Brains: The Stupid, It Burns!

[elfs]

Heresy in the Hood!

In one of the most giggle-inducing articles I've read recently, Linda Harvey breathlessly claims that 1999 was a "relatively innocent year" when the first Harry Potter novel came out, but ever since then, so many children have been led to the Devil! that we must all be worried or something or other.

82 Year Old Woman banned from taking photographs of an empty swimming pool.

Man, this is just crazy. Apparently, taking pictures of where children congregate, even if there are no children there, is enough to warrant suspicion these days. (via Boing Boing)

"Exotic Forms of Sexual Expression In Our Military!"

Elaine Donnely, an anti-gay activist, testified in front of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Don't Ask Don't Tell, and she did not disappoint.

Donnelly treated the panel to an extraordinary exhibition of rage. She warned of "transgenders in the military." She warned that lesbians would take pictures of people in the shower. She spoke ominously of gays spreading "HIV positivity" through the ranks.

"We're talking about real consequences for real people," Donnelly proclaimed. Her written statement added warnings about "inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community," the prospects of "forcible sodomy" and "exotic forms of sexual expression," and the case of "a group of black lesbians who decided to gang-assault" a fellow soldier.

Apparently the last incident she described happened in 1974. She was so over the top that apparently even those on the committee who would normally be sympathetic to her position found her uncomfortable. Good. (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

New Age Ideas and Mass Murder!

This has to be one of the strangest things I've seen all year. The author of this hit piece argues that New Age philosophies and genocide "arise from the same source" and are therefore related. Uh-huh.

Open Mic Follies: Bush on the Wall Street Meltdown

Bush said at a private fundraiser the other day, "Wall Street got drunk, it got drunk, (it's one of the reasons I asked you to turn off your tv cameras.) It got drunk and now it's got a hangover. The question is how long will it sober up, and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments..." (via Brad DeLong)

McCain continues to lie about the surge.

John McCain not only continues to try and spin his screwup (he said that the "Anbar Awakening" happened because of the surge; however the Anbar Awakening started a year before the surge, and no troops allocated to the surge have been stationed in Anbar) but he continues to beat the drum that arguing that the surge was ineffective or unnecessary is an insult to our troops and our country.

The evil mastermind behind it all is...

Slate brings us a lovely interactive map showing us all the interactions among the different scandals in the White House, showing how almost every one of them filtered through Gonzalez's office while he somewhere in the executive branch, first as a White House lawyer, then as Attorney General.

He never struck me as very bright. There's a novel there, somewhere.

Playboy Bloopers [NSFW]

Finally, because we all need a mental health break now and then, a collection of shots gone wrong from Playboys past. It's nice to see that Anna Nicole Smith was something of a human being before all the cocaine and vicodin. The ones of models with huge yawns does take a bit of the magic out of the story, especially the one of Asia. (via Fleshbot)

Comments

[tagryn]

"...no troops allocated to the surge have been stationed in Anbar"

Actually, 4,000 Marines included in the surge were in Anbar. This was achieved by holding them in place longer, rather than rotating them back as their replacements arrived, so you can make your own conclusion as to whether they should be counted as "additional" or not, but its not correct that Anbar was ignored by the surge effort.