The greatest thing ever in the whole history of the internets

Or television, for that matter. Move over, Betty White fan, move over Gleeks — there’s a new star in town (Yes, you will have to sit through a commercial, but I promise you, it’s worth it:

And if bad 80’s music, puppets, and the Mythbusters weren’t enough all by themselves, the context is even better. From TVSquad:

For no particular reason, Ferguson was joined by the two dudes from ‘MythBusters,’ as well as puppets “Wavy the Crocodile” and “Sid the Rabbit.” Plus a random half-naked dancer or two. … And the best part of the crazy song was this: It was just the opening of the show, had nothing to do with anything, and Craig never mentioned it again for the rest of the night. Sheer random surrealism! Or just a guy dancing with puppets. Either way, it was pretty cool.

(Thanks, Tata!)

PUPPIES? How the hell can teabaggers be even against PUPPIES?

Yes, it’s true. In Missouri, teabaggers are against even minimal regulation of puppy mills:

Now, a group of Missouri tea partiers have found a new target: regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. This November, Missouri voters will go to the polls and decide the fate of Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”

As TPM Muckraker’s Jillian Rayfield reports, the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots have begun organizing meetings against the proposition. One tea party activist described the measure as being about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do“:

The Tea Party has also gotten on board the anti-Prop B bandwagon. A meeting called “Vote NO on Proposition B” on October 12 is advertised on websites for the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots. The event, held at Coach’s Pizza World, is being organized by the Mexico Tea Party, which activist Ron Beedle told TPM is a relatively new chapter of the Tea Party. This is their first meeting, he said, and Prop B is about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do.”

Also campaigning against the proposition is the local chapter of conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Samuel Wurzelbacher (”Joe The Plumber“). Wurzelbacher has teamed up with the Alliance For Truth, an anti-Prop B organization strongly backed by the kennells and mills across the state, to blog against the measure. One blog post by him features an animal rescue officer kicking down the door of a home. Meanwhile, the Missouri Cattleman’s Association is warning that if the Humane Society — which is a big booster of the proposition — manages to pass the measure, they may be able to succeed in bettering conditions for farm animals as well.

OMG, humane treatment of animals? Horrors! Next thing you know they’ll be telling industry that they can’t put melamine in baby formula. What’s America coming to?

Imagine what they’d say if Obama really WERE a liberal

In the nearly two years since Barack Obama took office, we’ve seen a nonstop litany of wingnuts whipping their minions into a frenzy about a socialist far-left agenda.

Here we have a President who has not closed Guantanamo Bay, who has expanded the war in Afghanistan, who didn’t fight for even a public health care option, let along single-payer, who dickers with DADT in the hope that he can get outta Dodge before he has to deal with his own “icky feelings” about Teh Gays, and who seems willing to gut Social Security and Medicare in the hope that it will make Republicans play nice. Oh, and he’s also been called a secret Muslim terrorist who’s an enemy to Israel, which probably explains what is likely to be his next “Nixon Goes to China” moment:

In June 2010 Congress strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding US offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command area. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group. According to a US Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 “bunker busters” used for blasting hardened underground structures. Planning for these “massive ordnance penetrators,” the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans, and they are to be deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran,” according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. “US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours,” he said. “The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003,” accelerating under Obama.

The Arab press reports that an American fleet (with an Israeli vessel) passed through the Suez Canal on the way to the Persian Gulf, where its task is “to implement the sanctions against Iran and supervise the ships going to and from Iran.” British and Israeli media report that Saudi Arabia is providing a corridor for Israeli bombing of Iran (denied by Saudi Arabia). On his return from Afghanistan to reassure NATO allies that the US will stay the course after the replacement of General McChrystal by his superior, General Petraeus, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen visited Israel to meet IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and senior military staff along with intelligence and planning units, continuing the annual strategic dialogue between Israel and the U.S. The meeting focused “on the preparation by both Israel and the U.S. for the possibility of a nuclear capable Iran,” according to Haaretz, which reports further that Mullen emphasized that “I always try to see challenges from Israeli perspective.” Mullen and Ashkenazi are in regular contact on a secure line.

Guess what, Mr. Obama. The Republicans will STILL hate you. And so will everyone else.

Nice work, Israel

There’s always been this nasty stereotype of the crafty, cunning, sneaky Jew. I never knew where this came from, because as someone who’s from parents who were self-styled Jewish intellectuals, it always seemed that we wore our intelligence on our sleeve. So it’s hard to fathom, how even as paranoid as Bibi Netanyahu is, he could be so fucking stupid as to not figure out that if you’re going to attack a ship from one of your few Muslim ally states in the Middle East, they’re going to get pissed off:

The women wore veils. The men donned green Hamas headbands with swirling Arabic script. They gathered by the thousands in a sunny, working-class plaza in Istanbul, bellowing: “Damn Israel!”

The Saturday demonstration seemed incongruous with the image Turkey has long had in the West as a secular friend of Israel and the United States.

But in recent days, public anger has flared over Israel’s bloody seizure of a Turkish-flagged aid ship headed to the Gaza Strip, which is under an Israeli blockade. The incident occurred as Turkey has been strengthening ties with Muslim governments in the region — becoming more vocally pro-Palestinian and trying to head off new U.N. sanctions on Iran.

That has prompted worried speculation at home and abroad: Is Turkey turning away from the West?

The article goes on to take a more reassuring tone about the Turkish government, but if faced with relentless anti-Israel demonstrations in the streets, how long is it going to take before the pro-western secular government is overthrown? And THEN what happens?

American policy has always been staunchly pro-Israel on the grounds that Israel is our only truly reliable ally in the Middle East. But how much of an ally is a country that insists on behaving like a lone wolf? Israel’s paranoia may be justified by the fact that there are those who want it wiped off the map, but I’d like someone to tell me just how sixty-plus years of this has done anything to stop that threat.

I know that there are many American Jews who will support everything the Israeli government decides to do, right or wrong. And they vote. And politicians, particularly Democratic ones, are terrified of losing that vote, particularly to a party whose tubthumping for Israel is based on the apocalyptic delusions of their own religious fanatical base. You’d think that American Jews would be smart enough to know that the so-called pro-Israel sentiment of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade isn’t based on love for the Jews, but on the promise of being able to sit on the couch with Jesus, chowing down on nachos and watching unconverted Jews burn. But Israel is such a blind spot that sometimes Israel policy drives everything.

If poor little Israel can’t survive without American support and money, don’t you think we ought to have some input in how it conducts itself as part of the world community?

A glimpse of what the "Christian nation" so beloved of Republicans would look like

Here’s a taste of what the Christian theocracy that’s the goal of so many conservatives would look like:

Nineteen-year-old Keshia Canter handed three burgers, fries and milkshakes to a car-load of Tuesday afternoon customers at the Hi-Lo Burger’s drive-though window. A lady sitting in the backseat leaned forward, between the two men in front, and handed her a leaflet: “Women & Girls” it said across the top.

“Even though nothing is showing, you’re being ungodly,” Canter recalled the woman telling her. “You make men want to be sinful.”

[snip]

“You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed,” it begins. “Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?”

It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. Yates was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:

“Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin,” the leaflet states. “By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?”

In Theocratic America, women are by their very nature evil, even criminals. This pamphlet was being distributed in Bristol, Virginia — a state where now you can carry a gun into a bar. This is so that when the drunk at the end of the bar starts making disparaging remarks about your mother, you can shoot to kill.

Meanwhile, out in Utah, the nightmare scenario of women who miscarry having to prove they weren’t trying to self-abort is just waiting for the governor’s signature. And in Florida, which always seems to be doing everything it can to become more Alabama than Alabama is, new legislation would punish doctors who perform abortions with up to life sentences in prison.

Isn’t it funny how efforts to create a “moral, Christian America” focus on the genitalia of women and what women do with those? Isn’t it funny how the legislatures that come up with stuff like this are ALWAYS dominated by men? And isn’t it funny how the ENTIRE burden of making “moral” choices always falls on women in their world? For decades we’ve heard about baby boomers and hedonism and self-indulgence, and yet these guys are not only terrified of themselves, but also seemingly completely unable to keep it in their pants unless all women dress like the Warren Jeffs polygamy cult women and are punished severely for exercising any kind of sexual self-determination.

These are just a few tastes of the Christian utopia envisioned in those states where a preponderance of people are simply unable to make behavioral without some punitive big white alpha male daddy figure in the sky. And it’s interesting how that big white alpha male seems to forgive an awful lot of male transgressions, and none of the female.

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "Purity Balls"

We haven’t heard about purity balls in a while, those formal dances for evangelical daddies and their little girls, in which those little girls who don’t even understand what sex is yet pledge their virginity to Daddy until married off to some freak considered religious enough by Daddy. They haven’t gone anywhere, they just don’t get the press they used to.

I wonder if the GOP is going to hold formal dances for its candidates, now that they are considering a “purity resolution” for prospective Republican candidates:

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members and was distributed on Monday morning. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting.

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on seven of 10 items.

Because eight of ten puts you in line with St. Ronnie. Seven of ten makes you an apostate.

Maybe it’s because you’re a moron

Let’s juxtapose two news stories, shall we?

1) To whom would Jesus deny health care?

Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins has unveiled a new hard hitting ad campaign that lays out what he considers two key threats to his view of the American way of life should President Obama’s plan become reality namely, rationing and taxpayer funded legal medical procedures like abortion.The TV ad campaign will initially run in five key states including Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana, and Nebraska.

Perkins explains: “In a world of health care rationing, the elderly, the handicapped and the frail are the most likely to lose their lives because care was delayed or denied. Under the government-run plans in England and Canada, the countries’ sick and elderly aren’t getting the care they need. As a result, their system isn’t improving lives but prematurely taking them. Here in the United States, President Obama’s rationing would mean that you and I could be denied basic care while our tax dollars are used to underwrite a mother choosing to end the life of her unborn child.”

The ad attempts to instill fear in patients, particularly the elderly, falsely asserting that they will face denial of vital treatments and that Obama’s real goal is to deny care to ‘our greatest generation’ and deny life to ‘our future generation.’

2) I guess now we know:

A central Wisconsin father charged with reckless homicide for not taking his dying daughter to a doctor told police that he believed God would heal her and that he thought she was simply sleeping when she became unconscious.

Madeline Neumann died on March 23, 2008, from undiagnosed diabetes on the floor of the family’s rural Weston home as people surrounded the 11-year-old girl and prayed. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing.

Prosecutors contend her father, Dale Neumann, had a legal duty to take his weakened daughter to a doctor. A videotape of his interview with police after her death was shown to jurors during his trial Wednesday before prosecutors rested their case.

Neumann, 47, told the judge that he planned to testify in his defense.

In the interview with Everest Metro Police Department detective Scott Sleeter, Neumann described the weeks leading up to Madeline’s death, when he said she was a “little weak and a little slower,” something he attributed to puberty. Her condition deteriorated, and by the day before her death, he said, Madeline could not walk or talk.

“We just trusted the Lord for complete healing,” he said. “We didn’t really sense it was like a life-and-death situation. We figured there was something really fighting in her body. We asked people to join with us in prayer agreement.”

Neumann said it never crossed his mind that his daughter might have lost consciousness.

“She was just sleeping,” Neumann said. “I didn’t believe at all that the Lord would even allow her to pass.”

Neumann also told the detective that “sickness is a result of sin” and that his daughter’s death had not shaken his faith.

Do you think this story tells us a little about why Tony Perkins and the rest of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade is so against universal health care? Perhaps they too believe that sickness is the result of sin.

Are the "birthers" simply trying to turn their apocalyptic vision for America into reality?

Bruce Wilson at Talk to Action makes a compelling case that the whole “birther” nonsense is an attempt to fulfill the Christofascist Zombie Brigade’s need for someone they can brand as the Antichrist in order to create their sick apocalyptic vision:

Although there are secularized versions of New World Order conspiracy narrative, the conspiracy theory genre is at base a religious one. These YouTube NWO videos tend to associate Barack Obama with the forces of absolute evil, suggesting Obama is either an antichrist or “false prophet” figure or, probably more commonly, that Obama is a key player in a conspiracy to create a world totalitarian system which, in religious versions of the NWO conspiracy narrative, will be led by a murderous antichrist figure soon to dominate the world political stage.

NWO conspiracy theories typically are interwoven with Christian apocalyptic End-Time narratives predicting the immanent arrival, on the world stage, of a satanic world ruler who will come to power promising peace but instead implement a savage and bloody reign of tyranny.

Then, either a) Christians will be “raptured” up to heaven after which Jesus Christ will return to Earth to overthrow the evil regime or, in an increasingly common version of the narrative, b) Christians themselves will take up arms, overthrow the evil world regime, cleanse the world of all evil including ideological foes, and implement a thousand-year utopian Biblical theocracy. The latter doctrine is promoted by Sarah Palin’s key Alaska church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

More here…

This is why we dismiss the former governor of Alaska at our peril. She does a good job of hiding her militia/Jeebofascist leanings, but when you put together her looneytunes church, her love of guns, and her affiliation with the Alaska Independent Party, and throw in a soupçon of Republican Male Lust, and mix it with Americans’ economic fatigue, anything can happen.

And there are at least seventeen of these adherents to the “birther” narrative in Congress even as we speak.

EXTRA: House of Representatives Retains Sanity, However Briefly

While Republican congressmen were busy questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship, Congressional Democrats got 378 votes for a resolution “recognizing and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State”:

Whereas August 21, 2009, marks the 50th Anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s signing of Proclamation 3309, which admitted Hawaii into the Union in compliance with the Hawaii Admission Act, enacted by the United States Congress on March 18, 1959;

Whereas Hawaii is `a place like no other, with a people like no other’ and bridges the mainland United States to the Asia-Pacific region;

Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii;

Whereas Hawaii has contributed to the diversity of Congress in electing the first Native Hawaiian member of Congress, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana`ole, the first Asian-American member, Hiram Fong, the first woman of color, Patsy T. Mink, and the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the Senate, Daniel Kahikina Akaka;

Whereas Hawaii is an example to the rest of the world of unity and positive race relations;

Whereas Pearl Harbor is a strategic military base for the U.S. in the Pacific and also a historical site for the Nation, being the location of the December 7, 1941, surprise Japanese aerial attack that thrust the Nation into World War II;

Whereas Hawaii is home to 1/4 of the endangered species in the United States;

Whereas Hawaii has 8 national parks, which preserve volcanoes, complex ecosystems, a Hansen’s disease colony, and other sites of historical and cultural significance;

Whereas Kilauea ranks among the most active volcanoes on Earth;

Whereas President Bush nominated the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Centre for consideration to the World Heritage List;

Whereas Hawaii has produced musical legends ranging from traditional favorites such as Alfred Apaka, Don Ho, and Genoa Keawe, to Hawaii renaissance performers such as Eddie Kamae, Raymond Kane, Gabby Pahinui, Israel Kamakawiwo`ole, the Brothers Cazimero, and the Beamer Brothers, and continuing on to contemporary stars such as Keali`i Reichel, Ledward Kaapana, Jake Shimabukuro, and Raiatea Helm;

Whereas Hawaii is culturally rich, as the Hawaiian culture has been protected through Hawaiian language immersion schools, hula competitions such as the Merrie Monarch Festival, canoeing voyages undertaken by vessels like the Hokule`a, and the continuing historic preservation of Hawaiian traditions;

Whereas the Hawaii Statehood Commission has held a Joint Session of the Hawaii State Legislature in honor of statehood and will be celebrating this milestone with a public discussion and with the arrival of the USS Hawaii; and

Whereas for all of these reasons Hawaii is a truly unique State: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives recognizes and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the entry of Hawaii into the Union as the 50th State.

Even wingnut di tutti wingnuts Ernie Scott Garrett of our own NJ-5 voted for this. No one voted no, but 35 Republicans and 20 Democrats did not vote.

It would be tempting to believe that this will put the “birther” nonsense back in the hands of “Crazy Eileen” and other seers of gargoyles where it belongs. But as Mike Stark found out, the Republicans aren’t going to abandon their lunatic base that easily:

(h/t)

How on earth can anyone believe this woman should be president?

I’m serious. I want to know. I realize that the Republican Party has become an organization in which accomplishment, intelligence, knowledge and curiousity about the world and a plan for what one wants to do are regarded as liabilities rather than assets, but really….on what basis should Sarah Palin be president?

Right now we are in two intractable wars left us by George W. Bush. North Korea is testing nuclear missiles. Climate change is occurring faster than even scientists predicted. Our health care system is a shambles. Our job base is disappearing. The problems facing our government are so massive they defy description. Right now we have a president who, whatever his flaws, and he has many (most notably his coziness with Wall Street and his icky feelings about Teh Gays), at least can string his thoughts together coherently and whose worldview is about something other than personal grievance.

In traveling through Freeperville and the comments sections of various blogs, I’m struck by the way the zealousness of the Cult of Sarah has absolutely nothing to do with actual policy. It’s all about the popcorn fantasies of people who think that the Reign of Queen Sarah I will be about sitting on the couch watching the ritual massacre of all liberals.

So, wingnuts…suppose you get to watch that spectacle. What then?

What does Sarah Palin do about North Korea, a nation with nuclear weapons the leader of which was taught by George W. Bush, and has since shown the rest of the world, that if you have nukes, the U.S. will leave you alone; it’s only if you don’t that you get invaded.

What does Sarah Palin do about this country’s diminishing job base in manufacturing, high tech, and other industries, a reality that has affected her home state?

Presumably Sarah Palin denies the reality of climate change. OK, then, what does she propose to do to help people whose homes are damaged by flooding, hailstones, tornadoes, Category 5 hurricanes, and other manifestations of climate change?

And while this doesn’t seem important in the larger sphere of things, can you imagine having a president who quits because the press and bloggers are being mean to her, and then has her lawyer threaten to sue anyone who speculated on her reasons for resigning?

Need I go on?

What is this woman about, other than feeding the ragegasm of angry white people?

And on what planet is being a member of a group whose sole purpose is secession from the U.S. somehow “patriotic”? How does quitting make you a fighter? How does siccing your lawyers on people who say mean things about you make you the kind of conservative that rails against trial lawyers?

On what is this cult of Sarah based? Do they ALL just want to fuck her?

Here’s the tragedy of Sarah Palin: If she weren’t a mean-spirited right-wing Christofascist narcissistic nutball, she COULD have been the kind of feminist around which women could rally. If she were about helping other working mothers and parents of special-needs children and health care for all and a stable job base, she could have been a credible contender for first female president. But alas, she is only an aging beauty queen, a Mean Grrrl who in politics has found a way to extend her reign as Prettiest Girl in High School to use people (or states) and then throw them away when they stop feeding her massive ego — or the gaping hole in her soul which no amount of attention will fill.