Different Day, Same Shit.

I’m worried about the white people. It happens every so often. They’re attacked for that which they cannot help—their whiteness—and that which they can help—their whiteness. Since Lena Dunham’s new project, “Girls,” premièred on HBO a few weeks back, black journalists, women of color, and any number of blogologists have weighed in on the show, citing the great discrepancy between their concerns—the rightful representation of people of color—and what Dunham’s show actually reflects: her concerns.

While New Yorker writer Hilton Als plays the "Best Black Friend" role by empathizing with Dunham's day-to-day travails of unbearable whiteness, I can't be bothered to care for Dunham's myopic introspection into a relatively sheltered life and perspective that many wish they could dive head-first into.

I didn't know what to make of HBO's latest foray into post-hipster television. At first, the show was worthy of being dismissed as just another vapid "Pretty White People with Problems" show. Kinda like "Sex in the City," sans sunspots and the overwhelming aroma of desperation. Turns out it's a self-absorbed showcase of the latest in "mumblecore," apparently defined as a bunch of twenty-somethings with self-induced "problems" that turn out to not be problems after all.

Many black American bloggers were miffed about "Girls" being rather...mono-cultural in a sense. Once you realize that this is all going on through the eyes of people encased in their own sheltered, privileged bubbles, it starts to make lots of sense. As far as they're concerned, people who are not "like them" rarely exist outside of "[ethnic] best friend" or other utilitarian scenarios.

So Als feels that Dunham has no obligation towards a true representation of the environment surrounding "Girls" and is instead entitled to portray her immediate NYC surroundings the way she wants. Fair enough. Too bad most people just don't relate to the whitewashed environs in which the characters move about.

Despite epic amounts of cheerleading from Jezebel and other online venues, most people just aren't feeling this show. It seems, for the lack of better words, fake. Many people know what it's like to live as a twenty-something struggling in NYC, but not the way it's portrayed in "Girls."

Eileen Jones of The Exiled skewers and roasts the show on a spit. One of the comments from that article puts it all in perspective:

Of course we know 20 something, white females, are not the only group of people living in NYC. But I am glad to see a show that focus on this demographic. Everything show does not need to appeal to every group of people in the world, that’s not the point.

Ever notice how some people whine about a show focusing on a black demographic requiring the inclusion of a white perspective? Keep this in mind whenever they start up a rant on that front.

"America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in," Akin said, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune.

In the ongoing War on Student Loans™, which itself is an offshoot on the GOP War on Everything That Isn't Laissez-Faire Capitalism or Fundamentalist Christian Conservatism™, House Rep. Todd Akin compared federal student loans to a terminal cancer coursing through the veins and lymph nodes of a bedridden America. As one of three GOP candidates vying for the chance to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill, Akin needs a memorable sound bite for the low-information set to remember him by.

Akin's attack on federal student loans as a socialist device led me to wonder about the genuine meaning of socialism and how conservatives are using the word to tar and feather any remotely helpful federal program that doesn't feed kickbacks to the right conservative interests. The ever-helpful Merriam-Webster dictionary has three definitions of the word for us to work with:

1. Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
2. A system of society or group living in which there is no private property, or a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
3. A stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.

I'm not a scholar of the works or ideology of Karl Marx, so I won't attempt to delve into the intricacies of Marxist theory or how it relates to economics and so forth. All I know is that the man's mug tends to get conservatives in a tizzy. Ditto for the whole concept of socialism. Seems that anything that involves sharing or doing for everyone else's good gets conservatives all fired up. Republicans play on the fear of Democrats putting paid to the second definition by forcefully expropriating private businesses and properly a la Atlas Shrugged or a shoddy second-tier dictatorship to gain loyal conservative votes. Most Americans don't have that good of a grasp on what the above really means to genuinely understand how they're being played.

Republicans are masters of taking otherwise innocuous words and converting them to four-letter epithets -- just about anyone can see what they've done to the word "liberal." It's gotten to the point where many Democrats are scared shitless to even appear as a dreaded "liberal," instead preferring to trend as close to GOP-lite as possible without changing party mascots. Using "socialism" as a four-letter word to discredit government programs is just one of the many tricks in the GOP magic bag.

It's gotten to the point where "socialism" can be readily defined as any government action that benefits the poor, disadvantaged or minorities. Exceptions include programs that funnel taxpayer money to corporate interests and traditional GOP pork projects -- that's helping out "job creators," "standing up for America," etc,. Basically, anything that does not benefit conservatives can be written off as being "socialist."  Even entire people can be tarred and feathered as being "socialist," as the "socialist Marxist communist Kenyan Usurper in Chief" himself can attest to. In short, if it's against conservative interests and helpful to liberals, it's deemed "socialist."

We've been through this before with the "Red Scare" and communism, but that was only because the Soviet Union was locked at the hip to those words*. Still, it worked out pretty well for Joe McCarthy until he was asked if he had any decency left. "Communism" as a four-letter word hasn't worked as well against China, which practices a nominal name-only form that's closer to what some conservatives really want, which is unfettered capitalism on steroids and beta blockers. Americans were thoroughly conditioned to the binary response of "communist = bad" and today, it's the same for "socialism."

One of the biggest mistakes that liberals and Democrats make is fighting against these transmogrified words, as it only adds credence to how "bad" these words are. When insults are hurled at Republicans and conservatives in general, they go so far as to use them as a badge of honor or a term of endearment. When Dems twist themselves up explaining how their ideas are not "socialist," they wind up buttressing the new meaning given to the word. Not saying that the Dems should accept being "socialist," but it would help if they would just sometimes say "so fucking what?" every once in a while.

As an aside, let's take a closer look at Akin accusing the federal government of getting all up in America's Kool-Aid:

....the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in...

Of course, until you get to abortion, gay marriage and basically anything that has to do with morality. The federal government is free to mess about in that business, but it must most definitely fuck off when it comes to doing anything that's actually noteworthy, like regulating businesses or making sure rent-seeking corporate interests not have free reign over the nation's economy. You know, that kind of business.

*Funny how the German National Socialists escaped that ignominy. Of course, it helps to have a catchy shortname ("Nazis") and not visibly identify one's self to Marxism. 

Loesch: You're a scapegoat. They're trying to suggest that you said something that you emphatically did not say.

Nugent: Absolutely ... I have never in my life threatened anyone's life. I am incapable of threatening anyone's life. Because, I'm about positive change.

Ted Nugent is now a "positive change agent." A "Come to Jesus" meeting with the Secret Service can do that to just about anyone, especially when the safety of the president is involved. Considering the current status of the man who brought us "Cat Scratch Fever," making threats is about the only way the man can keep himself on the bleeding edge of the constantly moving spotlight.

The above interview is fitting. You have a woman with a pissing fetish talking to a rank coward who did what cowards are wont to do when securely separated by distance and plausible deniability.

Of course, America's Favorite Rented Negro just had to give the Nuge cover for his latest outburst:

"I think he was just expressing maybe his opinion about something and of course everyone wants to sensationalize things but let's leave it up to the Secret Service to interview him and get to the bottom of it...I don't think the Motor City Madman has any ill will toward the President of United States of America,"

Of course not. This is a guy who literally shit his pants and feigned insanity to avoid the draft.

In another effort to lend himself some publicity, Nugent hitched a ride on the Mitt Romney Express to Irrelevancy and Failure. Turns out Romney only wants paying customers on his tour.

What the GOP really wants is less Nugent and more bashing Hilary Rosen for hurting Ann Romney's feelings.

"I'm not sure about these cookies. They don't look like you made them," Romney said to the woman sitting next to him. "No, no. They came from the local 7-eleven, bakery, or whatever."

Come on, Flipper. You can't just diss someone's cookies like that and get away with it. Meanwhile, 7-Eleven shows Mitt a little somethin' about how the PR game actually works. Classy.

There's a Chirpstory on the whole affair after the jump.

“Listening to Prosecutor Corey blow herself and her staff for five minutes before pre-passing judgment on George Zimmerman. The state seeks reelection again, truth aside. I and my coworkers could rewrite the book on whether our urban youths are victims of racist profiling or products of their failed, shitbag, ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents, but like Mrs. Corey, we speak only the truth. They’re just misunderstood little church going angels and the ghetto hoodie look doesn’t have anything to do with why people wonder if they’re about to get jacked by a thug.”

The above quoted came from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue captain Brian Beckmann. You could have found it on his Facebook page*...if he hadn't deep-sixed it after the outrage it generated. As many have mentioned, he had the minerals to mouth off, but none to which he could stand behind his words.

“I am a private citizen and have the same right to freely express an opinion on any subject that anyone else does. I choose not to embellish or alter the facts as your employer chose to do.”

Brian, I think Bob Norman wants to have a few words with you. So do most supporters of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

If Fire Chief William Bryson has any sense of preservation about him, he'd put this to bed quick and let Beckmann mouth off to his heart's content in the comfort of his own home while he draws unemployment.

By the way, both parents of Trayvon Martin are gainfully employed. Even if they weren't, it shouldn't matter. Just like the recasting of Trayvon's image into stereotypical thugdom, recasting his parents as welfare cases is just part and parcel of how some people wish to justify not only their own bigotry, but as a way to dismiss and belittle those misfortunes that visit black Americans day after day.

Meanwhile, in a seedy, forgotten corner of the Internet:

The man is dead on when he states that (he) has the right to (his) opinion same as anyone.
Does anyone really think those yard apes are going to allow that to happen?!
Just more fuel for their fire.

Classy folks in those corners.

* If Beckmann had a personal page, it must had been scuttled. Search queries turn up several Brian Beckmanns save for the actual Captain. The closest I've gotten was the Local 1403 page.

"I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year."

The above quoted didn't come from some shut-in FReeper on his Gateway 2000 and its blazing fast 56k connection. It came from Ted Nugent. Don't know who Nugent is? He's the guy who made "Cat Scratch Fever." Still don't know who he is? Don't feel bad. Most people wouldn't know who Jason Newsted was, either.

I wonder why he thinks he'll be either dead or incarcerated after Obama wins his second term. Is he planning to make a cross-country trip on a coke/meth/hooker run while keyed up on PCP and "shrooms," only to OD or wind up in the slammer after the cops box in his rented Winnebago and drag him out in his undies, kicking and screaming all the way?

I'll admit, I'm not a rock fan. Never was. From what I hear, Nugent's talent was a marginal one and his appearances in the spotlight came about from controversy stemming from his conservative views. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the above was simply a way for Nugent to get some well-needed media exposure. Some might say that negative attention beats no attention at all.

And since I'm not a rock fan, I'll let someone who's more familiar with the genre explain why Ted Nugent made such a monumentally stupid statement against the president. Tom Degan has a post up on why "The Nuge" deserves a dunce cap and some time in the corner.

Field Negro always has a colorful bunch of anonymous characters who emulate electronic pimples on the ass cheeks of Internet humanity. Today, the stupidity was amped up by a factor of five. If you read through the comments section, you'll see comment after comment featuring truckloads of bigotry and abject idiocy. Quite a few voiced a thinly-coded desire to deal with their "Negro problem" by force. I understand and respect the Field's Open Door policy, but if this isn't a good advertisement of why moderation is essential to a sane and asshole-free comments section, I'd be hard pressed to find anything else.

One anon excerpted the following from novelist and antebellum Southern romantic Thomas Dixon, Jr., whose work inspired D.W. Griffith's infamous motion picture, "Birth of a Nation":

"Since the dawn of history the Negro has owned the continent of Africa rich beyond the poet's fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a White man showed him its light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never built a harness, cart or sled.

A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber, he never carved a block, sawed a foot of lumber or built a house save of broken sticks and mud.

With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for 4,000 years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizons calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed of a sail. He lived as his fathers lived - stole his food, worked his wife, sold his children, ate his brother, content to drink, sing, to dance, and sport as the ape.

And this creature, half child, half animal, the creature of impulse, whim and conceit, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; a being who left to his will, roams at night and sleeps in the day, whose speech knows no word of love, whose passions once aroused, are as the fury of the tiger - they have set this thing to rule over the Southern people ... Merciful God ... it surpasses human belief."

What you just read here is 1)elevation of white self-esteem at the expense of people of color and 2)justification for the enslavement and continuing mistreatment of people of color, most notably Africans and black Americans. It's a cavalcade of sociopathic behavior that leads individuals to turn ordinary human beings into tea cozies and lampshades. When applied on a national scale, you get events such as the Holocaust, Australia's systematic elimination and marginalization of Aborigines and the liquidation of Darfurians and other dark people of color from Sudan and other North African nations. But nowhere is the insanity more visible than within the United States.

You can take a look at how conservative-minded and even "progressive" white Americans have flipped out and lost their minds over the Oval Office's current resident. Electing a "P.O.C." as president caused many people to lose their shit and devote their time and energy to denigrating and discrediting a man who has so far done his best to elevate Americans out of their current fuck-up without fucking up or getting assassinated. Extraordinary color arousal led to the formation of the Tea Party and its capture of the GOP. The end result of that moment of abject insanity will most likely result in millions of die-hard conservatives being conflicted by their undying hatred of the "Marxist Socialist Kenyan Usurper" and their utter dislike of magic Mormon Mitt Romney as a presidential choice.

A fallback to a tired tome from a tired Ku Klux Klan admirer deserved a response:

Interesting how the glorification of the antebellum American South always came with some denigration or castigation of blacks as an inferior species. Black inferiority was also useful for justifying slave ownership. After all, where would those poor Negros be without white guidance via ownership?

One reason for constantly and consistently deeming one group of people inferior to another is to deliberately keep them at the bottom of the socioeconomic totem pole, especially if you're aiming to maintain them as an easily accessible pool of manual labor. Just as one would breed horses and cattle, the wealthier plantation owners and other scions of the Old South bred Negros. Keeping them demonized and disliked was a ploy to keep poor whites from sympathizing and uniting with them and everyone else from realizing they were just as human as their fellow whites. Manufacturing the myth of the Negro as a slow-witted and slue-footed creature did wonders to cement negative opinion of them in the minds of passive individuals, nevermind if Negros were often the hardest working men and women in the entire country, by default.

Just as conservative-minded Americans are persuaded by Wall Street into cutting their own throats in the name of austerity and tax cuts, descendents of the Old South have graciously eaten bowl after bowl of shit representing the supposed inferiority of the Negro. It helps keep lesser minds preoccupied with their hatred of the other tribe and it helps the wealthy and well-connected maintain their prestige, wealth and power.

The so-called inherent superiority of "whiteness" was required to keep the "peculiar institution" afloat and keep fellow whites united with their betters and separated from their "lessers." When the abolition movement and northern industrialization threatened that institution, succession became the Old South's ticket to continued national psychopathy. The Civil War could had put that superiority theory to bed for good, but the desire for brotherly bygones and the need for a new social punching bag brought about the continuation of that flawed theory.

Sadly, the incessant need to marginalize blacks to subconsciously prevent some sort of karmic retribution from coming into fruition guarantees the continued propagation of supposed black inferiority throughout the American landscape.

My sympathy for Mark Judge died a few days after his bike got stolen. It was on a Good Friday that the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor came back from a wonderful day of activity, only to see an odd sight.

He saw his bike. He also saw a rather large Negro holding his bike, forcefully liberated from its secure bounds. Before Mark could respond, the naturally swift-footed Negro took off in an instant. Mark gave valiant chase, but the fast twitch fibers afforded by his extra set of leg muscles allowed the strapping Negro to leap across five lanes of traffic and pirouette gently onto the roof of a five-story building. Mark's gaze met the cold, soulless eyes of the elusive Negro for a brief moment, and in a flash, the Negro was gone. And so was Mark's bike. Negro stole Mark Judge's bike.

Of course Mark Judge didn't actually see who stole his bike and neither did anyone else. He merely assumed that the only way his bike could had been stolen was if a Negro gentleman of a large and strapping size or a team of small, crafty and fleet-footed Negroids illegally liberated his conveyance from its moorings. When his friend warned Judge not to jump to race-tinged conclusions, that was the final straw that broke the biker's back. No longer would he be moored down by his own burdensome white guilt. No longer would he actually have to give those black fiends benefit of a doubt. No longer would he be subject to the politically correct demands of treating blacks as human beings without undue suspicion. Judge was finally free to consider his safety in the same manner John Derbyshire asked of his sons.

In short, Mark Judge finally found the vindication he needed to emulate the so-called "fear" that his white counterparts "experienced," while comforted in the knowledge that with a single phone call or cry, he could have that awful Negro "subdued" via taser or bullets by a cadre of surly and unforgiving law enforcement officers. In some states, merely feeling that since of "fear" is enough to end said Negro's life, as a man by the name of George found out.

Having your bike stolen sucks. They're by far the easiest things one could steal and get away with. Seems like no one gives a shit if they see a guy (or even a black guy *gasp*) working over a bike lock or chain with a rusty hacksaw and lots of elbow grease. Someone might even give the guy a hand if he plays his story right. But I lost sympathy for this cancer survivor the moment he allowed his ignorance to override his judgement. Anyone could have stolen Mark Judge's bike. Even the seemingly nice monks could have his beloved silver-blue L.L. Bean tucked away in a quiet corner of the Dominican House of Studies, awaiting a tricked-out flame job and some new front brakes.

Oh, who am I kidding?

I stole his bike.

Now that I feel sorry for him again, he can come over to my house and get it back. Of course, he'll have to look around for a while. When he shows up, I'll wish him good luck.

Remember that long-running thread from Something Awful highlighting the epic stench of stupidity and failed aspirations emanating from the lovely Free Republic? It's still going on strong, with twice the stupid, twice the bigotry and double your daily recommended amount of Vitamin Asshole™. FReepers (not to be confused with the far more admirable Detroit Free Press or "Freep") have proven to be a hardy breed, even during the challenging "dark age" (hehe) that is the Obama Administration. Sadly, all signs of a white lord and savior have proven to be for naught this election period, especially since perennial asshole Newt Gingrich's chances of being the GOP's designated golden boy are as good as Rick Santorum's.

For a moment, imagine the House That Jim Robinson Built as an old and decrepit rancher built back in the 1950s with peeling vinyl siding and droopy gutters. The lawn seems manicured to a tee, until you run across the various weeds that've been cut down instead of uprooted. Rusted burn barrels and car doors litter the backyard. The backyard itself is bare in most spots and littered with brass casings. A half-finished bunker is out there somewhere, but you dare not climb over the fence to look for it. Parked nearby are various full-size American trucks in various states of disrepair. Out front near the garage is a newish Toyota with a huge American flag screenprint on the window and a "Don't You Fucking Re-Nig" sticker on the bumper. The windows are either boarded up or simply covered in dust, dirt and grime.

You reach the front door and eye the sign informing you of your impending demise if you're black, Mexican, gay or a Democrat supporter. Open the door and you're confronted by a noxious stench that incapacitates people from the next county over. It's a hoarder's paradise. You brush past tall stacks of years old newspapers, gun magazines and printed emails featuring cartoons poking fun at Bill Clinton and Al Gore. You clamber over mountains of sweat and shit-stained clothes. You step gingerly over piss puddles, rotted food, empty Viagra and Cialis bottles and cat shit. Lots and lots of cat shit. There are empty dog food cans littered all over the place, but no dog. Ol' Nagger's been dead for years now.

The kitchen has stack after stack of dishes piled up, all dirty and unwashed since 1999. The fridge does not work. Of course it doesn't work. Part of a skinned deer carcass stands in the corner, rotten and maggot ridden. You pass another room that's filled with guns, laid out carefully on a nearby bed. The guns are well taken care of and there's stack after stack of ammo in the corner, with more out back in a shed.

You approach the bedroom located at the back of the house. Hunched over a Gateway 2000 desktop is a FReeper, personified as a morbidly obese man. An old USMC cap covers his shaved head and a well-worn inhaler administers medication for his severe asthma. The room is enveloped in a foul cascade of shit, sweat, pit odor and failure. A nearby printer slowly pounds out an image of Michelle Obama in a mammy outfit and Barack Obama in a butler suit, both serving a perky-titted Sarah Palin and a massively corpulent Rush Limbaugh. The ghost of Ronald Reagan looks on with approval while an American eagle sheds a single tear. You can barely see the Free Republic board through the green-tinted CRT monitor. You notice something on the man's plate. It vaguely looks like...dog food?

You quietly back away from the horrors in front of you, only to trip over an ill-placed copy of "Guns and Ammo" and land face first into a puddle of goddamned cat piss. You rouse the FReeper. He's pissed. He picks up something, but that something isn't one of the many guns in his collection. No, it's two dead cats, each fitted with...viking helmets? He starts swinging wildly. You clamber over the magazines, the rank clothes, the old newspapers, desperate to find a way out of this miserable hell. You reach the door and it's...locked? You turn around and it's just you, the FReeper and the makeshift dead cat nun-chucks he dubs the "Viking Kitties..."

Let's cut away from that highly unpleasant imagery and begin examining two examples of abject stupidity, the first representing blatant bigotry that's been coded for your pleasure (but just barely):

The simple solution would be for them to go to Africa, just “go”, live in a mud hut, breed and figure out how to kill each other. They sure as hell don’t belong in a civilized world.

I’ll chip in boat fare.

The above plays into the "All Blacks Are Savages™" theme while satisfying the "exotic creature/dangerous creature" prerequisites. The dehumanization effect is already built in, fortified by the rock-solid assumption that all blacks are criminal in nature and thus forth undeserving of any human treatment. So of course, the best way to deal with that pesky "black problem" is to ship them "back" to their "homeland." After all, it's where their ancestors got them, right? Doesn't matter which country on the African continent, they all look alike. *chortle*

Funny how these folks think problems can be solved by shipping them off. Negro gets uppity? Ship him downriver to another owner. Indians on "your" land? Have the U.S. government ship them off somewheres. Daughter gets diddled by Uncle Ted? Ship her off to relatives or a boarding school. She's pregnant? Ship the baby off to an orphanage. Baby's half-black? Say, where did that Negro get off to...

Nevermind two asshats who think their problems can be solved with man-sized crates and a UPS label. The following is perhaps the most blatant sympathizing for the ultimate personification of failure and victimhood: the Confederacy:

Lincoln was a Tyrant and a Atheist who used just enough phrases from the Bible to sound Christian. The South did not start a Insurrection against the Federal government but instead tried to leave the US and they started their own government!

Lincoln was the Poster Child for Adolf Hitler. The Nazi’s studied Lincoln’s war against the South to learn how to overthrow a government yet seemingly keeping the people from knowing they were destroying their own government.

Show me one instance were a Southerner tried to take over the US government! You can’t because it never happened!

The deaths of nearly 750,000 people and the dislocation of nearly 500,000 more rest solely on Lincoln’s head! He may not of killed as many people as Hitler but his war plans were the blueprint that Hitler used in Germany and against other countries.

In essence, Lincoln was a tyrant for putting an end to the tragicomedy that was the Confederacy. In preserving the Union, he became worse than Hitler, Tojo and William Tecumseh Sherman combined. The deaths of those 750,000 rest solely atop the man's stovepipe hat and not within the hands of men who thought succession was a wonderful idea.

BTW, let's ignore attempts by pro-slavery figures to induct more slave states into the Union prior to the Confederate clusterfuck.

Amazing how Confederate fans can wrap themselves up in pity, victimhood and delusion, something those same individuals constantly chastise black Americans for supposedly doing*. The Free Republic is chock-full of these nuts and I tip my hat to the folks at SA for not only making this happen, but also for having the courage and intestinal fortitude to provide (paying) viewers with a front-row seat to the Saddest Spectacle on Earth™. It's like a Gallagher show, only you have a two old, grizzled white guys spraying pressurized shit from a septic truck onto the audience. Have your rain coat, umbrella and a match handy.

*You see, blacks "whine" while Confederate symps merely "air out their grievances." Nope, there's no double standard here...

I went through school, I worked my way through, it took me seven years, I never borrowed a dime of money. He borrowed a little bit because we both were totally on our own when we went to college, totally. [...] I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that. We live in an opportunity society and people are forgetting that. I remind folks all the time that the Declaration of Independence says “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” You don’t have it dumped in your lap.

The above quoted belongs to House Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who probably didn't notice (or care to notice) how student tuition has risen over the past decade. Still, you have to admire someone who has the brass ovaries to deliver the most viciously polite form of "fuck you, got mine" to date. Very brassy for a woman who has a minimum of $500,000 in mortgages on two houses, according to her 2010 financial disclosure statements.

States have cut their higher education funding. The federal government's considering cuts to Pell Grants. Colleges everywhere are raising their tuition rates and employment opportunities remain scarce. Unless you luck out and get a scholarship or have your parents/endowment/inheritance/sugar daddy/corporate sponsor helping you out, student loans are your only port of entry on the voyage of college education.

Virginia Ann Foxx graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill back in 1968 with a bachelors degree and attained her Masters degree in 1972. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average cost of a four-year university during 1968-1969 was around $1,245 per year. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to $7714. Today, it'll cost you $20,660 for a year of full-time study (including room and board) if you're a N.C. resident and over $41,000 if you're not. Meanwhile, Harvard tuition costs add up to $53,000 per year, $36,000 if you cut out room and board. Little wonder some people are walking around with over $200k of student loan debt.

Foxx says she worked her way through school. With the average cost of tuition and the wages offered by most part-time jobs, students who go at it that way will be lucky to pay for food and books. It's possible to cut corners here and there, but it doesn't add up to much. I lucked out with Pell Grants, cheap in-state tuition and cut out the room and board costs by staying close to home for the last two years of college. I also had a part-time job that didn't do much against my overall tuition bill, but it helped with food and books. If you split the apartment rent with roommates, eat beans and rice and refrain from silly shit like iPads, spinning rims* and the like, you'll be able to survive. Barely.

You'll still need student loans for the vast majority of your tuition costs, unless you find spending five years of less-than-part time matriculation at a community college for a two-year associates degree to be more your thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that**.

If Foxx thinks having $200k of student loan debt is unacceptable, then perhaps she could do her part to help lower the cost of college tuition around the country. After all, she happens to chair the House Subcommittee on Higher Education.

* I've seen students take the leftovers of their student loans and buy some of the silliest shit imaginable.
** Most jobs require a bachelors degree, at minimum.

- Rick Santorum finally realizes he will be forever second-best in the eyes of delegates, campaign contributors and the media. This leaves Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich as the remaining candidates against pre-ordained nominee Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential nomination race.

- Cory Booker officially earns the title of "Best Mayor Ever." Meanwhile, an alien life form (R-FL) vetoes a bill that would have sent non-violent drug offenders to rehab after serving half their sentences. Said alien life form recently passed a bill that would allow the creation of "technicolor" animals, presumably for the alien life form's consumption.


- Congressman Allen West does his best impression of Joe McCarthy and fails. Sorry, Al, you can't just go and tag your fellow Dems as "communists" without looking ridiculous, no matter how many times your conservative colleagues call the president a "socialist Marxist Kenyan." As a bonus, the Communist Party USA gave their own response to West's antics.

West should be more worried about those Nazis attempting to infiltrate the sanctity of the American political arena. Chances are he's okay with that, though.

- Kimball Clark made himself a poster boy for the War on Welfare Fraud™ when he attempted to pull bail money from his EBT card:

Kimball Clark, 45, was locked up Friday on drug-dealing charges — again — when he was overheard using his one phone call to ask the person on the other end of the line to “get my EBT card and go to the ATM and get the money to bail me out, get me outa here tonight,” according to a Boston police report.

Mass. House Speaker Robert DeLeo wants to crack down on EBT abuse by further restricting card use:

Deleo’s proposal does not limit or eliminate cash access, but he said he’s open to considering that in the future.

- Ann Romney was able to choose to be a stay-at-home mom. Unfortunately, others throughout the U.S. aren't able to make that choice. That was Hilary Rosen's point, before conservatives blew a gasket over the issue. Even the great mamma grizzly herself tried to hitch a ride on the ensuing media gravy train.

Raising kids is a struggle in of itself, as Romney rightfully noted. But it's even more of a struggle to raise kids while working for tips or a bare minimum $7.25/hr on 12-hour shifts. Millions of Americans do just that, day in and day out.

- As yet another indicator of how bankruptcy woes have hurt Jefferson County, AL, Bank of America reduced the county's line of credit from $100,000 to $30,000 after it missed a $15 million debt payment. Fortunately, a local credit union has stepped in to help the county out with its financial issues.

This has been a terribly corrosive process. George Zimmerman, in our opinion and from information made available to us, is not doing well emotionally and probably suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome. We understand from others that he may have lost a lot of weight. George can`t get in the car and drive down to the office center and go in and see a psychologist. George can`t go down to the 7-Eleven and buy a Diet Coke. There`s a bounty out on his head.

Hal Uhrig won't have to worry about George Zimmerman getting shot on a dark street with a bag of pretzels in one hand and a Diet Coke six-pack of Bud Light in the other. He's exactly where he needs to be.

That means the New Black Panthers can call off the bounty they never intended to act on or honor in the first place. And those neo-Nazis can pack up their guns and decamp back to their private compounds.

I expected Angela Corey to drop the ball and not charge Zimmerman at all. Hearing about the man being hit with a second-degree murder charge was a surprising shock, given how so many people in similar situations have managed to walk. It was even more surprising to see Zimmerman in custody. I thought that by now, he'd be turning ten shades of red on a Cancun beach, well away from any U.S. jurisdiction. Chances are Zimmerman will be able to plead down to manslaughter, giving him a lesser sentence than life imprisonment for second-degree murder.

Shame it took 45 days for this to all happen.

The whole concept of "stand your ground" in self-defense laws is in desperate need of reexamining. If you haven't heard about the case of Daniel Adkins, you will soon. But since this involved a black man shooting a Hispanic, rest assured that the decision to prosecute him will come within days, not the six weeks it took for authorities to find a nice pair of linked bracelets for George Zimmerman.

All people asked for was for this man to be held at account for his actions. When local law enforcement decided Trayvon Martin's life wasn't worth holding Zimmerman at account for, his parents, friends, local residents and others throughout the country called for justice. Most people thought we wouldn't be at this point. Now Zimmerman can be made to account for his actions, just as Daniel Adkins' shooter may be made to account for his.

Now if only we could do the same for so many others out there.

- Police arrested two men in connection with the shootings of five black Americans in Tulsa, three of whom died from fatal injuries. Unfortunately, many have played up the Latino-ish appearance of one of the shooters, in hopes of directing people's attentions away from the elephant in the room.

- Florida State Attorney Angela Corey will not put the Trayvon Martin case through a grand jury, leaving the decision to prosecute George Zimmerman for Martin's murder in her own hands. Meanwhile, Zimmerman's lawyers have backed away from their client, as they have no idea where the fuck he is. I wouldn't be surprised if the next time anyone hears of him, he'd be in Cancun.

- Remember the nice McDonalds employee who claimed she won part of the $656 million dollar Mega Millions jackpot? Turns out she didn't. But three Maryland teachers did.

While Wilson was wildly claiming she won, the three teachers hired attorneys and financial consultants to prepare themselves for the boatload of cash and attention they would receive.

I had a feeling Wilson was spinning lies. If she had the winning ticket, she most likely would have busted her ass to claim her share. And she would have never stashed it in a McDonalds, of all places.

- Speaking of teachers, Brooke Harris was fired from her position at the Pontiac Academy for Excellence Middle School in Pontiac, Michigan after attempting to organize a "dress down" fundraiser that would have raised awareness of the events surrounding the Trayvon Martin case. The principal signed off on the idea, only to get a firm "no" from Superintendent Jacqueline Cassell. When she attempted to appeal to Cassell directly, Harris was placed on suspension. When she attempted to find out why, she was fired.

Keep in mind this was a non-union charter school in an "at-will employment" state. There's not much recourse here and it also explains the sheer unilateralism involved in Harris' termination. I know a guy who'd love to have that type of power...

Today marks the 40th day of George Zimmerman's fugitive status. Yes, I said "fugitive." As far as I'm concerned, the man is on the run from justice. The FBI began its own investigation into Zimmerman's culpability for Martin's death and whether his actions were racially motivated. The state of Florida has yet to bring charges against Zimmerman.

Anyone who's being let off the hook for killing another person should count themselves "lucky" and book the nearest flight out of the country. I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmy did just that. Meanwhile, I'm not surprised that most white Americans see Zimmy as a misunderstood guy who just "made a mistake," or worst still, didn't do anything at all. Only in America can killing a black person be called "doing nothing."

Understandably, black Americans are pissed. Unfortunately, that tends to scare some white Americans. In response to uneasy tensions and the New Black Panthers spoiling to do something stupid, Neo-Nazi groups have taken it upon themselves to maintain the safety and integrity of whites in and around the Sanford, FL area. Just what we need most: more white guys* with guns spoiling for a "threatening" encounter with blacks. Meanwhile, some nutcase has taken it upon himself to conduct a round of ethnic cleansing in the Tulsa, OK area. Whoever he is, he needs to be stopped, whether with handcuffs or with bullets.**

Needless to say, some of the comments that followed the Neo-Nazi story in the Miami New Times disgusted and it frustrated me to no end, because there was no way I could counter such abject stupidity without losing my patience and fulfilling the stereotypes they've come to expect.

Then I read Abagond's latest blog post. It sheds a bit of light on the so-called "fear" that some people have when being around black Americans. Many white Americans use personal experience, media exposure, crime stats, learned prejudices or just abject jealousy and cowardice to convince themselves that they need to fear black Americans, to keep them at bay, to vanquish them at every turn or harness them for their own means, kinda like those mythical dragons in D&D or some other fantasy Sci-Fi game.

This "fear" is very much evident in this country's basic framework. Sometimes that fear morphs into hatred, aided by jealousy and translated into murderous actions and intent. It's happened at countless points of this nation's existence.

In essence, this "fear" is institutional, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. America's implicit acceptance of the peculiar institution, its continuance in denying black Americans full acceptance into the national fabric and its overall disregard of any worth affixed to black American life has rendered a karmic balance that has yet to be paid off. In other words:

Wanda Sykes said it best when she quipped [and I'm paraphrasing], “What you’re afraid of isn’t called reverse racism. What you’re afraid of is called karma.”

White Americans live in collective fear of a day when the shoe is on the other foot. They expect black Americans to treat them with the same sort of abuse, ridicule and disregard, under the subconscious belief that, after all, they had it coming. They expect vengeance and retribution. We don't want that. We just want to be left alone.

That's what the Greenwood section of Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL was all about. Black communities that sustained themselves, with black Americans going about their own business. Jealousy and hatred essentially put an end to those communities.

The Neo-Nazis in Sanford, FL are capitalizing on that fear of vengeance and retribution by positioning themselves as a "savior" and "friend" to fretful white Americans. Some already share their views and beliefs while others are only an unfortunate encounter or a convincing, self-validating argument away from subscribing to such views. Either way, just like the chumps in black liberation garb, the chumps in Aryan cosplay garb* are making a horrible situation that much worse, by providing enough dry straw for a firestorm of epic proportions. All we need (or don't need, really) is a spark.

Seriously, white America, why can't you just let us be? It would have saved Trayvon and his family a lot of grief.

*Zimmerman is about as Hispanic as a Taco Bell $2 meal deal. Live with it.
**Ever notice how when these nutbags target victims, they never seem to target actual thugs, gangbangers and the like? Because unlike that 49-year-old woman, 54-year-old man and the other 31-year old man, those young "g's" and "young bucks" are often armed and have no qualms against shooting back. It also explains why those Neo-Nazis who "patrolled" the U.S./Mexico border probably took great pains in avoiding cartels or "narcotraffacantes" who also have no qualms against shooting back. I doubt a Neo-Nazi vs. Zetas gunbattle would last long.

Update: Police are increasing their presence in north Tulsa after an apparent shooting spree Friday morning.

Police have labeled the overnight violence as 'unprecedented' in Tulsa after 5 people were shot and three of those victims died.

Here are the names of the three shooting victims killed in what investigators call an "unprecedented" shooting spree overnight.

Det. Sgt. Dave walker identifies the dead as:
Dannaer Fields B/F DOB 11-03-1962 killed at 1045 E 51PN
Bobby Clark B/M DOB 09-10-1957 killed at 300 W 63 SN
William Allen B/M DOB 04-13-1980 killed at 801 E 36 SN.

He says police now believe they may be looking for a white male in a white pickup.
All of the victims were on foot in the early morning hours.

Sgt. Walker says, "Asking the public to be aware of their safety when they're out and about. Obviously these crimes happened early in the morning from midnight to three a.m. So, if you're out and about at those times and you're out on the street, you shouldn't stop for anybody anyway, especially a car that pulls up."

More:

Several members of the Tulsa chapter of the NAACP gathered at a north Tulsa church Friday evening for an emergency meeting to discuss what police have characterized as a possible "shooting spree" that targeted five people early Friday morning.

As news spread that the police are looking for a white man in connection with the shootings of five black people, people began saying they believe the shootings were racially motivated.

KRMG spoke with Tulsa City Councilor Jack Henderson as the meeting continued in the 2200 block of N. Peoria Avenue.
When asked if people in the community felt that the shooter or shooters were deliberately targeting black people, he replied "yes, absolutely."

He told KRMG the "word on the street is that this person would drive up to people walking, ask for directions, and when they would turn away, walk away, begin firing. That's truly a concern, and anybody would be (ill) at ease if you knew this was going on."

Color arousal is a hell of a thing. Here's hoping that this sick individual is caught before more lives are lost.

“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “It’s a fiction.”

The above is current RNC Chairman Ranch Prius Rinse Proboscis Reince Priebus letting everyone know that the GOP's "War on Women" is fiction. Nevermind declaration after declaration of Republican warfare with that dangerous Axis of Evil, the Uterus, Ovaries and Clitorus. Priebus is doing his best impersonation of Baghdad Bob right about now. "No, there is no war with your vagina, ladies." *cue latest bill mandating transvaginal ultrasounds prior to abortion*

If the War on Women is fiction, then so are the concerns of women everywhere when it comes to their reproductive health. That suits the GOP just fine, as women apparently don't exist unless conjured up for sex, dinner, laundry or beatings. That said, it's little wonder women's support of the GOP will be as nonexistent as Ranch Dressing's "War on Caterpillars".

At least a caterpillar transforms into something beautiful over time. Baring a miracle, Reince will remain as ugly as ever, inside and out.

Some people say we've reached a point in time where we can truly consider ourselves beyond race. After all, segregation and outright bigotry are both long gone, discrimination's a thing of the past and hey, we even have a black president now. Now we can all join hands, hum "Kumbaya" and look forward to a time where the last remnants of racial antagonism and bigotry can die along with the people who practiced and held those traits, beliefs and ideas.

Or not.

John Derbyshire, in response to black parents giving their children "the talk" about how to best avoid the numerous pitfalls that lead to jail, untimely death, or both, decided to create a "white" version of that talk to give his kids. The big difference between "the talk" and what Derbyshire cooked up lies with how many racial stereotypes, false "facts" and outright bad advice Derbyshire managed to compress in about 15 "life-saving" tips.

Derbyshire starts off by sneering at the rather quaint idea of refraining from archaic terms that border on disrespect or insensitivity towards blacks. This is mixed in with a little bit of "Why can't I call them the N-word?" and "I can call you whatever I want".

(1) Among your fellow citizens are forty million who identify as black, and whom I shall refer to as black. The cumbersome (and MLK-noncompliant) term “African-American” seems to be in decline, thank goodness. “Colored” and “Negro” are archaisms. What you must call “the ‘N’ word” is used freely among blacks but is taboo to nonblacks.

You can already tell where this is headed. As for Tip #2, Derbyshire proudly states that "10 percent of the African American population is more than half European in ancestry", but won't say how that happened. Funny that.

(3) Your own ancestry is mixed north-European and northeast-Asian, but blacks will take you to be white.

Because not even white Americans can tell by sight alone one another's precise ethnic makeup. Hence why people proudly pronounce themselves as "Scots-Irish" or "Italian on my mother's father's side". Otherwise, they're about as white as Wonder Bread, for all intents and purposes.

I wouldn't mind knowing what's on Derbyshire's sons' driver's licenses. Did they tick the "White" box without a second thought? Most likely.

(4) The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship. In some unusual circumstances, however—e.g., paragraph (10h) below—this default principle should be overridden by considerations of personal safety.

Uh-oh. I wonder what Derbyshire meant by that. Don't worry, I'll get into that later on.

Tips #5 through #8 are merely weak statistical justifications for what could be summed up as "typical black behavior," along with something I can only discern as "blacks are not special snowflakes" and "blacks are anti-social." Tip #9 is where we really get down to the meat of the whole article:

(9) A small cohort of blacks—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to whites and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of blacks—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that whites have it coming.

Eh?

You know what? Here's a small exercise for all those paying attention:

(9) A small cohort of whites—in my experience, around five percent—is ferociously hostile to blacks and will go to great lengths to inconvenience or harm us. A much larger cohort of whites—around half—will go along passively if the five percent take leadership in some event. They will do this out of racial solidarity, the natural willingness of most human beings to be led, and a vague feeling that blacks have it coming.

See what just happened?

But it isn't as bad as the following tip #10, along with all the addendums tacked onto it:

(10) Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.

(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.

I think Derbyshire left out (10j) clutching your (man) purse when passing a strange black and (10k) calling the cops whenever you feel "threatened" by one. And there's always (10k)(2) if you're in a state with a "stand your ground" law: just shoot the black if you feel "threatened". The police will back you and you'll be home for dinner in no time.

Derbyshire's article and advice is akin to a man who stands on his head in the tub and proceeds to take a massive, wet shit all over himself and the tub. John continues his coprophiliac celebration by touching on blacks' inherently low IQ (#11) the evils of Affirmative Action and how his feelings were hurt by the DMV lady who told him he couldn't add "mixed north-European with just a splash of minty northeast-Asian" on his driver's license (#12), how to use "intelligent blacks" as a human shield against accusations of racism (#13 and #14), and an ill-thought-of jab against President Obama (#15) as a parting shot.

And Derbyshire's claiming to teach his kids all of this. One can only hope he's being factious about the whole thing, but considering how many people tend to take their own bigotry seriously, even the most satirical effort can appear to be laced with bitter diatribe that tells the audience how the writer genuinely feels about the whole thing.

The whole point of letting racism and bigotry die becomes moot if people are still passing on their maligned views on other ethnic groups to their offspring. There will always be a need for a proactive approach when it comes to stamping it out. It's not gonna die on its own.

EDIT: Jonah Goldberg does not approve of your work, John:

Well, you know what they say: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats every day. Give a man a welfare check, a free cell phone with free monthly minutes, food stamps, section 8 housing, some Air Jordans, a 40-ounce malt liquor, a crack pipe and a pack of rubbers and he votes Democrat for a lifetime.”

You gotta love racists, especially some of the more benign ones that litter the Internet. The above quote hits on every single stereotype plaguing the black American Democrat voter, as well as general black "dependency," whether it be on government largess or the benevolent graces of the white, well-to-do plantation owner.

The late Andrew Breitbart's website seems to be littered with comments like the above. Turns out the new editor-in-chief Joel Pollak is committed to continuing Breitbart's legacy of confused and intellectually deficient "journalism" that even Fox News would take great pains to avoid.


Seems Pollak is fixated on racism these days, as long as it's purely on the left. He seems like the kind of guy who'd expound on the deficiencies of those "fucking [coons]" around a few beers with George Zimmerman.

The type of comments a website or blog attracts depends on the type of tone set by the owner/moderators and content. Little wonder.

Meanwhile:

"If a white kills a black we revolt, if a black kills a white it's jail time, we kill each other it's Miller time. It's as if somebody has the right to kill us."

Well of course, Jesse. To them, we're just somebody's property.

Most people know the story of how Jesus, the Son of God, came into being. One of the more interesting aspects of the story (and one that's also a big part of the Catholic faith) is the immaculate conception of Mary, precipitated by the appearance of the angel Gabriel, his message of Jesus' impending birth through Mary and the intervention of the Holy Spirit afterwards. Considering Joseph was a husband-to-be and the lovely couple didn't subscribe to the whole concept of sex before marriage, this event of immaculate conception remains one of the most intriguing episodes throughout Jesus' life, death and resurrection:*

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[b] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Since then, the laws of physics and biology have put the kibosh on any future acts of immaculate conception. But the Arizona state legislature stumbled up on a way to rekindle that long-lost act through the power of bill-making:

Arizona’s HB 2036 takes Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban one step further by starting the clock on pregnancies at the woman’s last last menstrual period, which could be two weeks before fertilization.

Specifically, the bill would “[p]rohibit abortions at or after twenty weeks of gestation, except in cases of a medical emergency, based on the documented risks to women’s health and the strong medical evidence that unborn children feel pain during an abortion at that gestational age,” where gestational age is defined as “age of the unborn child as calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.”

Take note of the underlined. The entire menstrual cycle lasts for about 28 days. The luteal phase, where the corpus luteum develops and subsequently atrophies sans fertilization of the egg, lasts up to 16 days.

In effect, this means that if a woman has sex with someone, she could technically be pregnant weeks before the pregnancy test, morning sickness or tell-tale lack of a period gives her the official heads-up. Not exactly immaculate conception, but they're getting there. It's more like "pre-pregnancy," where the state knows you're pregnant long before you decide to become pregnant. Or something.

More importantly, this means that if she decides, on the 19th or 20th week of gestation to abort, she'll technically be in violation of the abortion ban, because the window of opportunity slammed shut on the 18th week:

Guttmacher Institute’s State Issues Manager Elizabeth Nash told Raw Story that obstetricians start the clock on pregnancies after the “last menstrual period” to “be on the safe side.”

“Certainly, they are trying move the gestational cutoff from what had been over the last two years a 20-week gestational cutoff to an 18-week gestational cutoff,” Nash explained. “At the same time, they are trying to say, ‘Oh, this is a 20-week abortion ban.’ And they get away with that with the definition of gestational age that’s in the bill.”

Determining the gestation date this way is a rather creative and supremely sneaky goalpost move. Which means it serves conservative pro-lifers and their GOP counterparts well. Selling a 20-week abortion ban that actually kicks in two weeks earlier than anyone expects constitutes fraud and deception on part of bill's supporters, not that it matters much.

At some point, someone's gonna have the bright idea of suggesting that the pro-life anti-abortion contingent should just assume that all woman are presumed pregnant until actually pregnant, to eliminate all possibility of legal or illegal abortive acts. Of course, that'd also include hormonal contraceptives, since they prevent ovulation and fertilization. In short, basically anything that interferes with ovulation and fertilization. At that point, you'd have to wonder if that would include the entirely natural act of corpus luteum discharge.

Is a tampon or a sanitary napkin admissible as evidence of an abortion? Would birth control pills signify intent? How about someone experiencing a miscarriage?

Meanwhile, semen discharge from masturbation or wet dreams is largely overlooked. What? You seriously think the menfolk would willingly legislate their own reproductive faculties?**

*If you believe otherwise, fine. Don't try to take a chunk out of my ass over it, thanks.


**Nevermind the cases of surgical and chemical castration for sex offenders and black males with "virulent" perceived sexual appetites.

Earlier today, the effluent one took a break from his feckless campaign quest to get in a round or two of bowling. Please note that there's not a single pink ball in sight -- that'd just be quite unseemly for a man of his stature. Considering how he struck out in the Wisconsin, D.C. and Maryland GOP primaries, I bet he's glad to be somewhere where strikes are actually a good thing.

And I bet Mitt Romney's glad to have those primary wins give his campaign a semblance of legitimacy. As the GOP establishment's pre-ordained pick, it would be a bit unseemly for him to lose. It doesn't help that conservative voters see him more as a necessary evil than someone they could get behind in lockstep. A wooden, out-of-touch scion known for his "pagan" religion and creation of vaguely "socialist" healthcare in his own state isn't exactly the ideal conservative candidate. Presenting the embalmed remains of Ronald Reagan on the presidential ticket with Sarah Palin as V.P. running mate would probably be a more preferable choice for many on the GOP side.

As it stands, it's the Negro vs. the Mormon. Die-hard conservative voters don't like that choice, but they'll swallow their pride and put in their vote for the sake of the party. One thing's for sure: the frothy one will have plenty of time to brush up on his bowling skills if he isn't picked as Romney's running mate.

A lot of people are probably wondering why yours truly hasn't been on the 2012 GOP nomination process like so many other bloggers. Well, this is why.


Everyone has their "senior moments" and Freudian slips, but this takes the cake. Between John McCain's unending enthusiasm (snicker) for Mitt Romney and the crowd's placid reaction (or lack thereof), it's no wonder more Americans haven't fallen into a sound sleep whenever Mitt's mentioned.

If you can count on Romney's half-hearted platitudes and perfectly lubricated talking points to put you to sleep, you can also count on Rick Santorum to make you laugh in disbelief. Or groan in discomfort. Or both.


Right about now, President Obama could produce a video of himself serenading the First Lady in the Lincoln Bedroom to the tune of Marvin Gaye's "Distant Lover" and let that be his campaign for the next seven months. At that point, counting the votes come Election Day would be a mere formality.

Yes, Mack Lyons has a Tumblr page. It's the Abridged Version of the DDSS Blog, where many of the shorter blog posts and snippets will go. Meanwhile, the main DDSS blog will be reserved for longer, more noteworthy blog posts.

http://ddssblog.tumblr.com/