I no longer read newspapers.

I just read The Onion.

Here's why.

I'm Really Gonna Miss Systematically Destroying This Place

By George W. Bush
December 1, 2008

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Oh, America. Eight years went by so fast, didn't they? I feel like I hardly got to know you and methodically undermine everything you once stood for. But I guess all good things must come to an end, and even though you know I would love to stick around for another year or four—maybe privatize Social Security or get us into Iran—I'm afraid it's time to go. But before I leave, let me say, from the bottom of my heart: I can't think of another country I would've rather led to the brink of collapse.

Boy, oh boy, if these Oval Office walls could talk. Seems like it was only yesterday that I started my first term despite having actually lost to Al Gore by more than a half million votes. Hmm. We were all so young and peaceful then. Gosh, gas was still under $2 a gallon! On my watch it peaked at more than twice that. Never getting it up to $6 or ideally $7.50 will be one of my few regrets when I leave office.

It's just gonna be so hard packing up my things and heading off into the sunset come January. I wish I could go on forever giving massive and disastrous tax cuts to the wealthy, taking the country from a surplus to a deficit—nearly $500 billion this year, likely to pass $1 trillion next year, fingers crossed—and just generally doing irreparable damage to the very underpinnings of our economy, but, well, I'm afraid the Constitution says I can't. And not even I can overrule the Constitution. Though Lord knows I tried! Initiating blanket wiretaps without warrants, suspending habeas corpus for prisoners in Guantanamo, infiltrating an unknown number of nonviolent civilian antiwar groups without permission… such wonderful memories. I'm going to cherish them forever.

My fellow Americans, I only hope that every time you have your civil liberties encroached upon by the Patriot Act, you'll think of me.

Everywhere I look brings back memories. The Blue Room is where Laura and I put up our first White House Christmas tree. Down the hall, in the East Room, is where I concocted my favorite signing statement to circumvent the anti-torture guidelines of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and—ooh!—right across the way is where Cheney and I decided to use the death of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and the nation's subsequent fear of another attack as an excuse to carry out our long-standing plan to invade Iraq. I should really get a picture before I leave.

Speaking of pictures, whenever I look at the dusty old newspaper photos of those tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib or the crumpled ruins of that bridge in Minnesota, I can hold my head up high knowing that I truly fucked this nation—physically and symbolically—beyond repair. I only wish I had the time to destroy a couple more major American cities.

And Cheney, I almost forgot about Cheney. What a guy, huh? I can't believe that in a few short weeks he's never going to talk to me again. The stories I could tell you about what went on in some of those back rooms—well, you wouldn't believe me if I declassified the memos. I don't know, maybe in 20 years, when the economy has rebounded and the people displaced by Katrina have rebuilt their lives from scratch with almost no federal assistance, Cheney and I can meet up again in the Rose Garden and reminisce over the good old days, when it seemed like there was no part of this great country we couldn't ruin forever.

What am I going to do once I'm no longer president? I've gotten so used to waking up every day, playing fetch with the dogs on the White House lawn, and then spending a lazy afternoon shredding every last bit of our good will abroad in a mind-boggling display of diplomatic incompetence.

The worst part about leaving is knowing I can never screw up anything this big again. Don't get me wrong, I'm only 62. I could still bankrupt an oil company, or become the next MLB commissioner and ruin baseball. But I'll never get the opportunity to fuck up on this massive of a scale again. Even if you put me back in charge for another term, I could only take the U.S. from a rapidly declining world power to not a world power at all. I don't mean to gloat, but I think it's safe to say that no one can ever unseat the American empire like I unseated the American empire.

Still, I have to admit, sometimes I think I could've dismantled so much more. The very fact that the environment still exists, that a mere 4,000 troops have died in Iraq, that there is still the slightest glimmer of hope for the future left in this nation—it's easy to feel like maybe I didn't do my job. But no, no, there's no use having any regret. I fucked everything up the best I could and that's good enough for me.

You know, I've got a few weeks left. I could still illegally fire some U.S. attorneys for political reasons, or finally get rid of that pesky separation between church and state. Or maybe I could just bomb a place. Like Russia. But this time, I would really savor it.

As long as I live, America, I'll never forget irreparably ruining you. Unless we all die in a nuclear war or calamitous environmental disaster brought on by my neglect. Either way, I'll see you all in heaven!

Pure misogyny

Ever heard of purity balls? (here's that epic rant I was talking about)
From Wikipedia:

A purity ball is a formal event attended by fathers and their daughters. Purity balls promote virginity until marriage for teenaged girls, and are often closely associated with U.S. Christian churches, particularly fundamentalist churches.

Purity balls can vary in many particulars, but fathers who attend typically pledge to protect their young daughters' purity in mind, body and soul. Daughters are expected to remain virgins, abstaining from pre-marital sexual intercourse. A stronger father-daughter relationship is promoted as a means to affirm spiritual and physical purity.

Some Lefties might wonder why there aren't mother/son purity balls. But why should boys be held to the same 19th century standards of morality as girls? It's totally unfair; as the good Sheik said, we menfolk are totally subverted to the capricious whims of our ids, and possess not one iota of self control. Women, on the other hand, should definitely be held to ludicrous standards that only a saint could reach. Outrageous sexism is not just condoned, but endorsed in the Bible!

Which is the entire problem of purity; it's only ever applied to girls. It's an outdated concept that is practiced almost universally; from genital mutilation in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, to abstinence and virginity (for girls only, of course) in the West. "...fathers who attend typically pledge to protect their young daughters' purity in mind, body and soul." How exactly do they plan on doing that? Do these fathers plan of educating their daughters on sex, what happens, how to prevent pregnencies and STDs and in general improve their general knowledge on sexuality? Or do these loving dads instead plan on keeping their daughters completely in the dark on reproductive health?

Take a guess. By purity's nature, boys are exempt. Jesus may have been second only to Mohammad in prudishness, but he seemed to apply his ludicrously high standards equally to both sexes. Try typing 'purity ball boy' or 'purity ball son' into Google: these sites are what you get.

This sums up the misogyny of purity; if there is a problem, it's the woman's fault. Period. If a woman flaunts herself, and a guy ogles her, then it's her fault that he has no self control. It is, as the aforementioned Sheik stated, the failing of the uncovered meat rather then the violent, sociopathic cat. It should also be noted that 19th century misoyny is hardly confined to these religions-Judaism has its own branch of ultra-violence (of course, due to the fear that critisising branches of Judaism or certain Israeli policies makes you a neo-Nazi, such Taliban-style violence gets a free pass in the media).

It's always fascinated me how misogyny is so accepted in our society. One would think that after two waves of feminism, one would think that blatent sexism would be a little less tolerated in society. Could you imagine the outrage if someone stated that black people had to remain pure until they were married? Hell, it's all the same.

The logical conclusion of this ideology, of course, is this.

Cross-posted here and here.

Slandr: ur doin it rong.

From the Toxic Venomous Traditional Values Coalition:

President-Elect Obama appears to be keeping his campaign promise to homosexual activist groups to make their agenda part of his in the new administration. His wife, Michelle, outlined his homosexual agenda in a meeting with Democratic Convention delegates earlier this year.

If someone is openly pro-gay rights*, then I’m pretty sure that stops from promoting a secret “agenda.”

Demonisation of opponent: FAIL.

*which, for the record, Obama is not. Lunatic far-Right paranoia: SUCCESS.

**UPDATE 25/01/09**

Oops. Sorry, Mr. B. My bad.

The Hitler-Wallace Test.

Godwin's Law. The longer an internet conversation develops, the more likely somebody's going to be compared to Hitler.

Reductio ad Hitlerum. The logical fallacy that if Hitler supported something, then that something is inherently bad. An example is vegetarianisn; Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore it's bad.

Loosely based on these ideas, I've created the Hitler test. It's simple. If you think a person's beliefs genuinely emulate elements of Nazism, replace the subject of the said person's controversial beliefs with Judaism. Then, you will see what their beliefs are like.

Naturally, there are exceptions to these cases-in which you supply proper evidence. For example, I would state that Hitler and Phelps (leader of the Westboro Baptist Church) are extremely similar, in part because Phelps advocates the genocide of gays. Therefore, the two are genuinely similar. The same applies for cultures. I would argue that the Taliban and al Qaeda, and neo-Nazism share a number of common characteristics; a love of violence, extreme misogyny and an unwavering belief in their own supremacism (whether religious or racial). Hence, the Hitler test doesn't need to be applied to these groups.

But in other cases, the Hitler test is required. Take, for example, the Victorian CDP

Arch Bevis says the Coalition is confused over national security, where Muslims are concerned. Labor is as confused – and as naïve. Terrorism is not always violent. Often it is quite ‘soft’ and politically subtle.

While most Muslims are peaceful and decent people, they are still Muslims. Their culture is alien to ours. It is totalitarian and imperialistic. For that reason they will agitate for sharia-compliant laws to be introduced and condoned, as British Labor has done in the UK.

This is ‘soft’ terrorism. It seeks a dual law system, permitting them to ‘do their own thing.’ The situation in Europe is similar, if not worse.

Western society is profoundly challenged, not by hard, violent terrorism, but soft, political terrorism. This demands that host countries must adapt to Islamic ways, not Islam to Western culture. It’s about time Australia recognised that the clash of civilisations has reached our shores. Australia needs a moratorium on Muslim immigration, rather than African, in order to evaluate where Australia is going.

And to Hitlerise the text:

Arch Bevis says the Coalition is confused over national security, where Jews are concerned. Labor is as confused – and as naïve. Terrorism is not always violent. Often it is quite ‘soft’ and politically subtle.

While most Jews are peaceful and decent people, they are still Jews. Their culture is alien to ours. It is totalitarian and imperialistic. For that reason they will agitate for Torah-compliant laws to be introduced and condoned, as British Labor has done in the UK.

This is ‘soft’ terrorism. It seeks a dual law system, permitting them to ‘do their own thing.’ The situation in Europe is similar, if not worse.

Western society is profoundly challenged, not by hard, violent terrorism, but soft, political terrorism. This demands that host countries must adapt to Jewish ways, not Judaism to Western culture. It’s about time Australia recognised that the clash of civilisations has reached our shores. Australia needs a moratorium on Jewish immigration, rather than Middle-Eastern, in order to evaluate where Australia is going.

Sounds eerily familiar, no? If you don't like that, I've also created the Wallace test, named after one of America's most infamous segregationists (to be fair though, he did recant his racist views). Instead of replacing certain minority words with "Jew", the Wallace test uses the terms 'Negro', 'Communist' and 'race-mixer.' This is because Lefties, African-Americans and interracial couples were strongest in campaigning against segregation and Jim Crow laws. The Wallace test is more complex, as you have to correctly use the aforementioned words properly. I used the Wallace test in a previous post to compare FOTF's hatred of gays to past views on racial integration.

So there we have it. Next time you see something that sound just a little harsh against a particular group (most commonly Muslims or gays), try using the Hitler or Wallace tests, and see how they sound. Because as much as people try to justify their bigotry*-if it looks like hate and it sounds like hate, then chances are, it's hate.

*Usually by the justifications of "it's traditional," "my religion says I can do it" or "I'm being persecuted otherwise."

Abortion debate settled!

The long-awaited conclusion to this epic trilogy (parts one and two here and here) has arrived.

One problem of the abortion debate is neither conservatives nor liberals state whether they are debating opposition/support against/or abortion or abortion rights. On the surface, the two may be the same, but they are in fact two different subjects entirely. An abortion is a deliberate termination of a pregnancy, resulting in the destruction of a fetus. Abortion rights is the right for a woman to have legal access to having an abortion. Hence, someone might be personally opposed to abortion, but may still recognise and accept abortion rights. For this argument, I will focus on abortion rights.

But what is the argument against abortion rights? Namely:

Abortion is murder and therefore should be illegal. The reasons being that:

- fetus have souls and therefore are human.
- fetuses have human DNA, therefore killing them is murder.

However, each reason is fallacious. The soul argument is the easiest to debunk: namely, there is no evidence for their existence. Therefore, we can assume that until some observable evidence does develop, then souls don't exist, discounting the entire argument. Another problem is that the soul argument is theocratic and not democratic. It is theocratic because outlawing abortion based on the soul argument is to base the opposition of abortion rights on religion. If this country were Iran or Saudi Arabia, that argument might stand up. However, this Australia, a democratic country-we don't base laws on religion.

The 'human DNA' argument is also wrong, because more then DNA is required to make a human a human. Yes, the genetic code helps define us as humans and not other mammals. But if DNA were all that's needed, then my body is composed of billions of little people because my body is composed of billions of cells. A cell is not a human because billions of them are required to create a human-it's like saying that a tree is in fact a forest.

OK, we have established that killing a zygote or an early-stage foetus isn't murder (under a secular, legal perspective). However, the lines start to blur as the foetus develops into a baby, in which it is effectively a human. So at what stage can you call the flesh-sack a baby and therefore a human? Personally, I'd say that when the foetus no longer requires the mother to live, then it's a baby. It can breath, digest and perform all physiological functions on its own without any external aid (no electronics or machinery either), which is pretty much what it can do outside the womb. According to In the Womb, the foetus can live outside the mother at 26 weeks. Therefore, we can say that at 26 weeks (from a scientific point of view), the foetus has become a human and, with exceptions (such as the threat of physical or mental deformities, or birth being a threat to either the mother's or child's health), abortions post-26 weeks should be illegal.

But above all else, the reason for abortion rights is because illegalising abortion does nothing to stop it. Rather, it forces abortion underground. It happened with prohibition, it happens with illegal drugs, and every time a country illegalises abortion, they are committing genocide against women.

Bay of Fundie does a better job here.

Why don't we learn from the past?

Focus on the 19^th century Family has produced a new ad to expose teh gay agenda. You can view it here. That link also contains the transcript:

It could happen to your town.

Man: They've come out of the closet.

AFA presents a look at how a handful of homosexual activists infiltrated the Eureka Springs, Arkansas government and changed the very moral fiber of the city.

Man 2: They're taking over a place that has been known for its Christianity.

Man 1: They branded us as fundamentalists, as Christian hate bigots -

Man 2: Once homosexual activists get into power, they're not too tolerant toward other people.

Learn the strategies used by gay activists and don't let this happen to your city. This DVD is a must-teaching tool - watch, and learn how to fight a well-organized gay agenda to take over the cities of America, one city at a time.

Man 3: If it hasn't happened in your town, get ready, because it is going to happen.

Hmmmm. Why does that feel so familiar? Wait-it feel so familiar because it's the type of rhetoric George Wallace used in his pro-segregation campaigns. The "[insert minority group] are gonna take over your town!!1!" fear card has been used extensively-from Pauline "Asian Invasion" Hanson, to Wallace, to the KKK, to Elizabeth Dole. Those constituencies have all kept taking the bait.

Whatsay we give it a Wallace-style makeover:

It could happen to your town.

Man: They've come from their suburbs...to ours.

AFA presents a look at how a handful of Negro and Communist activists infiltrated the Eureka Springs, Arkansas government and changed the very moral fiber of the city.

Man 2: They're taking over a place that was once a haven for been white Christians.

Man 1: They branded us as fundamentalists, as Christian hate bigots -

Man 2: Once Negros and Communists get into power, they're not too tolerant toward other people.

Learn the strategies used by anti-white activists and don't let this happen to your city. This DVD is a must-teaching tool - watch, and learn how to fight a well-organized pro-Negro agenda to take over the cities of America, one city at a time.

Man 3: If it hasn't happened in your town, get ready, because it is going to happen.

Sounds just like it came out of the 1950s/60s. Also here's the AFA ad:

Now, to Wallacise the text:

Residents of the small Arkansas town of Eureka Springs noticed the Negro community was growing. But they felt no threat. They went about their business as usual. Then, one day, they woke up to discover that their beloved Eureka Springs, a community which was known far and wide as a center for white entertainment--had changed. The City Council had been taken over by a small group of pro-Negro Communist activists.

The Eureka Springs they knew is gone. It is now a national hub for Negros, Communists and race mixers. Eureka Springs is becoming the San Francisco of Arkansas. The story of how this happened is told in the new AFA DVD “They’re Coming To Your Town.”

One of the first actions of the Communist-controlled City Council was to offer a “registry” where race-mixers could register their unofficial “marriage.” City Council member Joyce Zeller said the city will now be promoted, not as a safe, white Christian resort, but a city “selling peace, relaxation, history and sex.”

AFA’s “They’re Coming ToYour Town” documents the story of how and why this happened. And how Communists and race-mixing activists plan to do the same in other towns.

Order a copy of “They’re Coming To Your Town.” Watch it. Then take the 28-minute DVD and share it with your Sunday School class and local church. This is a story the liberal media will never tell, but one you need to know.

As the title suggests, I'm wondering just how anybody could look at AFA's video and conclude anything other then "WTF?!" it really is depressingly spectacular how people can fall to fear campaigns, and not learn how to avoid it. We've seen this in the suffragette movement, the McCarthy era, black civil rights, gay rights...and everytime we hear the same arguments: "But it goes against the voices in my head God's law!" "It's not traditional!" "It'll destroy the family!" "Think of the children!" And for some reason, we keep falling for it, never learning from our past mistakes. Why else would Prop 8 pass?

Jebus. For all of humanity's strengths, we're pretty slow learners.

Also, TIME has an article on fear here, published in 1968.

I can has victory?

Shocking weather for the latest battle today. The weather would randomly alternate between light drizzle, no rain and epic downpour, the latter preventing General Debbie from using the microphone. However, nothing boosts morale like a rhyming slogan about abortion being decriminalised. Even better, I was able to sell plenty of charity chocolate Fredos-both on the train there and back, and at the rally. Only a few people can sell 50 chocolates within a day. I'm one of the few.