Quote Of The Day

Feb 4th, 2013

"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

Quote Of The Day - Sunday Edition

Feb 3rd, 2013

Having clashed with any number of increasingly anti-democratic Dominionists over the last few days, I can't think of anything more appropriate.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

-- Mathew 6:6

Why We Can't Talk About Gun Control

Feb 2nd, 2013

We've tried reason, we've employed statistical truth, and we've even called out the leading opponents of any new reforms or enforcement for having previously backed the proposals they now are against.

Neil Steinberg throws up his hands and sees the failure of dialog as a symptom of a pathology:

"...we are not dealing with rational people. Guns are part of the right-wing lunatic fringe of fear, the Obama-loathing, government-hating, minority-despising, science-scoffing quarter of Americans existing in a shadowy permanent grief state over the 1950s, over a white-bread America where they were king that never was and never will be. Guns are the talismans that ward off change in the world, that protect them from all their stalking fears, the wand of hope that someday society will indeed break down — isn’t it fracturing already, with gay marriage? — and they will assume their rightful place as unquestioned kings once more, with their AK-47s set proudly on their kingly hips and their freeze-dried meals nourishing them through the long night of the tardy Mayan zombie apocalypse.

What statistics are going to crack that nut? What numbers are going to change those minds? When they say gun control never works, and you point to the rest of the civilized world, where guns are restricted and gun deaths a trickle, they blink. What rest of the world? Oh, you mean Europe? Where European-style socialism rules? There is no fact that will cut this knot."

Perhaps the "gun-nuts," as some us are prone to calling these fanatics, are exactly that.

They are nuts.

Quote Of The Day

Feb 1st, 2013

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal."

-- John Steinbeck

Context, Sen. Rapert? Seriously?

Feb 1st, 2013

Today, ThinkProgress reported on an amateur video (posted below) showing Arkansas State Sen. Jason Rapert (R), a far-right activist who has recently gained national attention for his radical assaults on reproductive choice, making the following statement:

"I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama. You don’t represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is [sic] not going to save us. We’re going to take this country back for the Lord. We’re going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we’re not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in!"

It's shameful. It's shocking. It's vile. And it's not playing the "race card" to hammer him for it.

Usually, this is where a public figure who has brought shame to their office makes some sort of apology.

You know the drill. At the very least, they say something along the lines of, "if anyone was offended, etc.."

Some just disappear and they lie low for a while.

Not Sen. Rapert. He has taken to his twitter account to accuse his critics of lacking "context."

No, Seriously.

It's exceedingly rare to see this sort of overt White Supremacism so proudly displayed by a public official in this day and age, but it happens.

However, I can't recall ever seeing someone caught in such a display so devolved that they think it's publicly defensible.

In A Nutshell

Feb 1st, 2013