Via hughcasey, and others...

A booth at the Texas Republican Convention was selling buttons that read, "If Obama is President... will we still call it the White House?" (Brought to you--unsurprisingly--by the people who sold an anti-Hillary button reading, "Life's a bitch--don't vote for one.")

This is disgusting on so many levels that I can't bring myself to analyze it in any depth. Thankfully, it is so obviously reeking of vile stupidity that I hardly need point it out.

I was driving home after getting an oil change when I found myself behind a ridiculous, black, full-size Hummer. "Why are you telling us this," you ask? Because the fucker was absolutely *plastered* with an equally ridiculous number of earth-friendly/eco-hippie/green-living bumper stickers. It was practically wallpapered with them, as if a layer of trite and tired one-liners could somehow distract the casual observer from the fact the vehicle beneath is a gas-guzzling behemoth of the vilest kind. The irony made me cringe.

It's been suggested that the choice of decor could, in fact, be parody display. I do not doubt the possibility, although a bit of well-planned eco-vandalism seems just as likely.

Oh, now this is just priceless.

Okay, not *priceless*, exactly... For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture, that day when -- according to Christian end times dogma -- Christians will be swept up to heaven, while doubters are left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist.

Joseph Pujol: Fartiste extraordinaire.

Or something.

(Via supergee...)

"Somewhere a Fox News editor's history teacher is weeping."

I don't think so. And neither does the AAP.

Since the airing of an anti-vaccination themed episode of Eli Stone, the anti-vaccination crowd has been riding the wave of the show's thinly-veiled assertion that vaccination with Thimerosal causes Autism. Indeed, one of the most common tactics of the antivaccination movement is to present heart-rending stories of "vaccine-damaged" children. Indeed, this is a key strategy designed to obtain "compensation" through lawsuits and the autism omnibus. In response, the AAP has been circulating an e-mail seeking to fight fire with fire[...]

In short, if you're the parent of an autistic child, or the parent of a child who contracted an illness that could have been prevented by vaccination (it's not safe to vaccinate some children), consider contacting the AAP and contributing to their campaign to encourage vaccination.

I'm not saying that vaccination carries -0-risk. It is, however, both effective and socially responsible.

Baby traveling to US for heart surgery dies after being held in Honolulu airport.

This is disgusting. Why, WHY did they detain all three of them instead of releasing the two legal travelers and just holding the mother? (Who, as it turns out, was also here legally.) I can understand paperwork--I can understand rules and regulations, but if we've sunk so far in the mire of bureaucracy that we can't be compassionate (or even practice common sense, in this case, and release the legal visitors) we don't deserve to call ourselves "civilized". There's no excuse for this.

But wait, I forgot--this is a Christian nation. We only care about babies *before* they're born.

(Via supergee.)

One noticed, as the address began, that it wasn't a matter of Bush waiting for the applause to *stop* before he continued speaking so much as a rather obvious refusal to speak until applause had begun in the first place.

They should be learning, exploring the world and developing critical thinking skills, not drowning in doctrine in a veritable swamp of religious zealotry.

My father may yet die from machismo. But first, let me give you a bit of background so you can fully appreciate the depths of the stupid.

Early last week, my father ended up sticking his finger on a ceiling nail. In a crawlspace polluted with raw sewage.

Unsurprisingly, infection ensued.

Now, bear in mind that my father has colon cancer, and is scheduled for yet another surgery on the 25th--a surgery he can't have unless they clear up what appeared to be a raging staph infection. His finger looked like a mutant sausage, in that moist, vaguely slimy sort of way in which we tend to portray mutants.

This email, sent to me this morning, is the latest act in this Festival of Yuck.

Here's a piece of info I know you want to hear about. Remember I told you about me sticking my finger on a nail at Granddad Joe's? Well it got better, then it got worse, then better, then real bad for the past three days. Well last night after my bath I took a good look at it. It had a very small white dot that looked as if it was wet under it. Sooo being the brave person I am, I got the tweeezers and grapped that white dot. It came out easily bringing with it a white glob of terrible looking what seemed to be living protoplasm. So I got my glasses and took a good look at it laying on the counter, it was a thin white thread with all these little yellow sacs attached. If you think that's bad, read on. I had to get very close to see those little white sacs and when I did can I tell you how badly it smelled, I almost lost my dinner! I want to say those little white sacs were moving, but I can't say for sure, the smell was getting to me and the entire glob took a trip into our spetic system. Better keep an eye out, maybe it will keep on growing and climb out of the septic tank during the night. But with that said, my finger is on it's way to recovery this morning.

One wants to weep.

For god's sake, am I the ONLY person who reads this and thinks, "Gaaaaaahhhh! Nasty! Parasite! Egg sacs! Gaaahhhhh!" feels like puking, and suffers the Yucky Shiver-Cringe of Gross?

Why did he flush it? WHY? Any sane person would have put the little fucker in a baggie and taken it to the fucking M.D. to identify its putrid, stinking, egg-encrusted ass, so as to be best prepared to KILL IT and all its foetid larvae. (Can you IMAGINE how many eggs came off that thing when he extracted it? God. I feel sick.)

After we discovered that our preferred showing of Blade Runner had been canceled, TBD and I came back here and were up until nearly 3am watching 2girls1cup reaction videos on YouTube. We laughed until there were tears in our eyes, and neither of us could breathe. I'd seen most of it before, but it was fun to watch again with someone who hadn't seen them.

(Danger, Wil Robinson! Don't click the link until you're read this paragraph in it's entirety.) Yes, I've seen the actual 2girls1cup video, and I don't recommend it. "NWS" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it, as it is not safe to watch *anywhere* that humans are present--including yourself. Tub Girl is light action, in comparison. Unless you are a connoisseur of gross, don't watch it. It's a minute of your life you will never get back filled with images that you will never banish.

(And no, I didn't show it to TBD, primarily because I didn't want to clean up the mess that would most definitely result.)

As far as the fantastically hilarious reaction vids are concerned, these are my favorites.

There's this poor guy... (Loud, but seemingly worksafe.)



And then there's these two, who are just *too* funny... (Again, loud but worksafe.)



And this entire series is pretty cute. (NWS--occasional exclamations of profanity.)

( If you want to know what the video involves *without* having to see it, watch this parody instead. NWS for language, but visually inoffensive. )

Via warrenelliscom...

The Stomp Monkey.

(Oddly heartwarming, but not particularly scintillating for the chimp.)

"I don’t think anyone (---snip---) is suggesting that impoverished kids shouldn’t be provided with opportunities for education and a chance to improve their lot in life. However, even here in the States, kids rarely find much productive to do with their computers without appropriate guidance. Why should Third World kids be any different? At least in developed countries, money wasted on poorly planned 1:1 computing initiatives is simply money wasted. In the target countries for the XO, however, money wasted by governments and philanthropists on these machines is money that can’t be spent on food, sanitation, water, medication, and, ironically, education."

One of the blogger's students went so far as to say, “We don’t even really need laptops. What are these kids going to do, Google images of food they can’t have?”

(Dvorak's editorial is here.)

In terms of the "these kids will only get into trouble" attitude, there's the *huge* assumption that a "poor tribesman’s child" will have internet access that will then expose them to said "trouble", like Nigerian scams and pornography. How can these guys go on about how poor and impoverished these children are and in the next breath worry about how they'll be getting into trouble on Teh Intarwubs? Look at the stats for internet access by region and then tell me these kids will be getting online, let alone unsupervised. They may well only have net access at school, and even then, if we take Africa as our example, access is discouragingly limited. Lack of technology often comes down to something as basic as limited access to electricity.

If you have an opinion on this, (particularly those of you involved in education and care, as there are several of you here who work with children in various capacities), I'd be interested to hear it.

like a boneless ham.


(Squipped from a few of you, as it's been making the rounds lately.)

Apparently, the FaceBook folks are blocking a single, solitary word (with regard to gender or sexual preference) from appearing in their adverts.

"Lesbian."

(Via mutster101.)

EDIT: marnanel points out that FaceBook almost certainly blocks words considered to be obscene or indicative of inappropriate or illegal activities, and that "lesbian" has likely fallen in with other banned words because the admins associate it with porn. (Because really, who *doesn't* think of porn when they think of lesbians? Hell, who doesn't think of porn when they think of gay cowboys eating pudding?)

Have you been wondering what that bunch of bent wingnuts at Westboro Baptist Church have been up to, lately? Well, it seems that in a fit of creativity, they've written and recorded a song! Oh, happy day! It's entitled God Hates the World, and it's a bastardization of We Are the World. It's about the most disgusting thing I've heard in a long time.

Warren Ellis was quite correct about the last bit of the video--it's particularly awful. Even if you manage to sit through the first 5 minutes, the last 30 seconds will probably push you over the edge. It's almost enough to make me believe that there is, in fact, an anti-Christ, and he is working directly through these miserable bastards.




You know, these yobs have always defended their ugly public protests by claiming that they're only trying to "save" the world from God's angry wrath, but in the next breath (and in this video) they clearly state that it's already too late for all us "proud sinners" and we're all doomed to a fiery hell. If that's the case, why are they wasting their time? It's because they *enjoy* it. It makes them feel good, and smug, and superior. Did you see how they were laughing and smiling toward the end of the song? They aren't *warning* anyone. They're gloating, and they're glorying in it.

And I would like nothing better than to take that child from her parents and raise her as an atheist.

I watched a BBC show about the Westboro Baptist crew earlier, but it's not on YouTube. However, I found this unaired excerpt--just in case if you've never seen them in action. Kudos to the gentleman managing the documentary. His self-control is stunning.



What people do in the name of religion makes me ill.

So, LJ is at it again.

http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/243697.html

This time, they are offering users the option of designating their entire journal (or community) as containing A.) Adult Concepts, or B.) Explicit Adult Content. Adult Concepts is for readers age 14 and up while journals that self-identify as Explicit are for readers who are 18 and over.

And just in case you choose NOT to screen your filth.... ( Insert suspenseful music here... )