Haterade: a feature, not a bug.

In a world where everyone's drinking the Haterade, I'm going to tap a bile duct and make a fortune--

Or whatever.

First up:

Pat Robertson said some wacky stuff about Muslims taking over city councils that everybody thinks is stupid.

Which just made me think; what, just like the way the Christian Right has weaseled its way into influential school board positions to try and impose creationism and revisionist history that models America as a Christian nation, Muslims could game the system to support their religious goals? Whoa? Who knew that a religious loophole exploited by one group could be potentially exploited by another--

Hey, Pat--thinking about church/state separation yet to keep out the people you consider religious extremists?

Welcome to my world.

Eighty Soldiers at Fort Eustis and Fort Lee punished for not wanting to listen to Miserable Christian "Rock"

The moral fitness of today's fighting men and women should be no more subject to a religious litmus test than the fitness of our elected leaders. This is shockingly prejudicial to the bias of a particular "establishment of religion". And then there are certain practical aspects:

Another problem with these concerts, besides the issues like soldiers being punished for choosing not to attend them, is that they are run by the commanders, and not the chaplains' offices. It is absolutely permissible for a chaplain's office to put on a Christian concert. It is not permissible for the command to put on a Christian concert, or any other religious event. Having a religious concert series that is actually called and promoted as a Commanding General's Concert Series is completely over the top.

And then there's the cost. These concerts aren't just small events with local Christian bands. We're talking about the top, nationally known, award-winning Christian artists, with headline acts costing anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000, and even many of the opening acts being in the $10,000 range.

Are my tax dollars going to indoctrinate people into a religion? Because I really don't like indoctrinating people in religion against their will. And I too, am a taxpayer.

Defending a Right to Cast off A Conservative's Shackles

Yeah, I know that's the link to Sarah Palin's Facebook Page. And I am so tired of this woman. She is still pushing the meme of the lamestream media martyring poor ole Dr. Laura by making it known that she said evil racist things and letting the whole world decide whether that was a good thing for her to do. And since right-thinking people said, No, that's stupid, Palin considers her "silenced." And "shackled".

Okay. Um, to unpack the martyr meme that started with Sarah Twittering: "crucifixion"--no. She's being criticized, and not really by the media, but by people, and not because she's offending some weird remote activist group but actual people when she went on about The "n-word". And in actual fact, if Sarah palin wants to say she wasn't "calling anyone the derogatory term"--well then, why would she be concerned about the denial of white people using it, unless she thought she had a use for it herself (and she did in fact use it)? When she said that word, repeatedly, not just to her caller but her audience, how were they not to assume that she knew that the meaning of the word was derogatory, that it was generally used against a certain group of people, that they by and large did not prefer to hear it spoken, and that she should have recognized that if she was saying that the young people who misuse that term shouldn't say it, it did not then give herself license to say it.

In other words, she was ignorant, and people realized and said as much. In just the way that Palin doesn't get it--by saying people like herself and Dr. Laura:

.... have been “shackled” too by people who play games with false accusations, threats, frivolous lawsuits, misreporting, etc., in an effort to silence those with whom they disagree. That’s why I tend to defend people who call it like they see it while others stop at nothing to shut them up. I learned this valuable lesson when the partisan obstructionists in my state tried to shackle, bankrupt, and destroy my family and supporters, and my record, with endless frivolous litigation when I returned from the Vice Presidential campaign trail. In order to shake off the shackles they wanted to paralyze us with, I handed the reins to another, much like Dr. Laura is doing, so that these obstructionists who hated a Commonsense Conservative agenda wouldn’t win. I didn’t retreat; I reloaded in order to fight for what is right on a fairer battlefield.

Um--did she actually accept a per diem for working at home, and travel expenses for her kids to events that no one even invited them to, and didn't she use her office to instigate against her former brother-in-law and weren't most of those investigations actually not turning out in her favor and at least some of them started before she even was selected as McCain's VP nom, which meant that she already was beginning to flounder in ethics violations before the powers that be would allegedly ever have a reason to want to "silence" her?

Um--I don't want to silence her at all! I want her to succeed Michael Steele as RNC Chair!

And regarding Rahm Emannuel and saying the "R" word, which she said was just as bad as saying the "N-word" back when--hey, Mama Grizzly? I didn't hear you say a peep when Lyda Green was called a "bitch". Sarah could have been offended as a woman then. But she was a small-time partisan then, wasn't she?

Character, dear. Sarah's sometimes shows, but she shouldn't make a habit of it.

And anyway--shackled? This country shackled slaves, who were called by the very name Palin's valuable voice, Dr. Laura, repeatedly used. It's a word associated with dehuminization. And she did not see her caller as having feelings when she called her hypersensitive. I'm calling Palin all too human and fallible when I explain that both she and Dr. Laura are free to speak, give speeches, Tweet, send smoke signals, or even soak their heads. They just shouldn't expect to be lauded for stupidity, or applauded for offensiveness. They shouldn't be expecting an award for their bigotry. Although they will probably have their reward still, if I am any judge of human stupidity.