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Archive for May 2006
Cornerdom and Gomorrah
Posted by Clif on 05/31/06 at 10:17 am
Category: Gay Issues, America's Shittiest Website
A putative news item in crackpot British tabloid The Sun about a gay conductor allegedly flashing and soliciting a male passenger for sex has got the Cornerdomites at America’s Shittiest Website™ all riled up.
Jonah starts out the nonsense by demonstrating his limited grasp of recent history:
State officials hound citizens for gay sex in England! It figures that it would happen on state-owned train lines!
Uh, Jonah, you lumpy idiot, the British rail system was privatized years ago (by no less than your hero Maggie Thatcher). Conductors aren’t state officials anymore. Reagan is no longer President. VHS is dead, the Simpsons jumped the shark, and, Jonah, throw out those parachute pants. You look ridiculous in them.
Next to pile on the gay ticket taker, so to speak, was Mark Steyn, who not surprisingly uses it as an opportunity to demonstrate his own sexual prowess on the rails:
Incidentally, years ago, . . . I caught the all but deserted midnight train out of Paddington and was propositioned by a predatory lady ticket inspector who was anxious to clip a lot more than my Away-Day Off-Peak Excursion. (Do your own jumping-the-tracks jokes.)
And like those Letters to Penthouse, every word of that is true. Uh-huh.
Next up is global-warming enthusiast and oil-industry shill Iain Murray who uses the story to do a little union bashing:
Under the old British Rail staffing procedures he’d probably still be in place, defended by his Union.
Iain can easily imagine a union defending a deranged flasher no doubt because of his own extensive personal experience defending the indefensible.
And what episode of high-school snickering about gays would be complete without the wise words of John Derbyshire:
I tell you, it’s war. The end point of this will be a situation like that in Charles Beaumont’s story “The Crooked Man,” about a future world where homosexuality was the norm and heterosexuality is illegal. The hero gets arrested for a secret tryst with a woman. That’s where we’re headed. You heard it here first.
That Derbyshire thinks that most heterosexual men can become gay at the drop of a hat says more about Derbyshire, I think, than it does about most heterosexual men. Of course, working in close proximity on a daily basis with K-Lo might understandably cause even the most confirmed heterosexual to question the wisdom of the heterosexual lifestyle.
Missing from this rogue’s gallery was Cornerdomite Stanley Kurtz who normally evinces such an obsession with all things gay that one can only suspect that Kurtz spends most of his spare time lurking in department store restrooms and interstate highway rest stops. Instead, Kurtz plugs his new article “Polygamy and Democracy:”
There’s been a lot of talk about polygamy these past few months, but no-one’s offered a systematic case against recognizing polygamy. I do that in my new piece. . . . While this article has plenty to say about marriage, . . . there’s also a lot that’s relevant to the war on terror . . . .
Stanley, your article comes not a moment too soon. Every day I meet another guy who has decided to help out the terrorists by taking on a couple of extra wives. Kurtz’s article is an excerpt from his new book, Homosexual Polygamy: Al Qaeda’s Secret Weapon of Mass Destruction, to be published by Regnery this fall.
More Inconvenient Truths
Posted by Clif on 05/30/06 at 3:49 pm Category: America's Shittiest Website, Environment
Iain Murray is a lying shill. There is simply no other way to put it.
Murray, a “fellow” at CEI, earlier today carried CEI’s big-oil-financed smear campaign against Al Gore over to America’s Shittiest Website™ where he burped up this preposterous bit of nonsense:
Al Gore justifies his enjoyment of a carbon-intensive lifestyle in a speech in the UK:
He said he was “carbon neutral” himself and he tried to offset any plane flight or car journey by “purchasing verifiable reductions in CO2 elsewhere”.Translation: I am rich enough to benefit from executive jets and Lincolns because I pay my indulgences. All you proles have to give up your cars, flights and air conditioning.
The new aristocracy; there’s no other way to describe it.
This disingenuous sack of shit knows full well that the other kids at the Corner, as well as that site’s readers, have no clue as to what it costs to purchase carbon offsets, and so he figures that he can get away with claiming that carbon offsets cost ginormous amounts of money.
Well, what are the facts? Carbon offsets for driving a 30 mpg car 12,000 miles can be purchased for $19.50. And what about those jet plane rides? A cross-country flight produces less than a metric ton of CO2 per passenger (slightly more for Messrs. Murray and Goldberg); offset credits for a metric ton of CO2 can be purchased for $5.50, slightly more than a Big Mac, fries and a coke.
The only carbon offset that might be truly expensive to purchase is one that would offset the emissions that spew out of the gasbags over at CEI.
Why Does Google Hate Jonah?
Posted by Clif on 05/29/06 at 10:08 am Category: Yellow Elephants
Jonah Goldberg, of all people, is complaining that Google hasn’t changed its logo for Memorial Day. That, of course, was an intentional smear by Google against Jonah’s distinguished military career as well as further proof, to Jonah at least, that Osama Bin Laden is hiding in a cubicle in Mountain View, California.
So in honor of Jonah’s distinguished service as a two-star general in the 89th Squawkers’ Squadron, we did our own special Memorial Day Google logo for Jonah. (For more on the white feather, go here. Not that we are suggesting that you actually send Jonah a white feather.)
Udder Fabrication or Bovine Revelation?
Posted by Clif on 05/28/06 at 9:43 am Category: Stupid Republicans
Alabama gubernatorial candidate Roy Moore spoke up yesterday for the civil liberties of cows, apparently because his only chance of winning the June 6 primary is to lure a substantial percentage of Alabama’s 1,280,000 cows to the polls. (Moore is currently trailing the current governor Bob Riley by 49 points — yes, you read that right, 49 points).
Moore reacted to news of an Alabama cow afflicted with mad cow disease by proposing that it was a fabrication of evil bureaucrats in state and federal government who were hoping to encourage passage of bill that would give identification numbers to cows.
It’s a strange coincidence that we have a case of mad cow disease at the same time the Senate is debating this bill . . . I see this as an imposition on freedom and liberty.
When asked if the report could have been manufactured, Moore responded “That’s right.”
Moore, of course, is right to worry about this bovine slippery slope. Once all cows have ID numbers, the next thing you know they won’t be able to own weapons, pray during cow school, or post the Ten Commandments in their milking stalls.
Sneak Preview
Posted by Clif on 05/27/06 at 4:04 pm Category: Humor
A friend of mine who is well-connected at the Washington Post leaked to me an advance copy of Laura Blumenfeld’s next “Off Camera” column. In her last column, Ms. Blumenfeld enthralled readers with her compelling tale of Senate Leader Frist, a stethoscope, a gorilla, a blow-dryer and some “silverback testosterone.” In her next column, which is exclusively previewed here at Outside the Tent, Ms. Blumenfeld profiles a typical morning in the life of Dennis Hastert.
Click here for this exclusive preview.
The Chicanery Institute
Posted by Clif on 05/27/06 at 2:57 pm Category: Wingnuts, Fundies, The War on Science
The decision of the 11th Circuit to send the Cobb County evolution sticker case back to the District Court has the folks at the Discovery Institute jumping up and down with excitement and declaring victory. The President of the stealth fundamentalist group, Bruce Chapman (pictured on the right), had one of the organization’s legal “scholars” issue a press release touting this latest “victory.” Not surprisingly, the lawyers at the Discovery Institute are just as skilled as their scientists, which is to say, not very, and they apparently were completely unable to understand the 11th Circuit’s ruling.
The Cobb County case involves an “evolution is just a theory” sticker that the Cobb County Board of Education ordered affixed to high school biology textbooks. The District Court ruled that the sticker requirement violated the Establishment Clause. The school board appealed this ruling and requested that the District Court be reversed. The Appeals Court declined to reverse the decision and instead remanded it to the District Court for further proceedings.
Here’s how Chicanery Institute legal “scholar” Casey Luskin spun the decision into a victory:
“This decision is a victory as it throws out the problematic ruling from the trial court,” said Casey Luskin, an attorney with the Discovery Institute. “Essentially, the appellate judges found that some of the findings of the lower court were not substantiated by the evidence in the record, so now new evidentiary hearings must be held, which could completely change the trial court’s original ruling against the school district.”
“This is a major step towards a bigger victory for students, school districts, and objective science education,” added Luskin.
Luskin, a 2005 graduate of the University of San Diego Law School, wants to make it sound like the appeals court said that the district court had no factual basis for its decision and that, accordingly, ultimate victory was just around the corner. But Luskin isn’t telling the full story.
Normally, when an appeals court finds that the lower court’s decision is not supported by the evidence, it doesn’t remand the decision; it reverses it. Cases are remanded for further proceedings only when the district court has applied the law incorrectly. When that happens, the case is sent back for the district court to apply the correct law to the facts before it. The Eleventh Circuit, however, expressly declined to comment on the District Court’s application of the relevant law and yet nonethless remanded the case for further proceedings.
So what was going on here? If you read the 11th Circuit Decision, something Luskin may not have done or at least not done carefully, you can see that the 11th Circuit panel was extremely frustrated that a number of documents admitted by the District Court at trial and apparently relied on by the District Court were not made a part of the record that was presented to the 11th Circuit. As the panel stated:
“The trial transcript is replete with testimony about documents where the absence of identification by exhibit number and other foundational information make it difficult to ascertain with certainty from the appellate record what is being discussed.” That is, if anything, an understatement.
Accordingly, the 11th Circuit had no way to tell whether the District Court had a basis for its decision and, as a result, it sent the case back to the District Court. The court directed the District Court and the parties to “ensure that the evidence put before the district court is included in the record on appeal.”
The decision is not an attack on the factual basis of the district court’s decision and thus no cause to predict, as Luskin does, a victory for the sticker crowd. Rather, the decision is clearly based on the failure of the district court and counsel for both sides to provide to the appeals court an actual record of what went on during the trial. In such case, it is irresponsible to speculate on any ultimate result in this case.
(Cross-posted at The American Street.)
Auschwank
Posted by Clif on 05/25/06 at 11:02 pm Category: Wingnuts
Pastor J. Grant Swant was booted from the Google News search engine for his columns that called all of Islam — not just radical Islam — a “killing cult.” So Swank wades boldly into the territory of hyperbolic1 victimization which is the special province of wingnuts and certain dishonest GOP wingnut-welfare operatives:
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Because of my articles, Google has deleted from its search engine selected sites which have posted my writings. . . . This means that Google is furthering Islam, a killing cult. . . . I am now watching Oprah’s show in which she talks about the holocaust against the Jews under Hitler. It is unnerving to hear the detail told on her show today for it parallels what Google is doing to further the next Islamic holocaust.
Apparently because of Google Swank has been forced to live in an attic in Amsterdam2 and is only days away from being shipped off to the gas chambers.3
_____
1 Note to Patrick’s “partner” commenter “None”: Hyperbolic means “enlarged beyond truth or reasonableness.”
2 Note to Patrick’s “partner” commenter “None”: This is a reference to Anne Frank.
3 Note to Patrick’s “partner” commenter “None”: This is also a reference to Anne Frank.
Gorillas ‘N The Frist
Posted by Clif on 05/25/06 at 9:32 am Category: Loathsome Republicans
Bill Frist, M.D., examined an endangered ape yesterday at the National Zoo for evidence of a heart. Critics charged that Bill “The Cat Killer” Frist should not have been allowed near animals at the zoo given his admission that he used to adopt animals from shelters in order to kill them in experiments.
A spokesman for the National Zoo said that the zoo had not been aware of Frist’s admission and stated that in the future Frist’s examination of zoo animals would be limited to viewing videotapes, a diagnostic technique that Frist pioneered for his much-praised diagnosis of Terri Schiavo.
The Hob-Gibson of Little Minds
Posted by Clif on 05/24/06 at 6:08 pm Category: Loathsome Republicans, Faux News
Faux News blatherer John Gibson recently titillated the neanderthal cheeto-snarfers who watch that network with this odious little comparison regarding the letter from Iran’s President Ahmadinejad:
The nutjob running Iran, President Ahmadinejad, sent President Bush a letter, and if it weren’t postmarked Tehran it might have been mistaken for a crank letter from an angry leftist. . . .
Christians not acting Christian, says the Iranian president. Democrat talking point.
WMD lies, says the Iranian president. Democrat talking point.
Human rights abuses in Gitmo. Another Dem talking point.
The gap between haves and have-nots. The Iranian president and the Dems in lockstep on that one, too.
The biggest difference? Ahmadinejad was actually nice about Jesus and Christians.
This must be a new record for the amount of bullshit crammed into less than a hundred words, even for Mr. “War on Christmas.”
What I don’t get is this: if the Democrats are, on the one hand, pushing a talking point about how Christian behavior is a good thing and that Christians ought to try it from time to time, how can Gibson say on the other hand that the Dems are making the Baby Jesus cry? That’s the great thing about being on Fox. You don’t even have to try to be consistent.
Swank Spanked!
Posted by Clif on 05/23/06 at 1:27 pm Category: Wingnuts
MichNews.com, the baby-brother wannabe to Wingnut Daily, has been yanked from Google News. MichNews, in case you have forgotten, doesn’t have anything to do with Michigan (or even news when you get down to it), but stands for “Most In-depth Conservative Honest News and Commentary” Only 2/7ths of that statement is actually true given that in this context even the word “and” is a lie.
What is most amusing is why they got bumped. Google determined that MichNews was “expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints.” And what made them say that? Umm, it seems that the columns MichNews printed by our favorite wingnut pastor, the one and only J. Grant “Homo Nups” Swank, were the tipping point. Google cited this column and this column. (The latter column appears to have been pulled from almost every site where it originally appeared). Both of these columns tip the hate-o-meter needle off the scale by saying things like Islam is “an insane killing cult” and a “cult based on a killing book - the Koran.”
Predictably the wingnuts, such as the folks over at CheezWhizBang, are jumping up and down and swearing never, ever, ever to use Google again, although this is unlikely to be much of a hardship for them since there’s not much evidence that any of them ever knew how to use Google in the first place.
CEI. Some Call It A Think Tank. We Call It A Septic Tank.
Posted by Clif on 05/23/06 at 8:09 am Category: America's Shittiest Website, Environment
Iain Murray, the over-fed and super-annuated Harry-Potter-alike in the picture to the right, is a Senior Fellow (read parasite sucking at the teat of Mobil Oil) over at the Competive Enterprise Institute. You remember CEI — they are the folks that dreamed up the laughable “Carbon Dioxide: we call it life” campaign.
Murray spends his spare time posting over at America’s Shittiest Website™ and yesterday he posted this whopper which he dredged up from Drudge:
According a report on Drudge, “Gore & entourage took 5 cars to travel the 500 yards from hotel to screening of global warming pic in Cannes.” Must remember that on the bus home tonight when I wonder why I do this.
The folks at Think Progress contacted Gore’s staff who confirmed that Gore and his staff walked the five blocks from the Majestic Hotel to the screening in Cannes. One hour after ThinkProgress reported this, even the normally shameless Sludge, er, Drudge, removed the claim from his site.
Of course, the absolute bestest thing about America’s Shittiest Website™ is that you can post a thoroughly discredited lie about Democrats and liberals and not get called on it by Jonah the Whale, K-Lo, J-Pod and the other hacks who hang out there. So don’t hold your breathe waiting for Murray’s false post to be yanked. Nah, it’ll just sit there so that future wing-nuts and professional Gore haters can link to it as proof of his supposed hypocrisy.