So some asshole tries to blow up a plane with his crotch. (Bad jokes about Superman's sperm come to mind… but anyway!)

It's not even likely that the amount of chemically goodness in the Panty Liner of Doom™ was enough to actually bring the plane down, but no mind… everyone else gets to be patted down because of it. I don't know about you, but it seemed kind of stupid to make everyone xray their shoes after the shoe bomber incident. Now what are they going to do? Aggressively grope everyone's nether regions, looking for suspicious underwear bulges? Will they also have to ban maxi-pads, to eliminate potential confusion? (Better stock those airport sanitary pad dispensers with something A LITTLE LESS BULKY, guys!)

Seriously. Reactive policing rarely does any good on the prevention side. Patting people down isn't going to do jack shit to make anyone safer, because the next guy is going to figure out an un-pat-detectable explosive pack. He's not going to wear a PETN jockstrap. He's not going to wear liquid explosive insoles. You think some hardbody lunatic is going to try to sculpt C4 abs to slip under his undershirt? Doubtful.

Nope, we get patted down. They're deploying full body visual scanners. They're snooping in our bags even more aggressively than before. You'll have to get to the damn airport even fucking earlier, if you're departing from a busy terminal. AND DON'T YOU DARE BLOG ABOUT IT, because they're now paying house calls for that shit. (Lucky me, I'm not high profile enough to qualify for anonymous tips.)
[continued …]

I'm kinda disappointed that the Democrats in this country STILL have not learned that trying to take the "high road" and ignore the utter insanity of the ignorant Right only seems to make things worse.

Sarah thankfuckingGODshe'snotmyGovernoranymore Palin babbles about government "Death Panels" killing innocent grandparents and retarded kids, and who stands up to loudly and firmly tell her how full of shit she is? Oohhhh, not much of anyone.

The "birther" movement insists Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and gets press coverage all over the place. Even after the doctor who delivered him speaks up, the birth certificate is produced. Does anyone of consequence actually stand up and decisively declare the birthers insane? Nope.

Little old ladies freaking out at town hall meetings about how they completely oppose the government running the health care system, and does Obama ask whether or not they use their Medicare benefits, and helpfully explain how THAT is government health care already? Fucking hell, no. Can't be confrontational.

Limbaugh, Beck, et al, continue spewing virulent bullshit. And I do mean bullshit. Utter and complete untruths. Beck with his fear tactic line about people being arrested for not having health insurance, and Limbaugh actually having the balls to concur with a call in commenter suggesting Ft. Hood shooter Nadil Hasan had advised President Obama during the presidential campaign. Are any big-name Democratic figures calling "bullshit" at the top of their lungs? Not that I've heard.

You know what? FUCK THAT SHIT. Seriously, we have ignorant racist mobs being whipped into a nearly homicidal frenzy by batshit insane loony-right pundits, showing up with GUNS at presidential appearances and holding ominous signs about watering the "Tree of Liberty", and the Democrats are just sitting there politely responding as though it's all inconsequential noise? What in the flying fuck would have happened if someone showed up at a Bush rally with a rifle slung over their shoulders?! He had people arrested for wearing the wrong fucking T-shirt slogan, for fuck's sake. It is WELL past fucking time when those of us on the left need to stand up and tell these assholes what's what. Here's a start:
[continued …]

In the past week, I've heard more than one tirade including some comment along the lines of, "Why the fuck are we even letting Muslims into the goddamn military? Look what happened! Big fucking surprise!" One particularly heated ex-New Yorker went on to suggest—no, insist—we should lock all American Muslims up until the end of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, just like we did to the "Japs" during WWII. Seriously. Until that moment, I respected this particular person as a reasonably thoughtful, broadminded person. My bad.

But really, is this even surprising? No, it isn't. As soon as I heard the Ft. Hood shooter was a Muslim (to say nothing of a brown-skinned Muslim with a weird foreign-sounding name), I was waiting to hear it from someone. And so, I have a few things I'd like to say to Mr. Hasan:

[continued …]

October 25–November 1 is WRAP Week! WRAP = White Ribbons Against Pornography, and this post is my little way of helping to celebrate! What better way to celebrate the puritan anti-porn squad's self-proclaimed crusade, than a big, resounding GO FUCK YOURSELF, f-ckingc-nts-style?

Instead of a White Ribbon, wear a Plaid Ribbon. When people ask, say it’s for Porn Awareness Week and your gratitude for the First Amendment. ~Dr. Marty Klein

Feel free to borrow the lovely rainbow plaid ribbon I've made for the occasion Why rainbow plaid instead of a traditional tartan plaid? Because porn ain't just for traditional folks. No sirree … the porn industry cheerfully and sweatily caters to every possible permutation of human sexuality… the whole rainbow coalition community and then some. Let's be equally inclusive, yes?

WRAP Week was brought to my attention by Dr. Marty Klein's wonderfully up-yours response, suggesting the plaid-beribboned answer to WRAP's festivities: 10 Ways to Celebrate Porn Awareness Week. Two of the first six comments on his post were predictably anti-porn. You can't mention porn on an even moderately trafficked liberal website without getting a few of those.

They got the expected "porn causes crime and victimizes women" comment, backed up by a ton of citations from old studies (that sound suspiciously like they had serious methodological issues). Oddly, the commenter completely ducked their chance to rebut the suspiciously pro-porn factoid mentioned in the article (emphasis mine):

"…according to the FBI, [violence against women, child molestation and divorce] have ALL declined since the country was flooded with internet porn in 2000."

Then they got the obligatory "porn destroys relationships and women's self-esteem comment, which left me with the sneaking suspicion the commenter's underlying emotional issues had a lot more to do with her marital difficulties than her husband's unobtrusive porn consumption. God forbid though, any "jerk" suggest perhaps she's the one with the problem, rather than hubby & his titty mags. Unfortunately, even were she and her DH to sally forth and get couples counseling, the therapist would likely jump hubby's shit about his dirty movies too.

The only thing that genuinely brings me joy in regards to anti-pornography hysteria activism is the way it brings together the hardcore Christian twits like Girls Against Porn, and the equally holier-than-thou enlightened "feminist" contingent, like Dr. Klein's commenters (oh, I would dearly love to see one of the women over at feministe.us dissect Dr. Klein's musings!). When the fuck else are you going to see the likes of those folks in bed together? (Please dear god, not in a porno, OK? That is just a visual I never need to see.)
[continued …]

Y'know… back when I was in college, I took my friend Tonya out for drinks with some of my college friends. I liked them all a lot, and I wanted them to meet each other. So, when we arrived at the appointed bar, I introduced her around to the five folks who were already there. And then I spent the rest of the evening embarrassed and slightly horrified.

See, Tonya was fat. Not "plump" or "a little chubby". She was seriously overweight. And three out of my five friends we met up with almost completely ignored her. It pretty much ended up with myself & Tonya talking at one end of the table, with Mike and Barclay occasionally joining in, while the other three carried on as though we weren't there. They'd never treated me like I was invisible before, but I guess talking to me while pointedly ignoring her would have been too rude even by their standards?

At any rate, when I saw Tonya the next night, she said hi and inquired as to the severity of my hangover. I then proceeded to launch into a ginormous, rambling apology … "I am SO sorry for last night! I don't know what the hell their problem was! I've never seen them be so rude before…" etc., etc. Tonya looked at me funny for a minute, and then started laughing. She thought it was cute that I was actually surprised. Apparently, as a fat woman, she got that kind of treatment all the time.

To this day, I find it all ridiculously offensive. But at the same time, I find the whole fat acceptance/fat positive 'movement' (if it's even organized enough to be called a movement) equally ridiculous. I mean, come ON people. There's a virtual epidemic of type 2 diabetes in the US. Almost a third of Americans are clinically obese (over half are "overweight"). These two things are connected. And yet people argue that obesity should be considered all happy and normal and acceptable and good?! Are you fucking kidding me?

Yes, yes, I understand there is a variety of different natural, healthy body types. I realize that fashion models and famous actresses are hardly representative of what normal, healthy women's bodies look like. I know that insecure, depressed, emotionally fragile young women fall prey to eating disorders while trying to reach some unattainable physical "ideal", thinking if they can, they'll magically become happy. Yes, this is all bad. But trying to convince people that 300+ pound nudes are sexy pin up models is really not the way to combat it.
[continued …]