Conservatives Update

Republicans and Other Jerks

Wireless Wiretaps Plus
So it turns out that the Feds have a backdoor into absolutely everything about you on one of the larger wireless carriers *cough* *cough* Verizon *cough*.

Every single customer, call, both contents and origin/destination, billing records, personal information, all of it.

Not one warrant.

Source: Wired

Court is the Only Way
Legal jeopardy is simply the only way to make a Republican do their job.

Responding to a lawsuit by Michigan and eight other states, the Bush administration is reconsidering its policy on mercury emissions from cement plants, which critics say allows too much air pollution.

Whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changes the rules will depend on test results of technology that could reduce the emissions, spokesman Dale Kemery said Thursday.

But an environmental law firm that has battled the EPA for a decade over the matter said the agency promised in a court filing last month to set standards it previously had resisted.

"They've turned 180 degrees," said James Pew, attorney for Earthjustice, based in Washington, D.C.

Mercury comes from raw materials used to make cement — such as limestone, clay, sand and iron ore — and from fuels such as coal that fire the kilns where the ingredients are baked. Mercury is a neurotoxin linked to learning disabilities and is most dangerous to fetuses and young children, usually by eating fish contaminated through environmental exposure.

The agency in December 2006 set limits on mercury and hydrocarbon emissions from cement kilns built after Dec. 2, 2005. But for kilns built earlier, the EPA imposed lesser requirements.

The states sued in February 2007, saying the federal Clean Air Act requires mercury emission limits for all plants, not just new ones. Earthjustice, which had sued the EPA three previous times over cement kiln mercury, filed a separate case on behalf of several activist groups.

Activist groups and nine states. Nine states that are sick and tired of mercury poisoned kids.

The nine states include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania

Source: Raw Story

What, Israel Again?
The little country that could demonstrates that it won't just stand by and let the US get all the bad press.

In Jerusalem, more ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Harediim, are leaving their cloistered neighborhoods for cheaper housing in the suburbs. In one suburb, that has led to rising tensions and sporadic violence with their modern Orthodox and secular neighbors.

Religious fanatics! Is there anything they can't ruin?

A small group of ultra-Orthodox extremists has been intimidating fellow Jews who they deem to be not kosher or modest enough, or who don't keep the Sabbath the way they want them to.

One resident of the sprawling, quiet suburb of Ramat Beit Shemesh, a half-hour outside of Jerusalem, is Solly Wahlbe, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who spends his days studying the Torah.

In an outdoor shopping area near a local supermarket, the slight 18-year-old says he approves of the big signs posted everywhere around by his fellow ultra-Orthodox, which implore women to dress modestly.

Women wearing jeans or pants, Wahlbe says, are a distraction to what he calls "the focused, settled minds" of the Harediim.

"When dealing with this issue of Torah, your mind has to be much more settled and can't be jumping around to all sorts of different planets and all sorts of different fantasies and thoughts that might come up on a teenager's head," he says.

Or, he says softly, "into the head of a married man. ... We're not trying to change people," he says, "but they must respect our way of life."

They're not trying to change people. They just can't control themselves because they've been brought up in a goddamned cult, and thus they want to force everyone to agree with them or else get stoned to death.

The problem is that Wahlbe is in a public shopping center in a mixed suburb where Harediim make up a little more than a quarter of the population. A minority of ultra-Orthodox have tried to impose "respect" using rocks, fists and intimidation.

Oh yeah. This is going to end well.

Dr. Hahvah is a modern Orthodox woman who dresses modestly, keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath. One day driving home, she saw that someone had put up a sign in her neighborhood that read "Don't pass here unless you dress modestly."

"I find that offensive," she says. "I don't think that anybody should impose dress codes on the public."

When she tried to haul the sign down, some ultra-Orthodox pelted her and her car with rocks. Dr. Hahvah, who asked that her full name not be used, went to the local police, but she says they did nothing.

"It's very hard. I know the people who attacked me and when their families come to see me as a doctor and I can't say anything or do anything because it's unprofessional," she says.

That rock attack was hardly an isolated incident. People driving on the Sabbath have been bombarded with rocks. Earlier this year in Beit Shemesh, a young Haredi woman was sitting next an Israeli soldier on a public bus when ultra-Orthodox men assaulted both of them and forced the woman off the bus. Men and women, they said, should be segregated. Later, an ultra-Orthodox man who stood up to the zealots within his own community was himself brutally beaten. He said it was like a pogrom.

Hehe. Silly religious idealists. You thought getting your own country to play with would end the violence and hate? Haven't any of you read Durkheim? Society is DEFINED by its outsiders. In the absence of real ones, imaginary outsiders are always invented.

But what will the powerful government, with its legal monopoly on violence, do about this problem?

"One of the problems with this group of violent fanatics, I would call them, is that they don't know how to handle when they have a disagreement," says Shalom Lerner, the deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh.

...

"Culturally, it's a big change for them," he says. "This is the first time these group of peoples are moving out of Jerusalem, out of Mea Shariim. They're not used to seeing a woman in pants, they're not used to seeing a woman with uncovered hair, and they find it very hard to adjust."

Lerner, an observant, modern Orthodox, says Beit Shemesh leaders said enough is enough after some businesses received mafia-like threats to put up modesty signs — or else. Then a family whose television was allegedly visible through a window got a threatening letter demanding they cover it up or face attack. Lerner says the town made it clear to the ultra-Orthodox that there will be big legal, financial and political costs if the threats, bullying and violence continue.

"If it's a school they want, the school will be the last one to get allocation," he says. "It won't be where they want. We won't give them any financial help. If they want to be tough, we'll be tough."

Paperwork! Holding that up will solve everything!

Last summer, community members started a group that's trying to narrow the religious and cultural divide through dialogue. Organizers say they have made some progress, but both sides acknowledge the goal of the dialogue, in the end, is not wider integration but a kind of peaceful segregation.

"If they want to be the way they want [and] we want to be the way we want, we can't put them together," says David, a 25-year-old ultra-Orthodox who studies Torah full time, "because it's two different things — it's two different worlds."

He's 25 and he wants to segregate the nation and spend the rest of his life studying a single book written by crazy people a few thousand years ago.

Seriously. There's no long-term peaceful coexistence with these people. They either have to adapt, or eventually they'll rise up like our South did in the Civil War, and you'll have to crush them. Don't say I didn't warn you, Israel.

Source: NPR

I Always Thought Heavy Drinking Led to Republicans
Though I was more inclined to believe it was Fetal Alcohol Syndrome than adult drunkenness that actually caused the disorder.

A Minnesota state senator has withdrawn a bill which would have extended drinking hours at local bars during the Republican National Convention next summer.

The legislation would have changed the closing time from 2 am to 4 am for bars in the seven-county Minneapolis-St. Paul area between Aug. 29 and Sep. 8.

Legislator Linda Scheid gave up her effort following just an hour of debate in the state legislature, after she found that the police had concerns that it would affect all bars, not just those near the convention.

Republicans love to hold their conventions where they're just not wanted. First New York, where the cops had to install a fascist police state to create a quasi-Disneyland part of the city for the GOP, now Minneapolis, where, apparently, the Republicans need a steady supply of hard liquor just to stand all the liberal, functional government and tolerance.

Jerks. Go back to the inbred South already.

Source: Raw Story

Salvia
Conservatives are looking to ban another drug now, because the state-corporate monopoly on your brain tissue needs more protection.

On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of Salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: "Time is running out!" and "stock up while you still can."


That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.

"As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one," said Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, who has introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Ahh, Prohibition. Is there any social ill it can't turn into an epidemic of greed, corruption and violence?

Mike Strain, Louisiana's Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner and former legislator, helped his state in 2005 become the first to make salvia illegal, along with a number of other plants. He said the response has been largely positive.

"I got some hostile e-mails from people who sold these products," Strain said. "You don't make everybody happy when you outlaw drugs. You save one child and it's worth it."

THINK OF THE CHILDREN

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

Among those who believe the commotion over the drug is overblown is Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that does research on psychedelic drugs and whose goal is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription medication.

"I think the move to criminalize is a misguided response to a very minimal problem," Doblin said.

Doblin said salvia isn't "a party drug," "tastes terrible" and is "not going to be extremely popular." He disputes the fact teens are its main users and says older users are more likely.

"It's a minor drug in the world of psychedelics," he said.

Yes, people are really going to get in line for a short-lasting, terrible tasting mild hallucinogen. Woe betide us if they do, as well.

Meanwhile, tobacco, which has killed millions of Americans? Legal. Alcohol? Legal. Yes, if you like killing yourself or your brain, we have two and only two options available. You even have to consume them the way WE, I mean the government, tell you (witness the efforts to ban alcohol inhalers, which make it cheaper to get drunk and thus cut down on the profit margin).

Not that I'm advocating banning tobacco or alcohol. Just noting the inherent hypocrisy here.

Source: Raw Story

Surrounded by Jerks!
So it seems it isn't safe to walk the corridors of school without the threat of being accosted on all sides by jerks.

LANCASTER, Pa. - The family of a middle school student who was given detention for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of a gun has filed a federal freedom of speech lawsuit against the school district.

Donald Miller III, 14, went to Penn Manor High School in December wearing a T-shirt he said was intended to honor his uncle, a U.S. Army soldier fighting in Iraq.

The shirt bears the image of a military sidearm and on the front pocket says "Volunteer Homeland Security." On the back, over another image of the weapon, are the words "Special issue Resident Lifetime License - United States Terrorist Hunting Permit - Permit No. 91101 - Gun Owner - No Bag Limit."

Isn't that cute? He thinks being a gun owner and remembering the date a terror attack happened makes him a licensed vigilante!

Normally I am vehemently opposed to this t-shirt banning nonsense, but this one actually implies that the kid will murder people, with a gun (bag limit, anyone?) and get away with it, so I could see it frightening, say, some poor brown student who already gets the hell harassed out of him for having a 'funny sounding' name.

Let's see if the school can overgeneralize this one racist, jingoistic misbehavior into a sea of troubles, though.

But an attorney for the school district said school must create a safe environment for students in the post-Columbine era, and bringing even the image of a gun to school violates the district's policy.

"There's a much higher level of sensitivity these days," Penn Manor attorney Kevin French said. "But it's based on reality."

The lawsuit was filed in January. A federal judge will hold a conference on the case March 31.

That poor judge. He'll be up late many a night, with only a bottle of Scotch to comfort him, trying to find a way to rule that doesn't let the morons win. Either side.

Our thoughts are with you, good sir or madam.

Source: AZ Central

What is UP With Those Conservative Perverts, Anyway?

Special Ted Bundy Edition

Ted Bundy, Young Republican
A writer at the inestimable Sadly, No! (who recently had a contributor infiltrate the CPAC arch-conservative conference posing as a lobbyist from the nonexistent American Milk Solids Council) has discovered an interesting piece of history and decided it would make for the start of the next great book of political theory:

After his discovery, Bundy became a more focused and dominant person. In 1968, he managed the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller’s Presidential campaign and attended the 1968 Republican convention in Miami as a Rockefeller supporter. […]

Bundy graduated in 1972 from the University of Washington with a degree in psychology. Soon afterward, he again went to work for the state Republican Party, which included a close relationship with Gov. Daniel J. Evans. During the campaign, Bundy followed Evans’ Democratic opponent around the state, tape recording his speeches and reporting back to Evans personally. A minor scandal later followed when the Democrats found out about Bundy, who had been posing as a college student.

Dear George Soros:

Please, please, please hook me up with a book deal so I can write a 500-page masterwork showing how all Republicans are really serial killers. I swear to God it’ll be better-researched than Jonah’s crappy book. Hell, just by using Wikipedia, I’ve already drawn upon more credible sources.

Indeed. The Wikipedia article is actually pretty well researched, and contains citations to several books, Bundy's FBI file, and so forth. Bundy, it seems, really was a Republican party official.

I really am beginning to think I'm on to something here, with the Conservative-Pervert Axis of Evil.

Sadly, No! should get in on the action. If Jonah Goldberg can get a book saying that Fascists are Liberal published, surely the bar isn't set too high for character assassination books.

Source: Sadly, No!
Wikipedia

There's Something About Florida (Not Just Bundy)
Now here's a really flagrant example of Conservative pervism:

Floridians were shocked last week when police announced that the spokesman for the state's Department of Children and Families had been arrested and charged with peddling child pornography. But buried in news accounts of the case was a curious detail: the official in question had listed the state's current Republican Governor, Charlie Crist, as a reference when he applied for his post in 2005.

Yes, you read that correctly. The spokesman for the Department of Children and Families was himself a child abuser, and has the state's Republican governor as a reference to land the job!

It gets worse though.

Gov. Crist returned to the news as the nation awaited the outcome of the Republican presidential primary in Florida. The Sunshine State's governor's endorsement of Sen. John McCain late in the campaign may have helped push McCain across the finish line to take the state's 57 delegates. Crist's endorsement also contributed to ending the campaign of Rudy Giuliani, who had heavily courted the governor's thumbs up.

Just after the Florida electoral contest, Tampa Bay police announced the arrest of Al Zimmerman, the spokesman for the state's Department of Children and Families. Zimmerman, a former TV reporter, was charged with 8 child pornography counts after taking photos of two underage boys performing sexual acts. Some evidence indicates that he may have met one of the boys on the job, and that he may have had additional victims. He could face up to 120 years in jail.

Yes, that's right! They politicized his arrest, keeping it secret until after the Republican primary, which McCain needed Crist's help to win!

Crist is of course now trying to say he never knew the man... but he can't deny the recommendation, it seems:

An AP report noted that the governor, "does not recall authorizing a recommendation for Zimmerman, but added that he often is asked to give them, spokeswoman Erin Isaac said Sunday."

But according to some earlier accounts, Crist was directly aware of Zimmerman and his work as on-air talent for a Tampa-area TV station.

So, what sort of work for a tv station catches the Republican governor's eye?

Insightful politcal reporting? Wonkish analysis of tax policy?

Try a pervy sex-piece!

As a reporter, Zimmerman also made waves. According to the Tampa Tribune, a report that Zimmerman completed called "Perverts in the Park" provoked controversy when it aired in Texas in 1996. The TV report focused on a public restroom in a park in San Antonio where gay men met for trysts. And when the news item was broadcast, Zimmerman forgot to digitally blur explicit sexual images recorded with a hidden camera.

Oh yeah, he's good with a camera, isn't he, Governor?

Sigh. If the Sadly, No! guy doesn't get to it, I might just have to write my own book on this subject. 'Conservative Perverts: From Sparta to South Florida'

Sounds good to me.

Source: Raw Story

Obama Supporters Too?
Finally, just to show that I can spot an emerging pervert trend even if it doesn't involve Republicans, we have an Obama supporter's aide who turns out to be a terrible, child abusing pervert!

A top official in Gov. Deval Patrick's administration is accused of sexually assaulting a boy in the steam room of a Florida resort and has been placed on unpaid leave.

Carl Stanley McGee, the assistant secretary for policy and planning, was arrested Dec. 28 after the suspected assault at the Gasparilla Inn and Club in Boca Grande, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

First Oprah runs a school full of pervert teachers, now this. Oprah of course thought the scandal was All About Her, for which I recall Keith Olbermann castigating her on MSNBC, amongst others. Patrick, who is already deeply unpopular, will probably have the same reaction.

Oh, and just because you KNOW it's going to be an issue:

McGee, who made $115,000 as a state employee, worked at Boston law firms before joining the administration. His marriage to John Finley IV in November 2005 was featured in The New York Times' Vows column.

Yes, McGee had a GAY MARRIAGE.

That surely led to this. It's the only possible explanation. After all, we never see good, Conservative men arrested for pervy or heinous sex crim---oh, wait.

We see that about once a week.

Source: Raw Story

Are All Conservatives Perverts?

Seriously, I Think It's Time We Asked

A while back you may have heard about a company, Clean Flix, that was providing a way to censor Hollywood movies for religious families that were both too lazy to read books instead and too prudish to stand a bare breast or gory scene.

Well, see, funny thing. The directors and Hollywood hated someone selling their stuff, repurposed, and sued that company out of existence for commercially infringing their IP.

Now though, it seems there was something more going on than just selling bible thumpers movies without the swear words:

Well, cover your eyes for this story. Clean Flix founder Daniel Thompson has just been arrested and is accused of having sex with underaged girls. And according to the Salt Lake Tribune, the "booking documents state Thompson told the 14-year-olds that his film sanitizing business was a cover for a pornography studio." Police found a "large quantity" of porno movies inside the business, "along with a keg of beer, painkillers and two cameras hooked up to a television." Thompson has been released after posting $30,000 bail.

Yep, you read that correctly. The service was a front for a child molesting pornographer conman.

Honestly. Is there a single conservative in America that isn't doing something disgusting and unseemly?

Can we locate one for the zoo exhibit at least?

Source: The Hollywood Reporter ESQ

Controversies, Weirdness

Legal Eagles and Rabble-Rousers

Accountability is for Other People
So the biggest Katrina suit against the Army Corps of Engineers, who built the faulty levees and floodwalls, often skimping on parts, using poor materials and defrauding the federal government, has been dismissed despite all the evidence of malfeasance and fraud.

The reason? An old Federal law granting immunity to the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control related damages.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge threw out a key class-action lawsuit Wednesday against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over flooding from a levee breach after Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the Corps should be held immune over the failure of a wall on the 17th Street Canal that caused much of the flooding of New Orleans in August 2005.

The suit led to 350,000 separate claims by businesses, government entities and residents, totaling billions of dollars in damages against the agency.

The fate of many of those claims was pinned to that lawsuit and a similar one filed over flooding from a navigation channel in St. Bernard Parish. It was unclear how many claims could still move forward.

The ruling relies on the Flood Control Act of 1928, which made the federal government immune when flood control projects like levees break.

Throughout the court proceedings, plaintiffs lawyers knew they faced a daunting task because the canals were, over time, used as flood control projects by the Corps.

Yeah, it does seem like the law left him little choice. What a terrible law though! They can do anything they want in the name of flood control, run any scam, employ drunks, steal materials, whatever you imagine, and it's ok, they cannot be held to account. Ever.

God Bless America. Except the poor parts that lie near the rivers.

Source: The Associated Press

Worse than the Suit Thing, Huh?
People thought the judge suing over his lost suit was bad.

HARO, Spain (CNN) -- A Spanish businessman withdrew a controversial lawsuit Wednesday against the family of a teenage boy he struck and killed while driving a luxury car.

Tomas Delgado had filed a suit asking the dead boy's parents to pay him €20,000 ($29,400) on the grounds that the collision that killed their teenage son also damaged his Audi A-8.

News of the case sparked outrage in Spain and generated deep sympathy for the parents of 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo Trinidad. He was riding his bicycle home to a campground when Delgado's car hit and killed him in August 2004.

First of all, why is this lawsuit being filed now? Secondly, man, that's cold. I don't care if the boy was at fault, violating traffic laws or what not, who knows, it's possible, you don't sue the family; the kid's dead. Deal with your car's body work and move on.

Or you could antagonize people and make things much worse for yourself..

A traffic report said Delgado was traveling 113 km per hour (70 mph) in an area where the speed limit is 90 km (55 mph). An independent expert hired by Trinidad's family said Delgado was going 173 km per hour (107 mph).

Shortly after the collision, a judge dismissed criminal charges against Delgado after concluding that he had committed no criminal infraction, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

...

A local prosecutor told reporters that he would take a second look at the case to see whether authorities can file fresh charges against Delgado.

Oops. That defense lawyer's going to cost you a lot more than 30 grand, you lunatic jerkass.

Source: CNN.com

Get Over Yourself, Conservative Catholics
So there are a lot of crazy right-wing Catholic groups that get upset every time there's any even slightly risque or critical or even humorous depiction of their Church in the media, right?

A new gym in Boston thought it'd be funny to run an add featuring nuns at an art class, sketching a nude male model. This is about as tame as I can think of. The right-wingers got really, really upset.

C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts said the ad shows contempt for the Catholic religion.

"It says a great deal about this perverse obsession in both the fashion industry and the advertising industry of exploiting and mocking and sexualizing Catholic religious imagery," Doyle said.

The fitness company responded with a written statement saying, "Our ad campaigns are based on personal motivation and fantasy and throughout history the body has been considered a form of art."

Yeah, where would anyone have gotten the idea that the nude body is utilized in artwork, let alone Catholic art? Heaven forfend.

Morons.

Source: The Boston Channel.com
Wikipedia (Various images)


P.S. These are hardly the first Catholics to get angry about art:

From the Wikipedia article on the Sistine Chapel:

The Ignudi[41] are the 20 athletic, nude males that Michelangelo painted as supporting figures at the four corners of the five smaller narrative scenes of central part of the ceiling. The figures hold or are draped with or lean on a variety of things which include pink ribbons, green bolsters and enormous garlands of acorns. The acorns are the symbol of the family of Michelangelo's patron, Pope Julius, and can also be seen as the finials on his chair in Raphael's portrait.[42]

The Ignudi, although all seated, are less physically constrained than the Ancestors of Christ. While the pairs of the monochrome male and female figures above the spandrels are mirrors of each other, these ignudi are all different. In the earliest paintings, they are paired, their poses being similar but with variation. These variations become greater with each pair until the postures of final four bear no relation to each other whatsoever. Their painting demonstrates, more than any other figures on the ceiling, Michelangelo's mastery of anatomy and foreshortening and his enormous powers of invention.[43]

The meaning of these figures has never been clear. They are certainly in keeping with the Humanist acceptance of the classical Greek view that “the man is the measure of all things”.[44] Their presence and nudity angered a number of critics, including Pope Hadrian VI who described the ceiling as "a stew of naked bodies" and wanted it stripped.[5]

He's a Loser Baby
This Beck really, really is one.

Discussing last night’s GOP debate on his radio show today, Glenn Beck and fill-in host Pat Gray mocked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) by derisively calling him “Juan McCain.”

...

During the segment, Beck also commented on a new campaign by the National Council of La Raza that targets him and Lou Dobbs for their rhetoric, which La Raza believes “demonizes immigrants and Hispanic Americans.” Beck suggested that La Raza’s campaign to get him off the air “before the election” may be “connected” to McCain.

...


UPDATE: On Beck’s CNN Headline News show last night, Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist compared La Raza to the KKK while smearing the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Honestly, is there ANYTHING a conservative can say that will get them off the air, permanently? Anything at all?

Source: Think Progress

Tom's Pictures
My friend Tom likes to send me links to bizarre images from across the web. I thought I should put a couple of them in here for posterity.

Power Rangers
How Not to Use an iPhone