Ha! Proof!

I've always said that black metal was modern-day classical music. The complexity and richness of it matches the greatest works of Beethoven and Mozart. Once you've gotten over the shell-shock of the death-grunt vocals and the double-bass, the beauty and sophistication of it becomes gloriously clear.

And now I have proof that these genres go together like wine and chocolate:



Meet one of my new discoveries, a band named Haggard. Their total awesomeness can't be comprehended unless, like me, you love Dimmu Borgir and Rachmaninoff equally. Most black/death/doom metal bands haul around synthesizers to get their classical elements going. Haggard wins my adoration for hauling around actual classical instruments.

They prove that classical melodies and death grunts go quite well together. Have a listen:



I'm loving them. Where have they been all my life?

As you lot are my witnesses, if Chaos Lee tells me he's known about Haggard all along but never introduced me, I shall beat him soundly with a cello.

No Room To Whine (But O'Beirne Whines Anyway)

Somehow, it seems some loyal Bushies got the idea that they were immortal. Jim O'Beirne, special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, is off in a snit because - gasp! shock! - Obama has decided that fuckwitted Bush political hires in the DoD should be shown the exits:

On Tuesday, O'Beirne emailed the Bush loyalists who had learned of their looming dismissals from Scott Gration, a senior official on Obama’s transition team. In his seething missive, O'Beirne, the outgoing special assistant to the secretary of defense for White House liaisons, accused Team Obama of playing politics. As The Hill reported:

In the email, O'Beirne tried to assure the soon-to-be displaced employees that the decisions were based on "policy change in the Obama administration" and not based on performance.

However, he said, if employees "harbor residual doubts" then they can "content yourself with the likelihood that it was your outstanding performance as a Bush appointee that drew the opposition's attention to you."

"In that regard, you may take justifiable satisfaction that you were among the first to be chosen," O'Beirne wrote.

Of course, when it comes to evaluating the qualifications of Bush appointees, Jim O'Beirne knows best.

As Rajiv Chandrasekaran detailed in his shocking 2006 account of the bungled American occupation of Iraq (Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone), O'Beirne was the gatekeeper on personnel assigned to Baghdad. And to be sure, the GOP loyalist and husband of crypto-conservative columnist Kate O'Beirne used the crudest of political litmus tests.

As the Washington Post reported in an excerpt from Chandrasekaran's book:

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Unsurprisingly, the staff of Paul Bremer's CPA in the Green Zone in Baghdad quickly resembled an after-hours cocktail party at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.

"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush."

And O'Beirne wants the fucking morons he hired to believe that their getting kicked to the curb has nothing to do with performance. Riiiggghhhtt.

I have a suspicion their dismissal had everything to do with performance. As in, shitty, inept, politicized, ridiculous performance. After all, Obama's only giving the boot to ninety of these people so far. One assumes the 160 other DoD political appointees got no such boot because they're not stark raving incompetents.

And, as Steve Benen pointed out, "when talking to officials at the Pentagon, it's best not to refer to Barack Obama and his administration as 'the opposition.' He's the next Commander in Chief."

I'm sure that's something O'Beirne and his gang of merry fuckwits will have plenty of opportunity to ponder as they nurse their smarting buttcheeks.

Felicitaciones, Ames! You're Famous, Baby, Yeah!

The fireworks are for Ames from Submitted to a Candid World. He made Mike's Blog Roundup on Crooks and Liars. ¡Bueno excellente! Fame at last - hopefully fortune will follow.

Ames is a fantastic blogger, and it's good to see him getting the recognition he deserves. So good, in fact, that I got him the most expensive bottle of tequila in the world in order to celebrate.



Okay, so I got him a picture of the most expensive bottle of tequila in the world, because I don't have $250k lying around just now. At least it's something...

Because Bashing Rick Warren Never Quite Gets Old

Pastor Rick Warren is the gift that keeps on giving if you need a truly odious Godbotherer to get your blood boiling. Gays despise him, of course, as do people who understand why gays might get upset at their same-sex marriages being equated with pedophilia and incest. Those of us who look askance at Christian fundamentalists in moderate's clothing can't stand the little shit. Atheists are taking matters to court:

The latest organized effort against Warren's participation was launched by a group of atheists who have filed a lawsuit that contends prayer should not be allowed during the ceremony. One name stands out among the list of plaintiffs -- Michael Newdow, the man who challenged the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Those of us who are sharpening their knives for Warren may have to let another group borrow our whetstones. Are you ready for the latest folks hating on Warren? His very own evangelical Christian community:

Warren did not answer directly when asked whether he would dedicate his prayer to Jesus. In a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press, Warren would say only that, "I'm a Christian pastor so I will pray the only kind of prayer I know how to pray."

"Prayers are not to be sermons, speeches, position statements nor political posturing. They are humble, personal appeals to God," Warren wrote. His spokesman would not elaborate.

Evangelicals generally expect their clergymen to use Jesus' name whenever and wherever they lead prayer. Many conservative Christians say cultural sensitivity goes way too far if it requires religious leaders to hide their beliefs.

"If Rick Warren does not pray in Jesus' name, some folks are going to be very disappointed," Caldwell said in a recent phone interview. "Since he's evangelical, his own tribe, if you will, will have some angst if he does not do that."

Considering the lawsuits will fly fast and furious if he offers up anything overtly Christian, there's no way this can end well. Either he doesn't give Jesus a shout-out and ends up with evangelicals gunning for him, or he "prays the only kind of prayer I know how to pray" and ends up in court. Either way, he's fucked.

Have I mentioned I'm enjoying this immensely? I'd enjoy it even more if the insufferable ass got caught getting a blow job from a male prostitute a few days before the inauguration, but I'll settle for watching him attempt to thread a needle that has no eye. Schadenfreude will come in time.

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Does anyone know of any sites that are taking money on when the Cons will wake up and smell the reality? I'm placing a bet for 1,000,000 years:

The LA Times has a piece today that makes a fairly obvious point: the Democratic majority in the Senate may be at its biggest point in 30 years, but it's still not filibuster-proof. Given the arithmetic, Democrats will have no choice but look to the handful of Republican "moderates" -- a group small enough to "squeeze into a Volkswagen Beetle" -- in order to actually pass legislation in the face of GOP obstructionism.

The Times piece noted that these centrists have largely disappeared as "swing voters have been alienated by President Bush's policies and perceptions that the Republican Party is dominated by extremists." It included this gem:

Moderate Republicans worry that their party's conservative wing is not going to change its ways in response to the GOP's election drubbing.

"I would hope that the more conservative members of our caucus would take a look at these election results," [Sen. Susan Collins of Maine] said. "It's difficult to make the argument that our candidates lost because they were not conservative enough."

Well, yes, it may be difficult to make that argument, but that hasn't stopped them.

Republican leaders are still coming to grips with exactly how and why they failed so miserably at the ballot box this year, but they've looked at the election results and not one of them has so much as hinted about moving the party back towards the center. Indeed, there are a half-dozen candidates seeking the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, and, to a person, they're all promising to keep the GOP as conservative as humanly possible. Those who've been loosely associated with moderate Republicans in the past are scrambling to downplay those ties as meaningless indiscretions (see Steele, Michael).

They still don't quite understand that the reason why they lost is because the majority of the American public has seen the face of conservative governance and, after a good long scream, has fled (still screaming) in the general direction of away. They gravitated to the person who offered change. This is because they didn't want things to stay the same. Now, John McCain offered change as well, but there's an important thing to note here: he offered "change" as in "take the country further right," and people abandoned him in droves. Conservative change would not do.

This should prompt anyone with an IQ of 50 or more to realize that what the country wants is actual change, not merely a change in conservatism's packaging. Alas, it seems that Cons do not have an IQ of 50:

Peter Berkowitz has written an op-ed in the WSJ that lays out a bold new direction for the Republican Party. He calls it "Constitutional Conservatism" which he defines as being devoted to the preservation of constitutional principles. What good news.

He lays out this bold new agenda in some detail:

- An economic program, health-care reform, energy policy and protection for the environment grounded in market-based solutions.

- A foreign policy that recognizes America's vital national security interest in advancing liberty abroad but realistically calibrates undertakings to the nation's limited knowledge and restricted resources.

- A commitment to homeland security that is as passionate about security as it is about law, and which is prepared to responsibly fashion the inevitable, painful trade-offs.

- A focus on reducing the number of abortions and increasing the number of adoptions.

- Efforts to keep the question of same-sex marriage out of the federal courts and subject to consideration by each state's democratic process.

- Measures to combat illegal immigration that are emphatically pro-border security and pro-immigrant.

- A case for school choice as an option that enhances individual freedom while giving low-income, inner-city parents opportunities to place their children in classrooms where they can obtain a decent education.

- A demand that public universities abolish speech codes and vigorously protect liberty of thought and discussion on campus.

- The appointment of judges who understand that their function is to interpret the Constitution and not make policy, and, therefore, where the Constitution is most vague, recognize the strongest obligation to defer to the results of the democratic process.

Whoa Nellie, bar the door. I don't think they can take all that change in one fell swoop do you? Talk about bold new thinking!

I've put all of the bold new thinking in bold for you. I figured that would make it look more bold, and represents about the same degree of "change" offered.

Paul Krugman has a beautiful op-ed piece up analyzing the Cons's failed tactics of racial backlash. It calls the GOP a "party of whiners," explains why their reliance on the South has led them into a dead end, and ends with a question-and-answer:

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course. But barring some huge missteps by Mr. Obama, that will not happen until they stop whining and look at what really went wrong. And when they do, they will discover that they need to get in touch with the real “real America,” a country that is more diverse, more tolerant, and more demanding of effective government than is dreamt of in their political philosophy.

Can I change my bet? I'd like to add another million years to my guesstimate.

Nancy Pelosi seems to have finally woken up and smelled the stench of a decaying but still lively corpse, and is now taking steps in an attempt to ensure that the obstructionist fools don't cripple the country:

Alan K. Ota reports for Congressional Quarterly today:

An early partisan skirmish is likely in the House next week, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to move a rules package that would curb the GOP’s ability to derail legislation through a parliamentary maneuver it used on occasion over the past two years.

. . . A senior House Democratic aide said Pelosi, D-Calif., had not made a final decision on whether to move the two proposed rules changes when the 111th Congress convenes Tuesday, Jan. 6.

But Democratic leaders are definitely taking a hard look at preventing the minority party from scoring easy political points with motions to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to make contentious language changes and then report it back to the House “promptly.” In the outgoing Congress, “promptly’’ has meant an indefinite hold, because committees were not willing to adopt poison-pill amendments sponsored by the minority.

. . . “Republicans will still get a chance to make motions to recommit. But they would not be allowed to just kill bills in a way that was never intended,” said one Democratic aide.

She's learning the lesson all mothers eventually do: if you want your children to play without rioting, you take the dangerous toys away. Let's hope she succeeds. They we can attempt to teach them how to play nicely and share with others, lessons they were apparently never taught in their preschools.

And while we're at it, we may want to put John Bolton in time-out:

Ben Armbruster notes that John Bolton has a Wall Street Journal op-ed today, arguing for "regime change" in Iran.

Iran and North Korea achieved their objectives through diplomacy. Mr. Bush failed to achieve his. How can Mr. Obama do better? For starters, he could increase the pressure on China, which has real leverage over North Korea, to press Kim Jong Il's regime in ways that the six-party talks never approached. Options on Iran are more limited, but meaningful efforts at regime change and assisting Israel should it decide to strike Iran's nuclear facilities would be good first steps.

This comes just a few days after Bolton insisted that the violence in Gaza offers the U.S. an ideal opportunity to attack Iran.

Bolton, of course, doesn't need an excuse. He called for a war against Iran over and over and over again. It doesn't matter that his idea is crazy, Bolton has access to conservative media outlets and he knows how to use them.

I know the WSJ's editorial pages are nothing more than a neocon lovefest, existing only to trumpet moronic right-wing talking points, but still, there should be some standards. When even Bush can tell that someone's a total assclown with zero credibility, you know you've got a doofus of rare caliber on your hands. So why the fuck is anyone giving this dumbfuck a national stage from which to spout utter bullshit?

Oh. Right. Because our vaunted MSM doesn't know any better.

Sigh. Like the poor, it appears the terminally stupid will always be with us. Although at least there's a slim chance we can eliminate poverty...

Friday Favorite True Crime Author

True crime books are my brain candy. I know, I know, I'm weird. But look - one of my main characters is an FBI profiler. So I justify my enjoyment by claiming I'm doing "research." Really. That's what I'm doing. Serious hard work.

I've always loved a good true crime book. I love watching police detectives piece together the various clues and build a case. It's intellectually stimulating (well, the kind of true crime I read is, anyway - I try to stay away from the more sensationalist bullshit). But sometimes, it's heavy going. After a while, all of the authors start to sound the same. It's all very somber. The detectives are heroes, the criminal is dangerous, the victims are tragic, the survivors noble, etc. etc.

This is why I love Simon Read.

I met Simon just after his first book, On the House: The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy, was published. I dropped in on The Writer forum thread where he announced the happy news and expressed my congratulations. We've been fast friends ever since.

When I picked up On the House, I was expecting the usual. I didn't get the usual. Simon doesn't do average. The very last thing you expect to do while reading a true crime book is start laughing your ass off, but I laughed nearly the whole way through. He'd discovered the most inept band of crooks ever to disgrace the 1930s and pulled absolutely no punches denigrating them. The victim became a virtual comic Superman, totally indestructible and utterly oblivious to the fact that his "friends" wanted to murder him for insurance money. Simon gave due respect to the victim and the detectives who eventually solved the crime, but he didn't minimize the stupidity of the Keystone Kriminals his tale centered around at all.

John Douglas, FBI profiler extraordinaire, once said that society treats serial killers with too much respect, treating them as if they're some sort of special evil rather than the inadequate losers they are. We feed their fantasies of being "important" by speaking of their crimes in hushed, horrified tones and using their full names. What we should be doing, he said, is treating them with contempt. Trot out despised childhood nicknames, highlight the fact that they're useless pieces of shit, take away their mystique, and point them out as the useless pricks they are.

Simon has absolutely no trouble doing that. His second book, In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper, was far more serious than On the House. It dealt with a serial killer who haunted London's streets, preying on vulnerable women, during the Blitz. Most authors would have treated this subject with a sort of awed reverence, turned the Blackout Ripper into a terrifying monster, and made the whole thing feel profound. Not Simon. He managed to tease out every last inadequacy the killer possessed and waved it around for the world to see. You were left with the sense that here was a killer who was a clever loser, but ultimately a loser. And I loved it.

Having the opportunity to read it in manuscript form was even more awesome. It's good to know the author!

Simon's finished his third installment in the true crime genre, War of Words: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder. I have been salivating for this book for nearly two years now, ever since Simon told me its premise:

Gun-toting newspaper publisher Charles de Young won circulation wars by spilling ink that destroyed political candidates he didn’t like—and Isaac Kalloch, a hellfire preacher whose lust for the ladies equaled his craving to be mayor, was an obvious target. First angry words flew, then bullets, when de Young ambushed Kalloch and shot him. Miraculously, Kalloch survived and won the election, only to see his son enact revenge on his behalf five months later by walking into the newsroom and fatally shooting de Young.

Simon actually described it better than that boiler-plate back cover stuff, but alas, AOL appears to have eaten that email. I just remember shaking him by the virtual lapels and demanding more more MORE. This book was made for me! Old West, writers, murder, mayhem! I've read the first chapter. It's going to be teh awesome. Simon puts you right there on the muddy streets of 19th century San Francisco, right smack in the midst of the mayhem. Of all the things I have to look forward to in '09, this is one of the major ones.

I've reviewed On the House and In the Dark here, complete with a link to an excerpt from On the House. You can preorder War of Words on Amazon. And you can take it from me that even if you don't like true crime all that much, you'll be delighted with Simon Read's wordsmithing. There's a good reason why he's my favorite true crime author of all time.

Roland Burris is a Power-hungry Maniac

Roland Burris, who let Blago appoint him to Obama's Senate seat, seemed to come highly recommended. The arguments against seating him have mostly revolved around the fact that the Senate said "no fucking way are we going to seat anyone Blagojevich appoints."

Perhaps it's because they knew that anyone who would accept an appointment from Blago has got to be batshit fucking insane. Little tidbits about the supposedly saintly Burris keep trickling out. First, there was his monument to himself. As if that wasn't enough to tell us the man had an ego the size of the Milky Way, here we have a cascade of commendations all falling from Burris's own lips:

"The 71-year-old Burris -- who often refers to himself in the third person -- has never been shy about broadcasting his ambitions and loudly celebrating his achievements," writes Andrew Herrmann of the Chicago Sun-Times. When Burris ran for governor in 2002, his third unsuccessful try at the job, he told the paper's Kate Grossman: "Roland Burris, who started way down here, in the segregation of a southern Illinois community, was able to set goals, plan and strategize and make it."

Appparently Roland Burris' confidence had long been in place. In a 1994 interview with the Sun-Times, Herrmann informs us, "Burris said his past success -- he had been elected comptroller and attorney general -- was 'divine providence' that began at age 15 when he decided to become a lawyer and officeholder."

[snip]

During Burris' 2002 run for governor, David Axelrod -- yes, that David Axelrod -- told Grossman of the Sun-Times, "I think one of his challenges is to project a vision." To which Burris responded: "I disagree 1,000 percent. I am visionary. How do you think I got to where I am?" Grossman concluded her article with a swell anecdote about Burris once performing as Muhammad Ali in a skit before journalists, lobbyists and politicians. "Wearing shorts and boxing gloves, he wasn't shy about repeating one of Ali's famous lines: 'I am the greatest.'"

Of course, that was many fights ago. As Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader points out, Burris' recent forays into the political ring have hardly floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Acknowledging that Burris was once "considered a smart, pragmatic, progressive politician," Dumke states that "over the last, oh, decade and a half, he's shown a mastery of losing elections."

So much for being the greatest. And I'm sorry, but anyone who speaks of himself in the third person is just too fucking creepy.

But an outsized ego and an eagerness to wriggle into higher office even if he has to accept that office from a disgusting little douchebag like Blago aren't even the worst problems with Burris. His penchant to pursue the innocent is a little more worrisome:

Public fury over the governor’s alleged misconduct has masked the once lively debate over Burris' decision to continue to prosecute – despite the objections of one of his top prosecutors – the wrong man for a high-profile murder case.

While state attorney general in 1992, Burris aggressively sought the death penalty for Rolando Cruz, who twice was convicted of raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The crime took place in 1983.

But by 1992, another man had confessed to the crime, and Burris’ own deputy attorney general was pleading with Burris to drop the case, then on appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Burris refused. He was running for governor.

So let me get this straight. This egomaniac is so obsessed with obtaining higher political office that he would pursue the conviction of an innocent man, indeed would sacrifice that man's life, merely so that he won't appear "soft on crime."

Unfit for office, anyone? I say never in a hundred million years should we let this fuckwit sit his ass in a Senate seat.

Stick to your guns, Harry.

Six Degrees of Crazy Christian Lady

Longtime readers may vaguely remember The Crazy Christian Lady. For those who need a refresher, PZ's your go-to guy:

Here it is: a good Christian homeschooling mom who doesn't like gay people. And by "doesn't like", I mean "wants them stoned to death and everything they touch blown up."

A friend recently sent me this article about a "gay-friendly" high school. If we were living in a biblical society, homosexuality would be punishable by death so such a school would be unnecessary. Although I'm against the special accommodations, perhaps this new trend of segregation will protect straight kids from these predators. With any luck, some radical will blow up the gay school. No, I'm not condoning vigilantism--I'm merely saying that it would be poetic justice.

That was October. The Crazy Christian Lady got excoriated by us evil atheists, changed her name, password-protected her blog, and faded from the stage. She's now removed her blog entirely, but Woozle preserved that post here. People like her give cults a bad name.

Tonight, while reading Dispatches from the Culture Wars, I came across this gem:

A reader sends along this link, which he says is not a parody but is actually a serious statement by a guy named Matthew Stucky. He says that Santa Claus (which he spells Clause, for some reason) is satanic and is "corrupting people all over the world." Oh, and the reindeer are all gay. Seriously.

Santa's queer reindeer: This was brought to my attention recently & I wanted to share this. The story of Rudolph is he was refused to be able to guide the sleigh because of his red nose.

Names of the 8 reindeer
Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dancer, Dasher, Donder, Prancer and Vixen.

These 8 reindeer are supposed to be 8 MALE reindeer. Take a look at those names again. Male reindeer named Dancer, Prancer, Vixen & Cupid.

[snip]

I think from these names we know Vixen, Dancer, Prancer & Cupid are queer reindeer.

Let's go back to the story of Rudolph & I prove this is true. Rudolph gets shy around girls & his nose turns red. As a result, the other reindeer won't let him play any reindeer games. That sounds sick, perverted & homosexual. Basically Rudolph like girls because he is straight & as a result they don't let him participate in their homosexual games.

[snip]

And he knows just what to do about those gay reindeer:

Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

According to the Bible homosexuality should be punishable by death. I would be overjoyed if every single queer in the entire world died today. The Bible makes it clear they are reprobates who are past the point of salvation. The Bible also makes it clear they are rapists & very wicked people. They have no chance to get saved and no saved person could ever become a queer. Therefore, I would be overjoyed if they all died tonight & our government would actually follow what the Bible states. The death penalty should be enacted for the queers.

Sounds like a wingnut of the week candidate to me.

Oh, indeed. Hatred worthy of the Crazy Christian Lady herself. In fact, their mutual hatred sounds remarkably similar. Turns out there's a good reason for that.

One of the readers, JPF, headed over to Matthew "ZOMG Santa is Satan and his reindeer are fags!11!!!" Stucky's site and started listening to a sermon Stucky delivered called "Purge Out the Liberals." He posted some of the highlights in comments for our entertainment. This one caught my eye:

(Sorry to keep going on, but this way wackiness lies.)

"Brother" Stucky is a disciple of Pastor Steven L Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church of Mesa, AZ. From Pastor Anderson's bio:

Pastor Anderson holds no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible committed to memory, including almost half of the New Testament.

He's big on Bible memorization and has an entire section on the church site giving methods to memorize verses, including chanting them over and over to yourself as you go about your daily routines.

Pastor Anderson... Pastor Anderson.... Sounded familiar. Didn't he have something to do with the Crazy Christian Lady? I seemed to remember the Smack-o-Matic and I having endless good fun with a Bible-verse memorizing "Pastor" Anderson and his guest post on CCL's blog. And indeed, 'tis the very self-same Pastor Steven "Kill All Teh Gays" Anderson who wrote a guest post on her blog entitled "The Truth About Homosexuals," which contained "truths" such as this:

2. How Do the Sodomites Recruit Others to their Lifestyle?

Every Sodomite in the Bible is a rapist or molester. The Bible tells three sickening stories about Sodomites and every one of the three stories involves someone being violated against their will.

Example #1

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. – Genesis 9:20-24

The first Sodomite mentioned in the Bible is Ham. Ham took advantage of his own father Noah while he was drunk. He didn’t just see his father’s nakedness; the Bible says that Noah knew what his younger son had done unto him. The first example of homosexuality in the Bible involves a person being violated against his will.

If the Bible is a Rorschach test, these folks belong in a mental institution.

And so we have a sordid little circle of hate, coming right back round to CCL. I guess I should have expected that. Batshit insane rabid gay-haters are a dime a dozen, but these people take it to rather unique extremes. And it's not just gays and atheists who feel their wrath. They're so frothing insane they even blacklist Jack Chick and Kirk Cameron as heretics. Seriously.

People like this vote.

Be very afraid.

The Truce Continues

If you ask me, the "love thine enemy" stuff is getting laid on a little thick:


Would someone please pass the insulin?

Seeing as how it's the new year and all, we've made a few resolutions:




We'll see how long that last resolution lasts...

Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

It's thin on the ground today, my darlings. But I've managed to dig up a few gems for ye this New Year's Day.

Let's begin with proof that right-wing loons are equally idiotic the world over:

According to the Israeli paper Ha'aretz, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made a short visit to Paris on Thursday, after French president Sarkozy proposed a humanitarian cease-fire:

Reiterating Israel's rejection of the 48-hour humanitarian cease-fire proposal, Livni said "there is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce."

In her remarks to reporters, Livni said Israel had been careful to protect the civilian population and had kept the humanitarian situation in Gaza "completely as it should be".

Um. Seriously?

Meanwhile, Israel launched air strikes on such terrorist targets as government buildings across the Gaza Strip, including the parliament buildings. Hamas sources said the Education and Transportation ministries were completely destroyed in the strikes.

At least 25 Gazans were wounded in those attacks. Today the number of dead in Gaza reached 410 and the UN Humanitarian Coordinator warns that the situation is life or death for all the people of Gaza. Israeli tanks are lined up at the border and the cabinet has given approval to plans for “a major, but relatively short-term, ground offensive in the Gaza Strip."

That's how it should be? Over four hundred people dead, thousands wounded, and such important military targets as the fucking Education ministry destroyed, and that's how it should be? Way to prove Israel's leaders have completely fucking lost their humanity, there.

Speaking of heartless fucktards, seems like reality has finally bitten one right on the arse:

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has been one of the leading members of the Neo-Hooverite caucus, insisting that his economic philosophy dictates that the best thing a government can do during the economic crisis is "cut spending."

A funny thing happens, though, when far-right philosophy runs into the real-world economy.

Just hours before the unemployment benefits fund was to run out in South Carolina, the state with the nation's third-highest jobless rate, Gov. Mark Sanford relented Wednesday and agreed to apply for a $146 million federal loan to shore it up, after weeks of refusing to do so.

The governor's position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as "heartless," and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing "chicken with the lives of the 77,000" who are unemployed in South Carolina.

For weeks, Sanford, a far-right economic libertarian who recently became the head of the Republican Governors Association, said he simply didn't believe the state's unemployment figures. South Carolina, which has one of the highest jobless rates in the nation, calculates its data the same way every other state does, but Sanford didn't want to extend benefits because he didn't accept the statistics.

State Senator Hugh Leatherman, the Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said last week, "It's absolutely unheard of, it's insane, for a governor of any state not to request those [unemployment] funds. I can't believe anybody would be this heartless, and create such a heartless act on these people."

Read the rest of Steve's post. Marvel at the fact that Sanford is such a batshit insane fuckwith that the Republicons have been overriding his spending vetos. You know, the same people who usually respond to every budget question with a reflexive, "Cut taxes, control spending!" And when you finish exploring the full extent of his dumbfuckitude, remember one thing: This assclown is one of the leading contenders to run for president in 2012.

Amazing, aren't they? I think I'm going to have to start laying in supplies of popcorn early. If the field of nitwits they're proposing actually end up competing, the next presidential election should prove enormously entertaining.

Seeing as how last year just ended, let's have a look back at how disastrous Bush has made 2008:

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
– Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
– Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
– Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
– Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

– Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
– Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
– Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
– Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
– Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
– Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Holy fucking shit. No wonder the poll numbers for Obama shake out like this:

It seems fair to say the president-elect is starting the new year on the right foot, at least as far as public support is concerned.

A national poll suggests that three-quarters of the public thinks President-elect Barack Obama is a strong and decisive leader, the highest marks for a president-elect on that characteristic in nearly three decades.

Seventy-six percent of Americans questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Wednesday said Obama is a strong and decisive leader.

"That's the best number an incoming president has gotten on that dimension since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "The public's rating of his leadership skills is already as high as George W. Bush's was after 9/11 and easily beats the numbers that both Bush and Bill Clinton got at the start of their first terms in office."

[snip]

I thought Obama would start his presidency with some strong support, but the support is surprisingly strong. CNN's Bill Schneider recently noted that these are the kinds of numbers that occur "when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster."

Well. The Bush regime certainly qualifies as one.

Happy Hour Discurso

Random Weird Thoughts

So, Def Leppard apparently has an album called Songs from the Sparkle Lounge.... is that where the sparklepires hang out?

(No, I have not read nor watched Twilight. I have not listened to the above-mentioned album. Nor do I plan to. I have standards, damn it.)

Great American Hypocrisy: Torture Prosecutions for Thee but Not for Me

It seems the United States can prosecute torture - as long as it was someone else who did the torturing:

While fiercely loyal establishment spokespeople such as The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus continue to insist that prosecutions are only appropriate for common criminals ("someone breaking into your house") but not our glorious political leaders when they break the law (by, say, systematically torturing people), the Bush administration has righteously decided that torture is such a grotesque and intolerable crime that political leaders who order it simply must be punished in American courts to the fullest extent of the law . . . . if they're from Liberia:

MIAMI (AP) -- U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father's reign.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr. is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 9 by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga. His conviction was the first use of a 1994 law allowing prosecution in the U.S. for acts of torture committed overseas.

Even in the U.S., it's hard to believe that federal prosecutors who work for the Bush DOJ were able to convey the following words with a straight face:

A recent Justice Department court filing describes torture - which the U.S. has been accused of in the war on terror - as a "flagrant and pernicious abuse of power and authority" that warrants severe punishment of Taylor.

"It undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule of law," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller in last week's filing. "The gravity of the offense of torture is beyond dispute."

Why, yes. Yes, it is. Which is bloody well why we should have Bush, Cheney et all locked up in cells awaiting the displeasure of the court.

There is an excellent fucking case to be made for delivering Bush and his cronies to the Hague:

A political scientist named Michael Haas has just published a book titled George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes:

Based on information supplied in autobiographical and press sources, the book matches events in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq , and various secret places of detention with provisions in the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements on war crimes. His compilation is the first to cite a comprehensive list of specific war crimes in four categories-illegality of the decision to go to war, misconduct during war, mistreatment of prisoners of war, and misgovernment in the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Haas accuses President Bush of conduct bordering on treason because he reenacted several complaints stated in the Declaration of Independence against England, ignored the Constitution and federal laws, trampled on the American tradition of developing international law to bring order to world politics, and in effect made a Faustian pact with Osama Bin Laden that the intelligence community blames for an increase in world terrorism. Osama Bin Laden remains alive, he reports, because Bush preferred to go after oil-rich Iraq rather than tracking down Al Qaeda leaders, whose uncaptured presence was useful to him in justifying a "war on terror" pursued on a military rather than a criminal basis without restraint from constitutional checks and balances.

The worst war crime cited is the murder of at least 45 prisoners, some but not all by torture. Other heinous crimes include the brutal treatment of thousands of children, some 64 of whom have been detained at Guantánamo. Sources document the use of illegal weapons in the war from cluster bombs to daisy cutters, napalm, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium weapons, some of which have injured and killed American soldiers as well as thousands of innocent civilians. Children playing in areas of Iraq where depleted uranium weapons have been used, but not reported on request from the World Health Organization, have developed leukemia and other serious diseases.

If actions like this do not make our leaders war criminals worthy of trial and conviction, nothing does. We have no right, none, to prosecute and imprison people for doing what we ourselves have done.

Digby excoriates the prevailing political winds blowing in the direction of forgive, forget, and pretend we can keep it from happening again without going through all the ickyness of a trial. She takes that down with alacrity, finishing with a stark reminder:

And this is one issue where there is absolutely no room for compromise --- the world is watching and our national security depends upon Obama completely and without reservations ending these programs, closing Guantanamo, following the Geneva conventions and standing firm against any kind of lawless and unproductive anti-terrorism measures. Investigating and exposing the full extent of what went on is also, in my view, a necessity if we are to restore any kind of credibility around the world. If he doesn't do these things, this moment will be as squandered as the world's sympathy was squandered by Bush after 9/11. The world will be unlikely to give us a third chance at getting this right.

Second chances are hard enough to come by. We were extraordinarily lucky that Obama came along and restored the world's faith in us. We need to show them their faith is justified.

And yes, there is something we can do about it. We can apply some pressure.

Ari Melber at The Nation has a good suggestion:

The Obama transition team is taking questions again at Change.gov, throwing open the site this week for citizen input. The first run of this experiment was a mixed bag. The platform was open and transparent, but the official answers felt more like old boilerplate than new responses. When the submitted questions parrot toics in the traditional media, of course, the exchange can feel like a dated press conference. But here's a vital question that few reporters have ever presented to Obama:

Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?

That question ranked sixth in voting last time -- out of over 10,000 submissions -- but the transition team only answered the top five questions. Now that Vice President Cheney confessed his support for waterboarding on national television, flouting the rule of law, the issue is even more urgent. Activist Bob Fertik, who has submitted the question twice, explains how you can vote to press this issue on the transition team:

1. Sign in at http://change.gov/openforquestions
2. Search for "Fitzgerald"
3. This will display several similar questions, so look carefully for "Bob Fertik"
4. Look right for the checkbox, mouseover it so it goes from white to dark, then click to cast your vote
   

Now that we've shown we have the stomach to prosecute other countries' citizens for torture, we need to stop being big fat fucking hypocrites and prosecute a few of our own.

Obligatory New Year's Day Post

2009 is off to a rather rocky start. My roommate came home after a blissfully long absence. My Muse left in a snit. The two of them don't get along at all, which is why I'm looking forward to April. Solitude will be mine... MIIIINNNNEEEE!!1!11!!

Ahem. Sorry 'bout that.

I have done nothing more interesting tonight than watch a few desultory fireworks shot off by a neighbor and moved heaven and earth on the intertoobz looking for new music. I like my New Years that way. If they changed the year at midsummer, I might consider dragging me arse from the house, but cold weather + stupid drunk people = Dana staying happily home.

This year will bring a few changes. I don't play the resolutions game, but I have Plans. Oh, yes. They are:

1. Keep this blog fat and happy.

2. Move into a happy home o' me own.

3. Write me arse off, with the first half of the year spent worldbuilding and the latter half beginning the novel, which will take me into 2010.

Along the way, I'm sure I'll pick up a few new friends, fall in love with new bands, discover interests I never knew I had, find fabulous new authors and savor new novels from my favorites, see the Peacemakers a few times, and do other fun and exciting things that will make life worth living for yet another year. Rather looking forward to it.

Many of us have our own particular New Year's traditions. Aside from taking the opportunity to sneak in a few extra hours alone with my characters, I play U2's "New Year's Day" without fail. Care to join me? You can see Bono with no wrinkles and really bad hair:



I don't know about you, but I'm amused.

My fondest memory of 2008 is getting to meet all of you. Having you lot around makes me a very happy Dana indeed. And so, fill a glass with whatever's to hand, raise it in your honor, and please do accept my favorite Scottish blessing, because it's exactly what I want for you:

"May the best you've ever been be the worst you'll ever see."

Happy New Year, my darlings. I hope you'll have a wonderful one indeed.

I Guess the Romance is Dead

Deary, deary me. Someone draw up the divorce papers - I do believe the bloom is off the rose:

Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action, makes the extraordinary claim that Mitt Romney "has acknowledged that Mormonism is not a Christian faith."

This statement seems to have come as something as a surprise to Mittens:

But that's news to the Romney camp, according to Michael Scherer:

On Saturday, I read this quote to Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's traveling press secretary. He did not hesitate or mince his words. "The governor has not made that acknowledgment," Fehrnstrom told me. "He has said that his belief is not the same as others. But there is no doubt that Jesus Christ is at the center of the LDS church's worship."

In fact, the Church of Latter Day Saints, also know as the Mormon church, holds as a central belief that it is a Christian faith. This belief is a concern for some evangelical Christians, who see Mormonism as a competing religion. On the campaign trail, Romney has avoided discussing his faith in depth, and he has acknowledged that there are differences between his faith and others. But he has not been quoted saying Mormonism is not a Christian faith.

Why did Focus on the Family Action's Tom Minnery think that Romney admitted that Mormonism is not Christianity? This quote from Romney's speech on religion:

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history.

What we've got here is a bad case of FoF hearing what they want to hear. Now that they've used the Mormon church's power and money to keep icky gays from getting *gasp* married in California, evangelical Christians are right back to insisting the Mormons are just some bizarre cult, totally unlike Real Christians™ .

It's too bad they can't just admit they're all making shit up. Amusing as it is to watch them assassinate each other, it's also rather pathetic watching adults argue over whose fantasy is really real, especially after they've just finished using their fantasy to unite in denying such a simple human (dis)comfort as marriage to people they don't like.