2014 archive
More on Marriage Malice 0
Governor McAuliffe has declined Republican requests that he defend Virginia’s laws to persecute persons for being.
Monday afternoon, McAuliffe declined Del. Bob Marshall’s request for him to appoint outside counsel on a federal challenge to that law scheduled for a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.
Seeing Delegate Bob Marshall’s name in the story is no surprise. He is a weather vane, unfailingly pointing in the direction of hate-full-ness on every social issue. The forces of persecution for being are so frustrated that some are calling for impeaching Attorney-General Herring. Their discomfiture is gratifying.
If it is true that you can judge a person by the enemies he or she makes, Mr. Herring is a pretty decent fellow.
Elections matter, folks.
RIP Pete Seeger 0
Pete Seeger passes away after almost a century of championing the dispossessed and the persecuted.
I saw him in person once, at the Mobe in 1969, where he led the crowd in “All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance.”
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
It’s all about living in a John Wayne movie.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
I was at a gathering recently with someone who considers himself a “Libertarian.” He was a nice guy, but, for some reason, not receptive to my position that “Libertarianism is a sophisticated rationale for amoral selfishness that refuses to recognize the sociological reality of original sin” (that is, the innate capacity and willingness of humans to do bad things because they can get away with them). (I was slightly more tactful than that, but not much.)
Discourse with ideologues is difficult. No mind is more closed than that of a true believer.
I did not pull out my “A Libertarian is a Republican who is ashamed to admit it” argument. I am saving that for a future encounter . . . .
Image via Bartcop.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
I wonder what gave him away: the little fluffy white tail or the antlers.
Early in his career, my brother lived in Vermont for a couple of years. They used to get hunters passing though. One day he told me of overhearing an exchange between two of them at a gas station. It went something like this:
“Did you bag anything?”
“No, but I got off a couple of ‘sound shots.'”
What, you may ask (he did) is a “sound shot.”
Jumping through Whoops 0
Deaths from whooping cough soar in Cali. I trust the anti-vaccine zealots find this gratifying:
Other factors include the cyclical nature of the disease and an increasing number of parents opting out of immunizations for their children.
Much more at the link.
I can remember seeing grainy black and white pictures of kids in iron lungs because of polio on the telly vision when I was young. Mumps nearly killed my parents when I was about four (mumps is much more serious in adults than in children). There were many family tales of children almost dying from whooping cough or measles and perhaps tales I did not hear of those who did; I do know that, in the graveyard at the little country church my family has attended since before the War of 1812, there are lots of tiny little graves.
Vaccines put an end to that. Now, fear and hysteria based on fraudulent claims threaten to bring it all back.
Penn and Teller explain vaccination (Warning: Language).
Penn and Teller via PoliticalProf.
The Laffable Curve 0
How’s that trickle on economics working out for you, huh?
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Another proponent of practicing self-politeness:
The man appears to have shot himself accidentally, said Gilham. No other injuries were reported.
Chris-Crossed 0
Michael Smerconish suspects that one of his columns prompted Chris Christie to “unfriend” him. A nugget:
(snip)
That piece was the most negative thing I’ve ever offered about Christie, but now I think it was a deal-breaker for him, which is a shame. Time and again I’ve said that Christie is the GOP’s best hope to center itself, something I think is in the best interest of both the party and the nation.
Events have evidenced Governor Christie’s vindictiveness.
Smerconish is a decent fellow who considers himself “conservative”; he does not want to admit that the Republican Party has devolved into the irretrievably crazy, so he grasps at straws. “Christie the Centrist”* was the most recent straw.
I doubt it will be the last one.
______________________
*”Christie the Centrist.”
Yeah.
Right.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Ohio House decides that schools should have a free pass for politeness:
Current Ohio law allows private and public schools to permit teachers to carry guns. It’s a local decision. The proposed law would allow them to decide in private who can be armed and protect schools from liability issues if there is an accident.
The story reports that every police organization in the state is against this law.
Words fail me.
How Tea Gets Bagged 2
David McCumber analyzes the tactics of teabaggery and how the teabaggers, generally estimated at about a quarter of the electorate, rendered the Republican Party its servant.
A nugget:
How? It’s called winning through intimidation.
Most moderate Republican lawmakers exist inside a dome of fear that they will draw right-wing primary opposition.
(snip)
Two truths play into this: (1) Turnout is often light in primaries, and votes are sometimes scattered among three or more candidates. And (2) Zealots vote.
As the authtor points out later in the article, this is not a spontaneous grassroots effort.
It’s Astroturf: wingnut think tanks powered by billionaire bucks fund the freak show.
Oooook-la-homophobe 0
Love and marriage,
love and marriage,
they go together like a
horse and carriage.
Afterthought:
It must take a lot of energy to hate that hard.