telescreen.org

I don't know what to say about this except:  Wow.

We all know that something magical happens when a rape or incest victim has an abortion. The crying child turns into fairydust and just vanishes away at the touch of the curette. Even—no, especially—if the rape or incest victim is a minor.

I mean, I wasn't expecting anything other than hate speech (disguised to look like Christian love, of course) out of the Dawn Patrol, so I really shouldn't have been surprised...but I must admit I was taken aback by the viciousness of her sarcasm, not to mention her utter lack of empathy for people in extremis.  As one commenter put it, "apparently her sympathy for others ends when they emerge from the vaginal canal."

And then there are the comments to that post, wherein Dawn favors us with such gems as this:

A woman who is subject to an abortion after a rape is not in control of her body. Abortions are invasive.

Emergency contraception only adds more pain to a woman’s life and erases the evidence of the rape. Abortion is a rapist’s best friend.

and this:

[A] victim of rape or incest’s tears won’t end with an abortion. The baby’s will.

Abortion is a rapist’s best friend because it destroys the evidence.

*boggle*

I assume pregnancy isn't invasive?  And women can't choose abortions, but are "subject to" them?  And carrying her rapist's child -- for forensic purposes, even! -- doesn't "add more pain to a woman's life"?

Incidentally, Dawn mentioned that the only reason she didn't delete the comment I linked to above (the one about her limited sympathy for actual people) was "because it shows how readily pro-choicers label pro-lifers inhumane."

I believe the rhetoric stands for itself.  And maybe she should check out Matthew 7:1-5.

UPDATE:  Guess someone didn't like the TrackBack ping I sent...

It feels odd to rant about matters political, given the enormity of the situation in Louisiana, Mississisppi, and Alabama.  But I would be remiss indeed if I did not point out the sheer flagrant, beacon-like idiocy of this article in the National Review Online. 

The premise, as best as I can determine, is that Gwen Stefani wrote a stupid summer pop song (and, lest you misinterpret where I'm coming from, let me hasten to add that it's an absolutely great stupid summer pop song), and because she wrote that song, therefore Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war protests are old news.

At least, that's what I think it says.  Go read the article and decide for yourself.

What has happened down here is the wind has changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away all right
The river have busted through cleard down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The president say, "Little fat man, isn’t it a shame
What the river has done to this poor cracker's land."

(--Randy Newman)

I had hoped the worst was over, but it looks like it goes on and on.  I heard the most extraordinary report from CNN's Jeanne Meserve describing the destruction in East New Orleans, and it's heartbreaking.  Eighty percent of New Orleans is underwater.  The Times-Picayune has evacuated.  The "devastation is overwhelming", and the suffering is horrific.

(And, I see that it takes a domestic catastrophe for President Bush to cut his annual monthlong vacation short.  With poverty on the rise even before the hurricane, I wonder what he'll say to his little fat man.)

Go look at these pictures of the pro-war/anti-Cindy-Sheehan contingent down in Crawford.

And then think of them the next time you hear some right-winger railing against the left for being "angry" or "full of hate."

Shreds, originally uploaded by G. J. Charlet III.

Be safe, ColdChef.

Can't sleep.  Worried sick about New Orleans and my friends in Louisiana.

Some truly marvelous Engrish on this pirated DVD translation of Revenge of the Sith...

To make a parallel with the "Dukes of Hazzard" post below, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't link to Andy, completely geeking out with Cosbyiana. 

And (drumroll)....hosting a complete MP3 rip of the 1971 album Bill Cosby Talks To Kids About Drugs.  If you haven't heard "Dope Pusher", you need to.  Now.

The Plame/Novak/Rove/high treason imbroglio has largely fallen off the national radar lately.  (Because there are Important Things afoot, like blonde eighteen-year-olds who continue to be missing!)

The LAT corrects this with an artful précis of the whole story.

I'm slightly behind in noting this, but congratulations, Matt.

Reasons Why I Love The Internet, #497:

The Dukes of Hazzard Album. 

(via Screenhead.)

What's your Cheese Profile?

*head explodes*

I see The Dawn Patrol has posted some (actually, really good) guidelines for online debate and commenting.  (Written by guest posters, of course.)

Would that the host and commenters over there would practice what they so fervently preach.

From the Borowitz Report today:

EVOLUTION, INTELLIGENT DESIGN FAIL TO EXPLAIN ORIGIN OF BUSH

Scientists in Oslo Debate Origin of President

I greatly enjoyed this post over at Ezra Klein:

Poor Bill Frist's inept constituency-chasin' only gets worse. After sticking a dagger in his medical dignity by offering a (totally wrong) telediagnosis of Terry Schiavo, he tried to walk the damage back by supporting stem cell research. Criticism from his friends on the Christian Right, however, shivered the poor doctor's spine, and in a vain attempt to be asked back to Dobson's pulpit, he's loudly, futilely proclaiming his support for Intelligent Design in schools.

The first response is that the supposedly moderate leader of the Senate is taking a position so nutty that even Rick Santorum won't endorse it. "Bill Frist: Crazier Than Santorum!" just isn't the sort of reputation one wants to have. The second, though, is pity. Bill Frist wants to be President. He's not going to be.

Read the whole thing here. 

(via Xoverboard.)

Never let it be said that I let a dumb Internet meme pass me by.  So to that effect, I fired up WinAmp, hit "shuffle", and recorded the first fifteen songs it played:

1. Devo - Mongoloid
2. Clem Snide - Al Green
3. Mojo Nixon & Jello Biafra - Hamlet Chicken Plant Disaster
4. Fats Waller - Sloppy Water Blues
5. Superchunk - Detroit Has A Skyline
6. Dave Brubeck - Unsquare Dance
7. The Kleptones - Juxtaposed With Riddim
8. Sizzla - Subterranean Homesick Blues
9. Replacements - Unsatisfied
10. The Soul Stirrers - John Saw The Holy Number
11. DSICO vs. Britney Spears vs. Chic - Goodtime Girl
12. New Zealand Dairy Ministries - Treat Your Teats
13. Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Up Style
14. Rilo Kiley - Science Vs. Romance
15. Julius Brockington & The Magic Force - This Feeling

(actually, this was a pretty good random run...if the cards had fallen differently, I'd have had to admit the presence of some embarrassing stuff, ranging from the merely dorky -- Cameo, "Word Up"...the long version, mind you -- to the truly cringe-worthy -- Rita Coolidge's "All Time High" -- so it's a good thing they didn't.)

P.S.:  (Not to mention other unlistenables ranging from Little Marcy to Bobby Knight.)

Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.

Why should Bush do something as distasteful as meet with Cindy Sheehan?  I mean, it sounds like it wouldn't be any fun at all.  Tears, anger, recriminations, being held accountable for continued failure.  What a drag, right?  Especially when you can go ride bikes with Lance Armstrong instead?

Besides, Cindy Sheehan hates America, right?

In an op-ed in yesterday's NYT, Frank Rich examines the Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan:

Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there's a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had "other priorities" during Vietnam.

From Mena:  If Bloggers Had Been Around Throughout History.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the Hockey Fight Site.

(some banners on the site NSFW)

Housekeeping note:  I just added a button (it looks like this: )  to the "Buttons" category on the left-hand-side of the page.  If you click it, it will take you to RSSFwd, which will let you sign up to receive posts from this blog via e-mail.

If you sign up, please let me know how it works for you.

Yet another reason to admire Bob Costas.

Democratic operative Paul Begala, writing at TPMCafe, discusses the lessons of Vietnam and how they apply to political discourse now.  One especially salient point wonders why the right continues to conduct a smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan, while ignoring the guy who desecrated both the cross and the flag, symbols which are supposedly near and dear to them:

[What] we political consultants call the "optics" matter.  The popular memory of the anti-war movement [during the Vietnam era] calls to mind (even for those of us too young to clearly recall it) the indelible image of young Americans burning the American flag.  Cops were called "pigs."  Cherished American icons were trashed.

It seems to me the new anti-war movement has learned these lessons well.  And it is the pro-war right that is repeating the mistakes of the past.

For me, one of the most incendiary moments of the entire Bush war in Iraq occurred when a right-wing thug ran his pickup truck over hundreds of crosses bearing the names of heroic Americans killed in Iraq.  He also took out scores of American flags in the process.  Police say the perp is Larry Chad Northern, a Waco real estate agent and gun nut.  Mr. Northern is, of course, entitled to the presumption of innocence, despite the fact that the local sheriff's office says Ol' Larry was spotted at 9:30 Monday night changing a tire on his pickup truck.  Citing sheriff's office reports, the Waco Tribune-Herald, reported that, "Small white crosses were found stuck in the truck's undercarriage."

Nice, Larry.  Real Nice.

(More on Larry Northern.)

ADDENDUM:  More, from Salon's Joe Conason, on the shameful smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan.

Via BoingBoing and MeFi, here's a crowd that call themselves the "Ministry of Reshelving", whose muddleheaded oh-look-at-us-we're-so-transgressive-and-arty-and-cool approach to some sort of undefined protest is to go into large chain bookstores, locate copies of Orwell's "1984", and move them to the "Current Affairs" section.  (And then, evidently, take self-congratulatory pictures of themselves doing so.)

Incidentally, my girlfriend B. works as a bookseller at one of the aforementioned large chain bookstores (she'd like to work at an indie, but hey, dental insurance is nice).  And I winced on her behalf when I read about those folks.  Because they don't seem to realize that underpaid booksellers are their natural allies...so why piss 'em off?  Because this means more work for them, who have to clean up after your crap.  They've got enough hassles to deal with in picking up after everyone else who wrecks the store unwittingly -- you have to give them more to do?

(And yes, I see that they're "helpfully" flagging the shelves with a notecard to let people know where the book is.  Still creates more busywork for people making just above minimum wage.)  If you're just so all fired up to protest, why not attend a vigil?  Or demonstrate in Crawford?  Or donate to organizations that run advocacy ads?  Or join the ACLU?

Memo to the "Ministry of Reshelving":  if you make it easier -- not harder -- for people to actually read 1984, maybe the ideas within will have greater propagation.