Early Onset of Night

A little girl has set up a lemonade stand across the street from the hate group, Westboro Baptist Church.

The “church” (lol) was not amused, tweeting: *WHO* let nasty fags get hands on this poor child? #danger.

read about it

(Source: early-onset-of-night)

‘Inside the Actors Studio’ host James Lipton was totally a pimp

Well, according to him he was—in Paris even, where being a pimp can be classy.

“It was a great year of my life,” he says of his pimp period, his eyes no doubt misting over with nostalgia and his wrinkly old penis no doubt shifting positions in a failed attempt at an erection.

I’m only speculating in that final clause, just in case you were wondering.

But anyway, he was a young man in Paris. It was the 1950s and the city was still poor from the war. People couldn’t find work and it was perfectly respectable for young women to go into le milieu—prostitution.

I’m not sure how perfectly respectable it was, even in Paris, but that’s what James Lipton claims. But let’s play along, shall we?

James says he was “cleared” by those who ran le milieu and ended up managing an entire bordello of ladies of the night, managing them real good, baby.

“I did a roaring business,” James says, crossing his arms tightly across his chest to hide his really pointy nipples (again, speculation). Of the women, he says they were “young and beautiful and extraordinary”, not to mention “inspected medically” each week.

By him?

James Lipton went on to hold many other jobs, but who even cares? The guy was totally a pimp.

source : Parade magazine

(Source: early-onset-of-night)

The Life Deprived: Yale Bans The Dead

Citing inclusiveness, civility, and kindness, Yale University has banned the terms “dead”, “deceased”, and “passed away” when referring to, well, people who have died. From now on, while on campus anyway, such unfortunate folks are to be called “the life deprived”.

Yale has long been at the forefront of the speech code movement, which has swept U.S. colleges since the 1980s. A speech code is any rule or regulation that limits, restricts, or bans speech beyond the strict legal limitations found in society as a whole. Today, such codes are nearly universal on American campuses.

Elite, private universities like Yale have some of broadest speech codes in existence due to the fact that they are not state supported.

In 2009, Yale banned students from making t-shirts with an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote—“I think of all Harvard men as sissies.”—from his 1920 novel This Side of Paradise. The t-shirts were to be worn at the annual Yale/Harvard football game as a joke and part of the age-old rivalry between the two schools. The shirts were blocked after some gay and lesbian students argued that “sissies” amounted to a homophobic slur.

“What purports to be humor by targeting a group through slurs is not acceptable,” said Mary Miller, dean of the Yale undergraduate program.

No word on whether actual copies of the novel itself were piled in the middle of the quad and burned.

The ban on traditional terms to describe people who have gone to the Great Beyond is not sitting well with everyone.

“You know,” said Aaron Baily, a Yale sophomore, “I’m starting to think this political correctness stuff has gone too far.”

Harold Louis, a former Yale faculty member, said the ban “sets a terrible, very weird precedent.”

Others, though, expressed their support.

“Kindness should hold a place on a par with intellectual attainment,” said Rachel Withers, a Yale senior. “We should figure out how to speak in such a way that no one, not one single person, is offended. I believe in free speech as long as no one’s feelings get hurt.”

Kyle McNamara, a Yale freshman, says the ban on the terms “dead”, “deceased,” and “passed away” lets him know he’s not alone in his suffering. “It’s great to see support from an institution, from authorities. The old terms were pretty severe and lacked compassion if you ask me and it’s good to see them stricken from the language. This all really hits home with me personally because my grandma became life deprived when I was, like, eleven or something.”

see a rundown of Yale’s speech code

Alaska Congressman uses ethnic slur to describe migrant workers

In a move that could inflame the debate on immigration, Alaska Congressman Don Young (R-Dipshit), referred to the migrant Mexican laborers employed seasonally on his daddy’s ranch as “wetbacks”.

“My father had a ranch,” said the 21-term lawmaker in a radio interview with KRPD. “We used to have fifty, sixty wetbacks to pick tomatoes.”

This writer can only presume that his eyes were misty with nostalgia.

Of course, Congressman Young apologized. In the U.S., it is standard operating procedure to apologize whenever you get called out saying racist crap.

“I meant no disrespect,” he explained hilariously.

(Source: early-onset-of-night)

Tea Partiers Boycotting Fox News

The boycott centers around Fox’s lack of continuous coverage of the attack on the diplomatic consulate in Benghazi, Libya. In fact, one of the key demands is at least one segment per night on the 2012 attack that left four people dead.

The boycott’s web presence, Benghazi-Truth, a blogspot, reads “Conservatives are conservative because they are smart… By whining loudly about Benghazi without the kind of hard-hitting investigative reporting that brought down Nixon over Watergate, what we are seeing from FOX IMO is smoke and mirrors.”

Although the website’s writer is clearly not averse to internet shorthand, demonstrated by the use of ‘IMO’, he would be better served by inserting hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘LOL’s and ’ ;D ‘s.

The boycott organizers want Fox News to become a “right-wing CBS.” To “break news”; “break information”; and “break politicians”.

Especially Barack Obama, who, as the History Channel recently showed in its mini-series “The Bible”, is actually a young Satan.

Fox News’ ratings have been in the tank. Viewership is now at pre-911 levels. Perhaps viewers have become a little turned off by the propaganda muzak the channel plays that consistently fails to live up to reality. This was especially apparent in the last presidential election when the channel trotted out poll after poll showing Romney tied and in many cases ahead of Obama. Additionally, all of its pundits predicted a close and in some cases a handy Romney win. Or perhaps the viewers are just plain dying off (the average age of a Fox News viewer is 73).

Whatever the case, the boycott seems to have had little effect, except on the participants themselves, who are all jonesing bigtime for the steady stream of hysterical conservative bullshit that Fox News usually pushes.

“I am having withdrawal. I do like Fox News,” said Kevin Avard, a former state lawmaker in New Hampshire who is participating in the boycott. “I have been going to CNN and to Headline News just to get some kind of fix. I usually probably only watch them once or twice a year.”

Stan Hjerlied, 75, of Fort Collins, Colorado said “If I want news, I go to Breitbart News and Drudge and I can find all the news I need, very quickly.” He also said that he may have “kicked the [Fox News] habit” for good.

Donnie Farner, a chimney sweep from Pennsylvania, said that staying away from Fox News is harder than he realized. Farner runs a website, Proud Conservative, which sells right-wing products like “Liberals Are Friggin Idiots” t-shirts and bumper stickers which read “Ten Out of Ten Terrorists Recommend Voting Democrat.”

“Fox is everywhere,” claimed Farner. “If you are on Twitter, you click on a link, chances are it might go through Mediaite or Drudge, but it ends up at Fox because Fox originated the story.” He said he then quickly clicks away.

The boycott was scheduled to run from Thursday to Sunday.

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Kudos to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) for switching his views on gay marriage and embracing freedom.

Portman said he changed his mind and now supports marriage equality for all after learning one of his sons is gay.

“Who’d a thunk that gay people were, you know, actually people and that they’d want all the same freedoms other people have. Holy shit!” the Ohio Senator didn’t really say. “I have no choice but to switch my views now that it affects a person I know IRL.”

Portman’s reversal makes him the sole Republican in the Senate that supports freedom and equality for all, not just rich Christian white people who are straight.

Despite promising to maintain a lack of empathy for other groups of people he doesn’t know, Portman says he’s prepared to be ostracized by the dying political party he has served his whole life.

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This dog was found west of here, floating on ice in the Cheyenne River. It was completely wrapped in duct tape and dead.

The official story around here now is that it was already dead when wrapped—kind of like a duct tape mummy. Actually, they’re aren’t saying it was dead, but that there were “no signs of abuse” and that it was “wrapped with great care”.

Very odd.

When I first saw the story I was fucking ready to kill someone and so were a lot of other people. A local guy even put up a reward with his own money and other people joined in, pitching in their money. There was going to be a lynching—and rightly so, if you ask me.

However, now I’m not sure what to believe. Some people are saying that the official story is bullshit, put out to defuse the rage mounting over it. Also, my state has no felony animal abuse law.

Here in South Dakota you can wrap your dog in duct tape and watch him suffer to death, laughing and jacking off all the while, and will only get a fine, a slap on the wrist. Some people around here are saying this is another reason the press and officials are saying “No big deal”. As we all know, American government (whether it be state or fed) doesn’t like it when the people rise up and tell it what to do. As Americans, we’re supposed to consume, watch tv, post gifs of celebrities on Tumblr, and stay the hell out of the way.

I bet they’re still pissed about SOPA.

The guy who broke the story on Facebook, a citizen, says he called the humane society yesterday where the dog was taken for an autopsy and they told him the animal had head trauma. Now, today, there are no signs of abuse.

Hmm.

You must understand how the official press works in my state. It is very BLAH, intentionally so. It almost always avoids controversy of any kind and shies away from reporting negative stuff. Tourism is a huge industry here, so the official story is “Everything’s hunky-dory in South Dakota!”

I don’t know what to think about the Duct Tape Dog, but this is all very weird.

And there you have it.

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Two Pesticides You Probably Never Considered: Coke and Pepsi

In the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh, farmers have been using Coke and Pepsi as pesticides on their crops with much success for several years now. I know nothing about Chhattisgarh, not even how to pronounce it, but I did look it up on Wikipedia and learned that its governor is Shekhar Dutt, which made me feel smarter.

Using Coke and Pepsi as pesticides has proven so successful, especially from a cost standpoint, that sales of the sweet, syrupy drinks have skyrocketed in remote farming villages. Anupam Verma, Pepsi sales manager in Chhattisgarh, says sales figures in certain areas of the state have increased by more than 20%. The cola-as-pesticide trend appears to be happening in other parts of India as well.

The cost of using ordinary pesticides in India is around 70 rupees per acre, whereas using Coke or Pepsi (diluted with water so as to not kill the plants) costs just 10 rupees per acre, a savings of 85%.

This is not the first time the two big American colas and pesticides have come together in India. Back in 2006, unacceptable levels of pesticides were found in the drinks, resulting in a public relations nightmare for both Coke and Pepsi that is still (obviously) happening. Even the state of Kerala (Hansraj Bhardwaj, governor), home to 30 million people, temporarily banned the manufacture and sale of both drinks within its borders.

A number of theories have popped up as to why using Coke or Pepsi as a pesticide works. One, put forward by agricultural specialist Devendra Sharma, goes something like this: The drinks, which are basically pure sugar, attract both a metric and standard crapload of ants. These ants in turn feast on the larvae of the pest bugs, reducing their numbers. Another theory by fellow scientist Sanket Thakur says that all the carbs in the colas strengthen and steel the plants, making them tougher and better able to withstand attacks from pests.

My question is how did these farmers think to do this? How did it occur to them to spray Coke or Pepsi on their crop, in the hopes it would work as a pesticide? Was it because of the whole pesticides-in-Coke-and-Pepsi debacle of a few years ago?

Nah, that couldn’t be it.

Coke and Pepsi, of course, aren’t so keen on the idea of their supposed food products being used as bug poison. Vikas Kocchar, regional manager for public affairs and communications of Coca-Cola, says claims that the drink can be used as a pesticide have no scientific backing, while Anupam Verma, the Pepsi sales manager mentioned above, says the whole thing smacks of lies and is at best “idle natter”.

“If there was any truth in these claims,” he added, “then we would rather be selling our product as a pesticide rather than soft drinks. There is more money in selling pesticides than in selling soft drinks.”

So stay tuned, everybody.

Me, I’m more of a Pepsi guy myself—and I’d be lying if I said this story hasn’t given me ideas for this coming summer’s garden. I wonder if our Coke and Pepsi has as much pesticide residue in it as Indian Coke and Pepsi? Perhaps I will need to double the dose (or half it).

I particularly enjoy the Throwback variety of Pepsi, which uses a rare and mysterious ingredient called “real sugar”. Not as widely available as the high fructose corn syrup variety, it’s what I usually drink when I’m out of tea and beer.

I even conducted an experiment one time with Pepsi. I drank half a bottle of real sugar Pepsi and half a bottle of high fructose corn syrup Pepsi and sat the two bottles on the counter without their lids to see how they’d rot.

After a few days, mold appeared on the surface of the real sugar Pepsi, but not on the HFCS Pepsi. This is the God’s truth. Try it yourself and see. After more than ten days, no mold ever appeared on the HFCS Pepsi, but the natural sugar Pepsi became, quite literally, ghastly with mold. It rose thick and green from the brown surface of the liquid, craggy and mountainous, a miniature alien landscape. I also noticed that a cloud of fruit flies was hovering above it, whereas they seemed to be avoiding the HFCS stuff.

After about twelve days, I threw both bottles away because I was having company over and didn’t want to gross them out. I concluded the experiment with a question: if bugs and fungus won’t eat something, should I?

Anyway, I find this whole story of using Coke and Pepsi as pesticide delightfully entrepreneurial—in an even more delightful ‘screw you’ kind of way.

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Good advice as always from the great Mr. Rogers—although I coulda done without the quotes around the word disaster. A “disaster” is, like, a bad hair day or your boyfriend breaking up with you. Still.

Marriage Equality Opposition: The Bonfire of Vanity

Last month, Washington, Maine, and Maryland legalized same-sex marriage. They are the first states to have done so by popular vote. They joined six other states—New York, Iowa, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia—that had already enacted laws or issued court rulings permitting same-sex marriage.

Chris Gregoire, Washington’s governor, and Sam Reed, its Secretary of State, certified the election results of Referendum 74 on Wednesday afternoon, and marriages began happening this Sunday. Same-sex couples who previously were married in another state that allows gay marriage, like Iowa, will not have to get remarried in Washington state. Their marriages became valid here as soon as the law took effect.

The referendum asked voters to either approve or reject the state law legalizing same-sex marriage which legislators passed earlier in the year. That law was signed by Gregoire in February but was put on hold pending the outcome of the popular vote. Nearly 54 percent of voters approved the measure.

And that’s the thing: most people support marriage equality. Even conservative commentator George Will, appearing Sunday on ABC, said opposition to it is “quite literally” dying off.

A new survey by Gallup shows that the majority of people who oppose marriage equality do so on religious grounds or on the vagaries of homosexuality being “against nature”, which is one of the stupidest phrases the human race has ever invented. If something occurs in nature (and where else could it occur?), it is natural. Homosexuality is not only a facet of humanity, but one that also occurs widely in the animal kingdom. The only difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality is that, statistically, one is less common. Blue eyes among us humans are less common, too.

Gay people have always existed, of course, but a true gay subculture didn’t emerge until the 1690s, about the end of the Reformation era. It happened in London and Amsterdam, Europe’s two most pluralistic cities at the time. The promises of real Reformation during that time, however, were lost due mainly to the heinous concept of Sola Scriptura (Latin for ‘by Scripture alone’).

Protestants during the Reformation came to view the Pope as an Antichrist and usurper for proclaiming himself “head of the church.” But instead of dethroning the Pope and acknowledging the lordship of Jesus (Col. 1:18), they installed the Bible in place of the Pope as infallible and supreme authority over the church. Thus we have the irony of the Bible being thrust into the role of the Pope, the Protestant Antichrist and usurper. 

Sola Scriptura is merely a book-shaped Pope. The Word of God was now “the letter that killeth” (2 Cor. 3:6) and the iron rod with which the clergy wielded authority over the flock. Ultimately, the Reformation failed.

The problem, then, in viewing the Bible as inerrant, infallible, as the All rather than that which was given by the All, is that your particular interpretation of it, which is merely opinion, becomes inerrant and infallible as well—vanity, in other words.

No two interpretations of Scripture are alike. This is why there are so many divisions and paths within Christianity. Not all but most are certain they have a monopoly on truth, but really they are just prideful of their own take on truth. Thus they are legalists, the new Pharisees, lovers of an inert, dead letter law that does nothing more than give them certainty in their own opinions and informs and feeds their own personal vanity and, in the case of opposition to marriage equality, their own personal bigotry.

True, one could surmise that Paul was opposed to homosexual behavior, but not so with Jesus. The Son of God and Man said nothing of it. Paul was also very accepting of institutionalized servitude, including slavery. Christians get around this by interpretation. They speak of “in Paul’s time” or “what Paul REALLY meant”. Their personal vanity and bigotry won’t allow them to do this with his statements on homosexual behavior, however. Those statements they choose to interpret as set in stone—in dead, cold, inert stone.

Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love our neighbors as ourselves. Therefore, it is our Christian duty to allow our neighbors to live their lives as they see fit, especially in matters as personal and private as conscience and love. That’s what we do for ourselves, right?

People who oppose marriage equality should get over themselves, should get over their vanity and their bigotry. They should stop using Scripture like a whore to justify themselves.

If a person is opposed to gay marriage, fine. We should all respect personal conscience. But all that person has to do is not get gay married. Simple.

We live in a free country that is, at least in the area of civil rights for homosexuals, getting freer by the minute. If you truly believe other people should live their lives according to a certain interpretation of a sacred book, perhaps you should move to Afghanistan and get to work trying to re-establish the Taliban. Everybody, after all, needs a spiritual home.

Oh, and congratulations to all the happy couples!

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This Week In Douche Bags: Ted Nugent

On Monday, December 3rd, the editors of the Washington Times got all baked on kine bud and allowed Ted Nugent to write an article for their right-wing propaganda rag which pretends to be a newspaper.

It was beyond hilarious.

In it, the Nuge blasted welfare recipients (the poor ones) and called for their right to vote to be taken away. “Let’s … stop the insanity by suspending the right to vote of any American who is on welfare,” he said.

I previously wrote about the Nuge in this column when he won the coveted Dork of the Month Award in April 2012, which was a long time ago. Every month, though, the Nuge says or does something stupid. He’s even better than Palin or The Donald. I could have been writing about him this whole time. The guy really is playing footsie in another dimension, to put it lightly.

I have a few questions for the Nuge and his call to disenfranchise so many people who live in red states:

What about your Party’s future? Don’t you realize, Nuge, that the Republican Party is a delicate balancing act between three groups? It’s a tripod, basically, of Pharisaical Fundie Christians, the super rich, and poor white people. What happens when you kick out one of the legs of a tripod? That’s right: CRASH! Admittedly, these three groups combined no longer contain enough people to win national elections, but by eliminating the poor white people pod, it will contain even less people. Of the top ten states which receive the most welfare, eight of them are red. Imagine if Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Kentucky suddenly became swing states, Nuge. Just imagine it.

And which welfare recipients are you talking about, Nuge? In your article, you said “any American who is on welfare”. Obviously, as a Republican, you are talking about poor welfare recipients who are all lazy, scum-sucking peasants, especially if they’re black, but what about rich welfare recipients? Logically, wouldn’t we have to get rid of their right to vote also? What about all the free stuff and handouts they get? What about all the corporate welfare, the farm subsidies, the oil subsidies, the comically low taxes which are really just a form of welfare, too? What about all the tax breaks we give companies so they will build their big box stores in our towns, destroying all the mom-and-pops? Logically, Nuge, you would have to disenfranchise the super rich, whose status is maintained and whose pockets are lined by welfare and entitlements. I am rich, therefore I am ENTITLED to not pay a tax rate as high as a school teacher.

There goes another pod of the tri, Nuge.

That leaves us with the Pharisaical Fundie Christians. Their snake oil, bullshit hallucination of Christianity isn’t bought by the vast majority of Americans anymore, but they are still your best recruiting wing, Nuge. They make Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and that propaganda rag you’re writing for look like dog-and-pony shows. These churches are like Republican factories. Millions are indoctrinated from birth. And they are tax-exempt! Talk about a free ride from the government. Wow.

So what do you call a tripod without any pods, Nuge? I call it gone, nonexistent, the sound of one hand clapping.

Of course, we all know you’re a joke and no one takes you seriously. I mean here you are, a man who pooped his pants to avoid the draft, lecturing us on what this country needs. Damn, though, are you fun to write about!

See you soon, sweetie.

*smooches*

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