Barney Frank Slam's Rabid Rightists' "Vile, Contemptible Nonsense"

Barney Frank says arguing with wingnut "like arguing with a dining room table."



Great job.

Dump Glenn Beck -- It's About Time

It's about time people objected to the vitriol-speech of Glenn Beck, one of the many loudmouth fire-in-a-theater screamers that Reagan's Un-Fairness Doctrine produced. He's losing more advertisers. May he lose more. He's like Fred Phelps, but using the public airwaves.

HuffPo Sexism Spree Rages On: Today's Derision Target -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg

I am sure HuffPo will be running a poll on John Roberts' silly old eccentric wardrobe any day now. Clarence Thomas' too.

The Third-Worlding of America: GOP Runs Death Panels for the Working Poor

RAM usually goes to help the poor in Africa.

But, after 8 years of Bushist fascism, America is the new Africa.

The new third world is here at home.

Oh lookee! Working adults with no access to health care, weeping because they find, having waited in line for days to receive charity health care, that they have high blood pressure.

But they can't afford a doctor. And they can't afford the pills.

In the wealthiest country in the world.

Ain't that a shame?

Hey, Joe -- can you play a few bars of "Serfin' U-S-A"?

Sec'y Clinton Tells It Like It Is Re: Bush v. Gore' Puts Pundits' Panties in Big Fat Twist

Yes, it's a funny funny thing about our Secretary of State: when she tells the truth, or sets limits with questioners, some blowhards find it really upsetting.

And when the other Clinton tells the truth, some so-called libruls get their panties in a twist. Why is that? Is it Bush = Gore all over again?

Like T.S. Eliot Said, "Hurry up, please. It's Time" --- for --- NETROOTS NATION IN SECOND LIFE

Now's your chance, you proud Luddites. Hey, look. You can stay proud. You can stay Luddite. You can, as buddhists do, regard your coming to SL so very lightly -- as being like a dream, a flash of lightning, a bubble in water, a magician's appartion.

Impermanent. Not truly existent. Like a rainbow, like the disappearing dew on grass, like mist, yes, I could go on all day, but don't you really want me to stop?

Yes, it's true, time is passing, and now it's time for Carpe Diem time. Yes, I am now actively actually recruiting people to Teh Second Life lifestyle. No, srsly. This means *you.*

It's free. It's Green. It offers tangos. It transcends space. It's so durn super-progressive it would make Orrin Hatch weep,well, it would if he *had*tears.

What's not to love, eh?



Here's your portal to the portal to: NETROOTS NATION IN SECOND LIFE

Main Blames Cat For Kiddier Porn

A thousand images of child sexual abuse were downloaded into Keith R. Jensen's computer. Jensen, a Florida resident, claims his kitty did it.

No, really.

Family Friend Babysitter Causes "Severe Internal Injuries" to 4 Year Old

PORTSMOUTH - Police are seeking a man who is accused of causing severe internal injuries to a four-year-old boy.

It was determined that the juvenile suffered severe internal injuries and minor external injuries. . ," Doyle said.

Lorenzo R. Clark, Sr., 26, of Channing Avenue in Portsmouth, VA, is wanted on a charge of felony child abuse, Doyle said.

"Mr. Clark was a family friend and watching the child when the injuries occurred," Doyle said.

It's just a crime, not a scandal when a caregiving adult causes "severe internal injuries" to an actual 4 year old.

While millions prefer to weep for the notborn.

Alabama Mom Drags Kid By Leash Through Store

Yes, sure, it's cruelty to children.

But America's compassion begins with preborns. And ends there.

Found Art: From the The Other America

Question:

One can never start instilling the concept of "winners" and "losers" too soon, can one?

Answer:

Nope.

Tremonton City Days: Royal Babies

Not to mention instilling the serial notion, 1, 2, 3, and so on. An early appreciation of one's place in the hierarchy is crucial to child development and misplaced parental sense of self.



Hat-tip to Jesus' General' and his hometown paper.

Child Abuse Du Jour: Say More About How Kids Need Mommies & Daddies, K?

This five year old kid's mommy punished him by locking him up alone in a sweltering attic, naked, covered in feces. Did his mommy like being a mommy, you think?

The worst part was listening to the TV talking heads interviewing two adult males, the mommy's own daddy and her uncle, who seemed to think that mommy was doing a swell job of mommying, and that this tortured kid really was a handful who just needed some control.

The police report said that when officers unlocked a door at the top of the stairs leading to the attic they found the boy "completely naked, covered in feces from head-to-toe crying to "go downstairs.''

The room was covered in human feces and there were several children's finger markings along the wall, made with feces, that appeared to have been there for a considerable amount of time, the report said.

When interviewed on TV, the kid's grandfather and uncle were complaining about all this negative attention, insisting that this treatment is not child abuse, and that the mommy had been trying to get help, but nobody would help her, boo hoo, which is patently false. This happened in Lowell, MA, home of MassHealth, and home of child protective services that are available on a voluntary basis--overwhelmed parents need only pick up the phone.

But you know, so much for the postborn, let's save our worry for the feti, shall we?

Child Abuse Du Jour: List Incomplete

1. How about a little boy beaten to death in California, where they just cut funding for child protective services?

Really, screw the damn six-year-old tattletales. Kids should fend for themselves.

2. How about a daddy belt-beating his two-year old (with the metal end of the belt -- I always ask 'which end?') so hard the kid had a seizure?

3. How about a 23-year-old Omaha man charged with beating a 4 month old infant till she was critically injured?

It takes me about one google to come up with a passel of cases. But, you know, once the innocent preborns turn into postborns, who gives a shit?

Dirty-Diaper Fetishist Vitter Defends Southern Values

"Southern values"?

Is that what they call it these days?

[coughcough].

Virtue Is Its Own Reward But Pays No Pottersville Bills

Exemplary blogger JurassicPork of Welcome Back to Pottersville could benefit from a deeper appreciation of his work. Quickly.


Do do what you can.

Child Abuse/Neglect No Priority for GOP Gov Ahnold

I don't know if Arnold is a fetus-firster. I do know that he has just slashed funding for the department charged with dealing with child abuse and neglect.

I continue to be horrified by the upsurge in fetal sentimentalism, while the job of actually protecting actual kids from abuse and neglect remains so, well, neglected.

Feh.

Lindsey Graham Complains That Sotomayor Asks "Tough Questions"

I never said that playing the shrew card, calling a female temperamental, argumentative, and tough was sexist.

I never said that Lindsey Graham was a pussy, either.

Waterboarding Without Permission

Sure we tortured in 2002 well before we cooked up some lame excuse to justify doing it.

Whut's yer frickin' problem, pussies?

Via BBC interview: former CIA Agent John Kirakou pinpoints use of torture as early as the end of May/beginning of June 2002, well before the notorious Bybee memo.

All the Lonely People -- David Brooks' Groper Edition

So, here's an adult male who is being groped in the general genital area by a lonely male Republican politician who is so powerful that columnist David Brooks does not dare to tell the Senator to take his hand off Brooks' inner thigh, but allows the Senator to leave his hand on said inner thigh all during a dinner?



Which Senator might it be? Nominations?

Blast from Past. Deja Vu All Over Again, Again, Again

On Bush and the Agony of Mirror Neuron Retardation.

Real Torture Yields Fake Facts

Force-Feeding at Gitmo.

Preznit Toad-Exploder Spreads His Culture of Sadism

Torturz "R" U.S.

While We Weep Over Frozen Feti, Real Cruelty Marches On

America the beautiful.

More of the Same

Sounds like Sarah Palin and her gang of Pro-Life Killas, but -- it's not. No caribou were harmed. Not like in that picture, anyhow. That one was harmed. You know, as in, like, killed. Not living anymore. Deaded. Deprived of life. Anyhow.

It's just as bad, but different.

It's someone else hurting animals and children.

Because why not?

Teen Charged With Cat Mutilation

Cruelty to animals -- not a happy symptom.

The Vicious Mrs, (Palin) Calls It Quits. For Now?

I dunno why.

I dunno why Sarah Palin is throwing in the towel.

Affair with Sanford?

ADD restlessness?

Consciousness of guilt?

Unexpected pregnancy?

Seeking a Senate seat?

Wanting to earn money to pay to process all those rape kits?

Belatedly discovering concept of cruelty to animals, becoming Preznit of PETA?

Desire to found a charity brain trust to provide the underprivileged with idiosyncratic babynames?

Wishing to devote her heart and soul to a new socio-political movement to enrich the universe by means of tough laws enforcing compulsory winking?

NETROOTS NATION IN SECOND LIFE -- BE THERE OR BE SQUARE DUDES LIKE CLUELESS JOHN MCCAIN WHO CAN'T EVEN DO HIS OWN EMAIL OMIGOD

Well, but it's true. The be there or be square part. It's good to be an early adopter of virtual reality. Really.

Sure, you've heard that Second Life is just a game. And you've heard that life is just a dream. And that all the world's a stage. And that life is like a rainbow, a bubble in water, a dewdrop, a flash of lightning, a magician's apparition. All of which has nothing to do with the fact that likeminded persons who otherwise would not have the chance to meet have that chance by means of Indra's interNet. Start now, because why not, eh?

Start here. Or start here, at Virtually Speaking.

RIP Pina Bausch

Brilliant work.