Least Surprising News of the Year.....

Congrats to anyone holding 72 days in the pool.

The next part of Kim Kardashian's master plan to smother the dying breath out of American culture began today with her divorce announcement.

Sham marriage, sham divorce, sham reality show.

Sham celebrity.

Yet somehow, this is front page news.

....

Almost forgot. In case you care, here's the link.

Bedford (PA) County Drug Task Force Creates Jobs.

(Story is from the Altoona Mirror.
The only reason I am linking it is the online version does not include the mug shots or names of the accused. Believe me, the print version took great joy in including both.)

After an eight month investigation, the Bedford County Drug task force ruined the lives of 21 addicts in a show of force and idiocy on Tuesday. In a second "fuck you" to the accused, the Altoona Mirror published color photos of each of the 21, who I must add, are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

"Operation: Scarecrow," as it is called, follows "Operation: Cupid's Arrow," which in February took 15 of the most violent non-violent addicts off the streets. Bedford County DA Bill Higgins, of course, thinks this is serious business. At a press conference, he said "Just like the 15 arrested in 'Operation: Cupid's Arrow,' these offenders will be zealously prosecuted."

"Operation: Scarecrow"? "Operation: Cupid's Arrow"? Can we have "Operation: Harm Reduction," next please?

Sheriff Charwin Reichelderfer then proves that he almost gets it, but that his mind just can't finish the leap.

I know from experience that many of these people will be characterized as just users by their friends and family. While they may be selling stuff to support their own habit, there is no question they are bringing this poison in our community and selling it to our kids. And for that they're going to be held accountable.

Bolds are mine.

Let me scan through the list quick and see how many have charges related to selling drugs to minors. Perhaps one. I say perhaps, because a few of these hardened criminals apparently were also parents, and got charges added if they had a child in the car with them.

Which I admit is not only stupid, but child endangerment. Drugs are illegal, leave your damn kids at home, or with a sitter.

But selling it to "our kids"?

Do you have proof of this assumption, Sheriff Charwin, or are you just jumping right to the most emotional target possible to corrupt the jury pool and further tar these child murderers drug addicts? Or are you trying to convince your self? Asshole, or asshole suffering from cognitive dissonance, I can't decide.

There is no reason to try to corrupt the jury pool, since I'd bet my car all 21 will take a plea. That's how it works. The ADA offers you a shitty plea, and then threatens that if you take it to trial, they will push for whatever crazy number of years they think sound believable. All 21 of these criminals victims are going to be facing felonies, and chances are all 21 will take the plea. The only ones who actually should take the plea are those offered ARD or IPP or some other path to clearing their record, but the threat of years in prison can affect your decision making.

Look, I know. Drugs are illegal. Selling drugs is illegal. They all broke the law. I get it, I really do. And unless it is far down the memory hole, I do not know anyone affected by this operation.

But I still know them. I see my past self in every picture. I know the game, I know the story. Some of them are runners for the actual dealer, delivering drugs and protecting the dealer. Some of them were hooking up a friend they probably used with a hundred times before. A few of them were probably straight set up by the Confidential Informant and actually are innocent. Some of them were only getting for someone else so they could make enough to get a fix. And, yes, some were driving to Baltimore and bringing back product to sell and support their own addiction.

8 months. Untold amount of tax payer money. 21 low level dealers, at the worst, off the streets facing a felony that will follow them forever. The one girl is only 18. One guy is 19. Welcome to adulthood.

And by the end of the week, 21 more will step in to fill whatever cog in the machine they happened to occupy. The heroin and cocaine will keep flooding the area. More people will get addicted. Then in 8 months or so, "Operation: June Bug," or the like will scoop up another group.

The cycle, it keeps on cycling.

21 jobs available today in Bedford County. It's high risk, but the profession is booming no matter the economy. No experience needed, just a self-destructive personality.

We've lost the war on drugs. The war was never winnable in the first place.

Why are we still fighting it? Why are there still casualties?

Isn't it time for harm reduction?

Going to link to LEAP, and shut up.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Psychic Kids, Skepticism, and TMI

And the most evil show on television not involving Jenny McCarthy marches on......

Rebecca Watson posted Mark Stewart's report on the Psychic Kids panel at DragonCon today over at Skepchick. I urge you to head over there to read it. Nothing really has changed. The show still makes me physically ill, their psychologist is still a full fledged believer which makes her largely useless for these poor kids, and the believers still ignore all skeptical criticism by building strawmen to beat on while ignoring our actual arguments.

The "all psychic children are mentally ill" strawman always gets under my skin.

I'm not going to deal with Mark's report here. If interested, go read it. It is good shit.

Instead, I want to try to explain why I hate this show so much. Yeah, other paranormal shows presented from the classic believer viewpoint annoy me, but nothing else paranormal inspires this level of revulsion in me.

I haven't always been a skeptic. From 12 to 20ish I was heavily involved in Wicca and other new age forms of witchcraft. If this show existed then, I could have been on it.

Was I mentally ill? Not at all. Part of it was rebellion. I wasn't indoctrinated into a religion until 11 when my mom decided to return to Catholicism and force it into me. Part of it was the time period. In my backwater town, Wicca and the like had just began hitting the bookstore shelves in force and I would read anything. And a large part of it was just feeling broken and searching for anything to believe in. Every member of my family, all my friends, everyone my young mind knew at the time all believed in some form of God.

I believed because my extensive pagan library told me what I was doing was real. My mind would seek coincidences and attribute them to spells. My experiences were filtered through the lens of pagan belief. And of course, my circle of close friends all either believed as I did, or weren't confident enough in their own beliefs to question mine.

Belief in magic, witchcraft, psychic ability, etc, is set up to defy any proof against. Spell didn't work? Sometimes they don't. Couldn't connect with a spirit? Sometimes they don't want to connect. Asked to prove it? Sorry, nothing will work if a non-believer is around. Bending reality is hard enough work as it is.....

My first year in college, I would sit in the off campus coffee house and read the Tarot for spending money. My accuracy amazed not only those I read, but myself as well. At first I'd maybe do a reading a day; after the first month I had to turn people away. I thought I had proof finally.

Then I took my first Psych class and my entire worldview shattered. I didn't know the term "cold reading" yet, but I knew why my readings were so accurate, and it had nothing to do with the cards or the paranormal. I was using what I had picked up of human psych on the streets to read people for clues. I would start with classic general cold reading statements, stopping at each card until the client recorded a hit no matter how many different avenues I had to travel to get the hit, and gradually forcing them to give me enough information to supply a stunningly specific hit on the last cards.

I spent the next 4 years examining every other paranormal belief I held without the assumption that they were true, while still clinging to any shred of belief I could muster.

Then came the self-destruction as I could no longer be the person I had been for the last 12 or so years.

All kids who claim to have "powers" aren't mentally ill. I've never even seen any of us make that claim. Some are to be sure, some are attention seeking, some are suggestible, and some just have a perfect storm of causes surrounding them.

I can not even begin to imagine how much worse off I would have been with a tv show and adults I respected confirming my beliefs at every turn. Could I have ever escaped? And, perhaps more importantly, how much worse would it have been if the beliefs did crash around me?

These people are sick, and I don't mean the kids. Some of these kids will become the next generation of TV psychics, and some of them will get out relatively unscathed.

But some of them are going to watch their entire lives crumble around them. Watch the persona this show helped to create disappear leaving them alone to try to figure out who they are and how to make sense of the past how many years.

And some of them are not going to be able to get through the fallout.

Based on my own anecdotal evidence, I'm convinced this show is going to have a body count. If not from outright suicide, then from drug abuse or other self destructive behaviors.

I tried it all without a TV show.

I hope in 15 years or so when we can do actual follow-ups on these kids that I am proven wrong.

Catholic Bishop Finally Charged in Connection to Child Abuse

Ed Brayton over at Dispatches From The Culture Wars brought this to the attention of the blogosphere, so I will let his words and the original article speak for themselves, while I concentrate on the upcoming response from the Catholic League.

For the first time ever in the U.S., a Catholic church official has been criminally charged for failing to report suspected child molestation by a priest in his charge to the police. The New York Times reports:

The details from said New York Times piece:

A bishop in the Roman Catholic Church has been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse, the first time in the 25-year history of the church’s sex abuse scandals that the leader of an American diocese has been held criminally liable for the behavior of a priest he supervised.

The indictment of the bishop, Robert W. Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph by a county grand jury was announced on Friday. Each was charged with one misdemeanor count involving a priest accused of taking pornographic photographs of girls as recently as this year. They pleaded not guilty.

The case caused an uproar among Catholics in Kansas City this year when Bishop Finn acknowledged that he knew of the photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. During that time, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, is said to have continued to attend church events with children, and took lewd photographs of another young girl.

A decade ago the American bishops pledged to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities — a policy also recommended last year by the Vatican. Bishop Finn himself had made such a promise three years ago as part of a $10 million legal settlement with abuse victims in Kansas City.

Ahem.

People, people, calm down.

Bishop Finn, as a moral and ethical leader in the Roman Catholic Church, was more than likely just holding on to the pictures to protect the innocence of the little girl in question.

There is just no reason to jump to wild conclusions like B.Finn was attempting to protect a struggling artist/priest from a world that would never understand the artistic vision of naked kids representing the Innocence of the Virgin Mary. There is no evidence that Bishop Finn was masturbating wildly to the photos while in his office or the confessional, or that he paid the priest in question with envelopes filled to bursting with money from the Offering to produce the artistic visions.

Only in a culture as Evil as ours would someone point the finger of blame at the Roman Catholic Church and its leaders, when the true danger to our children is obviously from the Gay Agenda. The Catholic faith, and its leaders are servants of God. Whatever a priest or Bishop deems fitting to do to a younger member of the flock, whether it includes nudity, fellatio, buggery, whips, ball gags, video/photographic equipment, and/or large amounts of drugged communion wine, we can be sure that it is for God and God alone, and not due to any base desire of the priest.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

….

There, I already wrote Bill Donohue’s response for him. The bigot better give me credit if I see any of this in a press release from the Catholic League.

Obama is a Liberal Liar

I find the Obama-as-a-liberal meme to be quite amusing. Faux News and the Conservative Media Machine have conned the majority of their base and a great deal of the political center into acceptance of the meme. True, at times they seem confused over whether Obama is a far left Marxist communist or a far right fascist National Socialist, but discarding the coocoo-for-cocoa-puffs Hitler comparisons they have been largely successful painting him, along with most of the Democratic Party, as dreaded Liberals.

Rationality, to where have you disappeared?

We can argue for days over where on the political spectrum Obama and other Democrats land (I've heard center-left and dead center, while I would argue for center-right) but can we please stop this "Liberal" nonsense? No matter the cause, be it their true political beliefs, or just political opportunity created as the Republicans go off the rails of their personal crazy train, there is no viable national party representing the views of those of us firmly on the left. I don't expect for the Tea Party to see this as a negative, but I hope those on the right who still look at knowledge, logic, rationality and education as virtues realize that this is poison for our Nation.

The talking points are too easy. Effective policy needs criticism to blossom, it forces those on both sides to dissect their own ideas, tempering them to survive the attack of the enemy, leading to stronger more effective policies. Yes, I am a Liberal and I feel Liberal policies are best for this Nation, but that doesn't mean I want my ideas enacted without debate, rubber stamped blindly with any opposition shut down by the call of "fascists!"

*sigh* After that preamble, let me make one thing clear. I do not advocate "making Obama pay" in 2012. There is no viable 3rd option, and with the batshit insanity of the current Republican party, anyone they nominate for the Presidency is a danger to our Constitution and economy. So hold you nose and vote for Obama, but we need to start pulling the Democrats back to the left. That being said.....

Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars, we once again find our President breaking campaign promises and doing a two-step on our rights.

Apparently not satisfied with completely breaking the promise not to prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers who comply with state law, now the Obama administration has set its sights on the First Amendment as well by prosecuting media outlets that accept advertising from medical marijuana businesses.

From the original article, Feds to target newspapers, radio for marijuana ads on California Watch:

Federal prosecutors are preparing to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise medical marijuana dispensaries in California, another escalation in the Obama administration’s newly invigorated war against the state’s pot industry.

This month, U.S. attorneys representing four districts in California announced that the government would single out landlords and property owners who rent buildings or land where dispensaries sell or cultivators grow marijuana. Now, newspapers and other media outlets could be next.

As Ed Brayton writes to finish his piece, "I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: When it comes to civil liberties, Obama hasn’t just been bad, he’s been an absolute disaster."

I could not agree more.

For Republicans, It Is All About Jobs And The Economy

It's a no-brainer.

The Country is mired in the Great Recession with little signs of recovery. The sitting Democratic President, sharing dangerously low approval ratings with Congress, has finally appeared to grow a spine, aggressively pushing his jobs package while painting Congressional Republicans as obstructionists. And as the Occupy movement continues to spread from city to city, nation to nation, struggling Republican presidential candidates have a surprising chance to get back into a race that Mitt Romney, despite every opportunity, has failed to claim.

The plan?

1. Bring the 7th anti-abortion bill of the year to a vote in the House.
2. Have candidates double down on anti-abortion rhetoric.
3. Watch as a former Republican State Attorney General, who discussed patients private medical records with Bill O'Reilly on national television as part of his witch hunt against Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who I must point out was gunned down and killed in cold blood by an anti-abortion fanatic, faces the suspension of his ability to practice law for ethics violations without a care, thanks perhaps to his new found prominence in the anti-abortion movement.
4. ?????
5. JOBS!!!!!

It could be worse, I guess. They could be hypocritical as well. I mean, imagine if, at the same time they were trying to massively increase the power of government over a woman's body, they were also portraying themselves as the anti-government party, telling their supporters that government was the problem, and that less government interference with private citizens was the solution.

While you're imagining, here's Rachael Maddow with the story.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hulk Turns Heel On Obama

In what may be the most shocking event of the political season, Bruce Banner turned into a large green creature and ripped into President Obama.

Wait. What? Are you sure?

Hulk Hogan rips into Obama?

He's still alive?

His political opinions are relevant because............

I got nothing.

Via Yahoo News reporting off of Faux News' cutting-edge, pulse of the nation show Fox and Friends:

Fake wrestling champion Hulk Hogan supported President Obama in 2008, but alas, the honeymoon is over, Hogan said Thursday during a Fox News appearance.

"I was a big Obama supporter and kinda, like, believed everything he said he was gonna do," Hogan said on Fox and Friends. "But now that nothing's happened..."

Hogan said he was still sore about the president using his theme song, "I Am a Real American" when Obama addressed the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner shortly after he released his long form birth certificate earlier this year.

"I kinda was a little upset that he didn't ask me permission to use my music," Hogan added. "But the change of heart is that I think I should be president. I know nothing about politics. I think a flat tax across the board would straighten everything out."

When told that the Hulk's idea sounds something like presidential candidate Herman Cain's "9-9-9 Plan," he responded, "Wow, yeah well he's not a real American like I am. . . . I've been around, people know me, they know everything about me, they know I'm for real, they know I know nothing about politics. I'll just make decisions on what's right or wrong."

How is it even possible to force that much stupid into such a small space? The Incredible Hulk could grunt out a more coherent and nuanced political stance while smashing things with a tank. How exactly do you go from being an Obama supporter to supporting a flat tax on Fox and Friends?

Easy! Just follow these simple steps.

1. Watch Hank Williams Jr. bring the stupid on Fox&Friends.
2. Watch a washed up, irrelevant former star like yourself receive tons of negative publicity.
3. Decide that negative publicity is better than no publicity.
4. Bring the stupid on Fox&Friends!

In Vol. 22, No. 4, the Fall 2002 issue of Free Inquiry Harlan Ellison had a piece that I will never forget titled "Terrorists". I can not locate it online for free, but I have the issue in front of me. He begins the piece

It is wickedly difficult attempting to generate a sense of gravitas when you have convinced yourself that you have nothing to say that anyone should properly need to hear.

Let me try this:
Why can't I get that portion of the human race to which I have access to understand that it has been systematically gulled, hoodwinked if you will, had enough smoke blown up its kilt to refloat the Lusitania, by disingenuous egalitarian bunkum, into believing "Everyone is Entitled to His or Her Opinion" when, in truth, everyone is only entitled to his or her informed opinion; and all the witless upchuck devoid of fact or common ratiocination is merely the chittering of intellectually-arid hominids swathed in Old Navy shmatahs.

No, I can't launch into it that way. Sounds too Elitist. Don't even dare to suggest that some folks are smarter than some other folks. That ain't The American Way. All opinions have the same weight: Herman Kahn, Debbie Reynolds, Miss Cleo, Colin Powell. Joyce Carol Oates. Adam Sandler.

And may I add, Hulk Hogan?

Skipping ahead a bit...

Everybody wants to be on television. Everybody. At the scene of a fifty-car smashup, bodies strewn everywhichway like bloody pick-up-sticks, there will invariably be some gobbet of human phlegm who, with slack jaw and extruded tongue, positions him or herself behind the stringer with the mike, who waves to the world or to Mom while squishing an ejected large colon 'neath his/her Nikes. Pedestrians in malls, passersby in markets, patrons in moviehouses, all pant and drool as their progress is impeded by a total stranger with a hand-mike, seeking their oracular wisdom. The late British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once wrote, "I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance."

And, hell, we pay politicians to have opinions.

Everybody wants to be a dancing bear on television, and everybody deserves to shoot off a big mouth on the tube, because as everybody knows....We Are All Entitled To Our Opinion.

Doesn't matter if we're dumb as a box of Hamburger Helper, as uninformed as a hemorrhoid, as surfeited with jingoism and urban myth as a foot-soldier in the White Aryan Army, by gosh we're entitled to express that bone-stick-stone opinion, endlessly, at the top of our lungs, ungrammatically, like uh totally and, gawd willin' and the crick don't rise, on telemuthuhfugginvision

With no intent to do so, nine years ago, Harlan Ellison wrote the most accurate review of Fox&Friends I have yet seen. (Apologies to Harlan Ellison for using such a small piece of a great article to make my point. I urge you to track the article down if you have never read it, the full work is definitely worth a few moments of your time.)

So who is next, Fox&Friends?

Britney Spears? Lindsey Lohen? Jeff Foxworthy? Billy Ray Cyrus? Smilin' Bob from the old Enzyte commercials?

You've got us hooked, don't leave us hanging now.

Screw expert opinions. We want ignorant opinions!