Idiot of the day 2013: Wishing that the Mayans were right.

[NotMiki]

Which all makes the southern take on the Civil War extremely confusing.  So you're pro-Confederacy but anti-KKK, and the Confederacy was just trying to preserve a way of life or something but the KKK was engaged in the most heinous of racism?  Is this a secret plot to give liberals whiplash?

[NotMiki]

This is absolutely nuts.  A 6.75% one-time tax on savings accounts with deposit insurance? The only sane conclusion is that the EU is run by people who actively want to undermine confidence in banks - all of them - and ruin the global economy.  What other possible explanation could there be?  Who in their right mind would put a cent in a Cyprus bank after this bailout?  In any bank in any European country with financial difficulties?  Hell, in any bank in Europe?

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/33fb34b4-8df8-11e2-9d6b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Nr8AIcai
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/03/question-day-cyprus-unique

[superaielman]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/14/florida-man-drunk-dials-11-ends-up-in-jail/


And now, for a funny IotD.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Florida Man is an endless wellspring of comedy.

[superaielman]

It is one of the best things on twitter.

[TranceHime]

http://www.reynaelena.com/2013/03/20/edwin-olivarez-graduation-message-annihilated-the-english-language/

I'm not even sure what the message is even trying to say.

[superaielman]

http://truefinns.tumblr.com/

Courtesy of Tonfa. The True Finns are racist and generally insane enough to make David Duke blush.

[Captain K.]

Need to go read the Bible again.  I totally missed that part about the microchip implants.

[Pyro]

Conservatives in the US are like a gold mine for this kind of shit.

http://www.tennessean.com/viewart/20130325/NEWS02/303250057/TN-lawmakers-confuse-mop-sink-Muslim-foot-washing-sink

[Grefter]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/28/doj_cfaa_update/

We want to increase the sentencing on crimes that are already completely out of proportion with the impact of the crime.  Of course we don't mean to actually use them, it is just there to get confessions out from suspects under duress!

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.skepticnorth.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/vaccine-epidemic-book-cover.jpg

I can't wait to buy my copy!

[superaielman]

Let's go over that book cover!

Louise Habakus- No medical background that I can find, works in fiance. Mary Holland- A goddamn lawyer with no medical background.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Five more years of vaccination rates dropping and we could see the return of things like measles and whooping cough among children. A pile of dead children will be their reward.

[superaielman]

http://requireshate.wordpress.com/ Stumbled across this when looking for Jim Butcher quotes. It's a blog written by what appears to be a parody of a hyper leftist S/F fan. Sadly, by all indications the author is serious. 

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/04/06/can-antivaccinationists-knock-it-off-with-the-autism-holocaust-analogies-already/

Respectful Insolence is something I've linked before. Hilarious cancer researcher/doctor who loves to tear apart anti-vax people. Anyway, he tears into people who compare vaccines to the Holocaust.

(If you can't tell, I've been reading a lot about anti-vax and other naturopath bullshit lately. :p)

[superaielman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/jenny-mccarthy-the-ever-b_n_3103259.html Related. As always fuck Jenny McCarthy.  The HoPo piece gets it for this comment alone:

" and also stayed active at the helm of her controversial-to-some autism organization Generation Rescue."

FUCK OFF

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

"Controversial to some" is one of the slimiest expressions I've heard in the last few years. Not only it applies a for-all-purposes euphemism, it shifts the onus of doubt upon its detractors. Linguistic scumbaggery in the nude.

[superaielman]

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_hope_the_boston_marathon_bomber_is_a_white_american/

This is incredibly dumb and offensive on about a dozen levels. Let's hit the highlights!

A: Hoping that bombers fit a particular ideological profile because of politics. This is pretty morally repulsive.
B: You know why right wing domestic terrorists get treated differently than muslim fundamentalist t terrorists? They function differently.  Home grown terrorists are almost always lone wolf types; we've seen evidence pointing otherwise. 
C: "By the way, you don’t have to be a person of color or a political liberal to hope the bomber ends up being a white American. You just have to be among the groups of Americans who don’t like stuff like preemptive wars, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, the drone war, an unsustainable Pentagon budget and a broken immigration system. By their own rhetoric, some of those groups must include many self-described conservatives — after all, they purport to care about civil liberties and say they want to reduce government spending."

This fucking paragraph. Oh boy! "It isn't just minorities and people of my political group who should favor my incredibly offensive ideology, it is people from the opposite ideology who aren't evil."

[Idun]

He should have more eloquently stated it as hoping that the bombers are not "ethnic" and "Muslim," because those two categories alone place them into the conservative, flesh-eating and xenophobic charges of specifically Islamic terrorism. Sirota shamelessly chose a more charged (for hits!) way of saying this unfortunately. In any case, his sentiment was shared by many in Boston.

[superaielman]

The sentiment is incredibly fucked up and wrong. Saying you hope one group committed an act of terrorism because it better fits what you want to happen politically should not be acceptable.

[Idun]

The sentiment is incredibly fucked up and wrong. Saying you hope one group committed an act of terrorism because it better fits what you want to happen politically should not be acceptable.

It's an after-the-fact sentiment, not one that wishes x people committ a crime because of politics; my understanding is that, Sirota notwithstanding, the mentality is more: now that a terrorist attack occurred, let's hope it is not a "minority" (Boston sect). Whatever that means. And honestly? I can see where the split feeling comes from, considering the snap judgments assuming that every domestic robbery/rape/killing is by a black person. And I'm sure this doesn't need to be said, but I'm not condoning Sirota's use of language, blah blah. Sirota obv. carved out a dumb, sensationalist pt for a reason. The mentality that I'm less likely to spit flame towards (Boston one; quick digup on Boston Herald will let you see all the apprehension towards an 'ethnic person' being identified) is a bit more nuanced than "support discrimination towards whites!" etc.

Edit edit* Oh I wanted to link this. It will make you angrier. http://www.salon.com/2013/04/17/i_still_hope_the_bomber_is_a_white_american/

[Idun]

I don't normally enjoy anything that comes out of Jezebel, but:

http://jezebel.com/oklahoma-republican-says-the-words-jew-me-down-on-the-477494313

Posted because Georgians often use that phrase.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/03/23/land-mines-in-our-sexual-landscape/

Both the complete asshole who wrote this and whoever gave the okay to publish this tripe should be fired. She says our society is at fault for non-consensual sex because we allow consensual sex to whoever wants to have it? No, fuck yooooooooooooooooou. Bonus idiot points for defending child porn as totally cool as long as you do it in the privacy of your own home.

[NotMiki]

No wait she's totally right.  I mean, India and Pakistan are very conservative about the circumstances under which consentual sex is allowed and they totally don't have a rape problem.

Regarding child porn, there's a great New York Times piece from a couple months back about how victims of child pornography are often profoundly injured by the thought that strangers are watching videos of them being raped.  I'll see if I can dig it up later, it does a great job of laying out the psychological and legal landscape regarding victims.

The writer doesn't seem to quite grasp it, but unwittingly demonstrates an important point about rape.  The harm of rape is entirely psychological, entirely bound up with the idea that sex is important - sacred, even.  The author places a very low psychological value on sex, which is why she doesn't get how something so abstract as the idea that there is private viewing of child porn could possibly injure the victim and subject of it.  To her it's no different than a youtube video of a guy involuntarily being hit in the face with a pie would be harmful. (the difference is in degree and not in kind, but it's a pretty fucking huge difference in degree.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The slutshaming and lack of grasp on the fundamental concept of consent displayed by the article writer border on criminal.