From Pine View Farm

Too Stupid for Words category archive

There’s One Born Every Minute, Gag Me with a Spud Dept. (Updated) 1

I thought white potatoes came ready to microwave right out of the ground. Just wash them and poke them a few times with a fork.

Apparently not.

Microwave Spud

The “microwavable potatoes” are two for three dollars.

Regular Idahos are $1.49 a pound (Idahos, not red russets or plain ole low-brow round lumpy white potatoes).

Spud

Figure about three Idahos per pound and do the arithmetic. That’s awfully expensive Saran Wrap.

Addendum:

I received an email from someone what has tried these thingees, which says, in part,

Yukk.

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Must. Stop. Brain. From. Exploding. 0

Trying to follow Republican reasoning (emphasis added):

You were born a Christian, not born gay. Religion is not a choice.

Or so the spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would have you believe. Questioned about why the House’s top Republican opposes a hate crimes bill penalizing violence against gays, his spokesman said he “supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics,” just not protections for things like being gay — which conservatives occasionally claim is a choice.

. . . thereby saying that religion is an immutable characteristic.

Guess all those missionaries might as well come home and get jobs at Mickey Dee’s.

(Given the hate-full antics of some who call themselves “Christian,” I can well understand why some who were born with that “immutable characteristic” have indeed chosen not to label themselves as such, despite the immutable fate imposed by their Boehner-Boner Christian gene. I still remember the surprise on the faces of some of my leftie friends when I mentioned that I had a pastor.)

Why on earth anyone would chose to be homosexual is beyond me. And thinking that sexual orientation is a choice, rather than a trait, betrays a gross failure to understand the world.

I don’t know any heterosexual persons who have ever been able to describe “choosing” to be straight; they just knew.

I do know gay persons who fought the knowledge that they were gay for years, often with great pain and loss because of bad decisions they made to pretend, to themselves and others, to be something they were not.

Trying to dress bigotry in reason and make it presentable in polite company makes for unreason.

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The Internet Is a Public Place 0

The moral of this story is that, if you are a fugitive on the lamb for bank fraud, don’t “friend” U. S. Government employees.

In fact, it’s probably not a good idea to Facebook at all.

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How Can They Teach Students To Think . . . (Updated) 0

. . . when they can’t think for themselves?

Granted, a six-year old should not be trucking around unsupervised with a Boy Scout knife, even if it’s just because he’s excited about joining the Tiger Cubs. At the same time, divining someone’s intent without taking into account behavior, but only from measuring the size of the knife, is really dumb.

It would not be allowed in criminal court; that’s why there is a difference between “involuntary manslaughter” and “first degree murder.” But schools know not due process.

It is typical of many policies in schools and in other organizations, private and public. It relieves the persons who are paid the middle-sized bucks to make the middle-sized decisions from having to, well, decide and then be held accountable for their decisions. (The rule was made so arbitrary because administrators were making bad decisions. Easier than expecting them to make good ones.)

Because the district’s Student Code of Conduct bans dangerous instruments regardless of intent, the district could not take into consideration Zachary’s age or why he brought the camping utensil to school, said Wendy Lapham, the district’s spokeswoman.

“We have to follow the policy as it is written consistently because this is the code of conduct that is applied to all of our students in our district,” she said. “It’s never a question of a child’s character or comparing one child to another.”

The sophistry is mind-numbing. I guess the rules sprang full-blown from the mind of Zeus and are therefore immutable.

Read more »

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If God Did Not Believe in Medicine 0

We wouldn’t have doctors.

Frankly, this is sick-making.

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Greater Wingnuttery XLII 0

In a letter to the editor in today’s local rag, the writer says:

It seems obvious that the United States has had a bloodless coup in the form of the Democrats’ having control of all three branches of government.

Wingnut spelling bee:

Coup.
E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N.
Coup.

Wingnut arithmetic:

    Legislative Branch = 1
    Executive Branch = 1

    1 + 1 = 3

Afterthought: That’s the kind of arithmetic behind voodoo economics.

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One Track Minds 3

I have discussed the Republican fascination with sex before.

One time, many years ago, I was teen-aged boy. I was normal. I was fascinated with sex.

I didn’t know what it was, but I was fascinated with it. I devoted lots of energy to finding out what it was.

But my fascination with it was normal.

Not morbid.

Like this.

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Smart Is Bad. Dumb Is Good. It’s a Wingnut World. 0

Steve has the IQ dump.

Yeah, the links check out.

Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Up is down, in is out, and the sky is green.

It’s a wingnut world. Tra-la-la and a hey-nonnie-nonnie.

(Can you tell I’m down to my last nerve?)

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Greater Wingnuttery XLI (Updated) 0

It used to be considered bad form to advocate the violent overthrow of the government of the United States of America (although the wingnut in question claims to merely musing . . . .)

Indeed, it was considered an “unAmerican activity.”

The right wing in this country is profoundly disturbed by the scary black man in the White House.

Addendum:

Eating Choking on their words. From Josh Marshall:

As you can see, the angle Newsmax is taking on this is to suggest that Perry doesn’t really have anything to do with them, that he’s just an “unpaid blogger.” Now I think we all understand that there are many sites — Kos, Redstate, even TPM — where readers are allowed to set up their own blogs or diaries and write their own stuff. These are essentially discussion areas. And it’s a cheap shot when someone finds some nutty diary on Kos and says DailyKos published such and such. Newsmax is claiming that that’s what’s happening here. But we’ve taken a close look. And I think it’s clear that that is not true. Perry has written a weekly column for the site going back to at least 1999. And he’s prominently listed on the bio page of all Newsmax columnists, along with Dick Morris, Dr. Laura, Grover Norquist, Lanny Davis, Michael Reagan, Rep. Ernest Istook, etc.

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No Laughing Matter 0

It’s not a good idea to joke about assassination, though the wingnut brigade seems to think it is.

(Link fixed.)

Those Secret Service folks take their jobs very seriously:

Facebook Inc., the most popular social-networking Web site, said it pulled a third-party program from the service that asked if President Barack Obama should be assassinated.

Facebook is working with the U.S. Secret Service, which is investigating the matter, company spokesman Larry Yu said today. The application, which allows users to conduct surveys of Facebook members, was used to create the Obama poll.

“We take any threat against our protectees very seriously, and we will investigate it thoroughly,” Darrin Blackford, a U.S. Secret Service spokesman, said in a telephone interview, adding that the investigation began Sept. 26.

My guess is that it was one of those quizzes like the new one, just released, “Which Bunk Do You Want?”

Aside: I do not recall lefties joking about assassinating elected officials in the preceding eight years. Sure, I heard a lot of lefties say a lot of unpleasant things about what Bush, Cheney, and their accomplices did. I said my fair share.

And, ya know what? We were right.

They did do all the things we said they did.

But I did not hear or read anyone who wished or even joked about their being assassinated, just who wanted them out of office.

Now it seems that you can’t turn around without hearing someone joke about assassinating President Obama.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

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Adventures in Self-Centeredness 0

Josh Marshall comments:

With Sen. Kyl pointing out that men have no interest in having insurance cover child birth, no doubt women will note that they have little interest in covering prostate and testicular cancer. And surely men will get back into the act and want to get out of under the cost of covering breast cancer, which very few men get.

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Greater Wingnuttery XXXIX 0

Brendan takes up the loon watch.

Watch the video. It proves once again that facts have a liberal bias.

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Suspense 1

If you’re reading this, it means this guy was wrong.

Read more »

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As a Southerner 1

I really don’t like it when folks make jokes about the South just because it’s the South.

But, honest to Pete, sometimes the South just asks for it.

Next they’ll ban clothespins and ice cubes.

Sheesh.

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The Internet Is a Public Place 0

Facebook user’s video leads to arrest for spotlighting deer.

It’s generally not a good idea to do something illegal, then post a video of your doing it in a public place.

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Mealy Mouthing Madoff 0

The US financial watchdog has expressed “deep regret” that it failed to detect the multi-billion dollar Madoff fraud.

Two top officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had failed in its “fundamental mission to protect investors”.

They did not “fail to detect” Madoff.

They actively ignored (I hope that’s not an oxymoron) warnings for many years.

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Jerks 0

It’s how they roll.

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Stand and Deliver 6

This is the pastor who prays for Mr. Obama to die.

Never in my life–and I’ve attended churches most of my life–have I heard a pastor pray for someone to die.

Or preach about how to pee.

Update: Whoops! Forgot to add a title.

Via Balloon Juice.

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What’s Wrong with This Picture? 2

Offered without further comment:

When Elaine Cioni found out that her married boyfriend had other girlfriends, she became obsessed, federal prosecutors say. So she turned to YourHackerz.com.

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MMR 0

Law and Order SVU takes on the anti-vaccination kooks.

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