated tumor in our own country now, or if that’s politically untenable, rip out their rotten political core and replace it with something decent.

Decent Texans are bowing their heads in shame right now. Or planning to move.

I am devastated: Mrmojoman0 doesn’t like me!

I have received a dreadful rebuke. A user on reddit has announced that I have driven him to become an MRA.

against atheism+ which is largely a feminist ridden anti-male/mensrights movement, hiding behind the guise of atheism.

like PZ myers, a popular atheist/science blogger who is probably responsible for my becoming an mra. i had been following his blog, because it seemed pretty reasonable. posts like burning a dawkins’ book along with the koran/bible to show that it’s not something to take so seriously.

however, one day i saw him posting about feminism, i thought "women’s rights, nothing wrong with that"

then he said something along the lines of "if you are a man, you aren’t even ALLOWED to talk about sexual equality." and i lost all respect for him. just because i’m male doesn’t mean i can’t understand anything, or that i shouldn’t be allowed to have an opinion.

timewarp to the future, he is a popular voice in the "atheism+" movement, which is as i said, pretty feminist/anti-male.

I said what?

All right, I want you all to bow down in gratitude and thank me profusely because I have single-handedly driven yet another fool away from our brand of atheism. You are welcome. You can send checks directly to me, or you can find my paypal account.

Oh no! Equality! Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes… The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

Recent surveys have shown that 4 out of 10 American households are headed by a woman. Wanna watch four pampered men lose their shit over this fact? Here you go.

Juan Williams is angry — having women as the primary breadwinner heralds the disintegration of the family and something is terribly wrong with the country!

Professional Racist Lou Dobbs chimes in with some non-sequitur about abortions. Women are working and not having babies! Alert the police! Catastrophe and disaster! The social order is being undermined!

Oh, but smug jerk Erick Erickson takes the cake.

I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science, but this is liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology, when you look at the natural world, the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complimentary role.

We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complimentary relationships in nuclear families, and it is tearing us apart.

WTF?

I’m used to conservatives mangling science and telling us that their lies are true, and Erickson does not disappoint. Listening to that I turned purple and tried to blurt out four sentences simultaneously, and then my larynx exploded and my brains geysered out my ears.

  • It’s not true! Many species exhibit different patterns of dominance, and some have no system of dominance at all. It’s quite common for females to be larger than males, for instance. Erickson is claiming that something common in primates is a universal.

  • NATURALISTIC FALLACY, ASSHOLE!

  • You don’t get to spend your pundit career blithering about human (and American) exceptionalism and then turn around when it’s convenient to your argument to point to some monkey over there and say, “See? That’s the natural order!”

  • Erick Erickson is one hella confused dingleberry. Why does anyone listen to a biblical literalist pontificating about science?

Here’s the deal, Fox News. The world is changing. It’s not getting worse, it’s getting different, and I know that’s the kind of thing that makes bitter, cranky old conservatives weep into their scotch and water, but deal with it. Besides, you’ll be dead soon and won’t care any more.

And it’s not just getting different, it’s getting better — those women in the workforce are more independent, more free, and living more fulfilling lives that matter. Welcome it. And hey, how about getting off your privileged butts and making sure that they get paid the same as men, so those families and children you’re so fucking concerned about can get by?

What does evil look like?

Big fangs, horns, a hideous face, wielding brutal instruments of torture? Or maybe something sleek and military that can explode in a gout of flame? Sure, those are evil all right, but real evil can be distilled down to something as simple as a lawyer signing a piece of paper, a doctor averting their eyes, a citizen ignoring an act of inhumanity because the victim isn’t worthy…or an entire nation so soaked in godly lies that they will let a young woman die to protect their sanctimony.

I wrote about Beatriz’s case in El Salvador before. She’s 22, she’s very sick, and she’s pregnant with an anencephalic fetus. The fetus is doomed and can never live outside the womb, but the pregnancy is worsening Beatriz’s condition, and could kill her, too. The solution is simple: an abortion would give Beatriz a chance.

But no, El Salvador has an absolutist law on the books that completely outlaws all abortions, no exceptions, not even to save the life of the mother. It is a very Catholic country — yet again, religion poisons everything. This is a law very much like what the far right pecksniffs in the US would like to impose on us, and it’s operating effectively in El Salvador.

Beatriz’s only hope was that the El Salvador Supreme Court would see the light of reason and make a rational exception. They didn’t. They condemned her to die.

That’s what pure evil looks like. It’s a bureaucrat hearing the pleas of a dying woman and turning their back on her to worship the letter of the law. It’s a whole nation with their heads stuffed up their asses as an act of piety. It’s symbolized by this man, with his rituals and rites and his bullshit theology.

pope-francis

That’s the face of evil, neatly coiffed, smiling, seemingly benign. People are petitioning the Pope to save Beatriz’s life, and I find that offensive as well. By what goddamned right does this foolish old man have the power of life and death over anyone? Shouldn’t everyone have autonomy and a right to live?

That’s evil too, that we accept that some people have the power to inflict death and destruction, directly or indirectly, on others.

Maybe they’ll run for president in the next election

The Republicans are giving me some hope. They have quite the pair running for governor in Virginia: Cuccinelli and Jackson.

Here are some of the comments from Republican women in Virginia:

Waddell called “the worst ticket ever”, adding that she was “completely embarrassed and mortified by the Republican ticket of Cuccinelli and Jackson.”

Jan Schar told Blue Virginia that although she’s been a Republican for years, “I simply cannot support them,” as they would “end a woman’s right to make her own health care choices, including access to birth control.”

Schar was disturbed by the Republican ticket’s attack on Planned Parenthood, “which does so much good for women in Virginia…. to call them a racist group is simply beyond the pale and hopefully will frighten Virginians from voting for them. This team of three would take us back to their ideology.” Schar concluded, “I know so many Republicans who just can’t support [this ticket].”

Waddell (I/R) called Cuccinelli “extreme”, according to Blue Virigina, due in part to his “dangerous… anti-woman health agenda.” Reacting to the ticket’s charges against Planned Parenthood, she pointed out that it made “absolutely no sense to accuse Planned Parenthood of being a racist organization; it’s an organization which brings much needed health care to many.”

But that’s nothing. You should listen to Phyllis Schlafly’s latest remarks.

…in an interview this week with conservative radio program Focus Today, Schlafly just came right out and said it. Calling the GOP’s need to reach out to Latinos a “great myth,” Schlafly said that “the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes, the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election.” Schlafly accused the Republican “establishment” of nominating “a series of losers…who don’t connect with the grassroots.”

“The propagandists are leading us down the wrong path,” she said. “There’s not any evidence at all that these Hispanics coming in from Mexico will vote Republican.”

Yay! Please please please, Republican party, quit pretending and just admit that you are the Wealthy White Man Party! Come right out with it in the next election, court the KKK, announce that you want to amend the Constitution to prohibit women from voting, sneer at all our citizens who are of Central and South American descent, campaign on a platform of banning contraception and evolution, and just be yourselves! I’ll enjoy it.

Unless they get elected, that is.

Super colossal jumbo-sized douchebag

It is the douchebag against which all other douchebags must be measured, Roman Polanski.

Polanski told the press that he is not pleased with how the sexes act with one another today. “I think that now offering flowers to a lady becomes indecent, that’s how I feel about it. I think to level the genders—it’s purely idiotic,” he said. “I think it’s a result of progress in medicine. I think that the Pill has changed greatly the woman of our times, ‘masculinizing’ her. I think that it chases away the romance from our lives and that’s a great pity.”

Right, because letting a woman control her own sex life and reproduction is a dismal outcome and totally unromantic. And medicine for women? What a pity. Remember what Polanski is famous for…

He was arrested for having sex with a 13-year-old girl after allegedly drugging her and plying her with alcohol.

He was originally indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molestation, and sodomy. He accepted a deal by which he plead guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in exchange for the other charges being dropped and a sentence that was most likely going to be probation. Before final sentencing, however, he fled the country and returned to his native France out of fear that the judge would send him to prison.

Oh, yes — autonomy is such an unattractive and unstimulating feature in a woman.