A Gandhi-following, peace-loving, free-spirited vegetarian who was adopted at birth has discovered the worst possible thing a son could find out about his father – his dad is Charles Manson.
"It’s like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father," said Matthew Roberts, a Los Angeles disc jockey.
A curious Roberts, 41, began investigating his poisoned family tree about 12 years ago, when he contacted a social services agency, which located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin, according to the London Sun.
His reluctant natural mom fed him bits and pieces, like his first and middle name — Lawrence Alexander — withholding his infamous surname until she could summon the courage to tell him the truth.
After a couple of days of questionable "mistakes" with its news programming (see here), Fox News’s management has issued a memo declaring that “Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors”:
Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the “mistake chain,” and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to “zero base” our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today’s meeting: “It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on.” We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough.
We'll see what kind of impact this has on….. wait — this just in:
Really? 193 percent of Republicans support Palin or Huckabee or Romney? Really?!?
(Actually, this probably happened before the memo….)
Apparently, "Psalm 109:8" appeared at the top of Google Trends last week, the internal Google device that sees what people are searching most.
And why? Because of a new bumper sticker popping up all over the country. The bumper stickers say "Pray for Obama", but the biblical reference is Psalm 109:8, so it's not as "nice as it sounds.
Psalm 109:8 reads "May his days be few; may another take his office."
Yup, it's an anti-Obama sticker.
Psalm 109 belongs to a special category of the psalms known as "imprecatory" prayers–it is a lament in the form of petition to destroy one's enemies.It is the personal prayer of an individual, someone who has been dealt an injustice by another–and usually more powerful — person.
One could argue that those who sport the bumper sticker merely want him to be a one-term president. However, the next passage opf the Psalms reads: ""May his children be orphans, and his wife a widow", suggesting a more — uh — violent end to Obama's presidency.
The slogan comes at a time of heightened concern about antigovernment anger. Earlier this year, the president’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, said that Tea Parties could lead to something unhealthy. In September, authorities shut down a poll on Facebook asking if President Obama should be killed.
Still, that doesn’t push the Psalms citation into the realm of hate speech, says Chris Hansen, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The use of Psalm 109:8 is ambiguous as to whether its users are calling for the President to serve “only one term, or less than one term,” he says.
Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights at the Anti-Defamation League agrees that the bumper sticker falls within acceptable political discourse.
For it to be considered hate speech, it “would advocate actual violence or cite scripture that was more clear in its message.”
But that doesn’t mean that it’s completely innocent.
“Are we concerned about real hostility towards [President Obama]? Absolutely,” says Ms. Lauter. “Is this a part of that movement? It may be, but in terms of this message itself, we would not criticize it.”
“The problem is you don’t know if people who are donning that message in a shirt or on a bumper sticker are fully aware of the quote or what follows. Obviously that message makes the ambiguity disappear. If they’re just referring to him being out of office, that’s one thing. If they’re referring to him being dead, that’s so offensive. It’s protected speech, but it’s clearly offensive.”
As a free speecher myself, I tend to agree with Cafepress's final assessment. It shouldn't be banned (although CafePress, not being a government entity, can ban anything it damn well pleases and not violate the First Amendment). Still, it's unnecessarily ugly, and quite anti-Christian. We ought to keep that in mind, especially at this time of year when a President was shot down by an assassin's bullet 46 years ago.
If one is so inclined to pray for Obama, perhaps a better prayer would be
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” – I Timothy 2:1-2 (NIV)
Two fingers cut from the hand of Italian astronomer Galileo nearly 300 years ago have been rediscovered more than a century after they were last seen, an Italian museum director said Monday.
They were purchased recently at an auction by a person who brought them to the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, suspecting what they were, museum director Paolo Galluzzi said.
Three fingers were cut from Galileo's hand in March 1737, when his body was moved from a temporary monument to its final resting place in Florence, Italy. The last tooth remaining in his lower jaw was also taken, Galluzzi said.
Two of the fingers and the tooth ended up in a sealed glass jar that disappeared sometime after 1905.
I mention this only because it provides me the opportunity to note that "Galileo's Fingers" is a good band name.
Bill O'Reilly asked her if she thinks she's qualified to handle "the most powerful job in the world", and Palin offered up this bowl of word salad :
O'REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that has to be me.
Her response started to get all mangled somewhere at "fact resume" — I don't know what that is, but presumably it's bad. As opposed to — I don't know — fiction resumes?
Anyway, I thought I'd do a check to see if Palin think I'm qualified to be president:
common sense – check
not elitist – screwed (I'm elistist – I value book learnin' and acknowledgement of reality)
not spineless – check
no elite Ivy League education – I guess not (Tufts, NYU not "Ivy League")
no fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles — ummmmmmm
Oh, well….
What's scary about this is that Palin thinks she's qualified to lead, not in spite of her inexperience and ignorance, but because of her inexperience and ignorance. She's got that common sense, you know.
Nice people. They don't strike me as the teabagger type, and probably aren't (most of them). What concerns me is how massively un- or under-informed they are…. and how unconcerned they are about how un or under-informed they are.
After emerging out of nowhere over the summer as a seemingly potent and growing political force, the tea party movement has become embroiled in internal feuding over philosophy, strategy and money and is at risk of losing its momentum.
The grass-roots activists driving the movement have become increasingly divided on such core questions as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align themselves with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the country.
Many of these differences date to the movement’s beginnings last winter in an outpouring of anger about the huge increases in government spending enacted by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress. But they were overshadowed by the initial explosion of activism that culminated during the congressional town hall meetings in August.
Now the disagreements and the sense of frustration they have engendered could diminish the movement’s potential influence in state and national politics.
***
[Adam] Brandon [vice president of communications for tea bagging group FreedomWorks] acknowledged the “rivalries and turf battles” now gripping parts of the movement but said “that’s normal because people have different ideas about what they want. That’s what’s happening now, and it’s sometimes a painful process.”
Those fights have been waged over issues that go to the heart of the movement’s purpose and strategy as well as more mundane rivalries and personal feuds.
This is even affecting local groups:
In Myrtle Beach, S.C., disputes within the local tea party about how much to engage in partisan politics and whether board members were profiting from contracts to print paraphernalia emblazoned with the group’s logo prompted the treasurer to resign and join with defectors from a North Carolina We the People group to form a new organization.
“There’s a lot of fighting, and everyone wants to be in charge, and that’s why you have so many splinter groups,” said ex-treasurer Janet Spencer, who charged her adversaries within the tea party with saying “derogatory things about me that were very unprofessional.”
She said her new group, called Patriotic Voices of America/Carolina Patriots, counts about 100 members and will not coordinate with the Myrtle Beach Tea Party, whose treasurer, David Ognek, said the friction is “just group dynamics.”
***
In Texas, a handful of thriving tea party groups severed their ties from the national Tea Party Patriots group after it ousted, then sued a founding board member who had affiliated with a rival group called the Tea Party Express.
Now… think about this. One in four registered voters think that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama. What accounts for this oddly high number?
Are you serious?!?
Half of all registered Republicans — that's about 40 million Republicans — are now convinced that ACORN somehow managed to steal an election that McCain lost by seven percentage points??? And another 20 million think they might have stolen it but aren't sure???
And what is the basis for this? How was ACORN, which aided in registering 1.3 million voters in 2008 (a good portion of which were rejected), able to pull this off?
Look, in 2000, there was a legitimate dispute about who won the presidency, becausethe controversy was centralized on one very close swing state in a very close election. We had chads, butterfly ballots, and all kinds of things which made it feasible that Bush didn't actually win (which, by the way, he didn't). But even there, nobody claimed an orchestrated conspiracy conducted by some organization prior to voting.
Yet, that's just what 40 million Repubicans apparently believe now — that ACORN had the massive resources, means, desire, and capability to cause McCain to lose by over 5,000,000 votes.
The GOP rank-and-file is now officially in conspiracy theory, tin foil hat, territory.
RELATED: Speaking of polls, you know how Fox News has been on a tear about Obama bowing to the Japanese emporer? Well, Fox News went out conducted a poll to find out how Americans feel about Obama's bow. And Americans answered overwhelmingly that it was fine: 67% to 26%.
Guess that meme didn't take….
RELATED: Yet another poll showing the stupidity of most Americans….
Norah O'Donnell of MSNBC talks to a 17 year old girl in line at a Sarah Palin book-signing. The girl is whereing a tee-shirt saying "The U.S. Government handed out $700 billion in bailouts and all I got was this lusy T-shirt". O'Donnell asks the girl if she was aware that Sarah Palin supported the bailouts (which is true). The clueless girl doesn't know how to respond.
That's amusing enough, but this article about the interview is funnier. The girl was "badgered" and "hectored" by the "uncooth" [sic] Norah O'Donnell, who "swooped down" on the girl.
Just another example of how conservatives claim victimhood by the "librul" media whenever they can't articulate their views.
During a debate on the House floor today over designating 21 miles of the Molalla River as "wild and scenic," Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who opposes the legislation, tried to claim a progressive environmental record for her party. "Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country," said Foxx.
She didn't say what those environmental programs were, tellingly.
But then she went into loony-land territory. Foxx extended her claims of the GOP's progressive history to the issue of civil rights. "Just as we were the people who passed the civil rights bills back in the '60s without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle," said Foxx. "They love to engage in revisionist history."
Fortunately, Foxx was slapped down by Dennis Cardoza (D-CA):
CARDOZA: Today, what I'm hearing on the floor really takes the cake. The gentlelady from North Carolina, in her statement just now, indicated that the Republican GOP had passed the Civil Rights Act legislation with almost no help from the Democrats. I can't believe my ears. It was the Kennedy and Johnson administration where we passed that Great Society legislation. It was over the objections of people like Jesse Helms from the gentlewoman's state that we passed that civil rights legislation. John Lewis…
FOXX: Would, would the gentleman yield?
CARDOZA: No, I will not yield. John Lewis, a member of this House, was beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge to get that civil rights legislation passed. Tell John Lewis that he wasn't part of getting that legislation passed.
****
The truth of the matter is that it is a bit more complicated. Of course, there were Southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) who opposed civil rights legislation. But as Think Progress points out:
To support the claim that Republicans were actually the architects of civil rights, conservatives often point out that a "higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the civil-rights bill." But this ignores the "distinct split between Northern and Southern politicians" on the issue. When this is taken into account, the facts show that "in both the North and the South, Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act at a higher rate than the Republicans."
This comes up from time to time, and since some confused people like Virginia Foxx have trouble remembering the details, it's worth the occasional refresher.
The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled, ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.
As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the racists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition — leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP.
In the ensuing years, Democrats embraced its role as the party of diversity, inclusion, and civil rights. Republicans became the party of the "Southern Strategy," opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms, Thurmond, Pat Buchanan, and Virginia Foxx.
Finally, it's all very nice to talk about Republican's civil rights initiatives of the past (after all, President Lincoln — a Republican — freed the slaves, yes?), but even assuming there is cause for the GOP to crow, that's what we call "resting on one's laurels". Where is the Republican party today on issues like gay marriage or immigration?
Perhaps some of you are aware of the fact that Jon Stewart — a guy on a comedy channel — last week caught Fox News showing false footage. In a news story about the Tea Bag rally held by Backmann (attended by a few thousand at best), Fox showed footage of the 9/12 rally (attended by tens of thousands), passing it off as part of the Bachmaan rally.
“If I didn’t know any better I’d think they just put two days together and acted like they didn’t,” said Stewart, before going on to present video evidence that that was precisely what they did — including Hannity exclaiming over how many people cared enough about freedom to come down to be heard on a Thursday. Er, Saturday.
Hannity subsequently apologized for the Fox News "mistake".
But, it happened again, this time on a news program.
Here's a screenshot of the footage of one of the rallies that Fox's Gregg Jarrett showed yesterday and claimed was "just coming into us" as part of the Sarah Palin book tour:
See the "Happening Now" chyron? Well, not so much.
Here's a photo posted last year by Florida TV station CFNews 13 of a November 1, 2008, Palin rally in Ocala, Florida:
In 2005, the state of Texas adopted an amendment to its Constitution that said marriage in the state could only be between one man and one woman. The amendment also declared: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” Now, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, is saying that the second section effectively “eliminates marriage in Texas”.
Obviously, the second part of the amendment was an attempt to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But if you believe in strict interpretation of the original text of the law (as conservatives do), then that language clearly bans common law marriage, and — at least arguably — bans regular marriages as well.
A Gandhi-following, peace-loving, free-spirited vegetarian who was adopted at birth has discovered the worst possible thing a son could find out about his father – his dad is Charles Manson.
