Category Archives: WTF?!

Dog Bites Man*

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Justice Scalia Makes Epic Blunder In Supreme Court Opinion.

“This is not the first time EPA has sought to convert the Clean Air Act into a mandate for cost-effective regulation. Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc., 531 U. S. 457 (2001), confronted EPA’s contention that it could consider costs in setting [National Ambient Air Quality Standards],” Scalia wrote in his dissent, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.

The problem: the EPA’s position in the 2001 case was exactly the opposite.

More or less epic than basing an entire judicial career on the fallacy that he can accurately interpret the intent of the drafters 100% of the time and that, coincidentally, it favors the desired conservative legal outcome 100% of the time?

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* No dogs were harmed in the drafting of this post, though a number of them may have been insulted by the unfortunate comparison to Justice Scalia.

WWJF

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Who Would Jesus Fear?

The residents of Indian Village are fighting mad about the potential location of a group home for mentally ill youth in southwest Louisiana’s Allen parish.

“We don’t have a problem helping people,” said 57-year-old resident Beth Courville. “We are a Christian community, a hard-working community.”

“Our fear is fear itself. We don’t know what’s going to be in our backyard,” said Courville. “We would like to stop this nightmare from happening to another community.”

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Many Obamacare Critics, Including Koch Brothers, Accepted Its Subsidies

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Many Obamacare Critics, Including Koch Brothers, Accepted Its Subsidies.

File under “R” for Republican Hypocrisy, though by now you may need a larger filing cabinet.

I continue to wonder what their plan is for people who are not millionaires.  The free market will magically deliver cancer treatment at the local Wal-Mart?

Clearly they (Kochs; Republicans in general) are not opposed to Obamacare purely on principle, because of course they’d never accept subsidies, right?  What does that leave?  The pure political battle, in which they attack a policy that has provided insurance coverage — and related benefits like health, peace of mind, and the ability to leave an old job or start a new business — to millions of their fellow Americans simply to win the football game that is modern American politics.

This was, in fact, the theory of leading Republican pontificator William Kristol in 1993:  no negotiation; no compromise; no health care plan.  Let’s not figure out how to help people (i.e. govern); just kill it in an attempt to harm the other team.

So to my various conservative friends & family members who are likely to unleash the hounds in the comments — what’s the plan?  How are we going to pay for cancer treatments for minimum-wage workers?  How are we going to delink work and health care so that people — even those with pre-existing conditions — can have the freedom we hope all Americans have to innovate, to leave old jobs and start new businesses?

What is the plan?

States Rights: 1963 and 2014

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Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!

 

georgewallace_custom-76a21ac9eda0f4f7e943b6d8bc9c1f7908b0a05d-s6-c30

 

Prison rape today, prison rape tomorrow, prison rape forever!

 

Perry

 

 

 

Creationists Complain Tyson’s ‘Cosmos’ Isn’t Giving Them Airtime

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Creationists Complain Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘Cosmos’ Isn’t Giving Them Airtime.

Also not featured on “Cosmos”:

  1. The Earth is flat.
  2. The sun revolves around the earth.
  3. The Earth is sitting on the back of a giant turtle.
  4. Life emerged from a giant hollow reed growing from the first world into the second world, which at the time was already occupied by Cat People.
  5. An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe “after drinking heavily”.

FSM

By the way, #4 comes from the site www.bigmyth.com which has awesome animations of some of the world’s creation stories.

Honoring our Dead

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[I am honored to provide a platform for Corbett’s latest guest post. – ed.]

“Her life was not worth living.”

“He was such a burden to his family.”

“The parents suffered so much.”

“It’s understandable.”

“There’s no crime here – they did a merciful thing.”

This is how the media often reports on the murders of disabled people. The reports are full of sympathy for the murderers and short on compassion for those murdered.  Disabled people’s lives are framed as useless, tragic, suffering. Media writers ignore the joys and passions of the victims – maybe because that disrupts the sympathy narrative for the murderer.

Since 2012 on March 1st an international Day of Mourning vigil is held to honor and remember those disabled people killed by family and caregivers.  Some vigils also include those murdered by authority figures, such as police and school personnel. This year there are 104 names on the list. These are just the people who got caught. Research by Dick Sobsey and others show that a great many acts of violence against disabled people are never caught. In one chilling report, he discovered that 25% of the deaths of people with cerebral palsy were murders. Even when the murders are reported, the punishment for the murderers is often light.

If my writing seems drier than usual, it’s because I am holding my breath and trying to keep my teardrops off the keyboard while I type. It’s hard to sit with these stories. Hard to know how easy it is for those that we, disabled people, rely on to kill us. Hard to read the sympathetic media reports that say our lives were not worth living. Hard to know that the murderers know that even if they are caught there will likely be few consequences. Hard to sit with these facts while we are fighting every day for society to become just a little bit more accessible.  Hard to look into the faces of these murderers and know that a great many people support them.

So on Saturday I am going to attend my local vigil and honor those killed. I will surround myself with people who know that disabled people’s lives are valuable. I will not let those murdered be forgotten.

RESOURCES

Find an in-person or online vigil here

2014 list of names and causes of death

Dick Sobsey

Kassiane (direct and has profanity)

Ibby Grace

Zoe Gross (who started the vigils) blog

Bad Cripple

s.e. smith

Fox News: Random Word Generator

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Fox Freaks Out Over CVS Ending Sales Of Tobacco | Blog | Media Matters for America.

On Fox’s The Real Story, host Gretchen Carlson approached the CVS decision with suspicion and a remarkably uninformed premise, asking, “Is it OK legally … to restrict tobacco availability in a private store like this?” She questioned her guests as to whether they would continue shopping at CVS and observed that, “For people who smoke, you know, they have a right to buy cigarettes. It’s not illegal.”

So a private company makes a business decision that liberals — and specifically President Obama —  think is a good idea, and suddenly it’s not clear to Fox News whether it’s OK.  What’s the alternative:  requiring CVS to sell its quota of tobacco to meet the current five-year plan?

The GOP is supposed to be the party of private enterprise.   Then CVS makes an inventory decision, or Costco makes a salary decision, or Coca-Cola makes a marketing decision, or Obamacare makes it easier to quit your job and start a new small business (or stay home with your kids), and the right rejects these monumentally pro-business moves for the simple reason that the left likes them.

Today’s Republican party is not the party of private enterprise.  It’s the party of anger.  Knee-jerk anger.  I guess its chances of long-term success depend not so much on policies or demographics, but on the ability to sustain content-free anger.

The Man-Haters at Fox News

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“Brit Hume and Bill O’Reilly Think America’s Too ‘Feminized’ to Appreciate Chris Christie.”  Hume:

I have to say that in this sort of feminized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct and are kind of old-fashioned tough guys run some risks.

This only works if “masculine” means “childish, lying, grudge-carrying asshole” and “feminized” means “acting like a decent, grown-up human being.”  Given what we know about Christie’s behavior, Hume’s declaration can only be read as an insult to men, something I would not have thought I’d hear at Fox News.

Which beatitude was that?

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You know, the one that said that rich dudes who withhold their religious-oriented charitable donations to bribe the previously-infallible pope to get him to stop hurting rich people’s feelings will inherit the earth?

Via Talking Points Memo:

{Image: two photographs side by side, one of an older, balding man in a suit speaking into a microphone; the other of Pope Francis, in a white robe and yarmulke. Both photos show the respective men from the mid-torso up. The headline above the photos reads "Billionaire Home Depot Founder Says Pope Francis Is Alienating The Rich."}

Billionaire Home Depot founder Ken Langone has a warning for Pope Francis.

A major Republican donor, Langone told CNBC in a story published online Monday that wealthy people such as himself might stop giving to charity if the Pope continues to make statements criticizing capitalism and income inequality.

Guess the eye of the needle was larger than originally thought.

Hey, Lego, where’s *my* family?

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I thought this sounded like a cool idea:

{Lego ad showing sample family of four people standing on two feet, plus a baby carriage. Text reads "Minifigure Family. Sending holiday cards was never this much fun! Minifigure Family lets you create a customized holiday card featuring Minifigure representations of your own family. It's easy!"

Then I got started creating a holiday card with Minifigure representations of my own family, and found that it was not only not easy, but downright impossible.  Even though Lego appears to sell a variety of Minifigures With Disabilities (“MWD”), including Determined Wheelchair Tennis Player,

{Image of lego minifigure woman in a wheelchair holding a tennis racquet. On her face is a very determined look, with eyes wide and yebrows constricted.}

Pissed Off Wheelchair Soccer Player,

{Image of lego minifigure man in a wheelchair kicking a soccer ball. On his face is a pissed off look, with his mouth ticked off to the side and his eyebrows constricted.}

Really Pissed Off Wheelchair Basketball Player,

{Image of lego minifigure man in a wheelchair holding a a basketball. On his face is a very angry look, with his teeth gritted and his eyebrows constricted.}

and Reasonably Emotionally Well-Adjusted Khaki Shirt Guy,

{Image of lego minifigure man in a wheelchair wearing a khaki shirt with a benevolent expression on his face.}

their Minifigure Holiday Card Generator does not have any wheelchair-using options.

Hey, Lego, what’s up with that?

Of course, that didn’t stop me from trying my best within Lego’s narrow-minded constraints:

{Image of two people and a dog on the surface of a distant planet, surrounded by flying asteroids, with a volcano and meteorite in the background. The first Lego Minifigure on the left is labeled "Amy." She has a helmet with antennae, a green shirt hanging with knives and other implements, and -- hanging from her belt -- a skull, a tooth and a test tube containing a spider. The middle figure, labeled "Tim" is a man with blond hair, glasses and a wooden leg. His shirt contains dials and meters. The third figure is a yellow dog.}

Yes, Tim’s entire disability experience is represented by… a wooden leg.