Today's Quote

It occurs to me that seeing all those Islamist martyrs blowing themselves up and crashing various modes of transportation into various symbols of Western Colonialism or whatever, Americans are feeling a bit challenged.  

"We own this fuckin' joint and nobody ever out-maniacs America.  USA! USA!"

But we'll do it our own way, thanks and fuck you very much.

From Addicting Info:

Like the equally discriminatory Memories Pizza, in Indiana, which has earned over $800,000 in sympathy donations so far, Stutzman’s own GoFundMe campaign has pulled in nearly $90,000.

According to The Seattle Times, almost half of the money Stutzman has gained so far has been picked up in the last few days, though. It seems her campaign, created back in February, may be getting a fresh insurgence of support on the coattails of the Memories Pizza success.

It’s always interesting to see in the dirty, sell-anything world of capitalism when Jesus and morals win, isn’t it? Yes, you too can hate and get paid!

Stutzman was fined by the Benton County Superior Court last month for refusing service to a same-sex couple two years ago, claiming her Southern Baptist beliefs prohibited her from doing so. She is the owner of Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts.

So what’s the moral of this story, and is it anything remotely “Christian?”

So in light of this "hot new fashion trend" of good Christian entrepreneurs lining up to make a show of their eagerness to become martyrs to the noble cause of TheoCommercialist Bigotry, I tho't Mencken's quote from about 90 years ago might be timely.

“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” --HL Mencken, Chicago Tribune 1926

One of the favorite themes of all three of the Book Religions is the one about being Persecuted For Your Faith.  And it doesn't matter that you're a totally dominant majority of your country's population.  If there's any chance for you to reaffirm one of the big deal tenets of your religion, you jump on it.  It also doesn't matter if you have to make up some shit about your current circumstances to get everything to fit, because religion is all about making shit up to begin with.

I guess I'm a little surprised that anybody - including me - is at all surprised by any of this.

Happy Easter

Another Good One

History.  

Forget your own history, and you won't know who you are.  You'll lose the understanding of yourself.  

So if I can change the historical narrative, I can make you believe you're someone other than who you are.

And then it'll be just that tiny bit easier for me to influence (if not control) your thinking and your behavior.

The Professional Left podcast (via Stitcher):

Things Jesus Never Said

Following the trend:

'Do not welcome strangers.' #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— Isabel Losada (@IsabelLosada) April 4, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid "It's an act of God when kids get shot on playgrounds." @glencasada @BillHaslam #tnlege http://t.co/saAWBlZELZ
— Demanda Evers (@ActUpSpeakOut) April 4, 2015

"Blessed are the cherry-picking fundamentalists for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." #ThingsJesusNeverSaid .@JohnFugelsang
— Kenny Pick (@kenpickles) April 2, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid I will only heal you if you can prove you didn't have this illness when we first met.
— MATTY ICE (@MattyIceAZ) April 2, 2015

#ThingsJesusNeverSaid "I'd like my life to inspire a massive pompous money-grubbing global corporation that harbours child abusers"
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) April 2, 2015

Why are we all sitting on the same side of the table? #ThingsJesusNeverSaid pic.twitter.com/esVy9LyCC5
— Jonathan (@Haymaker710) April 2, 2015

#thingsJesusneversaid Anything in English
— David Andignac Jr (@RwdaveJr) April 2, 2015

#thingsJesusneversaid pic.twitter.com/mqEI5Xlgr8
— Celeste Smith (@celestemsw) March 15, 2015

"Bomb them, Father, for we don't know what we're doing." #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— Andrew Wilson (@AJWTheology) February 16, 2015

When someone hits you on the cheek, shoot him #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
— chattelgirl (@chattelgirl) November 2, 2014

"Go into all the world and make republicans." #thingsjesusneversaid
— Stephen Collins (@stephenNcollins) November 8, 2013

hat tip = Addicting Info

Today In GlennBeck-istan

Christian holocaust.  The delusions of persecution just get deeper and deeper, right along with the phat stacks of spending green in Glenn Beck's bank accounts.

hat tip = Little Green Footballs

Bad Senator - Bad Bad Senator

Bob Menendez may be carted off the field pretty soon - for stepping on his own dick with a track shoe.  And while I won't say it shouldn't happen, I guess I could say this looks a whole lot like Praising-By-Faint-Damnation. 

It's pretty obvious ol' Bob is a fine example of the kinda Coin-Operated Politician I love to slag.  The guy sold favors.  He used the power of his office to grease the skids for a buddy in exchange for campaign donations.  First, let's be real clear - this should come as no surprise to anybody.  It's a manifestation of the system of legalized bribery we've developed.  I'm a lot more amazed that Bob's buddy, Salomon Melgen was willing to pay $750k in campaign contributions to get visas for a coupla Dominican girlfriends - that is some top-shelf high-priced pussy, my friend - and hey, what else is this guy willing to overpay for? And how do I get in on that action? 

(sorry, not sorry - even if you think I should be a bit more restrained in my expression, or that I'm being cynical because of course we're all supposed to have evolved enough to believe power and money are used for better purposes, thinking they won't be used in the traditionally relentless pursuit of sex is just silly).

But that leads me to the second thing, which is: what the fuck - Bob Menendez is the guy we need to go after?  Maybe that's why there's not a whole big magillah being made about it - yet.  Or maybe there's a lot more to it(?) - like maybe everybody else is really busy making sure all their own hookers and pimps are properly masked before they jump into it.  Dunno, but it is politics after all.  And it's Jersey to boot.

Today's Pix

This Modern GOP

(I was desperately hoping this was some kind of April Fools gag - but alas, Beshear put his name to this crap and sent it to SCOTUS ... and so the search for intelligent life among Republicans continues)

Via HuffPo:

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's administration is arguing the state's ban on same-sex marriage isn't discriminatory because it applies to straight people, too.

"Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law," the Democratic governor said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on March 27.

That's what passes for "logical thinking" in the GOP now.

So the argument in favor of (eg) the anti-miscegenation laws in the Jim Crow era would be: "the laws against Inter-Racial Marriage are not at all discriminatory because they make it illegal for both whites and blacks to marry outside their race".

It seems so easy to identify this Beshear guy as just another dipwad politico pandering to a slice of the voter demographic.  My standard complaint is that he needs the rubes to send him their butter-n-egg money on a regular basis, and he needs to count on 'em showing up on election day, so he needs to rile 'em up with some bullshit issue-du-jour that keeps them feeling justified in thinking they have somebody they can spit on (which keeps them too busy to notice what Beshear's bosses are doing to them and everybody else); and that what he can't afford to let happen is for any one slice of the voter demographic to make common cause with certain other slices of the voter demographic, because if we ever really get hip to these divide-and-conquer strategies, these guys are toast.  

But my main problem now is that it seems like Beshear (eg) isn't simply making cynical calculations on how to stay in power.  It's possible he's just not good at the Rhetorical Spin Game, but I'm thinking some of these guys actually believe the shit they say.  How does Beshear try to make that point if he's not a true believer?

Seriously - we gotta stop electing these assholes.  We have to show up and vote every time we get the chance.

Keith Speaks

Keith makes a great point by stitching the actions of "sports figures" to the politics of their contemporary circumstance.  He says you don't get to separate sports-world events from the political environment in which those sports-world events occur.

Here's my fer-instance:  If racial segregation wasn't political; if figuring out ways to force the realization of the need for change wasn't political, then how is it that Bear Bryant waited for exactly the right time to invite USC and Sam Cunningham to come to Tuscaloosa and kick Bama's all-white SEC ass on national TV?

Ya gotta be a little careful about drawing parallels between (eg) racism and LGBT discrimination, but when we're talking about equal rights, we're supposed to be talking about everybody being afforded the same rights as everybody else.  

Equal. Fucking. Rights.

Go Keith go.  Pretty smart guy.

Money Well Spent

If I had any real money - and if there was still something a lot less rare than a Community Orchestra to give it to - I'd give a lot of dough to get something like this going.

Teenage Dirtbag (cover) --The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain

No matter what the source, there's just nothing like good tunes played by good players.

hat tip = Mock Paper Scissors