Why I love Wes Clark

Not only does he wear both tight t-shirts and cuddly-looking argyle sweaters, but he has good ideas.

A man with a plan for Iraq--now that's hot.

As usual, the Onion provides better news than actual news sources

U.S. Blowjobless Rate at All-Time High:



















Damn, that never would have happened when Clinton was in the White House.

Only in, er, Bangkok

I wish our government was this interesting:

Thailand's prime minister is trying to ferret out a government minister who allegedly had a penis enlargement procedure, saying news of it is affecting the Cabinet's reputation, a news report said Wednesday.

"Who did it? Tell me," Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told his ministers at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, triggering a round of banter and causing some to squirm in their chairs, The Nation newspaper said.

Talk about asking hard questions.

...Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Agriculture Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said no one had admitted to the enlargement procedure. Other ministers joked about various suggestions on how he could be identified.

Maybe they should bring in Monica Lewinsky.

Now I'm confused

It turns out that Cindy Sheehan was most likely lying about not having made the anti-Israel remarks attributed to her.

Whatever. I give up. In any case, regardless of those specific remarks, I've gotten the feeling that her views are pretty far out on the liberal fringe.

It's hard to blame her--thrown into politics by the death of her son, she was drawn to the far left and adopted its dogma without thinking.

But that's exactly why I find it hard to get too enthusiastically behind her, for reasons similar to those Mike argued on his blog, Popular Music Musings. For Sheehan, the personal is so important that it supercedes the search for truth. That's her right as a grieving mother, but that doesn't make her a great public figure to stand behind.

Jonathan Chait has a column in the LA Times arguing that the Sheehan movement is heading down the slippery slope toward judging ideas by their messengers rather than their content. He makes a good point about the shallowness of a movement based on the supposed moral authority of its leader:

There are parents of dead soldiers on both sides. Conservatives have begun trotting out their own this week. What does this tell us about the virtues or flaws of the war? Nothing.

Or maybe liberals think that having served in war, or losing a loved one in war, gives you standing to oppose wars but not to support them. The trouble is, any war, no matter how justified, has a war hero or relative who opposes it.

What's troublesome is that although I agree with him on the overuse of the moral authority justification, it's obvious that a grieving mother protesting the war gains far more media attention than activists or academics doing the same--and in this TV-obsessed age, that means a lot. If we Democrats want to start winning, we also need to start winning the war of public perception, and publicity magnets like Sheehan's protest catch the attention of ordinary people.

Because of that, I can't help rooting for Cindy Sheehan a little bit even as I wish she weren't the one representing our cause. Sometimes I think we just have to pull ourselves out of our slump no matter what the cost, and if Sheehan will make Bush look bad in the public eye and raise awareness about this awful war, the more power to her. After all, as the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But in the end, that isn't enough. In the end, we're still a mainstream party using a radicalized grieving mother to further our political goals.

I wouldn't want people like Cindy Sheehan running the Democratic party, nor do I think she will reflect well on us in the long run once the media spectacle has faded.

Even wower

You have to go over to Pandagon, where Jesse demolishes the arguments of a bigoted UNC professor he calls "Boinking Studies Guy."

In a column denouncing the Women's Studies Department's support for a film about transgendered students, this guy seriously--and multiple times--refers to the male genitalia as the "hoo-hoo dilly."

What more can I say?

Wow

Via Wonkette, a quite impressively in-depth (so to speak) condemnation of solo sex.

I'm surprised anyone spends so much time thinking about it. But knowing the tendency of the repressed rightwing mind to obsess over all things sexual, I shouldn't be.

Abstinence-only organization busted

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has decided to stop funding an evangelical-run abstinence-only program called the Silver Ring Thing (yes, that really is its name--apparently Jesus Says Keep It In Your Pants Until You Get Hitched doesn't have quite the same, well, ring to it) because it was directly promoting religion.

Nice.

William Smith, the vice president for pubic policy for The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S., had this to say:

"The Silver Ring Thing's program activities are just the tip of the iceberg in exposing what the federal abstinence-only- until-marriage programs are all about. The American people have endured a lack of oversight of these programs by our government for far too long. It is our hope that the decision to suspend funding to the Silver Ring Thing is the first of many, and that HHS will reexamine its entire portfolio of these unproven, and potentially harmful, programs."

Hmm, "tip of the iceberg"? Yes, you could call it that...

The amazing letter-writing vagina

Yes, a conservative blogger's nether regions have spoken out in favor of abstinence before marriage, with such great wisdom as this:

I was given to you in order for you to give to one and only one man. Please know that the blessings you receive from this are greater than one can imagine. I am not to be shared among many, I am not to be taken foregranted. If you adhere to God's plan for me, I will in return bring you great joy.

Amanda at Pandagon tears apart the genital missive with delicious snark. It's not to be missed.

So much for spreading freedom

Proving that they like to screw over women abroad as well as at home, the Bush administration has given the Iraqis the go-ahead to sell out women's rights:

Iraqi leaders said they had also reached a tentative agreement to relegate marriage and family matters to adjudication by clerics, an arrangement opposed by secular leaders and women's groups here, Iraqi leaders said.

The tentative agreements on Islam were brokered by the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, according to a Kurdish negotiator who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the delicacy of the talks. The Kurdish leader said that in both cases, Mr. Khalilzad had sided with Shiite leaders in backing a more expansive role for Islam. That, the Kurd said, angered many of the secular-minded Iraqis who have been fighting for a stricter separation between Islam and the state.

Julien's List has the scoop on what the rule of Islamic law would likely mean for Iraq:

Women will:

1. Not be allowed an education (even writing or reading in most cases)
2. Not be allowed to drive
3. Not be allowed to be seen anywhere outside their homes without the shroud of a burka
4. If a woman is raped, she will be the criminal, not the man who raped her
5. Under Islamic law, if a women is even accused of adultery, she is killed - usually by a father or brother or uncle, and this is okay - women are not allowed into a court to defend themselves

Maybe it's about time for Bush to stop bragging about how he helped liberate the women of Afghanistan and Iraq by overturning their governments.

Either that, or maybe it's about time for him to actually demand women's rights in Iraq, because oppression of women indisputably goes hand in hand with poverty and terrorism.

I have no jokes to make about this--it's just fucked up.

Gotta love it

For once, someone is complaining about not enough nudity in the arts:

LONDON - The advertising watchdog has rejected a complaint for an ad for the ballet 'Naked', made by someone who was disappointed that the performers stayed fully clothed throughout the show.

A member of the public from Surrey complained about the leaflet promoting the Ballet Boyz production of 'Naked'. It had shown the title of the ballet, with the letter "A" formed by dancers who appeared to be naked and in a pose that seemed to be sexually suggestive.

The complainant said that the image was not taken from the ballet. Furthermore, she objected that the show "contained no scenes of an adult nature, as stated on the leaflet".

The Advertising Standards Authority turned down the complaint saying that, despite no nakedness, the ballet was sensual in its nature.

"Because it understood that the back projections for the performance featured dancers who were naked from the waist up and the general tone of the ballet was sensual, the authority concluded that readers were unlikely to be materially misled by the leaflet," the ASA said.

The Onion, as funny as ever

Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit to Wife's Vagina

Is Singapore the new Amsterdam?

Well, not yet, but it is having its first ever Sex Expo:

Staid Singapore will host its first-ever Sex Expo in November after receiving in-principle approval from the tightly-controlled city-state's authorities, a local newspaper reported Sunday.

Yes, they do like things tight, don't they?

The Singapore police have already imposed certain conditions for organizers -- no obscene acts can be put on display and all exhibits and promotions will face government scrutineers, the Straits Times newspaper reported.

I'm sure those government scrutineers get more enjoyment than they would admit to from looking at all those potential promotions.

...The exhibition will feature furniture "designed to enhance lovemaking" and an erotic toy section, the paper said. An exhibition on the history of condoms is also scheduled for show.

Hey, better than the wingnuts in America who like to pretend condoms don't exist.

Singapore, a tiny, wealthy Southeast Asian city-state of 4.2 million, has been attempting to shake off its well-known stuffy image, and officials say they are trying to loosen the shackles to cater to a generation exposed to overseas influences.

Shackles, huh? Exposed? Sounds like a good time to me.

But restrictions abound: Cosmopolitan magazine can only be sold if wrapped to avoid browsing by minors, and programs like HBO's "Sex and the City" and "Six Feet Under" have been screened with cuts by the country's censors.

Cosmo condoms? That's a new one.

Singapore also outlaws oral sex and homosexuality.

But that's no fun.

Officials say its citizens want censorship. Police could not immediately be contacted for comment.

Yeah, because they were too busy milking the lizards while screening all the posters for the expo.

Sigh...it seems my serious post was all for nothing

Cindy Sheehan, in a CNN interview that I found via Daily Kos, claims she never made the statement about Israel:

COOPER: You were also quoted as saying, "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism." How responsible do you believe Israel is for the amount of terrorism in the world?

SHEEHAN: I didn't say that.

COOPER: You didn't say that? OK.

SHEEHAN: I didn't -- I didn't say -- I didn't say that my son died for Israel. I've never said that. I saw somebody wrote that and it wasn't my words. Those aren't even words that I would say.

I do believe that the Palestinian issue is a hot issue that needs to be solved and it needs to be more fair and equitable but I never said my son died for Israel.

COOPER: OK, I'm glad I asked you that because, you know, as you know, there's tons of stuff floating around on the Internet on sites of all political persuasions.

SHEEHAN: I know and that's not -- yes.

COOPER: So, I'm glad we had the opportunity to clear that.

SHEEHAN: Yes, and thank you because those are not my words. Those aren't -- that doesn't even sound like me saying that.

It took me a minute to believe it, but the official transcript of a TV show that thousands of people surely saw seems as reliable a souce as any.

It's a big relief, although it just goes to show how much misinformation is going around the web, and that in itself if worrisome. It also doesn't change the fact that there is a lot of those sentiments on the left, even if Sheehan herself didn't voice them. But I feel a lot better about supporting Cindy Sheehan now. And at least I got the chance to start an interesting discussion that turned out to be about far more than the original quote.

A part of me wishes I had never read about any of this in the first place and just saved all the unease and hassle. But I suppose 'tis better to have been misinformed and corrected than never to have been misinformed at all...or something like that.

Well, well

It turns out it's porn, not what you do while viewing it, that makes you go blind:

Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners’ calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.

The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”.

Vacation time!

Yup, I'll be away for a few days...don't get into trouble! ;-)

To keep you occupied while I'm gone, here are some cute kitten pictures.

Turkmenistan celebrates its melons

No, not those melons--the actual fruit.

Turkmenistan's authoritarian leader on Sunday congratulated citizens of the ex-Soviet republic on the Turkmen Melon Day he established to honor the favorite fruit of the sun-drenched Central Asian nation.

The nation currently grows 500 varieties of melon, including the Czar Melon, grown to honor President Saparmurat Niyazov, and the Golden Age, meant to symbolize prosperity under the president, the Agriculture Ministry said.

"Let the life of every Turkmen be as beautiful as our melons," Niyazov said in a statement.

Now that's a motto I think most Americans could live with.

I must be missing out on something

Where is that sexual chaos that the conservatives now claim is overruning colleges?

"The pressure on college youth to practice unhealthy behavior is much more intense than most adults realize," said Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., founder of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas.

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are common among college students, as are alcohol abuse, "date rape" and depression, he said.

Parents, university personnel and others who care about the well-being of young adults have to act, Dr. McIlhaney said. He offers a list of ideas, including a return to single-sex dorms and bathrooms, more abstinence and pro-marriage messages and parent-led "inspector committees" to track high-risk health behaviors on all U.S. campuses.

Single-sex dorms? Yeah, because students can't walk from one dorm to another to have sex. Actually, maybe having only single-sex dorms would be beneficial to students because they'd get more exercise on their way to hookups, thereby staving off the obesity epidemic.

Dr. McIlhaney isn't the only one concerned about sexual libertinism on campus.

Theology professor Vigen Guroian has decried "the sex carnival that is college life today."

Um, yeah, most college social life includes elephants and midgets and tigers jumping through hoops of fire.

Colleges once denounced debauchery, Mr. Guroian noted in an article on the ChristianityToday.com Web site. "Today, colleges not only turn a blind eye to this behavior but also set up the conditions that foster and invite it," wrote Mr. Guroian, who teaches at Loyola College in Baltimore.

Indeed, college guidebooks talk about top "party" schools, while campus groups boldly advertise sex-toy sales, "fetish" fairs and other sexually oriented activities.

But those are fun!

Seriously, though, I think there are worse things in the world to worry about than dildos. Most of those fairs and activities promote a healthy, feminist view of sex that the rest of the world should really take a lesson from.

The article goes on to quote the rather aptly named author of a book about campus life:

Barrett Seaman, author of a new book on "excesses" in campus life, sees all this but offers a more complex portrait.

Yes, coed dorms can be rife with "hookups" and underage drinking, Mr. Seaman writes in "Binge: What Your College Student Won't Tell You."

But in his visits to residential halls on 12 college campuses, the former Time correspondent also saw many dorms with adults on site, enforced "quiet hours," lounges filled with late-night talking and dormmates treating one another "more like brothers and sisters than sex objects."

University officials are "very attentive" to campus behavior problems, partly out of fear they will be sued for not protecting students, said Mr. Seaman. "What they have to do is be as prophylactic as possible, in any way they can. No pun intended."

That Mr. Seaman is a clever one, ain't he?

The rest of the article talks about binge drinking and STDs, which I'm all for reducing. Certainly drinking too much makes it hard to get it up, and that alone should be enough reason to drink responsibly. Safe sex is good; sober sex is good. So is alliteration, but I digress.

In other words, the second page of the article presents some quite reasonable viewpoints about genuine problems that college students face, but the first page describes the same hysterical fundamentalists who have opposed openness about sexuality since the dawn of time. Every generation, they bemoan the wild habits of youth, while those young people have their fun and then quietly grow into responsible adults. I'm just glad we've come a long way since the days when such repressive attitudes were the norm.

Dude, where's my dildo?

There's something about Massachusetts

Even the swans have same-sex marriage!

Yup, Boston's famed swan couple Romeo and Juliet have turned out, under scientific testing, to be Juliet and Juliet.


How cool is that? Perhaps once the homophobes see that same-sex swan pairing hasn't destroyed traditional avian pairings, they'll be a little more open to gay marriage. After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Rick Santorum might have some isues with emulating the behavior of animals, but hey, he can go fuck a dog.

Serious, off-topic post of the week

Because sometimes I do think about things other than giant penises and Rick Santorum's man-on-dog fixation.

Last night, while taking a walk, I came across a vigil for Cindy Sheehan . The protesters, amid candles and flag-draped coffins, were standing in solidarity with her for 24 hours. I was glad to see this display of support and went over to talk to the protesters, one of whom was surprised that I knew who Cindy Sheehan was.

I hadn't been following the Sheehan story all that closely, but I was starting to feel a great admiration and sympathy for this woman who had been personally affected by the war in the deepest way, who was doing everything in her power to end it. (Whether or not I think pulling out immediately is a good idea is another story, but in any case I think Bush fucked up this war mightily, so even if I have a few differences in opinion with others who oppose it, we have the same basic goal.) I had been reading various links to right-wing bloggers and pundits denouncing Sheehan with growing indignation--how dare Michelle Malkin say Casey Sheehan wouldn't have wanted his mom to do this?--and starting to see her as something of a hero, a lone voice in the Texas wilderness crying out for humanity.

Then, today I found this little rant from a letter Sheehan had written to Nightline:

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel.

It's the same dilemma all over again, ever since the days when I couldn't bring myself to join the first anti-war protesters in part because so many of them were also anti-Israel. Just when I was starting to feel an inspiring sense of solidarity with my fellow lefties, I got a glimpse of the ugly anti-Israel bias that is too common on the left.

And this was the last place I wanted to find it.

I didn't want the pure mission of a grieving mother trying to prevent other parents from suffering her loss to be marred by the chilling ignorance of those who blame Israel for America's problems. I wanted to be able to get wholeheartedly behind this woman who had the guts to challenge the chickenhawk who sent her son to die. I didn't want to think there could be anything to criticize about this brave woman who had borne an unbearable loss and was working tirelessly to prevent others.

But now, I just feel disillusioned and alienated again from my own side--the people who claim they want peace yet attack Israel for defending itself against a culture of violence that ultimately wants its destruction. I hate Bush and his pet war as much as the next person, but I have no doubt that if anti-war protesters with the mindset of Cindy Sheehan ruled the world, Israel would be thrown to the wolves of Palestinian terrorism in an instant. And innocent people would continue to die because of the hypocrisy of liberals who confuse neoconservatism with Zionism.

There has to be another way. I know various fellow liberals--both online and in the real world--who don't buy into the anti-Israel lies, and fortunately the great majority of elected Democrats continue to support Israel, but there's a sickening amount of anti-Israel sentiment among the grassroots left, much of it far worse than Cindy Sheehan's brief reference. I'm sure it had something to do with the increased percentage of Jews who voted for Bush in 2004. I don't want it to pervade U.S. policy along with the ideals that I do share with such liberals--a woman's right to choose, equal rights for gays and lesbians, progressive healthcare and education policies, respect for science, protections against corporate greed, an end to unecessary war. Nor do I want to be driven into the arms of the Republicans, who I hate with a passion for the havoc they are wreaking on our country and the world.

I want there to be another way, a movement of sane progressives who understand what Israel is up against--and what we are all up against, because no matter how fucked-up Bush's response to it, the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is very real--but I don't know if that will ever happen. Right now, I just feel torn.

Republicans are pricks

At least that seems to be the message, however unintentional, that the College Republicans at Roger Williams University are sending by their latest publicity stunt: a life-size organ named Testaclese that they created to promote a conservative, anti-feminist speaker.

Frankly, if I saw one of those wandering around, I think I'd run and hide. Friendly giant penises can be amusing, but friendly Republican giant penises are a little scary.

To think these kids are the future of our country...

Playing with his hose on the job?

If I were the guy in the photo, I'd sure tell Bush where to stick it.

There is absolutely nothing I can do to improve on this post

So go over to Pam's House Blend and read for yourself about the pastor who "couldn't keep his pious pickle in his pants."

LaBarbera's back

Yup, it's that wingnut who likes to visit gay S&M conventions, back with some new observations:

...As I strode down Halsted street at Market Days, I came upon a man who was "MC" for the Cell Block stand. "Cell Block" is a Chicago "leather bar" catering to sadomasochists. The man had the words "Sex Pig" tattooed" on his back, signaling his "sexual orientation" toward the most extreme homosexual acts, which are way to gross to describe here.

Sounds like something Santorum spends a lot of time thinking about.

...At the table for the Howard Brown Health Center, I picked up a flier titled "A Men's Guide to Safer Leather Sex." The same group distributed a card for TYRA, the Transgender Youth Resource and Advocacy Group, "a support group for transgender and questioning youth." Gee, I wonder what kind of answers the pro-transsexual folks at TYRA and Howard Brown give to the "questioning" youth that enter their doors.

Youth that enter their doors, eh? We know where this guy's mind is...

Cheney's got a man-date too

He's gazing a little too dreamily at the new Saudi king:

"Give me some of that oil, Abdullah! It makes such good lubrication..."

That dirty New York Times

There's just nothing I can add to make this sound any dirtier than it already does:

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, urged his people to ensure calm for Israel's pullout from Gaza, saying a smooth Israeli withdrawal would bolster the image of Palestinians in the world and hasten the coming of an independent Palestinian state.

Damn, I want a job at the NYT more than ever now. I am in awe of those people.

Bush has a man-date for his energy bill

There's definitely some energy between Bush and Pete Domenici:

NY fundraiser may raise more than funds

Well, you gotta hand it to those New Yorkers--they sure are creative:

NEW YORK - With his campaign for city council going no place fast, Victor Bernace felt he needed something special to spark interest in his next fundraiser. How about exotic dancers?

The New York Democrat said Saturday he plans to have bikini-clad go-go dancers and men in nothing but briefs at a "Havana Night" campaign party next month at a Manhattan nightclub.

There will be no nudity at the $20-per-head event, Bernace said, but he promised "a sexy, erotic show."

$20-per-head, huh?

"I'm throwing a fun event. Most politicians — I've been to their fundraisers, and they are boring," he said. "People can go with a standard politician who will disappear into the woodwork. I'm trying to be part of the next generation."

..."I'm not running for mayor in a small, old-time religious town in Utah. I'm running in New York City," he said. "I might as well try to energize a different base."

Yes, you could call it that....

Proof that Republicans have itty-bitty johnsons

Well, not exactly, but close enough:

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Threaten a man's masculinity and he will assume more macho attitudes, according to a study by a Cornell University researcher.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq War more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Robb Willer, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell. Willer is presenting his findings Aug. 15 at the American Sociological Association's 100th annual meeting in Philadelphia.

"Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity will behave in an extremely masculine way as compensation. I wanted to test this idea and also explore whether overcompensation could help explain some attitudes like support for war and animosity to homosexuals," Willer said.

I always knew that conservatives were compensating for something. Silly Republicans, dicks are for Democrats.

I couldn't have said it better myself

"Mr. Sharon should be congratulated for standing firm and proceeding with the Gaza pullout."
-NYT

Bush's poll numbers need Viagra

No matter how hard he tries to keep his polls up, they just keep drooping.

Is that like Googling yourself?

New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Doug Forrester has just found out that his self-financing may be illegal.

What is it with these New Jerseyites? First it was McGreevey's gay version of typical Jersey corruption, and now Forrester's "financing" himself?

Damn, the stinky highway isn't the only thing that's dirty in Jersey.

Some guys just don't want to pull out

And sometimes they'll even quit the Israeli Cabinet over it.

Well, you know how those hard-liners are....

Wingnut takes too much pleasure in researching sexual "deviancy," example # 218,349,517

Peter LaBarbera, the founder of Americans for Truth and Executive Director of the Illinois Family Institute, seems a wee bit obsessed with gay S&M. So obsessed, in fact, that he went to the International Mr. Leather conference to do some "research":

I decided to go down to Chicago on Memorial Day, the last day of IML, to gather evidence on this twisted event.

Gather evidence, huh? Sure, that's what they all say.

As you can imagine, this idea didn't go over too well with my wife.

I wonder why?

Anyway, I arrived at the Hyatt Regency, and made my way down to where the IML vendors were set up in a vast "Leather Market," which was open to the public and mentioned in the Tribune's Red Eye story.

You only wish you were "open to the public."

I paid my two-dollar entrance fee and passed by a femmy "leather" guy who was happily greeting visitors with the line, "Welcome to the WalMart of porn!" At the vendors' area, I found booth upon booth--there were over a hundred--selling whips, handcuffs, electric "torture" devices, leather "hoods," etc., a veritable cornucopia for the deviant. The man was right: there was also tons of the most disgusting pornography imaginable for sale at reduced prices, right there are at the glitzy Hyatt Regency!

Yes, and I'm sure you loved it.

...Why expose International Mr. Leather?

Because you know you want to. You just know you do.

Anti-Santorumites protest, well, doggedly

This protester goes for the obvious:

But these two have a much more subtle use of props:

FBI searches Jim West's house

They've taken his computer--I bet they want to search his, er, hard drive.

Those dirty College Republicans

They like to eat each other's ties.

.

Bush still refuses to take a lesson from Santorum

See how he's holding the dog at the level of his own head?

That clearly means he considers it his equal and wants to marry it, and poor Santorum has failed in his lifelong goal of prevention human/canine lovin'...

Pro bono, eh?

It turns out Mr. 100% White Conservative Nominee has a not-so-conservative history:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 - Judge John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court nominee, gave advice to advocates for gay rights a decade ago, helping them win a landmark 1996 ruling protecting gay men and lesbians from state-sanctioned discrimination.

Judge Roberts, at the time an appellate lawyer for the Washington firm of Hogan & Hartson, did not write legal briefs or argue the case, lawyers involved said. But they said he did provide invaluable strategic guidance working pro bono to formulate legal theories and coach them in moot court sessions.

Ooh, he "coached them in moot court sessions"--scandalous!

The left-leaning SCOTUS mystery

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick asks, "What makes tough conservative justices go soft?"

Thinking about Katherine Harris, probably.

Quote of the Day

"President Bush nominated John Bolton as the new ambassador to the U.N. He did it while the Senate was in recess. Democrats say President Bush circumvented the system to get his way. And President Bush says that's ridiculous. I've never circumvented anything, I'm not even Jewish." --Jay Leno

I think I'm traumatized for life

Damn Don Imus for making me think about Rick Santorum's sex life:

When Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) appeared on the program Monday to talk about his new book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, Imus noted that “you have six kids. Can I ask a personal question?”

Assured that he could, Imus asked, “Have you had sex with Mrs. Santorum more than six times?”

A nonplussed Santorum answered “yes” and left it at that.

Dear God.

I really can't imagine what would inspire anyone to get it on with him more often than necessary to reproduce (and who would really want to help create evil little Santorum-spawn anyway?), but to each her own, I guess....

You know what they say about politicians with big war chests....

Big chances of running for president!

Evan Bayh, the Senate's official #1 Hottie Besides Obama, is apparently amassing quite a large one.

How much wood could a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood?

I have a feeling I may be running afoul of copyright laws by posting this NYT editorial in its entirety, but it's just too funny not to. I can't even add anything.

Q. Knock, knock.

A. Who's there?

Q. Ivory-billed woodpecker.

A. Ivory-billed - what? No way. You're extinct. Some folks from Cornell said they had found you in Arkansas, but all they had to prove it was their own choked-up testimonials and some shaky video footage. Four seconds of a blurry bird on a tupelo tree - and wait, was that Bigfoot in the background? Maybe that's how they do ornithology at some schools, but a few experts - like Richard Prum of Yale and Mark Robbins of the University of Kansas - found the report highly dubious. You're a product of wishful thinking. A mirage. Or if you do exist, you're not ivory-billed at all. You're pileated.

Q. Well, pileate this, you jerk. Hear that double knock? And that distinct nasal "kent" call? Kent! Kent! It's me, the most glorious, mysterious, yearned-for bird in North America, back from the grave, living happily in the White River National Wildlife Refuge. You doubters all went public and then, blam: they pulled out the audiotape. Listen.

A. Wow. You're right. It's indisputable.

Q. Now don't you feel embarrassed.

A. Not really. Skepticism is how science works. Anyone who claimed to have found you should have expected to be run through an evidentiary wringer. And so they were. Anyway - glad to have you back. Hope it's for good.

Q. Glad to be back. Knock on wood.

Boy, those Israelis sure are clever

An Israeli artist has come up with a counterpart to the Vagina Monologues:

Rafael Milo-Amar said on Tuesday that his one-man show, The Holy Phallus, was inspired by a disparaging remark one of the Israeli actresses in the local production of Eve Ensler's celebrated play had made about the male member.

"She said there was nothing to say about the penis. I told myself, 'I have something to tell her about the penis'," Milo-Amar told the Jerusalem Post.

And it seems like he found a good actor to play the, ahem, part:

Reviews have been mixed and Milo-Amar reported casting problems before he settled on bald-headed actor Yuval Cohen.

"At the end of shows people come and tell me, 'Wow, what a great penis you are.' I take that as a compliment now," Cohen told The Jerusalem Post.

Ohio results: Hackett couldn't quite hack it

But oh, he got soooo close.

Results of Ohio's election still not in yet

But I want them to be in...I won't be satisfied until they're in, all the way, every last hard number.

Ohio prepares for a special erection--um, er, election

Oh, oh, ohhh, Ohhhhhhio....

Yup, the lucky people of the Buckeye State get to pull the lever more often than the rest of us (ok, I guess they use electronic voting machines now, but that doesn't lend itself quite as well to double entendres).

Hopefully they'll take this opportunity to slowly, softly slide another Democrat into Congress.

It may be hard, but I think the people of Ohio are up for it.

Feminists have bigger zucchinis

It's true, it's true!

Lauren over at Feministe has a rather large zucchini that her boyfriend's mother grew:

Bush can't get it up!

His poll numbers, that is.

Twelve dildos on hooks and one pissed right-winger

Conservative columnist Paul Jacob is upset that a tiny percentage of Colorado's taxpayer money has gone toward funding the art exhibit "Twelve Dildos on Hooks".

Amanda over at Pandagon has a rather plausible theory that he's just jealous of these, as he dubs them, "implements."

I wouldn't be surprised--despite the icky shade of green, they look a lot more fun than your average Republican.

More proof that conservatives spend way too much time thinking about other people's sex lives

The Rev. Willie Wilson, a Baptist pastor and a former mayoral candidate in D.C., just gave a half-assed apology for his recent sermon which included these remarks:

But … women falling down on another woman, strapping yourself up with something, it ain’t real. That thing ain’t got no feeling in it. It ain’t natural. Anytime somebody got to slap some grease on your behind and stick something in you, it’s something wrong with that. Your butt ain’t made for that.

No wonder your behind is bleeding. You can’t make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female.

Something tells me he was thinking a little too hard about those things, if you know what I mean...

Return of the Santorum

Well, possibly: Santorum has now decided there is a slight possbility he may run for President after all.

He said he wants to “leave this little window open." Uh-huh....