This is funny

Ah, Mike Pence. No sooner does he decide to make a splash in the 2016 GOP Presidential field by signing a certain controversial bill than he finds out that a whole lot of people don't really like it, including other public officials, the major newspaper in his capital, major business executives and even the NCAA.

It's really a test of your nerves to run for President these days - especially when some of the groups you're openly pandering to are just about as nutty as a fruitcake that accidentally fell into a peanut processing plant. But hey, Pence has a solution - it's called whining. Or failing that, blaming the other guy's laws.

And just as it's a test of your nerves to run for President, laws like this and the reasons they get passed are a test of my gag reflex. Air sickness bags to the fore!

There are no words...

...to describe the barbarity of this:
Washiqur Rahman’s Facebook banner declares “#IamAvijit”, after the leading secular and humanist blogger, Avijit Roy, who was murdered a month ago in Bangladesh.

This morning Washiqur Rahman himself was killed in similar circumstances: a machete attack by assailants on the streets of Dhaka. The brutal attack took place close to Rahman’s home. Police have reportedly taken two men into custody who were detained at the scene.

This stands as proof that violent religious fundamentalists - regardless of their creed, race or upbringing - are good at three things: finding followers to manipulate, terrifying their opponents into silence and killing the ones who dare to continue to speak out. And it's seemingly getting worse all the time.

Now Reading

Drunkard's Walk by Frederik Pohl.

Your daily dose of "post-racist" irony in America, March 2015 edition

Fueless Cluck of the Month candidate Andrea Shea King just doesn't get lynching analogies. She uses them, to be sure, but that doesn't disprove the fact that she doesn't get them:

“I would like to think that these guys could pay with their lives, hanging from a noose in front of the U.S. Capitol Building,” she said. “What they are doing is they are putting their own interests above that of America, and to me that is criminal.”

Uh huh. Sure.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice added a bit of nuance to the debate about police conduct in Ferguson, Missouri by publishing a report that doesn't exactly state that the situation there is peachy-keen despite the lack of a case against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown:

The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on FPD’s approach to law enforcement. Patrol assignments and schedules are geared toward aggressive enforcement of Ferguson’s municipal code, with insufficient thought given to whether enforcement strategies promote public safety or unnecessarily undermine community trust and cooperation. Officer evaluations and promotions depend to an inordinate degree on "productivity," meaning the number of citations issued. Partly as a consequence of City and FPD priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.

This culture within FPD influences officer activities in all areas of policing, beyond just ticketing. Officers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority. They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence. Police supervisors and leadership do too little to ensure that officers act in accordance with law and policy, and rarely respond meaningfully to civilian complaints of officer misconduct. The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; infringement on free expression, as well as retaliation for protected expression, in violation of the First Amendment, and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

 In other words,  the DoJ ruling found that Wilson didn't deserve to get charged, but let's face it - the Brown incident was a oversized fuse trying to find a bomb to set off. And unfortunately, it did.

 

Now reading

The Age of the Pussyfoot by Frederik Pohl.

Tragedy and stupidity, continued

Not to be outdone by Bill Donohue (see above), it turns out there are a whole bunch of other people  who are doing their damnedest to come off as, well, unbelievably dumb. Or insane. Or perhaps both.

Unsurprisingly, some of them have surnames such as Limbaugh, Ingraham or Bolling.

I suppose this is another lesson concerning the following truism concerning wingnut pundits and conspiracy hacks in general: cream may indeed rise to the top. Unfortunately, so does shit in a defective toilet.

Tragedy and stupidity, all at once

In the wake of  the mass murders at Charlie Hebdo, never let it be said that you can't find an American wingnut who remains completely incapable of separating his grimy fantasies from reality.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bill Donohue.

Now take him away and put him somewhere far from civilized people.

Please.

The real perils of antiscience beliefs in politics, 2014 edition

Courtesy Charlie Pierce.

(And don't say I didn't warn you when you read it. It is, on balance, a pile of thoroughgoing Ick beyond description, but if you don't want to take Pierce's word for it you can read this equally excruciating piece on Congressthing Lamar Smith instead.)

Your computer wants your job - sort of

Granted, the article talks about mining previous published research as opposed to the still all-too-human work of actually undertaking it, but still - anyone starting to feel just a bit inadequate because of this?

Another (apocalyptic) optimist heard from

Now, you would think that most people would correctly deem these guys as being the murderous, barbaric gang of killers that they in fact are. Unless you're Robbo, of course. In which case you're just having another bad day with regard to the rest of external reality. 

Ghoul-a-Rama

It has been many, many moons since I've chosen to post (due to any number of mind-crunching reasons, not the least of which is work), but it just occurred to me that the suicide of Robin Williams - which has been brought up ad nauseam by practically every news outlet known to man (and probably insect as well) has also attracted the attention of any number of people who should know better but of course don't: namely, the wingnut brigade.

Keep in mind that you expect this from the USS Fatcrack, of course. When has he shied away from being wrong on an almost surreal level on anything as long as he keeps getting paid for it? But then you have such sterling examples of compassion and understanding as Joe Schimmel (who?), Robbo, Bryan Fischer and probable countless others who have decided that ignoring the real reasons behind his suicide is really, really good for business - as long as your business consists of feeding the lunacy of complete idiots, that is. In which case, you're fucking golden in terms of revenue stream.

Such is life in these United States.