Nazis on the brain

Everybody understands that desperate people employ desperate means and to my mind that is the only thing explaining what is going on south of the 49th this past while. It is either that or else the right-wing-nuts usual contempt for historical facts and knowledge-in-general that would inspire the currently "popular" comparisons between President Barack Obama and Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, complete with all sorts of utterly clever Photoshopped pictures of the President.

One asshole's idea of humour

I can only assume that the racists and bigots, oh, excuse me, I mean the conservative right-wing-nuts were looking for some new offensive thing to say about President Obama. During the election year of 2008 they hammered pretty hard at Obama's middle name of Hussein, knowing that right-wing-nuts, excuse me, I mean racists and bigots wouldn't vote for someone with the middle name like Hussein (or 'Barack' or 'Obama') since obviously someone with any of those names doesn't have the right to be democratically elected as the President of the good old U.S. of A., land of the free and home of the brave. Why that is hardly racist at all, although I have to wonder what the right-wing-nuts would think of someone with the last name of 'Washington' or 'Lincoln' running for President. Could they get behind someone with either of those names?

Then the "birthers" squeezed out from under a rock somewheres. These are the people who claim to believe that President Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore not allowed by law to be President. The inconvenient fact that Barack was born in Hawaii almost two years after Hawaii had joined the union as the 50th State is ignored and the mindless squawking continues. Of course nobody who is actually capable of thinking coherently ever believed this "birther" nonsense in the first place. Like, say, Republican Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia, who when asked (on Sirius XM radio) whether President Obama was a citizen of the United States answered, "I don't know." Good one, Paul. Never let the facts get in the way of saying something dumb.

Once President Obama began health-care reform in the US then the right-wing-nuts really began to "kick it up a notch" (or more accurately, "kink it up a nut") and the Obama/Hitler comparisons seemed to come on a little harder (they had been there before, but mainly only amongst the full-on crazies). This is ultra-strange since what the president was trying to do was get affordable health-care for all US citizens. It is not like he was authorising a security service to spy on domestic telephone and Internet traffic (spring 2001, before 9/11!), or authorising the FBI to "monitor" political and religious groups (fall 2003), or authorising the use of torture (June 2006), or denying students the right to free-speech (bong hits 4 Jesus, 2007). Oh, hold it, those were all acts of the previous administration. A right-wing administration, if I recall.

I think that everybody can agree that there are bug-eyed simpletons sprinkled all across the political spectrum, left, right and center, but when loud-mouth opinion shapers start talking this lunacy, isn't that a bit much? Sure, let the weird and the dim have their say, freedom of speech and all that, but do they really have to be encouraged in their insanity?

Well, apparently encouraging the sanity-challenged is the way to go these days and the heroes of the right-wing-nuts are more than ready to do their bit. Last August the King of Conservatism and arch drug-monkey, Rush Limbaugh (known to some as "the Limblob") honked that there were, "gazillions of similarities between National Socialism in Germany and Obama's health-care plan." Well done, Rush, since "gazillion" is a made up number, as are your "facts", and the National Socialists murdered millions of people while the President's health-care plan will save the lives of millions of people. So, other than being a drug-addled mess and getting all of his "facts" wrong, Rush is on pretty solid ground there. Good boy, Rush.

Rush-blob also figures that "the Obama health-care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo." Well let's see if we can agree on this. I Google-imaged the Obama health-care logo, and I realized that it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see that Rush Limbaugh is an obnoxious, lying, hypocritical tub of crap.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot

Everybody's favourite walking butt-log, Glenn Beck, has also waded into the "Nazi" issue (in much the same way he would wade into a turd-swamp hunting for brown-eyed boogers). Beck, who is considered an embarrassment by many of his Fox "news" colleagues has said that living under the Obama administration is the same as the Germans who lived under Hitler, which makes sense until you think about it for a half a second. But then to expect anything more from Glenn, who has what can only accurately be described as a tenuous grasp of reality, is kind of silly. The guy is just another gas filled member of the Fox "news" roster of, dare I say it? Nazi wanna-bes.

Oh ho, now is that a controversial opinion? Maybe, but think of it this way: Joseph Goebbels, a big-time Hitler suck-up right from the early days and head of Hitler's propaganda ministry, came up with a method of convincing the people of anything, called "the big lie". The big lie is where the ministry would state a lie about something and then through repeating the lie over and over would reinforce the lie until people would begin to believe it, no matter how far-fetched it was. Fox "news" as a whole seems to believe in this method, repeating lies over and over, via all of their opinion shows until people who don't like to think too much believe them. Now that is something straight out of the Nazi playbook.

Anyway... Humouroceros

The Fish-slapping Dance

Oh yes, pure Monty Python.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Rollins discusses the US right-wing

Oh yeah, I have figured out how to do something new. As George Bush would have said if he weren't all busy wiping his hands all over Bill Clinton (I think that George thinks that Bill is "easy"), "Learning are good."

Anyway, Henry Rollins rocks the heck out!

Anyway... Humouroceros

Keith Olbermann on US right-wing

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Okay, I fully admit that I am a fan of Keith Olbermann. I agree with what he says more often than not and this little riff on the right-wing-nuts in the US is bang the heck on. My own particular political leanings are a little right of center and I believe that what is going on south of the 49th with the right-wing these days is a disgrace. The will of the people is all fine and good, until the people are idiots and then it is time for the leaders to lead. The democratically elected leaders that is, not a cowardly pack of loud-mouths on television or radio who haven't the guts or the nerve to put their simpleminded little philosophies to an honest test by running for political office. Oops, there I go again, ranting and all. Heh.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Boba Fett

And continuing on in the Star Wars frame of mind. This is cool and I wish I had made it up.

Anyway... Humouroceros

"We feared the worst."

It has always been one of my favourite lines from Star Wars: A New Hope. Luke, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca have escaped from the Death Star and made it to the rebel base on a moon of the planet Yavin. When Princess Leia meets with the rebel leader, General Willard, he says, "When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst." Apparently the destruction of the planet Alderaan with the loss of millions if not billions of lives wasn't quite the worst. Well, fair enough, I guess.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Fixer upper?

So, is it a fixer upper, or considering how many raccoons have been tearing through this place, is it a tearer downer? My money is on the tearer downer part of that offset equation. Yup.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Proposed title: It's Sarah!

Word on the street is that conservative icon, liar, and former vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin is shopping a "reality" television show to all the networks. Apparently interest is low (even at Fox!) as the industry feels that it has already done The Gong Show and doesn't want to be seen to be repeating itself. That is just so weird. I mean, they always repeat themselves.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Fox news is full to the brim with bigots

I was looking through the Fox news web-site, studying up on a post I have been thinking about when I came across the above on one of the comment pages. I'd like to say it was the only comment like this, but it wasn't. I found it appalling that someone felt so sure that they would be agreed with in calling President Obama a "shoe shine boy" that they put it up as a comment. I guess it is even more appalling that nobody has complained about it and it has not been taken down. Or is this an example of what our friends to the south call "freedom of speech"? Anybody can say whatever racist, horrible brain-poison they want, and it is okay because they have the freedom to do so.

Now I am a firm believer in the wild-eyed concept of live and let live. What people do in the privacy of their own home is none of my business as long as they are not hurting anybody else (to quote former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation"). If something offends you, ignore it. I am offended by 'reality television', televangelists, opinion disguised as news, and a whole host of other things, but I find that if I don't watch them or listen to them, I'm fine. But there are limits. Nobody would argue that child-abuse is okay to watch (nobody normal anyway). And nobody should allow racist crap like the above to go unchallenged or unreported (in fact I did try to report it on the Fox site but to do so you have to be a member. I am not now, nor will I ever be a member of the Fox news site).

I am sure that Fox news has an excellent reason for allowing it to remain on the site, I just cannot imagine what that reason could be.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Silly kids of lesbians!

Ah yes, religious tolerance, love and compassion has taken another smack in the 'nads, and as usual it is the religious establishment that has delivered the blow. A preschooler in the archdiocese of Denver (in Colorado) (in the USA) will not be allowed back to the Catholic school the child had been attending as the child is being raised by two lesbians. Silly old lesbians, thinking that the catholic community cares about them or their child. Why, that's just... silly.

So, what does the archdiocese have to say for itself? Well: "Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment. To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home." Well gosh, that certainly helps clear things up for me! So children who have parents who use birth-control are not allowed to enroll either, right? Nor will those bratty little snots who have a dad who has had a vasectomy. And how about those brats who have parents who are not married? Out with them! And the children of divorced parents, or of parents who have had their marriage annulled? On the streets with them! It seems obvious, given what the archdiocese has said, that none of these terrible children would be allowed anywhere within twenty feet of a catholic school in the archdiocese of Denver. Not unless the leaders there are hypocrites, that is.

Father Bill Breslin, who is the pastor of the Catholic school in question and who maintains a blog at http://www.fatherbillsblog.com/ (ah, don't get excited, every goober out there has a blog, um..), stepped in to clear things up in a post on his blog called What wisdom is at work in not having the children of a gay marriage in a Catholic school. "If a child of gay parents comes to our school, and we teach that gay marriage is against the will of God, then the child will think that we are saying their parents are bad. We don't want to put any child in that tough position - nor do we want to put the parents, or the teachers, at odds with the teachings of the Catholic church. Why would good parents want their children to learn something they don't believe in? It doesn't make sense." He goes on to say, "There are many schools in Boulder that see the meaning of sexuality in an entirely different way than the Catholic church does. Why not sent their children there?" Ah Father B, we in the business of opening a can of worms call that "opening a can of worms". Now granted, in some quarters the old "our way or the hi-way" way of reasoning is still considered valid (many neo-cons in the US seem to think this way) but for the sake of argument let's just say that it is actually kind of a dumb way to think. Now if I am reading your post right you are saying that these two lesbians are not good parents, and that they do not have the right to be Catholic or to bring their child up within the Catholic faith. How inclusive. But I was thinking of that bit where you talk about schools that see sexuality in a different way that the Catholic church does and how these lesbians should send their kid to one of them. I'm pretty sure that I'm right in thinking that the Catholic church believes that it is the only true faith, and only good catholics get to go to heaven. Everybody else heads south to burn in everlasting torment. So since you have suggested that this child should be sent to another school, does that mean that you want her to burn in hell, presumably like her parents will be? Is this new version of God's love? No, I guess not.

I don't know, me and superstition don't really see eye to eye anyway and I have to wonder why any gay person would want to be a member of any organization that believes that the gay person will burn in hell forever after they die. I also don't understand why religion is given a free ride on being intolerant and hateful, and that tax-exempt-status thing kind of gets me too.

Anyway... Humouroceros

Gays at the prom? Nyet!

Well the school board for Itawamba County Agricultural high school in Fulton, Mississippi has pranced into the fray to protect students from that darn homosexual agenda. The very moment they found out that 18-year-old Constance McMillen would be bringing her girlfriend as her prom date to the senior prom an extraordinary meeting of the school board was called and once the screaming, the hair-pulling and the frantic, bug-eyed praying and "speaking in tongues" was done, they announced that the April 2, 2010 senior prom was cancelled "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events". Yep, they might have been as shook up as a big old bottle of Monkey-cola but when a gay student popped up, "this will not stand!" they said, and cancelled the prom (or they would have said that if they had thought of it.)

Well done. Punish the entire senior class because there is a gay student in their midst. That is totally officer thinking and is also the sort of progressive thinking that has made our friends to the south (the United States) what they are today, intolerant and hate-filled. Or perhaps I am being a little harsh. Maybe "protecting" the young from the facts of life, and making Ms McMillan into a scapegoat for the cowardice of the school board is the way to go. Perhaps this is the way of goodness, righteousness and light. Nah, I don't think so.

It would appear that this entire debacle began last December when Ms McMillan, in an unthinking fit of honesty, spoke to her school principal about bringing her girlfriend to the prom. She was told then that this would not be allowed due to financial considerations. Apparently is had always been assumed that same-sex couples were only trying to game the school board out of the price of a ticket to the prom. These wacky couples were trying to save a few bucks by buying 'date' tickets rather than 'individual' tickets, and the the canny adults of the school board didn't want these sorts of shenanigans going on, so they banned same-sex couples. Obviously this is not just another example of homophobia and intolerance, it was merely an intolerance of kids showing some financial initiative and trying to pull a fast one. Whew.

But then they cancelled the prom and suddenly it does look like homophobia and intolerance of gays. I suppose that in a country where schools had to be forced not to discriminate against persons of colour or against multi-racial couples, this shouldn't have been much of a surprise, but it was. Then I looked into it a bit further.

Fulton is a small town in Mississippi and people there apparently tend to be conservative if not actually Conservative. The mayor of Fulton, Paul Walker, says, "I think the community as a whole is probably in support of the school district." So the town of 4,000 is locked in goose-step together, refusing to be dragged into the 21st century. Southside Baptist Church Pastor, Bobby Crenshaw agrees, saying, "a lot more people here have biblically based values." All right, so rape, slavery, the slaughter of innocents and the burning of witches is a-ok fine, but no gays allowed. Sounds heavenly.

There is still a couple of weeks to go until the cancelled prom's original date and one supposes that there is the slight possibility that the school board will come to it's senses and hold the prom with no stupid rules about same-sex partners, but as the senses of the school board appear to be completely addled I won't be holding my breath. There are rumours that there may be a private prom held and one can only imagine how welcome Ms McMillan and her date will be at a prom paid for by the religiously intolerant.

In the mean time Ms McMillan has to put up with the dull-witted snipes from some of her classmates ("thanks for ruining my senior year", bubbled one, apparently not being capable of distinguishing the difference between Ms McMillan and the school board. Yes, another successful Itawamba County Agricultural High school grad!) showing that she has more nerve and courage than someone her age really ought to have. She certainly has way more than anyone serving on the Itawamba County Agricultural high school board.

Anyway... Humouroceros

PS: This put me in mind of a similar situation in Ontario, Canada from 2002. Marc Hall got a court injunction so he could bring a male date to the prom at Monsignor John Pereyma Catholic high school in Oshawa, Ontario. He also filed a lawsuit saying that the Durham Catholic District School Board had violated his human rights by trying to stop him from attending the prom with his boyfriend. He dropped the suit in 2005, saying that he was no longer willing to spend the time or the money on the case. The school board chair, Mary Ann Martin, said that she regretted Mister Hall's dropping the lawsuit. "If we had gone on to court," she says, "we're confident that our denominational rights would have been upheld."

First off, if they were so sure they were right then why did they drag their feet for three years and secondly: "Denominational rights"? What's that? The right to treat certain people like second-class citizens? If that is the case then this is one institution that it is definitely time to get rid of.

72 oz. Steak

I was surfing the waves at JackassWorld.com, checking out what zany wildness the Jackass boys had rammed online (Jackass III is being filmed? Be still my beating heart) and I came across Steve-O mentioning that they were going to Texas so one of the guys could take the 72 oz steak challenge, the challenge being can a person eat a 72 oz steak in one sitting. That is about four and a half pounds of meat, pre-cooked weight I assume, and while I'm as carnivorous as the next guy, I still found that mental imagery to be a little disturbing.

Being the naturally curious sort I Googled "72 oz steak" and there are a few places around that do this sort of thing. The typical challenge is if you can shove four and a half pounds of beef down your throat in a hour or less, then the meal is free. If you can't finish, or it takes you more than a hour, then you can expect a bill for about sixty dollars, not counting drinks and desert.

Ok, not even counting the weirdness factor of eating more cow in a hour than most people eat in a couple of months, I just find it bizarre to think of someone weighing almost five pounds more at the end of a single meal than they did when they sat down to eat that meal. I suspect that your average dieter would be tickled pink to lose five pounds in a week, and here there are people who willingly put on that much in a hour or less. Different strokes, I guess (lame pun intended. You know, the 'strokes' thing. Sorry.)

Anyway... Humouroceros

PS: the image of what would happen the following day, with some poor nimrod trying to pinch off a five pound meat-loaf was just too disturbing to include in the above post.

Oh yeah, the War of 1812 (mainly)

The Queen's representative to Canada, Governor General Michaelle Jean, gave the annual Speech From The Throne the other day. As vitally important as this speech is every year to all Canadians, few can actually be bothered to listen which was especially unfortunate this year as there were a couple of chunks of the speech that really caught my attention. The first thing was the info that there may be a change in the wind for the lyrics of the Canadian national anthem, O Canada. In fact it would be a change back to the original 1908 lyric which is considered more gender-neutral than the current lyrics which were adopted in 1914, thus: "true patriot love thou dost in us command", rather than, "true patriot love in all thy sons command". Well heck, why not? Granted, the older lyrics don't exactly trip lightly off the tongue, it was a different time after all, but I suspect we could get used to it, as quaintly antique as the language may be. (This just in: The Prime Minister's Office has announced that the review of the national anthem is off the book and was probably never planned in the first place. Hey! Why are you supporting the terrorists?)

The second chunk o' speech that caught my attention was when the GG mentioned that the bicentennial of the War of 1812 was right around the corner. I much appreciated the reminder since I had completely forgotten (the War of 1912 doesn't cross my radar very often, or ever). I have to admit that when I do think of the War of 1812 I have to wince when I think of how some Canadians seem to think that Canadian forces fought the US invaders, or the even more annoying "Canada beat the US in the War of 1812". This is scrotal-dandruff of the most unthinking kind and it is to the GG's credit that she didn't mention either thought. For the record, in 1812 Canada as a nation did not even exist and would not exist for over another fifty years.

These are ideas that I have heard for years from some of my fellow Canadians. Silly-ness par formidable. The war was fought between the spanking new United States of America (15 stars on the flag of the day and counting) and the British Empire (which had been around for a while). US forces came into the British colony of Upper Canada on April 27, 1813 and pillaged like maniacs as they worked their way up to York where they burned the Parliament building and a library. The British, being gentlemen and everything, returned the favour and on August 24, 1814 they attacked Washington, DC where they burned some public buildings, including the White House. They didn't pillage at all though and no private buildings were harmed. That 'gentleman' thing I suppose.

The war grumbled on until December 24, 1814 when the Treaty of Ghent was signed (in Ghent, United Kingdom of Netherlands), and was then ratified on February 16, 1815. Between the signing and the ratification the Battle of New Orleans was fought (January 8, 1915) where the British got pasted pretty good, and the battle of Fort Bowyer (February 12, 1815) where the British kicked the bejezuz out of the US military, making things even-Stephen.

And after all that war-mongering and stuff, what had changed other than a lot of dead guys and a couple of burned cities? Not much, although burning Washington had been a favour really, since it was built on a swamp. But no land changed hands, not counting Mobile, Alabama, but since that had been taken from the Spanish it really doesn't count. The US did celebrate the War of 1812 as their "second war of independence", although independence from what is a little unclear.

In British North America (which fifty years later would become Canada) the war was considered a victory because although the other side had declared war, no territory was lost.

In Britain the War of 1812 is barely remembered at all and was, in fact, hardly even noticed at the time. The British were far more interested in the war with Napoleon and the exploits of "big-nose" Wellington. Go figure.

Anyway... Humouroceros

The US flag as it was then...


The British flag as it was then and is now.

Do they know what taxes are for?

I caught the Daily Show the other night where Jon Stewart showed a clip of Fox "news" personality Glenn Beck giving a speech to CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) where Glenn says, "I educated myself, I went to the library - books are free." Now Glenn's speech that day was not about taxes, but rather about the creeping threat of the "progressive movement", whatever that is supposed to be. One of the things that struck Jon Steward about this was that in the past Glenn had argued against the government providing stuff for the average man-in-the-street, you know, like health care and things of that ilk. Taxes are too high, government does too much, this sort of thing. This is something that has been brought up before. It is as though these right-wing dorks don't understand what taxes are used for. Police, fire protection, and, oddly enough, libraries.



So Stewart's joke was that Beck is bragging about using the very thing he is against. It is a good point, but just to be sure that I am on the same page I want to check out Glenn Beck's latest written work, Arguing With Idiots, and see if my opinion of this guy is mistaken or not. I have chosen to borrow a copy from the local library, where I have been a member for almost forty-years, because I am, after all, one of those socialist Canadians. Glenn Beck appears to be just a hypocrite.



Anyway... Humouroceros