We Need to Stop Executing Peoplel

Last night, the state of Georgia executed a man who was very likely innocent. Like PZ, I don't care whether he was guilty or innocent. I care that my country is one of the few countries in the world that executes people.

From Wikipedia

I used to be a strong death penalty supporter. Some crimes, I thought, could only be adequately punished by death. I didn't ever believe it acted as a general deterrent, but as former FBI agent John Douglas said in Mindhunter, it surely acts as a specific deterrent: that particular person will never commit a crime again. When you're talking about serial killers, that seems like an admirable thing.

But we kill too many innocent people. We come close to killing far more, before luck and persistence and the existence of DNA evidence, uncovered by tireless investigators, come to the rescue. Those are the lucky ones. Those are the ones who aren't denied the chance to prove their innocence. How many other people have gone to their deaths because no DNA evidence existed, or if it did was never found, or if found, never allowed to be presented? We don't know. And it's unbearable that we don't know.

So what about those cases in which evidence of guilt is undeniable? Where we definitely have the right person, and the crimes they committed are horrific?

I still don't support the death penalty. Not even for them. Oh, I may want them to die, and die horribly; that visceral emotional reaction, that righteous outrage, is certainly there. But a civilized society should restrain itself. All we gain is another dead person, another traumatized family, proof that we aren't able to rise above bronze age ideas of justice. We engage in violence to punish violence, and make our civilization just that much more violent.

Life in prison, no parole, is enough to keep society safe.

We spend an insane amount of money on killing people. That money would be far better spent on improving the conditions that lead people to violence in the first place. A society that takes care of its vulnerable members has less to fear from them, and so much to gain.

Troy Davis should be the last person to be put to death in this country. We're the last country in North America to execute people. It's time we joined Canada and Mexico in recognizing what justice truly is.

Blaming the Victims (Yet Again)

This sickens me so much I'm at a loss for words:

Fifteen year-old Larry King (no relation to the CNN interviewer) was shot twice in the back of the head by his classmate Brandon McInerney while sitting in school in Oxnard, California. Now that McInerney is on trial, the boy's legal team and the school administration are using the tried and true "he was asking for it" defense. This is totally disgusting.

According to a story in the L.A. Times today, "McInerney's defense attorneys... acknowledge that the boy pulled the trigger but say that he was pushed to the breaking point by King's taunts." Yes, it's the tried and true "gay panic defense" that preys on juries' homophobia to get confessed killers cleared for murdering gay people. It was even used against Matthew Shepard, when one of his killers said he was driven to kill the gay college student because he hit on him.

It only gets worse from there.

I know that defense attorneys have very few avenues they can take with an obviously guilty client. But this tactic is beyond reprehensible. What they're basically trying to argue is that, should you suffer an unwanted advance, it is perfectly right and fine to shoot a person in the head. You should be able to murder a human being and walk free just because you were briefly inconvenienced and made to feel a bit icky.

I don't imagine they'd be arguing that women have that blanket right to murder men who come on to them. But, y'know, gays. Ew. Of course it's all right for a straight guy to shoot a transsexual or a gay dude, because that's a threat to manhood. Kinda like when your wife sleeps with some other dude. It's okay to shoot 'em in the heat of passion - why not be able to shoot queers, too?

One can only hope that the jury is not so morally bereft as to buy this argument. But we need to have a conversation, a very long and unflinching conversation, about the kind of society in which arguments of this sort can even be entertained. We're supposedly a first-world nation, and yet there are not insubstantial numbers of people who don't see much wrong with demonizing and victimizing gays, lesbians, and transsexuals. When a little girl gets raped, an entire town rallies round the rapists, because, y'know, she wore makeup and was obviously asking for it. How dare those sorts of people lure nice, upstanding young men into performing savage acts?

Some folks, otherwise decent, may claim that the defense attorneys are only doing their job. Sure, they have to blame the victim - how else can they defend their client? I don't know the answer to that. I know this, though: that sort of tactic is devastating to victims, survivors, and the culture at large. There's probably nothing we can do to prevent defense attorneys from using such tactics, but that doesn't mean we have to accept them. We can speak out against them. We can tell our society that murdering a person because they made the mistake of flirting with a homophobic sociopath, that raping a girl because she wore makeup in the presence of men, is not justifiable. There are certain things you just do not do in a civilized society. There are some actions that cannot be excused on the grounds that the victim wasn't a perfect, straight, chaste person.

This dehumanizing bullshit may be a tactic defense attorneys feel comfortable using, but society at large never should. Victims have shouldered too much of the blame. Time to pass that blame to those who have earned it: the victimizers.

Oh, Yes. Very Frivolous

A while back, our own Chris Rhetts asked me to unlimber the Smack-o-Matic and deliver an epic beatdown. He pointed me to this:

And I watched the trailer:



And I grew very, very angry. Verily, I wished to unleash the Smack-o-Matic upon the deserving. Because, you see, I'd been taken in by that: by the media and the comedians and all the rest who had made bitter fun of the woman who sued McDonald's for spilling a cup of coffee. None of them ever made any mention of the fact that she'd suffered life-threatening burns in the process. They just laughed: silly wench. She should've known better than to spill coffee on herself. What a trivial thing to sue a corporation for.

When the corporation serves its coffee at 180 degrees F - 85% of the boiling point of water - it's not trivial.


This is how not trivial it is:

Each year, approximately 3,800 injuries and 34 deaths occur in the home due to scalding from excessively hot tap water. The majority of these accidents involve the elderly and children under the age of five. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) urges all users to lower their water heaters to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition to preventing accidents, this decrease in temperature will conserve energy and save money.

Most adults will suffer third-degree burns if exposed to 150 degree water for two seconds. Burns will also occur with a six-second exposure to 140 degree water or with a thirty second exposure to 130 degree water. Even if the temperature is 120 degrees, a five minute exposure could result in third-degree burns. [emphasis added]

Go spill some water on yourself. I guarantee you will be exposed for more than two seconds. Now, imagine that cold water is 180 degrees, and you are elderly, and thus already vulnerable to burns. Look at the wet bits of you, and imagine this is what you see (don't go below the fold if you can't handle graphic):

Lying Liars and the Creationist Bastards Who Lead Field Trips

It's be a while since we've had the Smack-o-Matic off the woodshed wall.  I shall now proceed to lift it down reverently, blow the dust from it, give it a loving polish, and proceed to administer it to some very deserving bottoms.

If you are one of those people prone to troll about "tone" and has to look for a fainting couch whenever a Gnu Atheist is the slightest bit mean to those poor ickle Christians, you'd best exit the cantina now.  I have now prepared the Smack-o-Matic for maximum smackage, and I am about to be very Not Nice.

Check out this dastardly bunch of outrageous liars:

In almost every way, the “Garden of the Gods at Colorado Springs” excursion at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) last year was a normal — even enjoyable — field trip. Standard geologic terminology was used in the accompanying field trip guide, and throughout the trip itself. The trip leaders discussed past events in terms of millions and billions of years. At each stop along the trip, the guides relied on orthodox geologic thinking, including a standard examination of sedimentary features and the nature of contacts between units.

But in reality, the trip was anything but a normal geology field trip. Instead, it was an example of a new strategy from creationists to interject their ideas into mainstream geology: They lead field trips and present posters and talks at scientific meetings. They also avoid overtly stating anything truly contrary to mainstream science.

But when the meeting is over, the creationist participants go home and proudly proclaim that mainstream science has accepted their ideas. 

Who led the field trip? 

Lesse... we had not one but two buffoons from the Institute for Creation Research: Steve Austin and Bill Hoesch.  Marcus Ross, formerly of that noxious bunch of anti-evolution fucktards who plague my beautiful city of Seattle, also known as the Discovery Institute.  He's currently teaching at Liberty University, which is so anti-intellectual I'm not sure how anyone calls it a "university" without laughing themselves to death.  John Whitmore, who's with Cedarville University in Ohio, stuffing liberal Christian students' heads with nonsense.  Lest you be persuaded by the "liberal" part that there must be some sanity at that school, consider this factoid: "Cedarville’s official doctrinal statement declares, 'We believe in the literal six-day account of creation' and requires that all faculty 'must be born-again Christians' who 'agree with our doctrinal statement.'"  Oh, yes, liberal.  Liberal stupidity, perhaps.

The last, Tim Clarey, gets hardly a mention in the article, so I did a quickie on Google.  All I can say is, Delta College in Michigan must be really fucking hard up for geology professors if they let the editor of  "Proceedings of the Second Conference on Creation Geology" (.pdf) teach.  Oh, but he's fun and stuff and he doesn't make you use the text book.  I wonder why that is....

I have something against these arseholes.  No, it's not because they're the kind of dumbshit Christian who tries to shoehorn 4.5 billion years of geology into 6,000 years and one really big flood (instead of "God did it!" at every turn, with creationist geologists, you hear "the Flood did it!"  All. The. Time).  They're welcome to be as stupid as they like.  They can play with their Magic Sky Daddy and believe the Bible's really really real and true and totally accurate even in all those bits that are flat-out wrong or completely contradict other bits of the Bible.  They're even welcome to come to conferences and present their "science" along with all of the supposed data they've amassed.  Go on, give us a laugh.  And if they've got real data, solid data, data that proves what they're saying beyond a reasonable doubt, bring it!  It's science, baby. 

Now, they haven't got that data and the chances they ever will are roughly on par with my waking up tomorrow and actually deciding that my day job is the best job in the whole universe, but still, let 'em try.

No, what I have against them is the fact that they're lying little shits who do their damnedest to snow everyone.  They're deceptive ratfuckers who, when among the real scientists, pretend they're down with this millions-of-years stuff.  They use the big geology words and sometimes even salt their bullshit with a little actual geology to disguise the taste of what they're serving up.  Just check this out:

Field trip 409 was not the first such creationist-led geology excursion at a GSA meeting. At the 2009 annual GSA meeting in Portland, Ore., four of the five trip leaders (Austin, Whitmore, Clarey and Ross) organized a field trip to Mount St. Helens to examine catastrophic erosion resulting from the 1980 eruption. After that trip, the Institute for Creation Research ran a headline bragging, “Christian Geologists Influential at GSA Meeting,” noting that Austin’s “peer-reviewed manuscript was published by GSA.”

In truth, every field trip guide that year was published in the book “Volcanoes to Vineyards.” Austin’s guide, “The dynamic landscape on the north flank of Mount St. Helens,” followed normal geologic thinking and contained no direct creationist arguments — though attempts to link Mount St. Helens to the Grand Canyon erosional processes might have proved puzzling to attendees. 

That, my friends, is despicable.  It's behavior beyond the pale.  These people pretend to be really real scientists, if slightly weird ones, with nary a mention of their Young Earth beliefs and their 6,000 year timeline and they don't breathe a word of Noah's Flood, all so that they can get their photo taken with actual really real scientists and pretend they've wowed 'em - and they lie about their supposed publications, and they deceive the folks back home, the poor innocent little fucktards in the pews, into thinking actual fucking geologists respect their Biblical bullshit.

Just one more example shall suffice to show what two-faced ratfucking rat bastards these assholes are:

“Millions of years” was a phrase that also appeared in Ross’ talk on Late Cretaceous marine stratigraphy; many of his slides used normal geologic time, with millions of years clearly labeled on axes. Nothing in his 15-minute talk hinted at nonstandard geologic thinking. Because most of the audience probably did not know Ross’ background, it must have been puzzling to them when the first question following Ross’ talk challenged him on how he could “harmonize this work with [his] belief in a 6,000-year-old Earth.” (This question came from University of Florida geology professor Joe Meert, who blogged about the exchange.)

Ross answered the question by saying that for a scientific meeting such as GSA, he thought in a “framework” of standard science; but for a creationist audience, he said, he used a creationist framework. Judging from the reaction of the audience, this answer caused more confusion than enlightenment. Ross pointed out that nothing in his presentation involved Young-Earth Creationism. But he then volunteered that he was indeed a Young-Earth Creationist.  [Outraged emphasis added]

Is it just me, or is that an insult to both the geological profession and the Christian faith?  I mean, seriously.  Is there anyone they won't lie to?


That's the reason I have not refrained from using the naughty words in abundance when referring to this merry band of despicable fucktards.  They don't even have the courage of their convictions.  They can't stand up and say, "I believe this, and here's the evidence I've found that might support that believe if you squint a lot and drink some Drano and pretend that radiometric dating doesn't exist."  They have to lie to us, and then they lie to believers who have no idea how science works but get a thrill up their leg when they think that their Bronze-Age beliefs are validated by actual scientists.  And that offends me on so many levels I can't explore them all.

The writer of the article describing this atrocity thinks we should allow them to continue to infest conferences.  And I say, "Yes.  By all means - if they are required to proclaim, baldly, up front, and without prevarication, just precisely what it is they believe."  None of these games where they play the Serious Scientist at professional, mainstream geology conferences and then spew Young Earth creationism all over the Christian circles back home, all the while proclaiming that because they didn't get run out of the conference on a rail, that means genuine scientists believe them.

But they'll never be honest, because they know real geologists will never accept them if they tell the truth.  So the liars for Jesus will continue to lie.  And geologists, like biologists, will have to expose their Trojan-horse antics before, like termites, they undermine the foundations.

The Morality of Religion: If This Is Morality, I'd Rather Be Immoral

I've been planning a set of posts on atheism and morality for some time now, but kept kicking the can down the road because I've had easier things to write about.  I'm still busier than a one-legged woman in an arse-kicking competition, but it's time to open me gob on the whole subject.  Consider this the prelude.

There's this perception among too many people that being religious automatically equals being moral.  Do yourself an experiment: hit random people up with a scenario.  They're on a jury, and have to decide who is the most convincing character witness for the accused.  Would they place more weight on the testimony of an atheist or a pastor?  Based on how atheists are viewed in other surveys, I'd be willing to be the vast majority of the public would plump for the pastor.

They shouldn't.

Being religious doesn't automatically make you moral.  We'll explore that in some depth in upcoming posts.  But for now, I just want to present a case study.  This is what one of the big theological thinkers had to say about genocide, infanticide, et al:

By setting such strong, harsh dichotomies God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable.  It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity.  God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel.  The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God. 

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation.  We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy.  Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites?  Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement.  Not the children, for they inherit eternal life.  So who is wronged?  Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli[sic] soldiers themselves.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children?  The brutalizing effect on these Israeli [sic] soldiers is disturbing.

This comes only after William Lane Craig claims God "has no moral duties to fulfill."  And an enormously long passage of nonsense that snipes at Richard Dawkins apropos of nothing, presents one of the lamest "logical" arguments for God's existence ever put forth by someone who purportedly possesses a functioning brain, and then childishly claims atheists have proven God exists if they say the God of the Old Testament did something morally reprehensible in commanding the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman and child in Canaan.  William Lane Craig has proven my (and my Christian best friend's) point that too much prayer completely rots a person's brain.

Taking it Personally

The party of "life" strikes again:

House File 1467, which ought to be called "Shoot First," will be heard in the House Public Safety Committee this Thursday. It would allow the killing of anyone who enters another's yard, even when the person is unarmed and posing no threat; and it would allow the killing of anyone in a public place who seems threatening -- again, even if the person is unarmed, and even if walking or driving away is a safe option. 

This is how cheap the Republicans in Minnesota think life is.  This is how little they value it.  What this bill would mean is that no one, anywhere, is safe at any time.

Think about what kind of society that is.

Back when I worked at a bookstore in the Phoenix metro area, a woman came into the store.  She needed a book on grief.  Could I recommend any?

I was too young to know what grief is, not even twenty.  I'd only suffered a few losses: my grandmother died of breast cancer when I was seven, my grandfather of complications from diabetes a few years later, my uncle the same way when I was fourteen.  But they lived half a continent away.  I'd felt pain, briefly, but their loss hadn't been a constant hole.  What did I know about grief and mourning?  Nothing.  I took her over to the proper section, tried to make a few recommendations based on what other people had bought, rang up her purchases.

That's when she told me why.

She'd had a son.  A little younger than me, just a teenager, on his way home one evening.  He took a shortcut through a neighbor's yard.  He knew the neighbor, didn't think it would be a big deal, nothing he hadn't done before.  But that night, the neighbor picked up a gun.  Went to the door.  Didn't bother with a warning, didn't bother to identify, just shot.

Her son died.  The neighbor faced no consequences.  The kid had been on someone else's property, after all, and it didn't matter to the fine people of Arizona that he was a kid who hadn't done a single threatening thing.  I believe there was a trial, but the jury wouldn't convict.

And if the Republicans in Minnesota had their way, there wouldn't even be that much.

What do you say to a woman whose son had been murdered, shot down by someone they knew, and who had been denied justice by a jury of their peers?  What will you say to the people who will lose loved ones, because their "crime" was stepping on the wrong bit of property or maybe looking too closely at some trigger-happy shit at the local park?  What will you say when the person who pulled the trigger walks away without facing a single instant of jail time for taking a human life?

But that's not all:

Also buried in this bill is a loosening of concealed-carry permit laws to recognize all other state's pistol permits in Minnesota, even states with lax background checks that issue permits valid for life. It also makes it harder for local law enforcement to prevent prohibited purchasers from getting permits to buy guns, and limits law enforcement's ability to confiscate weapons in domestic violence situations. 

So that means guns in the hands of people who shouldn't have them.  And guns in the hands of abusers.

Basically, what the Republicans are saying is, if the police get called out on a domestic, they can't take the guns away from the very upset, demonstrably violent person who might then decide to reassert his (or, less probably, her) dominance by taking one of those non-confiscated weapons and putting a bullet or few through the head of the person they've been busy abusing.  According to the Republicans, this is right and good and how things are supposed to be.

Am I taking it personally, despite the fact I don't live in Minnesota?  You betcha.  Not only are there people in Minnesota I quite like and would prefer to see survive, but Republican insanity has a distressing tendency to spread to other states.  It's like measles, or smallpox, and there appears to be no vaccine.  There are plenty of people in the great state of Washington who think living in the Wild West is an ideal, not a problem.

So, Minnesotans, make sure your reps know you don't agree that life is so fucking cheap.  And as for the rest of us, we'd best be on our guard.

We'd better be taking it personally.

Watch This. It's Terrifying and Important

This is how easy it is to steal an election:

Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections.

(h/t via Suzanne)

World Coming Down

I'd meant to get the next Oregon Geology post up, but instead have spent the past several days watching in bemusement, sometimes in horror, as the world changes.

In Wisconsin, the Cons in control have rather overplayed their hand.  I'm proud of the Dems there who left the state to deny a quorum, and incredibly proud of the tens of thousands of citizens who continue to protest.  It's not just about the unions, either - if you read that noxious budget, you'll find plenty of gems like Walker & the Cons' plans to sell off the state one piece at a time to corporations.  Keep this in mind as you watch Cons in other states rush to follow suit.  If you were one of those who fell for the "where are the jobs?" schtick, I hope you feel a proper fool just now.  The Cons are never about the jobs.  They're about theocracy and oligarchy, and they're about breaking the backs of the common folk.

Unfortunately for them, they've chosen this moment in time to step on ordinary people.  It might have gone more smoothly for them if, at this very moment, the entire Middle East hadn't flared up, with citizens pouring into the streets to topple dictator after dictator, no matter the personal cost.  After Egypt, ordinary folk aren't quite as willing to abide quietly under the heels of their masters.  I hate to tell the Cons this, but as complacent and submissive, as easily distracted by shiny things, as Americans can be, I don't think this is a good time to be trampling all over women, workers, science, and - well, everybody except for their corporate masters and religious right ringleaders.  Libyans are still out there demanding regime change after getting slaughtered.  Something tells me Americans might be a little more willing to risk a bit of inconvenience to prevent the GOP from decimating the country, considering nothing they do to us could be quite as bad.  We'd be fools just to meekly accept their shit.

What I'm saying is: have your sleeping bags ready and sign-making materials to hand, my fellow Americans, because the time is coming soon when we, like our mates in Wisconsin, may find it necessary to camp out at capitols in order to make our wishes clear.  Surely we can manage that much. 

What's happening in Libya is horrific.  The government there has turned its weapons of war on its own people.  I'm hoping the UN and the US government will get off their asses and put a stop to it, because there are people getting blown to bits out there.  I clicked on a link to a photo today and saw the results of a despot desperate to stay in power: bodies cut in half.  Do not click this link if you can't stand the sight of blood, because the people in this photo were butchered.  I almost wish I hadn't seen it.  But you know what?  I needed to.  It gave me perspective on many things.  It showed me the violence our country hasn't even attempted to stop, and it told me just how fantastically brave these people are, that they'd risk this to demonstrate for their freedom.  It showed me how much freedom is worth.  And it showed me that we've got a ways to go before it gets this bad here, but more importantly, that we need to ensure it never does.

Those folks in the Middle East going out right now to put an end to too many years of autocrats and dictators, those folks who are finding the power of peaceful protest, who are taking their destinies in their hands not with terrorism, but with courage, are so incredible.  I don't know what future they'll build, but at least they've got the strength to build it for themselves.  I hope all of them succeed.  I'm in awe of them.

So there's the political world, all shaken up and in places toppling over, sometimes inspiring and sometimes horrific.  But that's not the only news that's crossed my Twitter feed and left me reeling.  There's also Christchurch, New Zealand, which got hit nearly dead-on with an earthquake.  Buildings are down, people dead, and it's a reminder that we are not as much in control of the world as we might like to believe.  Two earthquakes there in less than twelve months - and likely aftershocks to come.  I know they're strong folk and that they'll manage to rebuild, but I feel for them.  It's not easy, living at a plate boundary.  Days like this are tragic.

Really does seem like the world's coming down.  I just hope a better one rises up.

It's a Matter of Life and Death

Neil Gaiman tweeted a link to this article recently.  It's about a young woman who died, alone and in pain, of a heart attack, because she didn't have health insurance.

As imperfect as the Affordable Care Act is, it's a step closer to ensuring that people like Melissa don't die so needlessly.  And I'd rather see us take that step forward than make no move at all.  I'd rather see us make progress toward the day when there are no more tragedies like this.  We need to start somewhere.

It's a matter of life and death.

GOP Priorities: Redefining Rape

Right, then, ladies.  The Cons in Congress, together with a handful of despicable Dems, have decided we must have rape babies.  Observe:

Under this new bill, the only rape survivors who would be able to receive funding [for abortion] would be those who were able to prove that their rapes involved “force.” If your rapist drugged you, intoxicated you, or raped you while you were unconscious, you don’t get coverage. If your rapist used coercion, you don’t get coverage. If this is a case of statutory rape — that is, if you are a thirteen-year-old child, raped by someone outside of your family — you don’t get coverage. If you’re an incest survivor over the age of eighteen — if, say, years of abuse only culminated in a pregnancy after your nineteenth birthday — you just don’t get coverage. And if you live in a state that doesn’t distinguish “forcible rape” from “rape,” you might not qualify, meaning that no matter what the circumstances of your assault were, well, sorry: You might not get coverage.

I cannot begin to describe how angry these fucktards make me.  They won't understand, anyway.  Men can get raped, true - but they can never be impregnated by their attacker.  They don't have to face that particular hell.  And the chances of them being raped in the first place is so vanishingly small that they can't imagine the fear and the trauma women live with.

I would like to explain it to them.  I'd like to sit down in a room with all 173 co-sponsors and describe to them in minute detail everything that happened the morning I woke to a rapist at my door.  You know, it's been nearly twenty years, and I still get sick to my stomach, my hands still sweat and shake, thinking about it.  And I'm one of the lucky ones.  I wasn't physically scarred for life.  I didn't end up pregnant.

If I had, and if an abortion had been denied to me because I didn't fight hard enough, scream loud enough, risk my life adequately enough to satisfy the Cons in Congress, I can promise you something: I would've ended up killing myself if I couldn't abort that baby.  They can't understand, will obviously never understand, why many women wouldn't be able to face carrying their attacker's spawn to term.  Let me just put it this way: there are worse things than getting raped.  One of them is being denied any chance to regain some control over your own body afterward.  One of them is being forced to put your body through the further trauma of pregnancy and childbirth against your will.  And at that time, in the aftermath of the worst morning of my life, I wouldn't have had the mental strength to deal with it.  It was hard enough putting the shattered pieces back together without a swelling belly and constant reminders of the horror I'd gone through.

But they don't care about a woman's welfare.  Obviously not.  They have some fantasy about rape, which makes them just as despicable as the men who rape.  They think there's some kind of honor to be fought for, that a woman should do everything in her power to guard her virtue rather than survive, and if she doesn't, then she's a slut who deserves everything she gets.

I wish I could take them back in time.  I wish I could turn what's in my mind into a film, so I could walk them through the event.  I'd like to see their faces when they're faced with the reality of sexual violence.  I'd like them to have to walk in my mind.  And I'd like to pause every so often, and ask, "Did I fight enough here?  How about here?  Was that rape forcible enough, or was it too gentle to qualify as the kind of rape where a woman is granted an abortion?"

I'd like them to have to experience every emotion with me, both during the attack and in the months and years afterward.  I'd like them to know just what it is to have control and integrity ripped away from you.  I'd like them to walk that fine line, knowing that if you fight too hard, you're going to get yourself killed.  I'd like them to be there in my mind, the moment I realized I didn't have the physical strength to fight my attacker off, and that no one could hear me scream.  I'd like them to share that instant where panic and gut instinct turned into a cold calculation, where I decided it would be a better idea to live.

Do they think I made the wrong choice, choosing survival over a fight to the death?  Do they think that making the choice to survive means signing away your right to your remaining bodily integrity?  And would they still believe that were they forced to live it with me?

They believe abortion is murder, and yet each and every one of them, should you ask, would likely tell you that killing someone in self-defense is justifiable.  Let me try to explain something to them: getting rid of a clump of cells isn't murder, but let's play on their field a moment.  That clump of cells that could become a human being someday is an intruder.  It broke in, it wasn't invited, and it's stealing from me.  It could kill me.  It's certainly going to hurt me, both mentally and physically.  So if you believe some homicides are justified, why do you think it's not justifiable to kill that intruder?

They need to walk in my mind.  They need to watch the months it took, feel the force of will it took, to regain function again, to not hide in the house anymore, to learn how to cope with a terrible new reality.  I dropped out of school, because I wasn't capable of normal function for quite some time.  It took years before I could trust people again.  I still have bad moments.  But I'm nearly a whole human again.  I don't think I would've gotten there if I knew I'd been forced to bear my rapist's baby.  And I don't have words strong enough to describe the visceral reaction I have to the idea.  That would have given me a lifelong connection to my rapist.  That would have been a level of trauma beyond my imagination.  I know my mind well enough to know that bearing a rape baby at the age of 18 would have broken it.

Is that the price I'm supposed to pay for being attacked?  According to the Cons in Congress, it is.  It's my fault, you see.  I should've fought hard enough to keep from being impregnated or died in the attempt.  Nothing else will do.  They care more for a clump of cells than they do for a living, breathing, thinking and suffering woman.

But I don't think they've thought this through, and that's why I'd like them to experience what I did.  Because then, you see, they could imagine what it would be like if that had been their wife, or their daughter, or some other woman they may actually care about.  They may have to look at her a bit differently, and wonder if it's worth destroying her in order to force her to grow a clump of cells fertilized by a rapist.  They might have to ask themselves if they'd really want her rape to be so forcible that it could kill her before they'd allow her the choice of aborting that clump of cells before she gets traumatized all over again.

Because, you see, what the Cons in Congress are saying to women is that if we don't fight, if we don't drive our rapist to really hurt us, then we'd better be prepared to have a rape baby.  If we're strong enough and wise enough and lucky enough to survive, we're to be punished.  We're to have control and bodily integrity ripped away from us once more.  And if we want to avoid that second traumatization, we'd best escalate the situation.  There's only one way to respond to rape in their world: fight.  Even though fighting could get us seriously hurt or killed.

That's why, when I sit down in a room to describe what I went through in excruciating detail, I'd also want Robert K. Ressler, John Douglas, and Ann W. Burgess there.  Two of them are former FBI profilers, the other a forensic nurse.  They wrote a book called Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives.  They understand fully that a one-size-fits-all rape strategy would end in more seriously wounded and murdered women.  Let me direct your attention to the chapter for victims, wherein survival strategies are discussed:

When the amount of rage and aggression obviously exceed what is necessary to force compliance, a violent confrontative response on the part of the victim will generally increase the violence in the assault and place the victim at increased risk for serious physical injury.  Gratuitous violence on the part of the rapist places the victim in dangerous, volatile, and unpredictable situations.  For that reason, we recommend that the first response to violence not be violent.  If direct dialogue does not begin to neutralize the attacker (reduce the intensity of the aggression), then the victim will have no recourse but to employ any means available to object.  The offender believes that he is entitled to sex under any condition, and hence has a callous indifference to the comfort or welfare of the victim.  Both verbal resistance and nonconfrontative resistance strategies are appropriate.  Once it has been demonstrated that the rapist will likely use whatever force neccesary to gain victim compliance, confrontative physical resistance would be unwise unless the victim is confident that it will work.

[snip]

If the attacker responds to victim physical confrontation with increased anger and/or violence, the victim should cease physical resistance.  If he responds by immediately ceasing his aggressive/violent behavior and is willing to engage the victim in conversation, he is also likely to be an exploitative rapist and the victim should use verbal strategies.

[snip]

For the displaced-anger rapist, the victim is a substitute for and a symbol of the hated person(s) in his life.  The primary motive is to hurt and injure the victim.  Aggression may span a wide range from verbal abuse to brutal assault.  Continued physical confrontation, unless the victim is reasonably certain she will be able to incapacitate the attacker, may only justify the need to "punish" the victim and thus escalate the violence.

This is what the Cons in Congress want.  They want us, when confronted with a rapist, to have only one choice: escalate the violence.  Because, you see, if it wasn't violent enough, it wasn't a rape, and hence we are not victims who deserve the right and the funds to decide what to do with our bodies afterward, we're hussies who are supposed to live with the consequences of our "decision."  They want to teach little girls that they must fight to the death rather than do everything in their power to come out of a horrible situation reasonably whole, with a chance at a fairly normal life after.

They want us to ignore the sound survival strategies formulated by two FBI agents and a forensic nurse after years of study of violent offenders, because some of those strategies will lead to a not-so-forcible rape, which means the woman obviously didn't try hard enough to defend her virtue.

You know that I find most everything Cons believe and advocate for these days to be either stupid or despicable.  I make no secret of that opinion.  But some of their ideas are more odious than others.  This is one.  When they advocate disgusting legislation such as this, they become victimizers themselves, no less than the original rapist.

So, after I've had a chance to take them on a walk through my mind, I have one final question for them: How does it feel to join a rapist in victimizing a woman? 

If you find this all as disgusting as I do, take action.  And use the #dearjohn hashtag on Twitter to let John Boehner and all know what you think of them.

It's Not That Easy Addendum

Saw this at Digby's after I'd written the previous post:

All over TV today, I'm hearing the gasbags fret about the fact that Obama hasn't brought up gun control. It's a good question, but they know the answer to it very well: the Democrats have given up that issue, the only problem is that the Republicans refuse to accept their surrender. They have nothing more to say about it.

I'm more curious about why they aren't all over this:

Gov. Jan Brewer's plan to roll back state Medicaid coverage would leave thousands of Arizona's most mentally fragile without health care. 

An estimated 5,200 people diagnosed with a serious mental illness and thousands more who qualify for other behavioral-health services would be among 280,000 childless adults losing health-care coverage under the governor's plan.

But, Jan sez, she'll allocate $10 mil or so to cover psych meds.  Well, that's nice, Jan.  Too bad you're cutting out all the other services that go along with the meds.  You don't seem to realize that it's not just a matter of chucking pills down people's throats.  Meds have to be prescribed, they have to be monitored, they have to be adjusted, they stop working and have to be changed, above all they have to be taken.  Funny thing about mental illness, paranoid people often won't swallow the pills you hand them.

Without intensive monitoring, without counseling appointments, and without a support system that will help these poor ill people get well enough to achieve some level of function, you might as well be hosing them down with homeopathy for all the good it will do.

Just like with transplants, Jan Brewer doesn't get it.  Jan Brewer doesn't care.  That's the takeaway lesson here, people: do not get sick in Arizona, because Jan Brewer doesn't care if you suffer and die.  She and her merry band of fucktards do not believe the great state of Arizona needs to waste its money on you.

Suzanne left a comment on the last installment I want to make sure all of you see:

very well said dana. in the past, i've had to try to navigate the california mental health system for family and friends in addition to my experiences on the pd.

even before the draconian cuts that have happened in ca, the cops had to determine that the person was (1) a danger to themselves (suicidal); or (2) a danger to others (homicidal); or (3) gravely disabled (ie dementia/alzheimer) in order to place an involuntary 72 hour psychiatric hold. the patient would then be transported by ambulance to the county contracted mental health facility where the docs would either agree or disagree.

more times than i can recount, if ya didn't have good insurance, that 72 hour hold was ignored the patient would be discharged early -- many times later that same day.

it is heartbreaking what is happening to our safety net in the country.

its not that easy -- and it is being made harder and harder each and every day.

And that was in California, which according to some was a socialist paradise.

If you want to see what the Republican ideal of health care is, watch Arizona.  And consider carefully whether that's what you want for this country the next time you go to the ballot box.

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What Did You Think Would Happen?

In my home state of Arizona, a man loaded a gun, picked up a knife, and went to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's first Congress on Your Corner.  While she met with constituents at the local Safeway, he walked up behind her and put a bullet through her head.  He then proceeded to kill as many people as he could.

John M. Roll.  Gabriel Zimmerman. Dorwin Stoddard.  Christina-Taylor Green.  Dorthy Murray.  Phyllis Schneck.

Thirteen others he shot, and he had the bullets for dozens more.  But two people at the event tackled him.  They put themselves at risk to save others.  Everyday heroes, doing what had to be done, saving who knows how many people.

It should never have been necessary.

Intern Daniel Hernandez, who had been working for Rep. Giffords for just five days, ran toward the gunfire.  He checked the wounded and dying, applied what first aid he could to Rep. Giffords (likely saving her life in the process), gave instructions to those who were trying to assist the injured, and stayed by Giffords' side until they reached the hospital.  Later, he said, "Of course you're afraid, you just kind of have to do what you can....  It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help."

It should never have been necessary.

Rep. Giffords is still alive, and has a chance to recover.  She had some of the finest trauma surgeons in the country there to save her life.

It should never have been necessary.

There are already far too many people ready and eager to attribute this assassination attempt to a lone nut, a deranged individual, a mentally-ill freak.  He may be those things.  We don't know much about him yet - we know that he displayed some pretty fantastic paranoia about the government, but he had enough wits about him to plan for this.  We know he targeted a Democrat in a Republican-rich environment.  And he had plenty of people to egg him on.

Sarah Palin, who scrubbed this from her website today:

And who tweeted this:

What did you think would happen, Sarah?

Giffords's opponent in the November elections, Jesse Kelly, held a little event over the summer:

What did you think would happen, Jesse?

Sharron Angle said, "... if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around?"

What did you think would happen, Sharron?

I could go on.  But some of the insanity's been neatly gathered in one place here, and there's just too much of it to keep up with.  If you've paid any attention to politics in the last two years, you already know what I'm talking about.  The eliminationist rhetoric, spewed by political leaders on the right, parroted and amplified by Faux News and hate radio and right-wing blogs.  We're swimming in a sea of hate.  The vast majority of the Republicans have been winding their base up, associating with people who should be anathema in American politics, even trying to hire right-wing hate radio hosts who said,

“I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will. This is the standoff. When I say I’ll put my microphone down on November 2nd if we haven’t achieved substantial victory, I mean it. Because if at that point I’m going to up into the hills of Kentucky, I’m going to go out into the Midwest, I’m going to go up in the Vermont and New Hampshire outreaches and I’m going to gather together men and women who understand that some things are worth fighting for and some things are worth dying for.”

They will stand before you tomorrow, and the day after, and as long as it takes them to remember that a man put a bullet in Gabrielle Giffords's head, and tell you how tragic, how unexpected, how utterly awful this was.  But they had just spent years telling their followers that bullets were the answer.

So I ask them again:

What did you think would happen?

Because this is what you told Americans you wanted.  And some Americans are mentally unstable enough to believe you, and to act.  They aren't lone nuts.  They aren't simply crazed individuals.  They have Republican politicians and Fox News and right-wing hate radio, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, whispering and shouting and screaming in their ear that liberals are killing America, that our President is a crypto-Muslim socialist who will bring fascism and death panels and FEMA camps to this country. 

And the unbalanced few decide to act.  What else did you expect?

What did you think would happen?

There's a responsibility that comes with free speech, with being a political leader or media figure.  There's a responsibility to realize that if you create a rhetorical climate in which all liberals are enemies worthy of death and destruction, if you wind up fear to a fever pitch, if you convince people that America is on the brink of total destruction if something is not done right now, if you literally paint targets on your political opponents, you are creating the conditions necessary for someone to act out the violence you suggest.  You are, in part, responsible for their acts.

You make it necessary for people to tackle gunmen, run into gunfire to save as many as possible, for trauma surgeons to do their best to save the lives you've helped destroy.

You helped kill a nine year-old girl today.  A federal judge.  A social worker.  A pastor.  Two old women who were just going to the grocery store.

You tried to kill a Congresswoman.  And even if she comes out of this with her life, even if by luck and by quick-thinking interns and incredibly skilled trauma surgeons she survives with minimal permanent brain injury, she will always bear scars. 

Sixteen other people will bear scars with her.  Some of those scars won't be visible, but they will always be there.

You, on the right, you helped make this happen.  You.  The left has nothing like you.  The leaders on the left do not go around casually talking bloody revolution and assassination.  You do.

And a man did your bidding today.

Are you proud?

Imaginary Death Panels vs. The Real Deal

I've been trying for several days now to figure out how to capture my outrage in words, but it's impossible to do it.  Let's just say that if I ever get a chance to do it, I will gladly punch Arizona's political overlords in the face.

The same pieces of shit who have no problem going on and on about imaginary death panels in order to defeat health care reform also have no problem with creating death panels of their own (h/t):

The only political effort to implement death panels since Obama got his health reform bill passed has been in the state of Arizona. There the Republican-controlled legislature with the approval of GOP Governor Jan “there are headless bodies turning up all over our desert” Brewer has told 98 people waiting for transplants that they must die.

Those 98, who are either poor or uninsurable by private insurance due to pre-existing conditions, need bone marrow, lung, heart, and other forms of transplants. They were told by the state’s Medicaid program—Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS—that they qualified for coverage. But, this October 1, AHCCCS said it could not in fact pay for their transplants. Facing a billion-dollar-plus budget deficit, the Arizona legislature cut out all state funding for transplantation retroactively!

This means that people who were told they had a chance at life had the rug pulled out from under them without any warning. The Republican legislature not only acted as a death panel; it chose to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest and most desperate of Arizonians by welshing on a promise.

Just to be clear, the legislature and governor did not say there would be no more transplant funding going forward. They said they are telling those to whom coverage has already been promised to drop dead.

I hope Arizonans have the decency to realize just what kind of murderous assclowns they've elected, and remedy that the next time they go to the ballot box.  Otherwise, my old home state will gain a deserved reputation as the worst place in America to live.  Jan Brewer & Co. seem intent on proving that when it comes to treading on the poor and immigrants, nobody stomps harder than they do.  Once suspects she and her cronies rather enjoy the sound of bones breaking under their boots.

This, America, is what it looks like when the modern Cons get their way.  This is what they think this country should be.  If it doesn't horrify you, then there is no trace of morality or decency left in your shriveled little soul.

Further Evidence Britain Needs to Reform It's Fucked-Up Libel Laws

Read.  Weep (with laughter and outrage).  Then sign the petition, unless you already have, in which case: go, you!  Tell your friends to get their arses on it.

What a fucking world.

Sunday Read: So An Atheist and a Chaplain Walk Onto a Battlefield...

You can't miss this.  Truly cannot.  Go. Read.  And marvel at the power of faith to make dangerous ridiculous fucking morons out of some people.  I'm going to inflict it on my Christian best friend, because I do so love hearing him howl at people who put the blind in blind faith.  Perhaps someday he'll forgive me.

Actually a little appalled that sensible soldiers are risking their lives to protect this god-deluded fool.  Kudos to them for doing the job and doing it well!

The Legal Jackboot

Via our own John Pieret, who knows legal fuckery when he sees it, Orac points up the travails of Dr. Steve Bennett of Quackwatch, who is currently being sued for $10 million by a bunch of money-grubbing quacks otherwise known as Doctor's Data.  This is a tactic used by those who can't defend themselves with science.  And considering truth is a defense in American libel cases, Dr. Bennett has nothing to worry about - except the ridiculous legal bills that will be racked up defending himself against this fuckery.

Publicize his case if you have a blog, and if you can spare a few dimes, send some cash his way.  Quackwatch is a resource that cannot be allowed to be buggered and beggared by the kind of people who enjoy administering industrial chelators to helpless autistic kids.  Do help them continue roasting the quacks.  The champions of science-based medicine must not be silenced by jackbooted legal thugs.

Heckuva Job, Georgie!

So, today, my intrepid companion emails me this link, and so I was prepared a few moments ago when I stopped watching a program I'd recorded on my DVR and got this:

Y'see, there's a satellite that's been knocked out, likely due to a solar flare, and it's wreaking havoc up in space as it drifts out of control.  Encore movie channels are suffering the consequences of the Bush regime's short-sightedness.  And how do I know Bush is to blame?  Because I recently finished reading Our Choice:

During the time when [the DSCOVR] satellite was built, experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were deciding how to replace an older satellite that was already at the L1 point warning engineers about large solar storms that can disrupt cellular telephone communications, electricity distribution equipment, and other electronic equipment sensitive to large solar flares.  From the L1 point, the light from these solar flares is visible 90 minutes before the plasma from the storm hits the planet.  That's enough warning time to harden sensitive electronic equipment and avoid expensive outages and repairs.

Since the older early warning satellite (called the Advanced Composition Explorer) was about to wear out, NOAA decided to put the replacement for it onto the satellite intended to measure global warming and provide a constant full color picture of the earth.

We still haven't seen that live TV image of the earth.  The old satellite has not been replaced, because the Bush-Cheney administration canceled the launch within days of taking office after the inauguration on January 20, 2001, and forced NASA to put the satellite in storage.  It is still there, nine years later, waiting to be launched.  As a result, the older satellite could stop working at any moment; it is already two years past its predicted lifetime.

One of its key instruments is already dead; another now routinely fails during peaks of solar flares, when it is needed most.  Several important global industries are at risk of being exposed to heavy losses by damage from solar flares.

Bet you a dollar poor Galaxy 15 didn't get protected from said solar flare because ACE went down.  And so, a great many cable stations are down, I get to see the off-air screen and have my eardrums pierced by that gawdawful shriek they play, and I'm sitting here contemplating all of the other delicate and essential bits o' equipment that keep this modern world running that might go down next.  Encore, I can live without.  But some of those satellites up there do much more important jobs that ensure I've got a steady stream of chick flicks for my Muse.  And all that's threatened because George W. Bush and his merry band of fuckwits decided we didn't need no stinkin' early warning systems.

So, heckuva job, Georgie.  I hope you got to enjoy the fruits of your stupidity as well.

Outrageous Bullshit Double-Header

The Muse knows I am fuming, and has graciously allowed me to post another post.

First, absorb this bit of reality and see if you're steamed enough to power a freight train:

We learned a few years ago that the CIA had video documenting the interrogation of two Qaeda operatives who'd been subjected to "severe interrogation techniques," but because of what the video showed, the agency destroyed the tapes. In effect, officials had evidence of a possible crime, so they eliminated it -- which is itself a crime.

Within a few weeks of the revelations, Bush's Justice Department appointed a prosecutor to lead a criminal investigation into the destruction of evidence.

What we didn't know until today is that a far-right senator, Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas, acting his capacity as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was apparently made aware of the alleged crimes in a closed briefing in 2003, and raised no objections.

That's right.  This fucktarded piece of shit has no problem with crimes being committed.  None.  No problem, cover it up.  And we're not talking minor shit, we're talking war crimes.

These people aren't amoral so much as anti-moral. 

Meanwhile, John Yoo, he of the torture memos, has decided the Prez can use nukes any ol' time he likes.  No limits on his power to destroy civilizations whatsoever.  Totally fine with the Constitution, despite the fact the Constitution's all about the checks and balances, and despite the fact that Supreme Court precedent sez executive powers tain't so unlimited.  Observe:

As far back as 1804, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Little v. Barreme that Congress has sweeping authority to limit the President’s actions in wartime. That case involved an Act of Congress authorizing vessels to seize cargo ships bound for French ports. After the President also authorized vessels to seize ships headed away from French ports, the Supreme Court held this authorization unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress’ decision to allow one kind of seizure implicitly forbade other kinds of seizure. More recently, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court held that the President does not have the power to unilaterally set military policy (in those cases with respect to detention); he must comply with statutory limits on his power. Taken together, these and other cases unquestionably establish that Congress has the power to tell the President “no,” and the President must listen.

John Yoo is a moral vacuum, but he is also a constitutional law professor at one of the nation’s top law schools and a former Supreme Court clerk. It is simply impossible that Yoo is not aware of Little, Hamdi and Hamdan, or that he does not understand what they say. So when John Yoo claims that the President is not bound by Congressional limits, he is not simply ignorant or misunderstanding the law. He is lying.

Indeed he is.  Lying about the law, and yet Berkeley believes he's qualified to teach law.  I'll never, ever, understand that one.

Bonus outrages: selling plates of pasta to save your life (thank you, broken health care industry!) and the Cons' idea of a bipartisan dialogue on health care reform.  Maybe we should hold a pasta fundraiser to see if we can whip up enough cash to get these idiots some brains.

Utah Can't be Serious

I saw this over the weekend, and meant to highlight it, but then there was the Telepalmer incident and afterward my characters dragged me away.  But as far as outrageously fucking insane stupid shit pulled by legislators, you can't get much more outrageously fucking insane as the Utah House:

On Thursday, the Utah House Natural Resources Committee passed a resolution expressing the legislature’s belief that “climate alarmists’ carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for the current downturn in global temperatures.” The resolution, which now goes to the full House for a vote, urges the EPA to not regulate pollution blamed for climate change “until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.” When some members of the committee questioned the “conspiracy” wording as “pretty inflammatory,” Rep. Mike Noel (R) claimed that climate change is “in fact a conspiracy to limit population not only in this country but across the globe”...

I'm struggling to describe just how seriously fucking insane this shit is.  I don't think we can call these people unhinged - they don't appear to have ever been hinged to begin with.  My own dear mother was more coherent back before she got diagnosed and treated for her bipolar disorder, and the toaster was telling her that people were going to come take her away.  I mean, at least the toaster was right.*

And then we had the raving bunch of nitwits who were oh, so delighted by D.C. getting snowed in, and continue to crow that it means global warming isn't happening.  Listen: you may be playing dumbfuck games in the snow.  Out here in Seattle, we're experiencing one of the warmest winters in memory.  Haven't seen so much as a flake of snow.  And we're going to have some seriously fucked frogs if things return to normal, because they've gotten all excited and think it's late March.  Here's how global warming works, you fucktards:

In reality, winter snows do not invalidate the reality that the planet just experienced the hottest decade on record. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming would increase the severity of winter storms. 

This past January was the warmest January on record for the planet. And as National Wildlife Federation climate scientist Amanda Staudt notes, winter storms are getting fiercer even as the season gets warmer. “The last few years have brought several unusually heavy snowstorms as warmer and moister air over southern states has penetrated further north, colliding with bitter cold air masses,” she explains.

But that's probably too sciency for these fucktards.  So, here's some helpful analogies for the terminally hard-of-thinking:

You visit the casino every month for a year.  You lose $5,000 in January, February, March, April, May, June, and July, then win a $5,000 jackpot in August, lose $5,000 in September, October, and November, then win a $20,000 jackpot in December.  You've still lost $25,000 fucking dollars, and on average, you are a fucking loser.  Just because you win big a couple of times doesn't mean you're beating the fucking house.

Or, try this: you spend January, February, March, April, May, June and July in a drunken stupor.  In August, you get thrown in jail for public indecency with a farm animal.  Then when you get out in September, you spend the next three months in a drunken stupor before spending two weeks in December sober because you got hospitalized for falling down the stairs while drunk, after which you are released and spend the final week in December guzzling down liquor.  Yes, you had six weeks of sobriety, but you're still a fucking alcoholic.

Understand?  No?  Sigh.  Well, some people do get beaten to death by the stupid stick at birth, and there's just not that much we can do about it.  But shame on the shitheels who do know better, and play this "it's snowing so it can't be global warming!" game so that their polluter buddies can go on polluting, and so that they can get votes from the reality-oblivious.

Let me just say one last thing, and it's to those who, like Inhofe's press secretary, think their own dumbshit "jokes" are funny.  Let me tell you something: it's not a fucking joke.  Especially not for those whose nations are literally vanishing beneath rising seas.

We could do with a lot less crazy, a lot less "joking," and a fuck of a lot more legislators actually acting like responsible adults.

*For those of you worried I'm disrespecting me mudder, she laughs hardest at that joke.  She's not afraid to have fun at the expense of the bad old days.