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States of Stupidity

I wasn't previously aware of it, but apparently, there's a big contest going on to see which of the United(?) States is the stupidest fucking one we have, and then they've agreed to crop-dust it with painkillers, pop music, booze, bombs, sterilizing agents and lethal radiation.  Not really, but I wish that sometimes.

ILLINOIS: Illinois got their entry in early, when a Catholic Bishop (not one of those firebrand MethoBaptiChrister fucks) said that President Obama was waging a cultural war on religion, and that Catholic Masses could go the way of the dinosaur under his administration, comparing him to Hitler and Stalin, a comparison that one thinks would probably have upset Hitler and Stalin.  This entry is under review, of course, due to the automatic review process started with any evocation of Godwin's Law.  (His language about Christians huddling and hiding solely in the confines of their churches gave me a funny little tingle, though.)

ARIZONA: Arizona's entry came in last week, when its lawmakers decided that life begins two weeks before conception, or roughly when married couples with kids start making plans to spend time together alone with the barest possibility of sex. The idea here, of course, is to limit a woman's right to an abortion even further, where soon only women who aren't pregnant will be able to get them.  The determinant is an impossible to accomplish overreaction to a perceived problem - just like all other recent Arizona legislation.

KANSAS: Not to be outdone, Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill this month making it legal for pharmacists to refuse to sell any drug to a woman that they believed could cause an abortion.  Now, if Dorothy wakes up from a threesome with a munchkin, a flying monkey and the Scarecrow, there's no morning after pill for her unless she knows her non-asshole pharmacist personally.  Proponents of the ruling describe it as a furtherance of previously standing laws making it clear that no one should be required to participate in abortions, which is interesting, since by denying Dorothy the drugs, you're just about requiring that she participate in an actual abortion.  The obvious natural extension of this law would restrict the sales of certain herbs, teas, coat hangers and bleach.

FLORIDA: The marching band at Florida A&M has been forced to suspend its program for another year after some of the band members beat a guy to death during fucking hazing.  I don't even know why we have the word hazing, since bullying is synonymous and everyone's angry about that.  Hazing is just bullying to see if you're good enough for the bullies; you want to affect change, call it what the hell it is. They're proposing a lot of staff and rules changes before the band can come back - strangely missing: Prohibiting Hazing.

NEW YORK: The Republicunt Party there has nominated the estranged husband of a current Democratic assembly member from Nassau County to run against her this fall.  This couple shares the same last name still and has been separated for less than a year, but the folks responsible for this little American travesty of marriage and politics assure us that Schmucko the Candidate "will run a dignified and issue-oriented campaign."  I don't know how many divorced and divorcing couples you've ever been around in your life, but I can smell the bullshit on this one from here.  They can't even order lunch together mostly, much less run against one another for office.  Congrats, NY GOP - you just turned this race into an episode of Maury fucking Povitch.

OKLAHOMA: Republican Congressman James Lankford recently told a reporter that not only does he still believe homosexuality is a choice, but that if one makes that choice, one ought to be fired from one's job, which is going to be awesome when they catch him with an officeful of rent boys.  Seems to me, though, the worst thing about being gay is that it makes straight people fucking stupid.  Since Obama's support of gay marriage from last week, there's just been a slew of outright ignorance and stupidity flying around, and sometimes, you hear someone like Lankford, who, as an elected official, enters his state in the contest with his comments.

TENNESSEE: Flying high on the strength of the ongoing efforts by the Mosqueteers, Tennessee's governor Bill HasBeen decided to essentially outlaw "gateway sexual activity" in an effort to reduce teen pregnancies. Presumably, this would cover hugging, kissing, touching, necking, fondling, touching, dry humping, over clothing handjobs and rubbing, touching, and lots of kinds of sitting and dancing.  I got news for you, Bill: You REALLY want to see a jump in teen sexual activity?  Take away all of the stuff on this list. Tell people they can't do it, and watch frustration levels climb until people are just like, "Fuck it, let's fuck.  That's not illegal."  Yet.

A couple of honorable mentions, here: Pastor Paul Cameron, working for the Family Research Council out of our nation's capitol, grabs his lectern and says that he thinks the President is gay and that gays should be locked up before they rape kids - so, by extension, the President needs to be in preventative gay kid rape prison.  I can't remember any time before in my life that the right was this desperate: "He's not from America!  No?  Okay, he's a Muslim, then!  No?  He's gay?  Yeah, let's try that."  There's also international stupidity going on when Lady Gaga has to cancel a sold-out show in Indonesia because Islamic lawmakers think she'll corrupt the youth with sexiness.  I'm pretty sure that's her whole act - how did this show get booked in the first place?  Also, out of Britain, John Limey Horrorface declares that white people in charge of shit historically works best and is the way to go, embracing the term "White Supremacist."  I gotta be honest, here - I sometimes no longer know if conservative pundits know they're being ridiculous.  Did he think there was a point to be made here, or did he just wake up pissed at non-whites one day?

I'm not sure when the voting in the contest takes place, you'll have to check with my office staff.

Bulgarian Dog Spinning?

Let me start out by saying that I in no way endorse the practice I'm about to describe and find it disgusting. That said...

This week I got sent a petition to sign protesting Bulgarian Dog Spinning. I freely admit that while I wanted to be outraged right away, my first reaction was more kind of that "Whaaaaat..." where you just trail off at the end.  I didn't believe that this was really a thing at first.  I mean, I grant you - the depths of depravity to which humans - even the ones who aren't Michael Vick - are pretty deep, but give me a fucking break; Dog Spinning?  For good fortune and to ward off rabies?  Yeah, hah?

So I did the Internet version of due diligence on this thing - I Snopesed it. Nothing. Not a sausage. I have blog readers who translate my blog into French, Chinese, German and Cyrillic to read it, (I know, right?) so I emailed a couple of those guys, and one of them directed me here, to a Greek site with a video that has Cyrillic titles of this shit actually being done. So it's real, and totally fucked up. Apparently, a fair number of dogs drown and lose limbs doing this. Once again, tradition rears its ugly head as the dumbest fucking reason to do anything. I'm going to warn you about the video - it's very hard to watch and will make you want to punch Bulgarians, even if the dog at the end does run the fuck off from these assholes under its own power.

Eventually, I realized that there's a Wikipedia entry on this, but not a very good one.  I also found a Green Party article (also referenced in the Wiki article) about it, and a recent Daily Mail piece declaring that activists have managed to get the practice modified, so the dogs at least live through it, just traumatized and abused.  So this is real and messed up and ongoing, so sign that shit and then send me better solutions if you find one.

I propose a new tradition of Bulgarian Prick Spinning.  Anybody down with that?  We spin some Bulgarian pricks over a river and then, when they're wet and disoriented and sick and scared, we put the dogs on them.  I'd watch the hell out of that.

Hate Away the Straight

Pastor Sean Harris of the Berean Baptist Church (pictured here talking about his recent trip to the boys' showers) made headlines the other day (which was probably always the plan) with his comments about beating homosexual tendencies out of the children of Christians.  While the propensity to do such a thing is not news nor even rare, talking about it where everyone can put you on the Internet for it is just stupid, so now we all get to act like preachers like this doorknob are a rarity.

There's nothing even remotely special about Pastor Sean - the garden-variety hate he preaches is pretty standard for deep South Baptists, and his 180 turnaround and full retraction are pretty par for the course in a 24 hour news environment.

What's really interesting about Pastor Sean is that he's the first volunteer for a revolutionary new program being offered by Squidbag Solutions (which is wholly owned by Squidbag Enterprises, DBA Squidbag Group, global pioneers in Bockwursting and Field Screaming) wherein intolerant straight motherfuckers take a series of skull-crackingly focused courses designed to help them reject their hateful heterosexual lifestyles and become completely gay.  

"It's a fairly easy procedure," said (not a) Dr. Garrett Crowell, wearing a plastic stethoscope from his daughter's doctor dress-up kit, "we 'Hate Away the Straight™' in a series of physically and psychologically demanding intimidation and violence sessions that eventually culminate in the subject becoming more open-minded, or dying, and more to the point, an order of magnitude more fabulous.  Ultimately, everyone benefits as the subjects become more interesting and fun to be around, stage parades and shows, and the hope is, pass the evolutionary gayness along to the next generation.  Somehow.  We're still working on that."

The newly-established Squidbag Clinic in a basement will be offering several "Coloring Your Rainbow" sessions a month, tailored to help currently straight social conservatives give up their damaging lifestyle and embrace a new path to being productive gay citizens.  "It starts with them ponying up a truckload of cash money," said (not a) Dr. Crowell, brandishing a pink bejeweled baseball bat, "which symbolizes their deep and pure commitment to the process and my revolutionary procedure.  Besides, these 1% fucks can afford it.  We move on then to a series of exercises in science, sociology, sexuality, gender studies, musical theater, alternative media, and yes, even riding crop beatings in order to make it clear to these conservatives that even if they don't want to go the full gay, so to speak, that their current lifestyles are too destructive - to themselves and everyone else around them - to continue.  The last bit is up to them - after all, it's their choice to make."

Critics of the procedure have argued that being conservative is natural for some people, and that people are born straight and can't really change, but the Squidbag Clinic is committed to social transformation, and has responded to this initally with more beatings and repeated heavy drinking.