Black Kermit D. Frog: Who Told You To 'Lean Forward'?

Ever since Elmo was outted as a gay black dude, Sesame Street can never be the same destination again,…

Slipping Bozo The Tongue (Kids Don't Think Like That,...)

Regarding The New Yorker's gay muppet cover, Canada's Maclean's Magazine reminds us on Feb. 6, 1994, The New York Times Magazine had a few questions for “those who ask about Bert’s and Ernie’s sexual orientation”, including this one:

"5. How long have you been preoccupied with the sex lives of puppets?"

About as long as they've been allowed to co-opt children's programing. There's some wild cognitive dissonance going on here (Whatever happened to Elmo?) almost as serious as Sartre's and the French, if there can be such a thing:

"In his famous introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, he writes with unconcealed glee about the prospect of Algerians killing their former masters, which happen to be the French."

Getting everything wrong seems to be a goal, or rather, "helping" others to do so is:

"So the Iraq war was, despite all that went wrong, a good thing; the "overwhelming majority" of Iraqis are (and presumably feel) better off because of it; and the fault for all that has gone wrong is ultimately with Iraqis themselves: It's a remarkable point of view to encounter in June 2013."

We're also watching everything fracturing under the strain of so many lies and misinformation:

"Bono: George Bush, Evangelicals Saved 9 Million AIDS Victims"

Watch how we treat kids, for whether we're coming to our senses or not,...

Puppets

Another Meathead Report From TMR's Archie Bunker,...

Denmark is scrapping its tax on foods that are high in saturated fat after people were traveling to Germany in search of unhealthy snacks for less.

-- The Daily Mail

Well no shit, Sherlock. I had a Danish girlfriend once. 

She didn't like I knew how to use "bitch" in a sentence. 

I didn't like the relationship.

[Click to enlarge]

Kevin Clash, Sesame Street's Elmo since 1985, has taken a leave of absence after allegations surfaced that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy.

-- Slate Magazine, delivering news that, unfortunately, is hardly shocking.

Boston News, Weather, Sports | FOX 25 | MyFoxBoston

"I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he's not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers. President Obama is not the Antichrist. But what I am saying is this: the course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist. It is time for Christians to stand up and to push back against this evil that is overtaking our nation" (and to do so via) "the ballot box."

-- Robert Jeffress, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas, finally moving Obama from AntiChrist to usher, or assistant-to the AntiChrist

A friend once grew serious, peered deeply into my eyes, and then asked if I work for The Devil. That meant - except to blow his mind - he actually thought one of my options was to say, "Yeah."

For five years I have consistently maintained that Mitt Romney could not be elected President of the United States. The only thing that changed was Barack Obama’s terrible debate performance and I made the unfortunate mistake of going with the herd toward “he can win now.” A year ago — to be precise, November 8th of last year — I wrote that Mitt Romney would be the nominee, conservatism would die, and Barack Obama would win. Regrettably, I told you so. 

As I wrote would happen, Mitt Romney tried to blur lines with Barack Obama. He did not defend social conservatism, but let those attacks go unanswered. He did not articulate strong fiscal conservatism and he never repudiated Romneycare, thereby failing to make any credible attacks on Obamacare. 

Conservatives and conservative institutions who embraced him early on are now scrambling to make excuses. They were so invested in a failure they cannot bring themselves to admit Mitt Romney and his campaign were failures. They were, to Republicans, what green energy is to Barack Obama. 

Because these conservatives cannot accept that they were wrong, they must conclude that conservatism itself is somehow broken. 

I believe conservatism is the correct solution to our problems. I believe the Republican Party has a better chance of advancing conservatism than the Democrats. I believe many Republicans and conservatives embraced a failed, flawed messenger and now, instead of admitting their mistake, would fundamentally transform the Republican Party and the conservative movement into something it isn’t so they do not have to admit they were wrong all along. I believe that many of our present party leaders have no desire to advance any public policy other than that which they think is best poll tested to keep them in power and advance their career, regardless of the soundness of the policy or the intellectual underpinnings of idea. 

No thanks.

-- Erick Erickson

My wife, in a fit of religious hysteria, once declared she could walk through walls. 

I made the mistake of asking to see her do it. We're divorced, you know. So there's that.

It seems pretty clear that many supposed Romney voters stayed home on Election Day,...I don’t agree with them, but I understand their thinking.

-- Fred Thompson, not understanding my thinking, at all.

One of my foster mother's ran to her bible before doing anything else, after her daughter cut her wrist open, accidentally walking through a plate glass door.

“You can’t understand it but I was born to be a queen. It wasn’t my choosing. I was born into it. And I wasn’t raised I was built: I was built to be this thing; and now they’re killing me for it — but you’d be the same. You’d make the same choices I did.”

--Marie Antoinette, in David Adjmi’s play of the same name

The first person who learned I was an atheist hit me. Square in the face. It was my best friend, and he practically dared me to say it again. His mother watched, approvingly. I said it again.

"We believe that man is a spiritual being – this is the focus of the Scientology religion. Man is basically good."

-- Fabio Amicarelli, an Ideal Org spokesman, after they've moved into Israel

A woman terrified her son, demanding he pray as he died. I kept her company as she re-watched film of his open casket funeral. He was my foster brother's best friend but, by the time he died, my foster brother had started gangbangin' and couldn't care less about anybody dying. I filled in. Good times.

There will always be a remnant of those who believe in UFOs. They're not at all deterred by the lack of evidence and would ignore anyone who suggested otherwise.

-- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“All Muslims are charged with applying the teachings of Islam to remove such idols, as we did in Afghanistan when we destroyed the Buddha statues. “God ordered Prophet Mohammed to destroy idols. When I was with the Taliban we destroyed the statue of Buddha, something the government failed to do.”

-- Murgan Salem al-Gohary, the Islamist leader calling for removal of the Sphinx and Pyramids

Work for the best, prepare for the worst.

Injuries caused by women grooming their intimate area have increased five-fold in recent years, the latest research reveals.

-- The Daily Mail

Not what I had in mind,....

 

Mitt & Ann: The President And First Lady Of Quackery

This is my nation's current front-runner for president, Mitt Romney.

This is Mitt and his lovely wife, Ann - no, wait,….

This is Big Bird - no, wait,…shit, I need a close-up:

Ah yes, THIS is definitely Ann Romney. 

Ann's campaigning as a sweetheart with Multiple Sclerosis, though her doctor, Dr. Howard Weiner of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, has said it's in remission.

This is fine.

What's odd is that - while she sits on the board of the New England chapter of The National Multiple Sclerosis Society - it's reported she does cranial-sacral therapy, deep-breathing exercises, yoga, "practices" reflexology, and undergoes acupuncture and acupressure.

Meanwhile, the details of these "treatments" are ignored for telling us about her work with horses.

Why is this odd you ask?

Because a quick look at MS websites gives us advice like this:

Quackery kills. The desire for a cure can lead one to false hopes. Avoid Multiple Sclerosis Quackery,...

The MS Caregiver site I linked to, above, also suggests we visit Quackwatch, which says "Be Wary of Multiple Sclerosis 'Cures'" and - more to the point of our discussion - "Craniosacral therapy is quackery."

Hmmmm.

As we know, Ann's husband, Mitt, has said trees grow to a "right height" by state, Jesus will be taking up residence in Missouri, and cold fusion was proven by his fellow cultists as a way to "conduct electricity" (though it "hasn't been duplicated yet").

What's not as well-known is that he's a Mormon who sells supplements - working under a wonderful Mormon-initiated-and-sheltered law called DSHEA or “sell whatever you want, just don’t let us catch you” - a business model that is known in the scienced-based medicine community (along with Craniosacral therapy) as Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or S.C.A.M..

Some also say Mitt's campaigning on Medical Quackery.

In some quarters, this deception is called "being good with money," if not your fellow Americans.

In other quarters, Mitt and Ann Romney are into occultism, quackery, and New Age Therapies.

I guess they figure it's lose-lose to talk about it, no matter which way they go,...

Since they (or their cult) have never persued anything even remotely resembling rationality or truth.

I wish them all the best,… 

 

"Well It's 'One' For The Money, 'Two' For The Show,..."

I'm loving this story for what it reveals about society today:

'I WAS too old to have IVF twins at 58': Nearing 70 and widowed, ex-nurse Janet admits she should not have been allowed to have them

Whoa-ho-ho! So, all of a sudden, there's a societal role for decisions individuals make, huh? 

Interesting.

So the sop, about how "you can believe what you want to believe," may not be as valid as some thought? It might be "childish," even? "The smartest man of the 20th century" thought so:

A handwritten letter by Albert Einstein in which he calls religion 'childish' is to be sold at auction - with a starting price of £1.85million. 

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist questions the existence of God in a letter penned to philosopher Eric Gutkind in 1954. 

In the private letter, which was a response to Gutkind’s book ‘Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt’, the genius says the word God is 'nothing more than the expression of human weaknesses'. 

The agnostic Jew goes on to say the Bible is a 'collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish'. 

He adds: 'For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. 

'And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. 

He added: 'As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. 

'Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.'

And yet, Western society rejects the role of maturity, and insists we need to keep encouraging "nothing more than the expression of human weaknesses" in a bid to create a stronger and more intelligent world.

Ah, Hell, what am I saying?

These babies can't even handle getting rid of Big Bird,...