Fundamental Paradise

A few weeks ago Uganda passed and enacted one the the most repugnant laws of the 21st Century (so far!), it's neighbor Kenya is headed in the same direction, but first they are laying the ground work to a religious-right fantasy camp (emphasis on "camp") that Kentucky can only dream of.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has signed into law a controversial marriage bill legalising polygamy.

It brings civil law, where a man was only allowed one wife, into line with customary law, where some cultures allow multiple partners.

Controversy surrounded an amendment to the bill, supported by many male MPs, allowing men to take more wives without consulting existing spouses.

Looks like a season of Sister-Wives on vacation is in the offing.

Good job, once again, American Christian Right.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

What exactly are the standards

Of the California, or Los Angeles chapters of the NAACP give Donald Sterling one award, let alone almost give him two?

That's the way to handle it

There are way too many of these idiots in the stands at all sporting events, but no more so than at futbol fixtures.

Barcelona defender Dani Alves responded to a racist taunt Sunday in his side's 3-2 win at Villarreal by picking up a banana that landed at his feet, peeling and then eating it before proceeding to take a corner kick.

Alves said after the match that humour is the best way to combat racism in sports.
"We have suffered this in Spain for some time," Alves said. "You have to take it with a dose of humour. We aren't going to change things easily. If you don't give it importance, they don't achieve their objective."

Getting their talking points from Limbaugh

North Korea's "genetics-based" dictatorship of the proletariat has reached the last stage of political irrelevancy [no, not hosting Sean Hannity at his Nevada Ranch] its agitprop is starting to sound like Rush Limbaugh throwaway lines.

North Korea has launched a vitriolic attack on the South Korean president, comparing her to "crafty prostitute" in thrall to her "pimp" Barack Obama.

Wow sexist and racist in a but a clause...and its not a first time thing of course:

Earlier this month state media ran misogynist articles, including one headlined "We accuse Park the bitch", labelling her as a lunatic, idiot and "cold-blooded animal" and emphasising the fact that she has never married or had children.

When is Kim Jong-Il, noted basketball fan, making a bid for the Clippers?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And now in today's post with no need for additional irony -- but I'll add some anyway

Tragically, John Paul II's reign was-well versed with the inappropriate touching of young men.  Maybe this is a harbinger the guy shouldn't be on the fast-track to Sainthood?  (Or not, given your tolerance for bullshit depth).

Just two days before the canonization of Pope John Paul II, a giant crucifix erected in his honor collapsed in Italy, crushing a young man and killing him, according to ANSA.

But gay rights cause hurricanes?

At least when Big-Butter Jesus went up in flames, no one got hurt.

Takes one to know one

Oh, NOW Sean Hannity is disgusted by Ding Dong Bundy's statements about race.

He used to love that crap.

Like as recently as every day before yesterday.

Call Captain Renault

Because we are shocked...SHOCKED!! that there is racism going on in this guy's residence.

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” the rancher began as he described a "government house" in Las Vegas where he recalled that all the people who sat outside seemed to "have nothing to do." “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he said, as quoted by the Times. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Who'd have guessed that a gun-crazed asshole, feted by right-wing assholes, would also turn out to be a racist asshole?

Other than pretty much everyone.

The Creeping National Security State...getting even creepier

Behold your benevolent dictated future (oh those hip California trend setters)

In a secret test of mass surveillance technology, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department sent a civilian aircraft* over Compton, California, capturing high-resolution video of everything that happened inside that 10-square-mile municipality. Compton residents weren't told about the spying, which happened in 2012. "We literally watched all of Compton during the times that we were flying, so we could zoom in anywhere within the city of Compton and follow cars and see people," Ross McNutt of Persistence Surveillance Systems told the Center for Investigative Reporting, which unearthed and did the first reporting on this important story. The technology he's trying to sell to police departments all over America can stay aloft for up to six hours.

And I'm sure there's a profit to be made in undercutting a civil right. Sorry, soon there will be profit to be made in the essential governmental function of insuring no one has an expectation of privacy, which is no longer one of those important rights. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And forward them on to Giuliani and Hannity

Because this is probably the type of porn that gets them off.

New York police Tuesday were eating extra helpings of humble pie after asking people to post images of themselves and NYPD officers on Twitter -- only to face a deluge of pictures of alleged police brutality...

Images and tweets of many arrests of demonstrators went viral, including such presumed lowlights as an officer pulling the hair of a handcuffed young black woman and another of the bloodied face of an 84-year-old stopped for jaywalking.

Hey, the trick is to do this...without knowing you've done so

So when, leading up to their election someone in India says this:

At a dinner party in one of this city’s wealthy enclaves recently, the subject had turned to the Indian election, and the elegant, accomplished woman sitting beside me explained why she had decided to back Narendra Modi. “What India needs right now,” she said, “is a benevolent despot.”

Don't brag India, we've already done this -- and skipped the hypocrisy of benevolence:

While the wealthiest Americans are outpacing many of their global peers, a New York Times analysis shows that across the lower- and middle-income tiers, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Of course...

Storming the ramparts...

Guns and badges were among the items stolen during a burglary in Boyle Heights that occurred amid a charity football game between two teams of public safety officers, authorities said Monday. Football-photo Multiple items were stolen from a locker room area in Boyle Heights during a football game between the LAPD’s Los Angeles Centurions and the San Diego Enforcers. 

The thief or thieves struck in the locker room area Saturday, during a game at Bishop Mora Salesian High School at 960 Soto St. (map) between an LAPD team and a San Diego-area team, according to Sgt. Gabriel Lara of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollenbeck Station.

Kill them all, and let Exxon/Mobil sort them out

Shareholders should note that congealed blood isn't red, its the same color as sweet crude. When it comes to the real color of money, religion makes no difference.

Hundreds of people were killed because of their ethnicity after South Sudan rebels seized the oil hub of Bentiu last week, the UN has said. They were targeted at a mosque, a church and a hospital, the UN Mission in South Sudan said in a statement. It added that hate speech was broadcast on local radio stations, saying certain groups should leave the town and urging men to rape women. The Nuer community are seen as supporters of rebel leader Riek Machar.

South Sudan has some of the largest oil reserves on Earth.

 It also has a standard of living that is low, even for Africa, which has some of the most dire poverty on Earth.

All that oil theoretically could mean South Sudan's people are not so poor.

But, naturally, it only leads to even greater misery.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Pining for Rove?

I'm no mental health care professional, but where is Sycophancy on the DSM-V?
  

A new report from The Washington Post on Monday featured David Gregory discussing the "Meet the Press" ratings slide, and hinted at the kind of pressure the embattled host is facing. 

Is there ever a better day to question another person's "manhood" than Easter?

Especially when "manhood" is associated with "ready to tell others to lob bombs around on your behalf?"

 Maybe when it is on the Anniversary of the Tonkin Gulf resolution?

 Or just over a decade when you were amongst those who "manfully" demanded we bomb and occupy another country...and it went fabulously?

But, of course, if you are wrong about a War you cheered on, there will never be any consequence.

Just keep cashing that check.

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Sunday criticized President Obama's foreign policy in the Middle East and toward Russia. "Let's face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a (I'll say it crudely) but a manhood problem in the Middle East: Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad, somebody like Putin?" Brooks said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Deservedly or not" indeed.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

ZOMG!!!

ZOMG you guys...Chelsea Clinton and her husband...of child-bearing age are BOLDLY exploiting this fact to have a child.  OH THE FECUNDITY! 


THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS NOT INVOLVING BRITISH MONARCHICAL GENETICS EVAH!!!

HOW...

DARE...

THEY...

It's not a real Clinton-Baby until it survives forcible abortion being repeatedly butted with Vincent Foster's corpse!!!!

WHAT A GAME CHANGER....in the sense that it changes no game whatsoever.


Each successive day I keep thinking we've reached the bottom of right-wing floor -- but there is no floor, they just eat dirt and dig deeper.

Future Richard Cohen column!!!

Well, there doesn't seem to be a lot separating 1970s Roman Polanski and Bryan Singer other than talent and a horrible connection to Charles Manson.

On the other hand, he'll probably have Richard Cohen defending him...which seems like an Eighth Amendment issue, but so be it.

Wash these down with a few pints of Chunky-Monkey and "Chubby Hubby"

More rating slips go right to the hips.

Holland Cooke @HollandCooke Follow

NEW #radio ratings are in. Big-city #RushLimbaugh stations are cellar-dwellers: #22 @ NY, #37 @ LA, #27 @ SFO, #19 @ Chicago, #21 Dallas

6:51 PM - 14 Apr 2014

Next up, more studies finding puppies cute and cigarettes bad.

The US government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities has concluded... After sifting through nearly 1,800 US policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile) and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the United States is dominated by its economic elite.

Who could have divined that one...other than everyone who isn't David Gregory?

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Expanding tasteless analogies...tastelessly

I suppose this writer at National Review thought he'd avoid making a tasteless analogy to a victim of gun violence as a supporter of gun violence...by taking it international.

Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's armed stand against federal officials this weekend is reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi, the civil rights hero who championed civil disobedience through nonviolent means, according to one National Review correspondent.

Yeah...he'd have every reason to be pro-gun...he liked 'em so much, his last interaction was with one.

Plus Gandhi was TOTALLY famous for strategies like this...

“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” Mack said in a Fox News clip pulled by The Blaze. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers.”

Tolerance is the province of people, people you cannot stand

No matter the nationality, there is seemingly nothing too petty and dickish for the far right. It's always short-term bigotry in the name of long-term cultural war.

Following its significant gains in last month's local elections, the French Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, swiftly announced that school cafeterias would no longer serve non-pork substitution meals to children living in towns won by FN candidates. Targeting Muslims for another ritual round of public humiliation, while also excluding Jewish children, Le Pen declared: "There is no reason for religion to enter the public sphere."

Unless, of course, you are doing so...and incapable of identifying irony. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

The Community of Sports

I'm an "American" fan of the English Premier League -- meaning I enjoy it a great deal, but the sport isn't in my marrow the way baseball or American football are. Nonetheless, I am aware of its history -- including tragedies we've rarely encountered in this country.

In 1989, at an FA Cup Semifinal at a stadium known as Hillsborough in Sheffield, England Liverpool played Nottingham Forest (like the Super Bowl, the game was at a "neutral" venue).

At the time, many fans were stacked -- standing up -- into places known as terraces, kept off the field by fencing. Because of sloppy work by the authorities a crush of Liverpool fans was stacked haphazardly into one section, six minutes into the game, the action as stopped and 96 people were dead or destined to die from being crushed to death.

The police and the Thatcher Administration immediately, and wrongly blamed Liverpools fans for the deaths.

This was a lie -- they knew it to be a lie -- but they blamed them anyway.

It took more than two decades for the truth to come out. ESPN has what purportedly is an amazing documentary on the subject tonight at 7 p.m. Central.

Watch it, not for the sports, but the the too familiar story of negligence covered up and lies perpetuated the the government that is supposed to serve the interests of its people. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, at it's home stadium of Anfield, one of the most moving spectacles in sport occurred on Sunday.

Watch this...as their traditional song is cried out and the 96 victims are remembered. And be moved. Of all the traditions I have seen in sports that I would like to see just once in my life, it is this...and it never meant more than yesterday.

Remember when?

For the first few weeks of the Obama Administration when Republicans went all "Hulk-Smash" on the Homeland Security Report saying some right-wing extremists were too extreme? Yeah, good times.

The law center said the suspect has been involved in the white-supremacist movement for most of his life. He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said. He was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found him and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

And naturally, he most likely bought his latest armory without any impediment whatsoever. Of course, maybe if more than one-person at Homeland Security was still monitoring these things. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

And I wonder what, if any laws, he could have possibly broken in amassing his undoubtedly HUGE stockpile of "final solution implements"?

To the shock of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE (except the assholes who bet it was an Islamic Extremist) the guy who shot up a Jewish Community Center and killed three people was a KKK Member and White Supremacist.

According to the law center, Miller has been involved in the white supremacist movement for most of his life. He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said. Miller was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found Miller and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Miller tried running for U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, espousing a white power platform each time.

I lived for a time in Overland Park when I was a kid -- one of the biggest suburbs I have heard of, it has a population the size of the City I know live in Des Moines. It also had a large and vibrant Jewish Community. In fact, it was the place where at the age of five I became aware of what Jewish people were.

They go together

Deliberate, harmful, ignorance.

The cost of keeping global warming in check is "relatively modest," but only if the world acts quickly to reverse the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the head of the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change said Sunday.

Has always been paired with guys with two first names like...Jefferson Beauregard.

Another presidential nominee may have trouble getting confirmed, this time for believing science that shows a connection between climate change and extreme weather. At a confirmation hearing for Janet McCabe, President Obama’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air and Radiation office, Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions said he could not support her because of her views on climate change.

Yeah how dare an EPA official believe in the overwhelming science on the environment. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Ruh Roh

This could be interesting.

Scientists who examined a controversial fragment of papyrus written in Egyptian Coptic in which Jesus speaks of his wife concluded in papers published on Thursday that the papyrus and ink are probably ancient and not a modern forgery.

Wait until they find the fragment that says it was a dude.

That will be an interesting day in the Huckabee household.

Never one to let a sad event be unexploited

America's greatest Americans (just ask them) always ready to put on the best possible lipstick on the face of human suffering.

The way to beat Vladimir Putin is to flood the European market with fracked-in-the-USA natural gas, or so the industry would have us believe. As part of escalating anti-Russian hysteria, two bills have been introduced into the US Congress – one in the House of Representatives (H.R. 6), one in the Senate (S. 2083) – that attempt to fast-track liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, all in the name of helping Europe to wean itself from Putin's fossil fuels, and enhancing US national security.

Yes, make Putin "pay" by making more Americans suffer (unless, of course they are Mobil or BP).

Excelsior!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tough day for Richard Cohen

That guy "knows funny" and was so very sure he was getting this gig.

He even had a "Stupid Human Trick" -- getting paid to be Richard Cohen.

We couldn't have done it without you!

Congratulations. 'Murica, congratulations world!

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that drives climate change, hit 402 parts per million this week — the highest level recorded in at least 800,000 years. The recordings came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which marked another ominous milestone last May when the 400 ppm threshold was crossed for the first time in recorded history.

So many of us have done our part...but some have done quite a bit more than others.

Now let's go have a nice glass of tap water...oops, sorry West Virginia.

 [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Sorry everybody

Been a really busy couple of weeks...very busy.

The true value of hard work is not earning enough

Well what a thorough surprise.

Democrats' push for pay equity between men and women is "condescending," one of the top women in the House Republican leadership argued Tuesday, suggesting that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women's contributions to the workforce. Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), the GOP conference's vice chair, made her comments flanked by her fellow leaders in the House at their weekly news conference, and suggested that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women's contributions to the workforce.

Ms. Jenkins -- seriously -- went to on say she supports the concept of "equal pay for equal work" -- she just does not want to lift a finger for it to occur. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Bravery beyond all bounds

One thing that has been consistent about the Democratic Party since Reagan, if they can whatever they can do...

The White House has defended a four-fold increase in the deportation of undocumented immigrants for minor crimes such as driving offences, insisting it is simply complying with “administration priorities” by removing foreign law-breakers from the country.

They do to placate the Republicans...only to turn around and tell their base, "well we could be worse?"

Add another quasi-surrender to the list.

[Firedoglake]

Combining the worst of both worlds...in the third

I know that you all are comfortable with the thought that the international banking system is consistent in one thing...delivering quality services to the less privileged.

Oh right, this is not an alternative reality.

A flagship hospital built in Lesotho using public/private financing with advice from an arm of the World Bank threatens to bankrupt the impoverished African country's health budget. More than half the country's entire health budget (51%) is being spent on payments to the private consortium that built and runs the hospital in the capital, Maseru, led by South-Africa-based Netcare, the biggest private healthcare provider in the UK.

I'm sure this system works as well as America's though right?

Oxfam, whose report is published on Monday, says the healthcare of the poorest people is at risk, as the Queen Mamohato memorial hospital draws off money that is badly needed for clinics in rural areas.

It sure does!

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Enabling higher profits

Shocking to believe...sort of.

Law enforcement officials told CNN that Wednesday's shooter, who has been identified in media reports as Ivan Lopez, passed a background check when he bought a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun at Guns Galore, a store in Killeen, Texas. In 2009, ABC News reported that Hasan purchased a FN Herstal Five-seveN tactical pistol from the same store in August of that year.

Yes, "Guns Galore" you cannot spell it without "G-o-r-e". And the thing about being go-to place for spree killers? In modern 'murica, the more spree-killing, the higher the profits.

As sure as summer follows spring, gun sales rise after a mass shooting. It happened after the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. It happened after the Tucson, Ariz., shootings last year that killed six. Now, after the killing of 12 people last week at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., gun sales are spiking again - not just in Colorado but around the country.

And yet they sleep at night. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

...just like you, only better

So to update things based on yesterday's events. Super rich people are just like you, except for the following. 1. They get to have ever more of the pie. 2. Their tender life-experiences help keep them from going to prison if they murder or rape someone because they might have to be within a few feet of a filthy peasant who tried to sell his nephew a joint. 3. They can now fully invest in the political candidate of their choice. And to think they got the first two before they got the last one? What have they not yet been given immunity from? Oh yeah.

Charles H. Keating Jr., the notorious financier who served prison time and was disgraced for his role in the costliest savings and loan failure of the 1980s, has died. He was 90.

Let 'em keep a few more GDP percentages and they no longer will have to worry about inheritance taxes either. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

They're on a Tiffany Roll

Well, at least they did not put small charges in gas tanks.

CBS News says an editor made an "audio error" in dubbing the sound of a loud traditional car engine over footage of the much quieter Tesla electric car in a "60 Minutes" story that aired Sunday.

Hey, at least it didn't involved Lara Logan going "vrrooom vrrooom". It hasn't exactly been a great period for the network of the now long dead Morrow and Cronkite.

It's been a rough year at television's most popular newsmagazine, with correspondent Lara Logan still on leave after an internal CBS report questioned her reporting and objectivity on a story about an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Critics also questioned the show's reporting on stories involving the National Security Agency and Amazon.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Well obviously

Somebody's dad smelt of elderberries

It's no cheeto-based shape but....

Curators were forced to remove a precious cup from display in a Spanish church when crowds swarmed there after historians claimed it was the holy grail, staff said. Visitors flocked to the San Isidro basilica in the north-western city of León after two historians published a book saying the ancient goblet was the mythical chalice from which Christ sipped at the last supper.

Two ‘Muricas

On the day we discovered how the other hundredth live...

A judge has ruled that Robert H. Richards IV, an heir to the du Pont fortune, should not face jail time after raping his three-year-old daughter. The reason Judge Jan Jurden gave for sentencing Richards to probation was that he “would not fare well in prison.”

Not that it's a trend or anything. And let us compare our sympathies for how the rich are just like you...only better...with this.

Homeless people experienced a 23 percent surge in targeted attacks last year as compared to the number of assaults in 2012, according to preliminary figures released by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH).

But in America, the fact you may not fare well without money or mental health care can never be considered. Pity the rich pederast. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]