Westboro Baptists (sic), the cretins who go to the funerals of our dead troops and protest American not killing gays or something akin to that perhaps serve a purpose. They are a group who are universally hated and despised by both the right, left and middle. They are right up there with 9-11 in that they are a great unifier.
Jon Stewart outdoes himself. Many of our readers had some questions about some bondage issues–you know, those alphbet issues some people have like B &D, S & M, etc etc. In keeping with providing provocative headlines….Here you all go… Warning: some of this video is …oh how do they say it in those clubs? Rough trade? Beware: somewhat X rated. Not for kids or the squeaky clean.
Faux lesbian? It must have been that word ‘simulated.’ Hopefully the footage answers everyones questions. And apologies to Michael Steel. This is probably more than he deserves. What is it though with the Young Eagles? Is that Phyllis Schafly’s group? Phyllis as a dominatrix is just not the visual I was hoping for. I was thinking more along the lines of Johnny Depp in full pirate drag.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| 2 Girls 1 GOP | ||||
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This may be the one and only time I agree with the AG. Someone must have taken leave of their senses.
Jens Soering was convicted of the 1985 murder of Bedford couple Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford County home. Soering’s girlfriend Elizabeth Haysom is currently in prison for her role in the murder of her parents. Soering, a German citizen, is currently serving 2 life sentences. Background information from the Roanoke Times:
RICHMOND — Gov. Tim Kaine has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to approve the transfer of Jens Soering — who is serving two life sentences for the 1985 murders of a Bedford County couple — to a prison in his native Germany.
Kaine, who leaves office Saturday, approved the transfer request by Soering’s attorney this week after earlier denying a clemency petition from the former University of Virginia honor student. Soering, the son of a retired German diplomat, received consecutive life sentences for the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend’s parents in their Boonsboro home. The case attracted international media attention and Soering has maintained his innocence nearly a quarter century after the murders.
During the Sedar, every year, as I read from the Haggadah, I always relate the story of Passover to our present day life. This editorial by Simon Greer was very meaningful to me so I wanted to share.
In 1775, Marine troops preparing to intercept British warships carried yellow drums painted with what would become an iconic image of the American Revolutionary period: a rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike; underneath, the motto “Don’t tread on me.” Capturing the anti-government political sentiment of the moment, this image was soon immortalized on what became known as the Gadsden flag.
A year later, as America declared independence from Britain, a second image took its place in our national history. The Great Seal, bearing the motto “E pluribus unum” (out of many, one) — bore witness to a second political vision for this nascent country, that of collective identity and mutual obligation.
America, the great political experiment, has attempted since her birth to balance these two founding ideals of individualism and collectivism. Today, the rhetoric of the tea party movement tugs us dangerously out of balance, reimagining this country’s creation as rooted solely in the values of individual rights and freedoms.
One small indication of the movement’s allegiance to this strand of our founding narrative, to the exclusion of the other: Sales of the Gadsden flag increased 400% over a two-month period this past fall. We should all care about this perversion of the founding narrative of this country; it misrepresents what America stands. For Jewish Americans, it marks a rampant individualism that runs contrary to the mutual obligation that Judaism holds out as a political and social ideal.
With Passover on the horizon, Americans can look to the Jewish founding narrative — the Exodus story — for perspectives on freedom and nation building. Interestingly, the Exodus from Egypt is framed not in terms of the individual’s right to freedom from oppression (though that is certainly implicit) but rather in terms of the freedom to work together to build a society of equity, of justice, and of collective social responsibility.
It appears that the least open thread has scrolled off the front page. It’s easy to make a new one. The movie idea didn’t go over so well. We can try it again sometime. Meanwhile, Doubt is an excellent film if you haven’t seen it. Apparently some viewers got the wrong idea about its intent. The film was very much about gossip and its consequences. Maybe Rick will have more time this week to lead a discussion. He is our resident movie critic.
Bullying is a serious problem in the United States. It has always been around on playgrounds, at schools, and in the neighborhood. However, with the widespread use of the Internet, bullying has become more pervasive and yes, virulent. Verbal taunts and physical threats became a way of life for one young immigrant girl.
15-year-old Phoebe Prince was the victim of extreme bullying from her peers. Phoebe, who recently moved South Hadley, MA from Ireland, was bullied by classmates until she hanged herself in January. The bullying was described as relentless and happened in the halls, at school, in the library, in class, via cell phone messages and on the Internet. Nine teenagers have been indicted for the death of this young girl.
According to the New York Times:
The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.
The charges were an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which is increasingly conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has drawn growing concern from parents, educators and lawmakers
Of course the tormentors bear the main responsibility for the girl’s death. But are others culpable? How about the parents of those kids? How about the school? How about her friends? Was anyone aware that this was going on? Didn’t some teacher notice that a child was being tortured? How do parents help their children when they are being bullied? This tragedy seems so avoidable.
Here is the line up of the Christian Militia group. These people are misfits. Just looking into their eyes–something isn’t right. Were these people so isolated from the rest of the population that they turned to violence. Help me understand what possessed the Hutaree to want to kill police officers and start an uprising against the government.
Hutaree supposedly means Christian Warrior, according to a spokesperson for the group. No one else claims to have heard of the term. These are scary looking people. They supposedly want to fight the Anti-Christ. They also want court appointed lawyers. Hypocrites.
Click here to read the entire story.
WASHINGTON — Nine members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group have been indicted on sedition and weapons charges in connection with an alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers in hopes of setting off an anti-government uprising.
In court filings unsealed Monday, the Justice Department accused the nine people of planning to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer, then plant improvised explosive devices of a type used by insurgents in Iraq to attack the funeral procession.
Eight of the defendants were arrested over the weekend in raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. A ninth remained at large, the Justice Department said. The indictments against them were returned last Tuesday. The defendants were identified as members of Hutaree, described by federal prosecutors as an anti-government extremist organization based in Lenawee County, Michigan, and which advocates violence against local, state and federal law enforcement. The group saw local and state police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which it viewed as its enemy, along with participants in what they deemed to be a “New World Order,” according to the indictment.
First they raided the state employee and teacher pension fund to the tune of $630 million dollars. Now it seems they will finish the job off by robbing the jurisdictions. State lawmakers call this the new ‘hand in the cookie jar’ technique of acquiring money the ‘reversion program.’ The ‘reversion program is being used to help compensate for the budget shortfall.
To come up with the money, the localities are giving the choice of writing a check or cutting services in programs they receive state funding for. The plan was originally instituted in FY 2009. According to the Washington Examiner:
The “reversion” program — as state lawmakers call it — originally was excluded from the coming year’s budget, but lawmakers decided to incorporate and expand the policy. As a result, counties and cities will have to return $60 million to the state during each of the next two years.
Who would ever think that those beautiful Japanese cherry trees would be the source of so much contention? Japanese Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gave 3,000 cherry trees to the city of Washington, D. C. in 1912 , honoring the lasting friendship between the United States and Japan. Apparently that friendship was to be sorely tested shortly after Pearl Harbor when the military had to guard the trees. Americans were so angry over the bombing of Pearl Harbor that they attempted to hack them down and to set them afire.
The John McCain Rally
I have a several problems with this. The young man was rude. He was on McCain’s turf. It was a McCain rally. He disrupted. No excuse. Then there is this thing about 2 wrongs not making a right. I saw a swing taken. I saw 2 people hauling the perp away. However, were these 2 dudes security? If yes, how am I supposed to know that? When John McCain came to PWC, our PWC police were there, in uniform, being paid overtime by us, the people of PWC. Had there been a heckler, he or she would have been taken out professionally by PWC’s finest. You and I paid for it here. John McCain needs to pay for it with his campaign funds rather than it looking like a bunch of bubbas hauled the guy away.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck agrees with the rest of The View:
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Elizabeth Hasselbeck says targets and cross hairs on Palin’s website are dispictable. She speaks out against Palin using poor judgement and about the violence surrounding the passage of the Health Care Bill. All the women seemed to be in agreement.
Idiot thrown out of the McCain/Palin Rally
Click here to see a howling idiot. The video kept startling up with a life of its own so I took it down.
Check out the second video labeled UPDATE: Scuffle
Another protester is throw out of the McCain/Palin Rally. This guy is not playing with both oars in the water, it appears. If this guy is at the same rally, the video shows that there were uniformed officers. Whoever hauled the man away in the first video might not have been authorized. Not a smart move.
And as the grand finale: The Spitting Incident last Sunday
Unfortunately, I cannot imbed the video. Click here for the LINK. Follow the guy in the white baseball cap. You might need to watch several times. The dude is not manning up to what he did. He clearly knows what happened from his gestures.
Sean Hannity asks for proof. Well, people will see what they want to see. To me, these video show that jerks and idiots come in all political flavors.
Friends from Vancouver Island, British Columbia sent this little story. Perhaps there is a universal lesson here. It appears things are the same everywhere:
It’s late fall and the Indians on a remote reservation in South Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
A big thanks to Elena for this gem. She says that David Frum was subsequently fired from his job at American Enterprise Institute for expressing this opinion. How many of us could have easily have said this:
Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.
It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:
A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
Read More
I am going to suggest a blog for Conservatives. It belongs to a friend of mine, Bill. The name of the blog is:
and it’s on our blogroll. Now why would I want to introduce people to another blog? Bill 4 Dog Catcher isn’t your average blog. It is honestly a conservative blog the way I remember conservatives used to be. The extremists haven’t hi-jacked Bill or his conservative values. Bill has a section( page) on his blog, If I were Dog Catcher. I would be hard pressed to find much to disagree with in the abstract. If I were a plagiarizer, I could go lift his words, and plant them here on a page as my own, quite comfortably. In reality, in talking with Bill, he and I aren’t too far apart either.
Soooo, has everyone calmed down from the latest Biden gaff? I listen to Joe now with my ears perked…waiting for him to put his foot in his mouth. I used to do the same thing with George Bush and Dan Quayle. The media has made too much out of mocking these three and they never let us down.
However on Monday when VP Biden blurted out that the new health care legislation was a BFD, I didn’t blink. I was waiting for a different type of gaff. I even heard it and it didn’t even make me blink. Or maybe I didn’t care. Maybe my own mouth has deteriorated to the point I don’t notice. I have a 4 year old granddaughter who slaps her thighs and roars with laughter, screaming WHAT THE HELL, when those hamsters drive their rat wheels down the street. I guess someone has reinforced negative behavior. And yes, at age 4, saying ‘what the hell’ IS potty mouth.
I have heard all sorts of moaning and groaning over bad Biden being in the East Room of the White House and dropping the F-Bomb. These same people I heard gasping over Biden’s potty mouth defended the other V-P, Cheney, for telling Senator Leahy to go ‘f-bomb himself on the floor of the Senate. I don’t really think one area is more sacred than the other. Either both need their respective mouths washed out with soap (Lifebouy was one of the soaps of choice) or we suck it up and move on, barely noticing.
When the term ‘douche bag’ is used with great regularity on TV on 10 PM shows, there really is no where to go but up. I am of the opinion that people can talk any way they want in their own homes. However, clean it up when they go out in public. That includes in bars, malls, schools, at other drivers on the road, and on TV.
So where have we come as a nation with our profanity? Did Biden just make BFD (and the fact that the acronym needs no explanation in the first place speaks volumes) a household word or perhaps he reflected the norm? Who sets the tone for our language being considered acceptable? ‘Our Mothers’ is not the right answer.
We have seen enough of Joe Biden at the open mic. For a change of pace, here is what brings out the potty tongue in my house these days:
(warning: bad grammar in this song)
