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]