Lazy Blogger, Part CXXVII

Some stuff I've found during the extended hiatus (stuff which, I'm hoping, works well with minimum effort, in terms of addition commentary (i.e., thinking, effort, etc.), on the part of your humble blogger):
1. Eschaton nails the anti-abortion crowd:

The broad anti-abortion movement isn't just anti-abortion, it's anti-sex generally and most importantly anti-women having agency over their bodies and sexual activity. This is not true of all anti-abortion people, but it is true of the anti-abortion movement.

Lots of people are squishy about abortion, though I firmly believe the vast majority of people in this country are pro-choice for me if not for thee, but those involved in the anti-abortion movement don't just care about embryos and fetuses, they care about punishing women for unapproved fucking.

I have some stuff to add to this, but unfortunately too lazy right now. Sorry.

2. Check out this graph. Does it strike anyone else as somewhat important that along about the time the trend line deviates dramatically upward is along about the same time we as a species discovered the magical properties of fossil fuels? Think about what fossil fuels are, as manipulated by human ingenuity. They are force multipliers. They multiply our work by hundreds, or thousands, of times. They are basically the only thing we've found so far that will do this. The discovery of how this works, and subsequent discoveries building on this basic discovery, have allowed us to thrive far beyond what we could have done without it. And yet, by doing so, we are to a great extent poisoning our collective living space, and nearing the point where it (our living space) will no longer support us. But not only that, these fuels are non-renewable and will run out before too long. Not saying it's a bad thing, just saying... what if it's a somewhat singular discovery -- i.e., one that won't be repeated again anytime soon?

3. One of Sullivan's readers does a phenomenal job of exactly capsulizing the mindset of a great big swath of conservative dumbfucks:

Part of Sarah Palin's irresistible appeal to her fundamentalist base is her ability to look at the camera with utter conviction and declare black to be white.

The ability to lie well is a valuable part of the fundamentalist psychology. My son isn't gay, he just hasn't found the right woman! Those rocks aren't 50 million years old, they just look like it as a test of our faith! My sexless marriage isn't foundering, it is filled with God's spirit! The minister isn't molesting little Maria, they're just very close! It isn't torture, it is being tough on terrorists!

Fundamentalists can recognize a truly audacious and talented liar from miles away. Instead of running the other way, as you might expect, they gather around the powerful liar, for they know that their own lies will be respected and protected by a leader who understands the paramount importance of preserving their whole system of denial.

I wish I would have written that.

4. Here's something I should (and maybe will) do a longer post on. But it is so outrageous that at present I really can't do anything other than rage incoherently about it. The short version is that Ft Worth police conducted a "bar check" on a bar that had been open approximately 1 week. You know, go in, make sure they're abiding by the terms of their liquor license, check to see if they're overserving people, etc. They end up beating the shit out of several patrons, arresting those and a few others, and generally terrorizing everyone in attendance. One of the victims is intensive care with a life-threatening head injury. As it happens, this was a new bar catering to the male homosexual crowd. Surely just a coincidence, no?

Though I'm generally against "hate crimes" laws, this is exactly the reason people want them. I tend to think we could handle this kind of thing with regular laws -- like aggravated assault, attempted murder, and the like. But when the cops are the perpetrators, they somehow never get held accountable. Their superiors circle the wagons to defend them. The citizenry turns a blind eye and assumes that the police chief is telling the truth when he says "these faggots made sexual advances on my officers -- they deserved what they got" (not an exact quote). To my mind, this is no different than what happened to Matthew Shepard. Except that, as a mitigating factor, the victims here actually were afforded medical attention. But as an aggravating factor, this was done under the color of law. By our "public servants". Let's be clear: the cops who did this are bigots and brutal thugs. Rather than collecting paychecks from the public treasury, they should be breaking rocks at Huntsville and, in their spare time, getting some special attention from the other TDC occupants: large, mean, temporarily homosexual prisoners.

Via Sullivan (check the links).