World News Korner

Courtesy of Brancy's blog:

Will somebody please find me one of these??

There’s a new trend in men’s style, and I’m loving it!

You’ve all heard of the ridiculous “metrosexual,” the well-groomed guy who cares more about shaping his eyebrows that I do, has liberal political views, and might even carry a man purse?

Please.

Meet the “lumbersexual” – he smells like wood. Loves being out in nature. Wears a full beard, leather boots, denim, plaid — and of course, flannel. (“It’s like Ron Swanson mixed with Ryan Gosling,” the article said.)

Well, this is what a man should look like!

I’m not the trendiest person, but I would welcome this one with open arms.

Well somebody is certainly putting it out there aren't they?

So Bristol is on the make again? And this is the kind of guy she is looking for with open......arms?

Now why does this seem familiar to me?

Oh yeah.

Well you know some things just never change.Update: To be fair this is the photo that Brancy used on the original post.

The one I used was just what I found when I Googled "Lumbersexual."

Sorry if that confused anyone.

Source

Look at that!

Doesn't that look good?

Yeah I think so too. I love going to the movies and that looks right up my alley.

I mean I love the director Ridley Scott, I am a big Christian Bale fan, and big extravagant films like this are why I go to the movies.

Except I am not going to see it. Ever!

Why you may ask?

Because it is all bullshit that perpetuates a myth that is incredibly destructive and vilifies an entire nation even though there is absolutely NO evidence to support it.

Don't believe me? Here you go:

It turns out that there is no archaeological evidence of any kind relating to a separate settlement of religious people in Egypt during that time. There is also no evidence of any kind relating to a mass migration across the Sinai Peninsula.

If things did indeed happen as it says in the Bible (and the Torah), there would have to be some archaeological evidence. But there is none.

Further, there is no evidence of any kind that Egypt even used slaves, and certainly no evidence that they enslaved an entire nation. The workers that built the pyramids are known to be well payed Egyptians. The pyramids weren’t even built in the right time period, being 800 to 2,000 years older than the supposed “Exodus”.

The same techniques used to track the migration patterns of ancient humans by examining DNA also show that there was absolutely no procreation between ancient Egyptians and ancient Israelites during the time that the story was supposed to have taken place. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if an entire nation was enslaved for hundreds of years, surely there would have been some inter-breeding.

In short, this story never happened.

There is more here and here if you need further convincing.

Last year I was talked into going to see the movie Noah, starring Russell Crow, by my daughter.

However halfway through I thought "Well this is just religious bullshit. And by purchasing a ticket I am financially supporting this religious bullshit and probably helping to convince movie makers to create more of this religious bullshit."

It actually bothered me for days afterward, and even though I tried to rationalize it by reminding myself that I also watched the movie Troy, which is also based on mythologies, I still couldn't do it.

You see it is easy to dismiss a craptastic flop like Kirk Cameron's recent Christmas movie, but these movies support the mythologies that are vital to propping up a religion that, let's face it, is now well past its sell by date.

You see I dearly love fantasy movies and will gleefully spend my hard earned money to watch all kinds of completely unrealistic action sequences on the big screen. I like horror movies, superhero movies, dinosaur movies, Liam Neeson movies, you name it.

However in most cases the line between fantasy and reality is pretty easy to identify. (Though I actually have problems with movies about demonic possession as well because I think they perpetuate a superstition that can be quite harmful to people with mental health problems.)

And besides at least Captain America movies never promoted a mythology which supports the oppression of women, makes it alright to hate gays, and is actively trying to destroy scientific education in this country.

I'm just saying.

Source

This is an excerpt from a Boston Globe story entitled "Joining the Military doesn't make you a hero:"
When soldiers were part of society, people recognized them as ordinary human beings. Now, with the emergence of the all-volunteer army, society has transferred the burden of war to a small, self-contained caste cut off from the American mainstream. This distance allows civilians to develop extravagant fantasies about soldiers that feed the militarist impulse. If we believe our soldiers are superheroes, it makes sense to send them to faraway battlefields to solve our perceived problems in the world. That is why, in this era of seemingly endless war, politicians, the defense industry, and even big-time sports compete with each other to promote hero-worship of soldiers and veterans.

This serves the cynical interests of those who, for political or business reasons, want to encourage American involvement in foreign wars. Even worse, it distracts attention away from the scandalous way we treat our veterans. Cheering for them in public and saluting them in cliché-ridden speeches is a way to disguise the fact that our society callously discards many of them. Shocking rates of unemployment, mental illness, homelessness, addiction, and suicide among our veterans constitute a national disgrace. It is far easier, however, to spend a few seconds applauding a smiling soldier than to contemplate a troubled veteran left behind by an uncaring country.

The soldier acknowledging cheers at a ball game is a fantasy figure we can easily admire. Veterans in need are more disturbing, so we keep them invisible. If we truly considered our uniformed fighters heroic, we would show them real gratitude rather than the phony kind that gives us a shiver of momentary pride but does them little good.

This issue has been bothering me for quite some time, only in today's world discussing it is tantamount to treason in the eyes of many.

I think we have all seen politicians giving lip service to our military men and women, and then turning a blind eye to their needs after their service is complete.

The suicide rate for veterans far exceeds the number killed in combat, and even if they do not kill themselves many others are diagnosed with PTSD and have significant trouble reentering civilian life.

By labeling them "heroes," and giving them almost mythical abilities, we forget to treat them like the fragile human beings that they are.

In the end we place them on a pedestal and then abandon them as if they were a marble monument to bravery, instead of a thinking, feeling, suffering, member of the human race.

Source

Courtesy of the Seattle Times:

Federal prosecutors say they will review an incident in which a Seattle police officer punched and seriously injured a handcuffed, intoxicated woman, after King County prosecutors said Friday they won’t charge the officer.

Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for acting U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes, said her office will look at the June 22 incident involving Officer Adley Shepherd for a possible federal criminal civil-rights violation.

The decision comes after King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced that his office would not seek a state felony charge against Shepherd, 38, a nine-year department veteran, for punching Miyekko Durden-Bosley in the back of his police cruiser.

This case is a little different than what we have all seen lately on the news.

For one the woman lived, and two the cop that injured her is black not white.

However even though race may not the issue this time around the unnecessary use of force most certainly is an issue.

Just take a look at the video of the arrest. (Punch is at the 2:50 mark.)

It is clear from the tape that the woman, was intoxicated and being quite disruptive.

However it is also clear that the police officer struck her in anger and NOT because he was trying to subdue her or in fear of personal injury. She had her hands locked behind her back for fuck's sake.

And once again there is video to prove that something terribly wrong happened, and STILL the Seattle prosecutor did not do his job.

That has to make ALL of us wonder just how many miscarriages of justice are happening every day where there is no video and nobody ever even knows they happen?

Yes cops need to be outfitted with cameras. That is step one.

But then when prosecutors see on those tapes that the police did something like this, they need to respond appropriately. THAT is step two.




Source

Yesterday when I posted that photo of Palin with a dead boar, with a link to Bristol's blog where she mentioned a "rock Star," a bunch of you put two and obvious together and determined that she must be visiting Ted Nugent's Spirit Wild game farm.

And you were right.

Here is the blurb under that picture from the Motor City Moron's Facebook page:

Had a wonderful day with Sarah & Todd Palin at our home on SpiritWild Ranch in TX today. Great Americans, great people, great patriots & great warriors on the side of good in this vile culture war against the America haters & subfleebs on the mongrel left. I presented the good Governor Palin with a phenomenal custom blackpowder rifle created by our Spirit BloodBrothers the LaCasse family at the Gun Room in Portland OR

Jesus, this guy makes me sick!

But hey who would you expect Palin to pal around with except a pants pooping pedophile with a gun fetish? I mean really?

So now we know who most likely killed this poor animal.

Update from Teddy's Facebook page:


It's never too early to get into the gungho Christmas Spirit, is it? I mean, Merry Merry Happy Happy Christmas Holidays to everyone everywhere. And tho Im certain you all celebrate these special Holidays with much gusto, Im afraid NO ONE celebrates it quite like the Nugent Tribe. Ho Ho Ho, BloodTrails in the snow, a merrily we all go! DoubleLive SantyClause is dead YOWZA!!

Oh yeah, Nugent is a real piece of work.

Source

Courtesy of Salon:

Femen’s manner of protesting has not proved to everyone’s liking, to put it mildly, but one thing is certain: In an era of rising political disaffection and apathy, people pay attention. Bare breasts are not incidental to Femen’s struggle. The movement has aimed to wrest conceptions about women’s bodies from the clutches of the three (doctrinally prudish and phallocratic) Abrahamic religions that would shroud them, partly or in full, in cloth as well as in shame. Toplessness is, in Femen’s view, a means of boldly violating gender- and faith-based societal norms; and atheism has formed a part of the Femen canon since the movement’s inception in 2008.

Atheism has been dear to (Inna) Shevchenko in particular: Her own life has been shaped and even upended by her fight for secularist ideals. In protest against the harsh, Orthodox Church-supported prison sentence Pussy Riot received from the Russian authorities, in August 2012 she chainsawed a towering wooden cross in central Kiev in her native Ukraine. Publicly threatened as a result by Ukraine’s conservative President Viktor Yanukovych (deposed last year) and facing charges of “criminal hooliganism” for her deed, she fled to France and established Femen’s first outpost abroad. There, she soon rocketed to fame (better said, infamy), leading her militants in a multitude of fiercely faithless demonstrations in favor of women’s rights and same-sex marriage that pushed Gallic tolerance of free speech to the limit. Perhaps most controversially, she inspired the depiction of the revered (and bare-breasted) heroine of the French Revolution Marianne now gracing the country’s postage stamps, becoming the only foreign woman to do so. This still infuriates France’s nationalistic (and ascendant) far right, which has called (unsuccessfully) for the stamp to be withdrawn.

The Salon reporter, Jeffrey, Taylor, asked Shevchenko why she is so aggressive in criticizing the new pope, her answer was rather interesting:

“The pope said he recognized the Big Bang,” she answered. “He sees how his doctrine doesn’t accord with progress, so he says things like this. He also said, ‘Who am I to criticize gay people?’ Just for this, we’re ready to hand over Parliament to him? This is just his strategy so he can come and speak at the Parliament. He says God isn’t a magician and wins great popularity even with some atheists. But if we believe him, we’re twice foolish; we become slaves of the most powerful religious institution, the Vatican, and then we invite him to Parliament. This just shows how stupid we [atheists] are and how clever they are.” She paused. “Not many Americans know that the Vatican received its statehood from Mussolini … It’s highly symbolic that Vatican statehood was created by a fascist.”

Very good points all. Clearly this is yet another Atheist who thinks the Pope is a little too good to be true.

(Nudity below the fold.)

The topless militants of Femen have a new target, Fox News and Sean Hannity.

Taylor also asked Shevchenko if Femen had any new targets in their sites:

There was one other target Femen would like to strike: Fox News.

“Anyone in particular there?” I asked.

“Femen doesn’t reject people, it rejects ideas.”

I pressed her to name names. She ventured one: that of talk-show host Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity! An attack on him would earn Femen evergreen laurels in a yet-to-be-erected pantheon of progressivism. A more deserving target of the movement’s bare-breasted ire would be tough to imagine.

Personally I think this is the kind of thing that Hannity will not be unable to resist talking about, and if he does that will only mean that Femen has successfully manipulated him into publicizing their movement on one of the most popular cable news shows in America.

It may be easy for some to dismiss these woman due to their use of nudity to garner attention, but these are certainly not bimbos.

These are very intelligent and driven women, who are making quite a name for themselves in Europe and Russia.

And they certainly had not difficulty getting the attention of at least one world leader.

Personally I welcome any help in taking down Fox News and Sean Hannity in particular.

Source

Courtesy of Death and Taxes:

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Pastor Scott Lively’s petition to have a crimes against humanity lawsuit against him dropped.

The anti-gay pastor will stand trial in a federal court in Massachusetts for his part in crafting Uganda’s notorious Anti-Homosexuality Act, popularly known as the “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill was largely the product of a workshop held in Uganda by Lively and two other american anti-gay activists, focused on “how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how ‘the gay movement is an evil institution’ whose goal is ‘to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Look, apparently you can still get justice in America. Assuming of course that he is eventually convicted.

This bill in Uganda has spread fear throughout the gay community, and among those who have friends and family who are gay. And resulted in a dramatic spike in the number of attacks on homosexuals.

Of course these charges have done little or nothing to change Lively's homophobia:

Lively said that homosexuality is a Satanic attack “on the very essence of who we are” that God has deemed a more offensive abomination than mass killings: “When you look in the Bible, there are sins that you would think of as worse, you know, murder or mass murder, but what does it come down to? Leviticus 18 tells the Hebrews exactly what it is that God identifies as the most rebellious behavior, the behavior that causes the land to actually vomit out its inhabitants and every item on that list, except for child sacrifice, is sexual perversion, and child sacrifice is often a form of sexual perversion. So that’s where we are.”

“Homosexuality is not just another sin,” he added, “it is the sin that defines rebellion against God, the outer edge of rebellion against God and it is the harbinger of God’s wrath, that’s why the Scripture gives the warning, ‘as in the days of Noah.’”

Oh yeah this guy needs to spend some real quality time in prison.

Source

Courtesy of HuffPo:

George W. Bush says that he badly wants his brother Jeb to run for president -- and that if he were to face off against Hillary Clinton, he would "absolutely" beat her in a 2016 matchup.

"He knows I want him to run," the former president told Candy Crowley on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. "If I need to reiterate it, I will: Run, Jeb. I think he'd be a great president."

Asked if he considered Clinton to be "formidable," Bush said, "Very much so. No question. So is he, though.

"I think he'd beat her," he said.

I have a policy against ever agreeing with Bush on anything, but I think he is not to far off here.

While I don't necessarily think that Jeb could beat Hillary for the presidency, I will say that he has the best chance hands down of doing so.

If he runs, and it really looks like he will, 2016 is going to be an incredibly ugly campaign season.

Probably even worse than what we saw done against Obama this last time around.

The thing to remind everybody about is that Jeb helped to steal the election for "W" in 2000, and his brother then damn near destroyed the country. All of the problems that this country has faced in the last fourteen years, that the Republicans keep trying to blame on President Obama, are the the fault of George W. Bush. And by extension the brother who handed Florida to him on a plate.

That simply CANNOT be stressed enough.

Source

Courtesy of Brancy's blog:

So my mom literally jumps off a snowmachine while we’re all in the new powder in our backyard the other night, she hops on a flight to Texas for season 2 of her Sportsman Channel show, “Amazing America with Sarah Palin.”

First thing off the plane, she bags a big fat wild Texan hog! I love what she gets to do to show you how amazing America really is! She’s out hunting by again today with a superstar, and I’ll let you know if she’s successful.

Yeah that is almost unbelievable. REALLY unbelievable in fact.

Especially considering how her LAST attempt to prove her hunting bona fides went down.

Gee I wonder who cocked her rifle for her this time?

I just feel badly for the animals that are hand raised on these farms and then gunned down by tourists or reality show stars desperate to prove their "hunting" prowess.

Source

Courtesy of Reuters:

President Barack Obama, who had medical tests on Saturday after complaining of a sore throat, is suffering from acid reflux, the president's physician said.

"The president's symptoms are consistent with soft tissue inflammation related to acid reflux and will be treated accordingly," Obama's doctor, Captain Ronny Jackson, said in a statement.

Now of course that is the official explanation, however some conservatives are convinced that Obama's sore throat is simply proof that he is gay.

Which of course is a ridiculous contention, because my ex-wife had sore throats all of the time and I can assure you it was not due to any activity that she might have had in common with gay men.

However I would also like to voice my skepticism about this diagnosis based solely on the fact that I think acid reflux is one of those fake TV diseases, like restless leg syndrome, and erectile dysfunction that advertisers use to sell us medications that we do not really need. (I mean seriously who CAN'T get an erection?)

Not only that but the medications to "cure" these diseases always seem to have side effects significantly worse than the problem they are curing. Such as fracturing bones, increased risk of liver failure, and rectal bleeding.

That's right RECTAL BLEEDING!

Guess what, if my choices are legs that move around at night or bleeding out of my ass I will simply tie my damn legs together with rope or something.

Anyhow whatever the President really has, and I would assume it is probably a sore throat from swallowing all of the conservative BS these last couple of years, I hope he gets better,

Because we still need him.

Perhaps now more than ever.




Source

Courtesy of TPM:

As communities around the nation protest decisions not to charge officers who have injured or killed suspects, South Carolina prosecutors have obtained indictments against three white officers for on-duty shootings of unarmed black men in the past four months.

It might seem unusual that officers would face charges in a law-and-order state like South Carolina. But a former prosecutor with some high-profile cases under his belt said officials are acutely aware that people think there is a good ol' boy network in the state and are extra careful to give cases involving police officers the highest level of scrutiny.

"As prosecutors, you are well aware of that stereotype and so you go that extra mile to make sure justice is done," said state Rep. Tommy Pope, who served 13 years as a chief prosecutor and perhaps is best known for his prosecution of Susan Smith, who was convicted of drowning her two sons in a lake.

It took nearly four years for a grand jury to hand down a murder indictment in the latest South Carolina shooting. A white former police chief and at the time the only officer in the small town of Eutawville (YOO'-tah-vihl) was charged Wednesday in the 2011 shooting death of an unarmed black man after an argument, a case that instantly drew comparisons to the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting and the chokehold death in New York.

Wow who thought that South Carolina would break from the pack?

Or rather not so much breaking from the pack, but seeing the writing on the walls.

It is always hard to see the silver lining when such incredible miscarriages of justice occur, but if we start to see an increase cops being indicted for using excess force or deadly force, especially when dealing with black people, then perhaps the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown will not have been in vain.

Source

Courtesy of the AP:

Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy has denied Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana a fourth term, calling his Senate victory "the exclamation point" on midterm elections that put Republicans in charge on Capitol Hill for President Barack Obama's last two years in office.

With nearly all votes counted, unofficial returns showed Cassidy with a commanding victory in Saturday's runoff as he ousted the last of the Senate's Deep South Democrats. In the South, Democrats will be left without a single U.S. senator or governor across nine states stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.

Of course this is just the latest win in a string of victories for the Republicans who essentially ran the board this election cycle.

The Republicans were able to convince the barely attentive voters that President Obama was an abject failure and slime any Democrat who had dared work with him to pass legislation. Resulting of course in the loss of several Senate and Congressional seats.

Landrieu was doomed from the very start.

However that is the factual explanation for what happened.

In Sarah Palin's world she done did it.

Yeah of course she was trying like crazy to get Bill Cassidy's conservative opponent Rob Maness elected up until the official November, at times even seeming to be blissfully unaware that he had no shot, but she showed up in that airport hangar for Cassidy (She even got all dressed up.), and that is all she wants people to remember.

When the chips were down and her candidate was crushed like a ball of soggy wet tissue paper, she suddenly decided that Bill Cassidy was her guy all along and she went to work for him. Which in her case meant a Facebook post or two, and showing up in an airport hangar in her "trolling for men in bars" outfit.

I mean if she had not shown up to support Cassidy who knows whether he could have pulled off this victory or not? (Spoiler alert: He would have.)

Source

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

“They believe that freedom is license to do whatever they want,” the Catholic League president explained. “They don’t want to be told anything, which is why they die prematurely, they’re unhappy, that’s why we have a disproportionate number of agnostics and atheists in the asylum, all of this is true.”

Donohue said “secularists” have an inferior “mental health, physical health and degree of happiness,” adding: “They got to work it out, fine, I’ll help pay for their therapy, just take your hands, your mitts off the Catholics during Christmas.”

One has to wonder just how many secularists Donohue has even knowingly met in his life.

By the way, and this is really not proof of anything definitive, but in my personal experience people who are suffering from a substantial mental health problem are quite often profoundly religious people.

In fact one of my all times craziest experiences was dealing with a young man who was in the middle of a psychotic break and having an actual back and forth conversation with Jesus about whether he should kill me or not. (Apparently Jesus said no to that. Good guy that imaginary Jesus.)

Not to be too flip but it is hard to take a person who believes that wine and crackers magically turn into blood and flesh seriously about who is, or who is not, crazy.

Just saying.

Source

The idea that seemingly rational people can say, or accept, this kind of thing absolutely boggles my freaking mind.





Source

Apparently Charissa Thompson, a reporter from EXTRA, is tweeting about going "hunting" with Sarah Palin as a promotion for the second season of Amazing America.

Wait for it...My assignment in Texas: Go hunting with Sarah Palin. I'm going to say that again. Go hunting with Sarah Palin. You're welcome
— Charissa Thompson (@CharissaT) December 5, 2014

Welcome for what exactly?

My day... 🐴 @SPORTSMANchnl & Sarah Palin .. It was fun, to say the least. Catch our interview on @extratv next week pic.twitter.com/MokHKfYk44
— Charissa Thompson (@CharissaT) December 6, 2014

Gee riding a horse just like her idol Ronald Reagan. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Ten bucks says there will be no footage of her horse running or galloping, and that in every scene it will only be walking slowly along with a pack of handlers nearby in case it gets spooked.

Personally I am dying to see how they film her fake hunting scenes.

Hmm, I wonder if they will use CGI this season?

Source

Courtesy of CNN Money:

Hiring surged in November as employers added 321,000 jobs, crowning 2014 as the strongest year for job growth since 1999. The unemployment rate remained steady at 5.8%, according the government report released Friday. That's down from 7% this time last year.

Hiring blew out the consensus forecast from economists surveyed by CNNMoney, who expected a gain of 228,000 jobs.

"The number is almost off the charts, given what we've seen over the past 10 years," said Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic research at accounting firm CohnReznick, who does not feel it's an anomaly. "Companies are making up for hiring that was deferred earlier in the cycle."

The U.S. economy has been gaining an average of 224,000 jobs a month over the past year. Any month with job gains over 200,000 is considered strong.

Gee it's too bad that President Obama made the poor choice of being born with too much pigment in his skin, or this might really really impress people.

I swear if they announced that this man had cured cancer the conservatives would bitch about all of the doctors and researchers that he had put out of business.

By the way somebody remind me, who was the President in 1999? And WHICH party did he belong to?



Source

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Anti-immigrant activist William Gheen, the head of Americans for Legal Immigration, stopped by VCY America’s “Crosstalk” program yesterday to discuss how a coalition of “big tycoons and kings and princes and emperors” is trying to take America down through immigration, thus taking away power from Americans who celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and the Fourth of July, and his cunning plan to stop this from happening by having Rep. Louie Gohmert or Rep. Steve King ascend to the presidency.

“The megawealth of the planet has never really been happy about the United States of America and this entire concept that we the people are self-governed and in charge and that big tycoons and kings and princes and emperors, like Obama’s acting like, are not in charge,” Gheen said. “And they’ve found a way to take over our corporations, to take over our media, to take over our country by facilitating a very costly and deadly illegal alien invasion.”

He warned that Americans are in “mortal danger” from immigration and from the “growing anti-Christ spirit and anti-Christ movement in this country that is becoming stronger and more emboldened as the traditional conservative center-right Americans are displaced in our jobs and our politics and elections.”

Aww, the brown people are giving this William Gheen guy a case of the sads.

So does he have some plan for turning this whol thing around?

Oh hell yeah!

But luckily, Gheen has a solution. When a caller asked about how to “remove Obama from office,” Gheen proposed a simple plan. First, he said, “we’re working on Boehner and McConnell right now because those dominos have to fall and we can move to the next phase.”

The next phase, he said, would be for Congress to impeach and remove both President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Then the final piece of the puzzle comes into place: get Rep. Louie Gohmert or Rep. Steve King elected Speaker of the House, so he can ascend to the presidency until the next election is held.

Okay well first off that is the most convoluted plot I have heard in some time, and I have been binge watching the BBC series "Sherlock" for the last several days.

And secondly, though I do not usually consider myself the type to take up arms against my government, if somehow Louie "freaking" Gohmert were to be put in charge of the country you can bet I will be leading the northern resistance out of Alaska.

And here I thought the worst thing that could happen is for Sarah Palin to be elected President.

Source

Courtesy of Alaska Journal of Commerce:

New Gov. Bill Walker took office Dec. 1 and ordered immediate changes in top echelons of state government. Walker brought back several top officials from Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration for senior positions in the natural resources and revenue departments.

These include Marty Rutherford, who was deputy Natural Resources commissioner under Palin and one of the architects of the ultimately failed Alaska Gasline Inducement Act, or AGIA, project.

Walker named Rutherford as acting resources commissioner and as permanent deputy commissioner, a position she held before.

(Marty Rutherford was a close Palin confidant who is widely quoted in this 2011 ADN article on Palin's decision to quit her job.)

Another former Palin official, Marcia Davis, was named acting commissioner of Revenue. She was deputy Revenue commissioner for tax under Palin.

I thought that getting rid of Parnell would signal an end to Palin's influence over Alaska and its policies, but now I wonder if I was a little too naive in my thinking.

This does not necessarily mean that Palin is pulling any strings, but if there are puppets to be manipulated I think we know the puppeteers quite well.


Fuck.

Source

As I am sure many of you remember Cameron went on Facebook to beg people to give his truly ridiculous movie a good review on Rotten Tomatoes because it was being trashed by regular movie goers.

You know, people with taste.

Well clearly that didn't help at all, and today the film has the unenviable rank of 0% on the Tomatometer.

If that were not bad enough (And really it should be don't you think?), the film also found itself on the absolute bottom of IMBD's list according to ratings.

It is even considered worse than Son of the Mask, Glitter, and something called Invasion of the Neptune Men.

Which only goes to prove that you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you simply cannot force your obvious Christian propaganda down people's throats just because you were once a semi-famous sitcom star.

(H/T to the Friendly Atheist.)

Source

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Some in Congress have already expressed their solidarity with Garner and other victims of police brutality. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), the sponsor of legislation to curb police militarization, made a moving tribute to Garner, speaking about police militarization and including the phrase, “I can’t breathe” between each statement—the phrase Garner said as his life was choked away, and which has since become a rallying cry for protesters.

Here it is in its entirety:

“Black men and boys killed by police.

I can’t breathe.

Impunity for the killers—no justice, no peace.

I can’t breathe.

Militarized police met peaceful protesters on their knees.

I can’t breathe.

Weapons of war—a show of force on our streets.

I can’t breathe.

Disenfranchised youth driven to violence as speech.

I can’t breathe.

Cynical media makes this great TV.

I can’t breathe.

This cowardly Congress afraid of losing our seats.

I can’t breathe.

Half-hearted reform when there’s more that we need.

I can’t breathe.

Just thinking about the despair that it breeds.

I can’t breathe.

Black lives matter. Hear my pleas.

I can’t breathe."

Okay that gave me chills.

Source

Courtesy of Change.org:

It's a book that encourages readers to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get 'god' points – and now Target are stocking it and promoting it for your Xmas stocking.

This is The Holy Bible. This book means that after various sex acts, readers are given options to kill women by stoning her unconscious, Setting them on fire, cutting off their hands, and killing their children!

One of many fan passages on In The Holy Bible depicts woman being set alight for having sex "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9).

This misogynistic book literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence.

Just knowing that women are being portrayed as deserving to be sexually used by men and potentially murdered for sport and pleasure – to see this violence turned into a form of entertainments is sickening and causes us great pain and harm.

This book spreads the idea that certain women exist as scapegoats for male violence. It shows hatred and contempt for women in the sex industry and puts them at greater risk. Women in the industry are 40 times more likely to be murdered by a man than any other group of women.

Books like this are grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women. It is fueling the epidemic of violence experienced by so many girls and women in Australia - and globally.

Target, you pride yourself on being a family company, caring for local communities, and have a strong ethical sourcing policy. How can you do this while contributing to hostile and callous attitudes toward victims of violence and, more broadly, to all women?

Please put ethics before profits and make a strong statement that you do not condone sexual violence, sexual exploitation or the abuse of women as ‘entertainment’.

Well it's hard to argue against all that now isn't it?

It is hard to imagine that Target would comply with this request, but it is worth noting that the petition is only 134 signatures shy of reaching its goal of 25,000 as I write this.

So that tells us something.

And I do so enjoy tilting at windmills sometimes.

Source

ANNOUNCER: Meet Rachel. She’s a NEWS ANCHOR with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious:

RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale.

MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true.

MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them?

ANNOUNCER: From MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknight’s at 9.

Okay so that's the promo, which I like, but I have to admit the change of title did not even catch my attention.

Did it catch yours?

Well it certainly caught the attention of some people:

You won’t likely see MSNBC host Rachel Maddow filling in for Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News.” While Maddow is usually described as the “host” of a cable news show, she is rarely called a “news anchor.” Her own NBC bio describes her as a “host”–and never even uses the word “journalist.”

So it’s worth noting that a new MSNBC promo flips the script, describing Maddow as a “news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate.” Conservative critics immediately jumped on the promo, noting that previous “Lean Forward” promos for MSNBC included hosts like Maddow talking about their passion for progressive issues. “Given the MSNBC host’s long track record of pushing her agenda it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering Rachel Maddow anything more than a liberal commentator with a cable news show,” writes Jeffrey Meyer at NewsBusters.

You know I would agree that Rachel is a liberal, I think that it obvious to everybody.

However if she has an "agenda" it is that facts are important, and that they, not political agendas, should determine if a story is newsworthy or not.

It is not her fault that facts tend to have a liberal bias.

Whenever I am asked by anyone who is the most trusted voice on any topic in the news I do not even hesitate to say "Rachel Maddow." I have a lot of respect for Lawrence O'Donnell, and many others on MSNBC, but my go to host, I'm sorry news anchor, is ALWAYS Rachel.

Some have even compared her to the great Edward R. Murrow, and I think that is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate comparison.

There are those who want to argue that MSNBC's low ratings indicate that none of the hosts are terribly impressive, but I would say that is mostly the fault of marketing and has nothing to do with Rachel's reporting.

In my personal opinion Rachel Maddow is the most trusted voice in news today. And I think it is high time she is recognized for that.

Source

Courtesy of TPM:

President Barack Obama did his best Stephen Colbert impression Monday night when he crashed "The Colbert Report" set early and kicked the host out of his chair.

Obama came out just in time for a segment called "The Word," which he renamed as the more presidential "The Decree."

"Nation, as you know, I, Stephen Colbert, have never cared for our President," Obama began. "The guy is so arrogant, I bet he talks about himself in the third person."

The segment was ostensibly about healthcare, but the Colbert writers poked fun at Obama throughout. As Obama touted HealthCare.gov's nearly one million new sign ups, the text to the right of the screen read "so, half as popular as a Grumpy Cat video."

For some reason the President's sometimes halting delivery made this even funnier.

The guy may have the best sense of humor in presidential history.

Afterward there was a legitimate, if sometimes silly, interview which you should not miss either.

You can see part one here. And part two here.

Source

"Christian women's group opposes building of women's history museum." Yep you read that right.

Here is the story:

The Christian group Concerned Women for America (CWA) has been trying to stop the construction of the National Women’s History Museum in Washington D.C.

The House approved the museum in a 383-33 vote earlier this year, but a similar bill has been blocked in the Senate by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), noted the New York Daily News.

“Whose view of history is this going to be?” Penny Nance, CEO of CWA, told The Daily Caller earlier this year.

Concerned Women of America CEO Penny Nance.

Nance claimed that the museum would espouse pro-choice, anti-marriage and anti-family positions.

Incredibly enough the museum sponsors even offered Nance a chance to participate in the museum's direction. Guess how that went:

However, conservative Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), who sponsored the museum bill in the House, denied Nance's claims were true and even offered Nance a seat on the museum commission.

Nance called the offer an "exercise in futility and frustration" because it wasn't the chairman position.

“I am happy to either serve or find someone else to serve as chairman,” stated Nance.

Yes why wouldn't you put a person, who clearly has no concept of the struggles that women have undertaken to provide her the opportunity to participate in the the founding of a museum in their honor, the chairmanship?

Now you might find the idea of a women's group, ANY women's group, opposed to the building of a museum honoring women to be almost impossible to rationalize.

But that is because you do not yet realize that Concerned Women for America is not REALLY so much a women's group as it is a conservative group promoting Christianity, carefully hidden behind women's skirts.

In fact on their list of top issues are :

Sanctity of Life
Defense of Family
Religious Liberty
National Soveregnty
And of course Defense of Israel.

Somehow I do not think that these issues were among the top priorities for the women who fought for the right to vote, or own property, or hold elected office in this country.

Here is CWA's Mission Statement:

The mission of CWA is to protect and promote Biblical values among all citizens — first through prayer, then education, and finally by influencing our society — thereby reversing the decline in moral values in our nation.

Oh yeah, SO pro-women don't you think?

In fact it seems to me that this is really just the same anti-women, Christian misogynistic group, railing against the feminists, that we have seen for years now.

Only this one wears lipstick and nail polish.

Source

Courtesy of USA Today:

"There are some indications that the release of the report could lead to a greater risk that is posed to U.S. facilities and individuals all around the world," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday. "So the administration has taken the prudent steps to ensure that the proper security precautions are in place at U.S. facilities around the globe."

The report's release by the Senate Intelligence Committee sparked a fierce debate in Congress.

Some lawmakers said it's important for the report to be released so the U.S. government will never again use torture as a method of interrogation. Others said it will inflame extremist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere and threaten the lives of U.S. diplomats, military members and other Americans overseas.

The Intelligence Committee is expected to release Tuesday a 500-page summary of a 6,200-page report on the the CIA's use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" against al-Qaeda prisoners during the George W. Bush administration.

While the revelations of torture are not new, the report will detail the broad scope of the controversial practices, which took place at secret detention centers in the Middle East and Asia. It also will allege that the CIA tried to hide what they were doing from Congress and the White House. Perhaps most controversial of all, it will conclude that the CIA's tactics failed to gather any useful information to save American lives.

"The president believes that, on principle, it's important to release that report, so that people around the world and people here at home understand exactly what transpired," Earnest said. He added that "something like this should never happen again."

There are of course dire warnings that the release of this report will result in attacks on American soldiers overseas, of course many of those are coming from folks who are about to look really bad when this thing comes out, but in the end I think it is important that Americans come to terms with what we did.

We mistreated people for no other reason than somebody somewhere did not like them and told the CIA that they were a terrorists. Based on such slim evidence we captured and tortured some of these people for many years.

These techniques created far more terrorists than we have ever captured or killed, and it has inspired the formation of groups like ISIS which are now terrorizing people all over the Middle East.

And because we were afraid we turned a blind eye to what was being done in the name of protecting the homeland.

Which by the ways sounds uncomfortably like something that was said in Nazi Germany in the 1940's.

Source

Speaking of Comedy Central pundits, this month is the Colbert Report's last month on the air.

It's finally episode will air on December 18th.

So Colbert is really pulling out all of the stops and will broadcast from Washington D.C. on Monday. His guest will be a certain President of the United States, which I think indicates the kinds of people who are fans of the show.

These two shows have often served as an oasis of sanity during incredibly divisive times, and I for one will be incredibly sad to see one of them coming to an end.

Source

I had never heard of this comedian before but his explanation is so spot on that I thought it was worth sharing.

Source

Courtesy of KXII:

Family and friends are mourning the death of a former Stringtown and Murray State College basketball player.

Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokespersons said the 23-year-old man was accidentally shot Friday by a 3-year-old.

Family members were at a home on Wells Street in Stringtown, and were sighting-in a rifle, when one of the children reached over and pulled the trigger, shooting Brown in the neck.

Just a reminder that guns make perfectly harmless people incredibly dangerous.

And now this child has to live their entire live knowing that they killed a man even before they learned what death was.

Source