Whiskey Fire

Liberals Really Don't Want To Find The "Gay Gene," Because Abortion And Down Syndrome, Obviously

Spokes-fuck for the American Family Association, Bryan "the Injuns done deserved to be genocided on account of becuz they wasn't Christian like me" Fischer, believes he has found a nut:

"As I have said before, I suspect that not even homosexual activists today want the gay gene to be found, even if it exists, because of advances in prenatal genetic testing. It is now possible to routinely screen for 3500 genetic defects while a child is still in the womb. 

So these activists rationally fear that pre born children who are detected with this gene will be aborted before they even have the chance to be born. After all, if 90% of babies in the womb who are diagnosed with Downs syndrome never draw their first breath, what are the chances that parents disposed to abortion will not exercise the same choice with regard to the gay gene?" 

Real slow for the mouthbreathers:

People who support the rights of women to have sovereignty over their own bodies also tend to NOT be total fucking bigots when it comes to gay people. Only Bags of Dicks like Bryan Fischer are horrified by the concept of having a gay child. 

Now if he were suggesting that, were a "gay gene" to be found (such a simplistic concept, only really bandied about by anti-science wingnuts with no understanding of genetics), wingnuts might be prone to abort their gay babies, that might make more sense, because, AS WE ALL KNOW, their opposition to abortion has jackshit to do with "unborn babiez," and everything to do with controlling when, where and how women have sex. (1. Whenever the godly Jeebus husband wants it, 2. In the bed with the lights off so the ladies can't see their Jeebus husbands closing their eyes and fantasizing about entire baseball teams, and 3. With as little emphasis on "her needs" or "her desires" as is possible.)

Hope that helps, Bryan.

[h/t Jeremy]

 

 

D or D: Bloody Caesar vs. Bloody Mary

Verdict: GUILTY! Err, Bloody Caesar wins. Might be just a matter of the sodium content, or maybe not. In spite of my natural concerns re: "clam juice" as a cocktail additive, I judge for the Canuckistanians.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place and even at Three Bulls!? Moose over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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Rock You Like A Herman Cain

 

 

If Wall Street got the idea that Obama was no longer in their back pocket, you'd see a serious GOP run for President. For now, having these fools bark and bray about "Socialism" while B.H.O. collects his pay is all they need.

 

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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Birding Is Hard Work

For my readers, I make the necessary sacrifices.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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Market, Politics, Butterflies

Shall I post my expert market analysis? Trenchant observations on American politics and our continued descent into plutocracy? Or, more butterflies?

How about a carpenter bee?

The goldfinches keep eluding me. This one flew up to the telephone wires just before I could take his picture. Then he spent some time up there laughing.

Thanks to Smut Clyde, I know now that okra and hibiscus are both members of the mallow family.

And now for your market and political analysis:

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© and cross-posted at my place. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)

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Why We All Gave Up At Fire Megan McArdle

Rot like this that never fucking ends. If she's such a great admirer of "business," why doesn't she see if she can compete in it, rather than blathering in a manner designed to get clicks for the boss?

I am second to none in my admiration for business.  And in fact I share the GOP view that there is far too much regulation in this country.  I would also like to cut taxes, if only we were willing to also cut spending.

Because taxes are so unspeakably high now. Regulation? The horror!! And infrastructure investment is just throwing worse money after bad?

Not, mind you that I expected better, or that I think the Democrats will deliver anything more plausible; they have their own unrealistic expectations of policy projects, like infrastructure investment and green jobs.  But this is what I do during campaign season: politicians say remarkably silly things, and I point out just how remarkably silly they are.

We anxiously await Ms. McArdle's complaint about how the crummy pot-holed streets of Washington have forced her to trade in her Mini Cooper well before she thought it should have fallen apart.

Green jobs? Obviously a total scam.

People want to know: Are green jobs real? The answer is resoundingly “yes.”

— M. "Who's Silly Now?" Bouffant

Even Forbes Agrees

By request ...

No idea who Rick Ungar is, but he does not like the Koch Bros., & he does not like them at all from the electrionic pp. of Forbes (to be picky, a blog at Forbes, not the official editorial position of said e-pulp) where Rick links to Mother Jones & ThinkProgress, & accusations are made:

The Americans for Prosperity group, a Tea Party group that is a Koch Brothers front, has put up a website and petition called www.standwithwalker.com. The website attacks all collective bargaining – not just for public employees’ unions.

We know nothing about what Forbes is up to w/ their blogs, but we're a bit worried this Ungar guy is going to end up in several widely-distributed pieces if he keeps doing this sort of thing there.

This just in, via gocart mozart, commenting at Sadly, No! & The Guardian:

Compare income taxes received by the federal government from individuals and from corporations (their profits are treated as their income), based on statistics from the Office of Management and the Budget in the White House, and the trend is clear. During the Great Depression, federal income tax receipts from individuals and corporations were roughly equal. During the second world war, income tax receipts from corporations were 50% greater than from individuals. The national crises of depression and war produced successful popular demands for corporations to contribute significant portions of federal tax revenues.

US corporations resented that arrangement, and after the war, they changed it. Corporate profits financed politicians' campaigns and lobbies to make sure that income tax receipts from individuals rose faster than those from corporations and that tax cuts were larger for corporations than for individuals. By the 1980s, individual income taxes regularly yielded four times more than taxes on corporations' profits.

Since the second world war, corporations have shifted much of the federal tax burden from themselves to the public – and especially onto the middle-income members of the public. No wonder a tax "revolt" developed, yet it did not push to stop or reverse that shift. Corporations had focused public anger elsewhere, against government expenditures as "wasteful" and against public employees as inefficient.

Organisations such as Chambers of Commerce and corporations' academic and political allies together shaped the public debate. They did not want it to be about who does and does not pay the taxes. Instead, they steered the "tax revolt" against taxes in general (on businesses and individuals alike). The corporations' efforts saved them far more in reduced taxes than the costs of their political contributions, lobbyists' fees and public relations campaigns.

Oh, here's the set-up:

The real reason for public finance crisis

If you want to know why we have budget deficits all over, look no further than the roaring success of corporate tax avoidance

A Sentimental Torch Tonight

I don't mean especially to pick on Robert Reich, but there is a lot of this sort of thing out there. And it's silly.

Why are Democratic presidents so much more easily intimidated by the "move to the center" rhetoric after midterm losses than Republican presidents?

Because Democrats think in terms of programs, policies, and particular pieces of legislation. It's easy to reverse course by compromising more and giving up on legislative goals. Bill Clinton never mentioned the words "health care reform" after the 1994 midterms.

Republicans think in terms of simple ideas, themes, and movements. It's far harder to reverse course on these (look what happened to the first George Bush when he raised taxes), and easier to keep them alive: Republican presidents just continue looking for opportunities to implement them.

Republicans are also more disciplined (ask yourself which party attracts authoritarian personalities and which attracts anti-authoritarians). This makes it easier for them to stay the course. Their base continues to organize and fulminate even after midterm defeats. Democrats, on the other hand, are less organized. Electoral defeats tend to fracture and dissipate whatever organization they have.

Republicans are cynical about politics from the jump. Political cynicism fuels them. Democrats are idealistic about politics. When they become cynical they tend to drop out.

This is all my bum.

"Conservatives" have developed, invested in, and bought into an immensely profitable ideological industry that has a kinda-sorta analagous relationship to electoral politics as ESPN has to sports-on-the-field. That is, there's a connection, but that's not where the money is.

There is, bluntly, a tremendous financial incentive for individual actors on the American right wing to always double down on the crazy.

Fox News and the cash money it pays does not explain everything about our currently appalling polity.

It only explains 90% of it.

Another 9% is consumed with attempts to ignore the obvious.

The remaining 1% is me saying "fuck" on the Internet.

Incidentally, my new Chicago Boyz playmates:

My conscious is clear.

I kill people in the name of freedom and democracy.

Actual quotes, ladies and germs!

 

Born Under A Bad Sign

Franklin Graham explains it all for you on CNN, via TPM:

"I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name."

I'm sure the President appreciates the cogent advice concerning his problem. (Just one?) If we all put our heads together & think very, very hard, we may figure out Graham's problem. First we'll have to understand all of it (My emphases.):

"Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done, I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."

Did he just not-say what I think he did? Hold onto your hats, maybe even get the flotation devices ready, there's more.

Graham further explained: "The confusion is, is because his father was a Muslim, he was born a Muslim. The Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs. That's why Gaddafi calls him 'my son.' They see him as a Muslim. But of course the President says he is a Christian, and we just have to accept it as that." 

King noted that Graham and his father have met Obama, and prayed with him. With this context, King asked, does Graham believe Obama when he says he is a Christian? 

"Well, you know, you can be born a Muslim, you can be born a Jew, but you can't be born a Christian," said Graham. "The only way you can become a Christian is by confessing your sins to God, asking his forgiveness, and by receiving Jesus Christ by faith into your heart, that Christ died for your sins, shed his blood on Calvary's Cross, and that God raised him to life. If you're willing to accept that and believe that, and let Jesus Christ be the lord of your life, God will forgive your sins, he will heal your heart, and that's the only way you can become a Christian. And so if the President has done that, then I would say he's a Christian, if that's what he has done."

There he goes again.

So, Taitz-style geographic birtherism having been back-burnered for the moment (Until 2012; expect many a state to have passed Presidential show-us-your-papers laws by then.) we're now to be subjected to religio-birtherism? Much better: You just try to prove what's in the Presidential heart.

And now that I know one "can be born" a Jew or a Musselman, that whole free will thing the eggheads have been struggling w/ has cleared right up. At least as far as Christians. Too bad for other, pre-destined suckers. (May I add, not nearly enough is being done to irk & alienate Hindus. There are hundreds & hundreds of millions of them, they're swarthy, & were the usual suspects to piss them off enough that a few of them looked at these United Snakes sideways, there'd be wonderful opportunities for Graham to practice his disaster Christianity on them after the smoke cleared.)

Also, please do not piss on my leg & tell me there are no racial (Putting it mildly.) aspects to all this.

The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother.

Is Graham getting this from the New Revised Klan version of the good book? (Always loved that one: ALL OTHER BOOKS ARE BAD!)

Telebision, however, is good.

M. Bouffant

Here too.

La nuit tous les chats sont gris

Whether or not Bush had anything racial in mind in calling Obama "this cat" or not, I don't have any idea, and don't intend to speculate, as the caverns of Bush's mind are a dreary region in which I do not especially care to spelunk. But it may be pointed out that in the book excerpt that gave rise to all this cattiness, we see Bush use this particular bit of odd slang in contexts other than Obama:

The president asked his secretary, Karen, to bring him the Rose Garden remarks he’d just delivered that day, September 19, announcing his action plan. He got slightly exasperated when she was delayed in printing them out. When he finally got them, he put his half-glasses on and looked at them. “See, this was fine today,” he said. “But we got to make this understandable for the average cat.” He proposed an outline for another speech that talked about the situation our economy was in, how we’d gotten here, and how the administration’s plan was a solution.

So I'm not sure what "cat" tells us, besides that Bush was (and presumably still is), among other things, pretty frickin' weird.

(BELOW: Lorenzo St. DuBush)