I’m not sure why Jasser thinks Kerry should’ve mentioned “Islamism” in his speech in Ethiopia. From what I’ve read about the unrest that’s happened in that country, it’s largely been due to AUTHORITARIAN POLITICAL shenanigans—having to do with things like restricting free speech, imprisoning bloggers, removing certain ethnic (not religious) groups from universities—because a now-minority group, which traditionally was the political elite doesn’t want to share, much less give up, its power.

The main ethnic group that’s been targeted are the Oromo (who make up about 40% of Ethiopia’s population). The Oromo, as a whole, are largely Muslim but Christians comprise nearly as much of the Oromo population (by some counts, Christians have a slight edge). But even with the Oromo, they’re not completely united in terms of politics—some Oromo were part of the Marxist-era Revolutionary Council while others fought against the Marxist government.

But overall, why would Kerry inject a topic that really doesn’t play a part in the country’s day-to-day reality? There haven’t been any known “Islamic attacks” against Ethiopia (leaving aside the conflicts with the neighboring Muslim states of Eritrea and Somalia), much less any “Islamic-sponsored terrorist” actions. Of course, that’s par for the course for US radical right-wingers: Make everything about “Islamic radicals” and ignore the “Christian radicals” in THIS country.

@ truman: And she’s old. Don’t forget that. (Must never forget the sexism angle. Hillary’s pushing 70 but she still looks in better shape than Wicked Witch Phyllis Schlafly did when she started her attacks to stop the ERA—and Schlafly was only in her late 40s when that started but she looked like she was well into her 60s even then.)

G Whit: Perhaps YOU need to get your EBT card and shut up. The Dubya/Cheney cabal was responsible for FAR MORE deaths—deaths that could have been prevented if Dubya’s oh-so-hectic vacation schedule could’ve been interrupted for just one hour to read the PDB warning of a potential terrorist attack on US soil in September.

Roughly 3000 dead in the Twin Towers collapse (and Flight 93 and the crash into the Pentagon) then thousands more—American soldiers and airmen plus innocent Afghanis and Iraqis and, just as US forces were closing in on bin Laden’s hiding place, Dubya and Cheney decided to attack Iraq in full force and leave the Afghanistan campaign with a fraction of its previous force. And, then of course, Dubya decides that bin Laden’s really not all that important so he ordered the unit hunting bin Laden to shut down.

Just imagine FoxNoise’s reaction if either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had done that. But when Dubya did it—crickets made more racket.

So yeah. Four dead Americans in Benghazi versus THOUSANDS of Americans dead in NYC, Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention the people who died during attacks on other American embassies and consulates during the Dubya/Cheney administration). Pirro really has her priorities in place.

Well, it’s obvious that Hannutty isn’t a lawyer or policeman. “They broke into the guy’s house! …How could it be premeditated when they broke into his house?”

Well, Sean, I’ll be glad to tell you. HE SET IT UP TO LOOK LIKE HE WAS GONE AND THEN HE SAT WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO BREAK IN. That, you schmuck, is just about the textbook definition of “premeditated.”

In fact, here’s the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition of “premeditated”: “Done or made according to a plan; planned in advance.” Not enough? Here’s a bit more: “Characterized by fully conscious willful intent and a measure of forethought and planning.”

So, what part of the MW dictionary definition of “premeditated” does not apply to Mr Smith’s actions?

Um, Aria, regarding Shakira, since she started targeting the Anglo (ie, English-speaking) audience, she’s been pretty blonde on all her album covers.

Laundry Service (her English-language breakthrough) features a pretty blonde look. http://www.allmusic.com/album/laundry-service-mw0000016418

Her double-album followup set, Fijación Oral Vol 1 and Oral Fixation Vol 2 (the first set was Spanish-language, the second was English) feature a blonde Shakira on both album covers. http://www.allmusic.com/album/fijaci%C3%B3n-oral-vol-1-mw0000207618 and http://www.allmusic.com/album/oral-fixation-vol-2-mw0000258830 (the second is maybe just a touch more of a “dirty” blonde)

The She-Wolf set still features a blonde Shakira, though with definite honey-blonde-to-brown highlights (in fact, the right side of her hair looks darker than the left side—note to reverse the sides as you look at them). http://www.allmusic.com/album/she-wolf-mw0001762399

The follow-up mostly-Spanish album, Sale el Sol, features a hair color that could easily be thought of as a sun-bleached blonde color. http://www.allmusic.com/album/sale-el-sol-mw0002049249

As to Shakira’s skin tone, she’s never really been a dark Latina. Her father’s family is Lebanese while her mother’s family is Castilian Spanish and Italian. When you look at her big Spanish-language album, Dónde Están los Ladrones, she has dark brown hair and her skin does look slightly dark but we’re talking about as dark as your typical Middle Easterner. And depending on the lighting, Shakira can look very light-skinned. If you watch the video for the song “Gitana,” Shakira’s love interest in the video is tennis star Rafael Nadal who’s Spanish and Shakira doesn’t look noticeably darker or lighter than Nadal.

Perhaps Shakira’s removal from the FoxNoise sh#t list could be coincidental with the advent of FoxLatino. Shakira is enormously popular with the Latino community, regardless of their specific national heritage and I wouldn’t be surprised if the FL people said, “Look—you keep ragging on Shakira, and there will be NOTHING we can do to keep her fans from tearing you a new hole. We can only do so much to keep Latinos from ripping you a new hole—and we’ve been doing it for a while—but attack Shakira, and we are NOT going to take the heat for you.”

It’s funny how Henry couldn’t remember why the Cairo protests happened, especially as the FoxNoise kkkrew were busy (and rather loudly, at that) denouncing the CIA’s (and, by extension, Rice’s) claims that the anti-Islamic film had been the trigger for the Benghazi riots.

Perkins said “a whole new chapter is being written in the culture war” because those who support gay marriage said it was only about people being able to love each other but “tolerance is a one way street” and that gays are “forcing” America to embrace gay marriage and OMG “redefine America.”

xxxx

IRONY ALERT.

In Perkins’ America (or should that be Amerikkka?), tolerance would be that “one way street” he’s whining about now. Of course, when you’re the one determining what (or who) is “tolerated,” you tend to NOT “tolerate” anything (or anyone) that differs from your norm.

@ Tom: You mean like Susan Smith? Or how about the Utah woman who was arrested after having actually killed 7 children (and had kept their dead bodies in cardboard boxes)?

It’s funny how you don’t hear O’Reilly’s “making examples” when it’s WHITE women endangering their children. Why do you suppose that is, Tom?

@ Richard: The funniest parts of “Airplane” involving Kareem are first, when Joey, the little boy’s visiting the cockpit (this is also the scene when we get the “Do you like gladiator movies” line) and he says “Hey, you’re Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” which he denies—right up till the time the boy starts talking about how his dad says Kareem’s not really that great a player and he grabs the boy’s shirt, pulls him in and starts, well, from IMDb.com:

Roger Murdock: But just remember, my name is…
[showing his nametag]
Roger Murdock: ROGER MURDOCK. I’m an airline pilot.
Joey: I think you’re the greatest, but my dad says you don’t work hard enough on defense.
[Kareem gets angry]
Joey: And he says that lots of times, you don’t even run down court. And that you don’t really try… except during the playoffs.
Roger Murdock: [breaking character] The hell I don’t! LISTEN, KID! I’ve been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there busting my buns every night. Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.

At which point, he lets go of Joey who backs away (with a look of “Oh crap—I just pissed my pants”).

The other scene is just after the cockpit crew is discovered to be unconscious from the bad dinner and Kareem is in his Lakers’ uniform. (It’s been a while but I think he also was holding a basketball in the scene.)

There really isn’t a bad scene in the whole film. It’s one of those rare films (and I think it was probably the first) to just throw out one-liners and random scenes of sheer crazy and have more than 99% of them hit the mark. (Barbara Billingsley translating the Black passengers’ jive—“Stewardess, I speak jive” ending with “chump don’t want no help, chump don’t get no help!”; a young boy chats up a little girl, offering her coffee and when he asks if she’d like some cream, “No thank you, I take it black like my men; Ted’s recounting his hospital stay—”That’s Lt Hurwitz; severe shell-shock. He thinks he’s Ethel Merman" at which point the real Ethel Merman bolts up from the bed and starts singing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”; a passenger accepts a second cup of coffee, and his wife thinks “Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home” and later, after he takes an airsickness bag and begins puking into it, she thinks “Jim never vomits at home”; Johnny in the control tower and his just out-there reactions; Steve McCroskey and his whole “this was a bad week to stop” running gag; the hysterical passenger and the line to shut her up. Hilarity from start to finish.)

“Wonder if Bill went off to a broom closet to “vent,” or just took it all out on Watters!"

Well, I have it on good authority* that Watters enjoys it REALLY rough, and that he enjoys it so much, he purposely gets BillO angry. And that same authority says that getting pissed off is the only way BillO can “get it up” although he prefers taking “it” out for/on female staff, he will take “it” out for/on Watters if Jesse-boy’s the only one around.

*That source would be my bunghole. The source for virtually all of FoxNoise’s stories is their asses so what’s good for the goose, and all that.

Ellen, are you sure that FoxNoise’s audience isn’t more attuned to the 18th century? Or maybe the 13th? I don’t think they’re anywhere near the 20th century.

From the little bit I’ve read about the Phoenix VA deal, it seems like it was all the fault of the local VA hospital officials with no connection to the VA as a whole, much less the President.

Of course, that’s never stopped the GOP’s official propaganda outlet (aka FoxNoise) from connecting dots that never existed.

Priscilla, I’ve got a question. When you wrote “because the mode on campus,” was that a direct quote from the clip* from either Hasselhack or Desatnick? Or is it an error in transcribing the clip? As it stands now, it doesn’t make sense. The correct word should be “mood.” If the quote is correctly transcribed, then it seems as though someone is trying to sound high-falutin’ and proving just the opposite. (And if the quote is from the Dartmouth student, I hope his parents are proud of the “education” he’s getting if he can so easily screw up mood/mode. The words can by synonymous in certain cases, but this isn’t really one of those cases. It’s sort of like the way people “over-correct” their grammar in things like “between you and I.”)

*Only asking since gods know I have no stomach to watch anything from FoxNoise. That’s a job for NewsHounds.

Something tells me Allen West would be singing a different tune if it had been his war-criminal face in the girlfriend’s pics which led to Sterling’s comments.

Seriously, I have to wonder if FoxNoise would be as blasé about Sterling’s comments if the “negro” in the pictures had been West or Herman Cain or Ben Carson, instead of Magic Johnson.

@ Visitor: Oh, I’m aware of the hypocrisy involved. Most death penalty proponents are nothing but hypocrites. They’re only interested in state-sanctioned murder (just like they are when they support sending our troops to fight wars that should never have begun).

@ Tom: No. Decapitation is no more humane than any of the other “traditional” forms of execution. That said though, lethal injection could be the most humane but the real problem here is that the “state” wants to keep the ingredients of their “cocktail” a secret and not even allow anyone to know the source of the drugs. Could you imagine what would happen if a number of diabetics were to die from insulin injections but the doctors were protected by the State from having to reveal the source/manufacturer of the insulin? Or a number of children died after getting vaccinations but no one was allowed to know who made the vaccines? And yet, denying anyone to know who’s supplying the drugs/chemicals for the “lethal injection cocktail” has been upheld by courts in several states. (Point worth noting: The condemned man had fought to find out the source of the drugs after somehow learning that the state was going to have to change the mix of drugs and he wanted to ensure that they weren’t tainted.) What do you think the reaction would be if it turned out that dogs and cats being “put to sleep” in animal shelters were whimpering and howling and otherwise exhibiting pain during the process? (Most of us pretty much know how animals react when they’re getting injections to prevent various diseases but our pets don’t spend more than a few minutes or so with the vets and assistants treating them; shelter animals usually spend days, even weeks, with the people taking care of them and are less likely to get as nervous.)

Maybe our latest trollette might want to rethink her little contention about “any other religion.” Pamela, look towards Uganda. A country whose CHRISTIAN leaders invited a prominent right-wing American CHRISTIAN into his country to help write the “death to gays” law (which was passed, by the way).

Or what about Cameroon? Another largely Christian country with virulent anti-gay laws. Did you know that simply being gay can land you in jail for at least a decade?

Or how about Zimbabwe? A country with very few Muslims but a lot of bigoted Christians, whose leader—not so long ago—“suggested” that gays be hanged in public.

And then there’s Russia. Good old Russia. Which just last year passed a very stringent law against “gay propaganda” which results in the swift imprisonment for such horrific crimes as promoting gay rights to an audience in which there’s a single “minor” present. Russia barred foreign adoptions by LGBT parents to the point that it won’t allow nationals from any country that recognizes or has legalized same-sex marriage. And we’re not talking about punishing gay couples—STRAIGHT couples who have the “misfortune” of living in countries like South Africa or the UK or Spain or the Netherlands are barred by the law from becoming adoptive parents (Italy used this law as an additional reason to not recognize marriage equality).

As for the “Christians etc have evolved,” well that may be, but how many MILLIONS of people suffered along the way before those “Christians” could “evolve?” Native children in the USA and Canada and Australia were forcibly removed from their parents by Christian “missionary” workers. How many natives in the Americas were massacred by the Spanish conquistadors (in the name of God—plus gold and glory)? Or by the Puritans half a century after having helped save those very same Puritan ancestors from a brutal first year in the New World?

How many native Africans were killed in the name of the Christian God during the slavery era? See, the CHRISTIAN Bible was used by many slaveholders (who, in the US, were overwhelmingly Christian—to the 99+% level) to support slavery.

And how many innocent Orthodox Christians died at the hands of Catholic Crusaders during the 4th Crusade? How many innocent Christians died as a result of the Protestant Reformation? Catholics killed Protestants, Protestants killed Catholics. In the German states, a Protestant duke might be forced to flee at the hands of his Catholic subjects while a Catholic duke might be forced to flee at the hands of his Protestant subjects. Or there were forced conversions—Catholics to Protestants, Protestants to Catholics. And then, of course, the Holy Roman Inquisition and its various “spin-offs” (the Spanish Inquistion being the most famous) invented whole new ways to torture hapless victims—but without drawing blood (apparently, it was okay to slay the heretics and heathens, but you couldn’t cause them to bleed while you were torturing them).

As Jesus once said, “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Matt 7:5) You can make all the whiney claims that Christianity “has evolved” but the reality is there’s a very LARGE segment of your “Christians” who are every bit as bad as the vilified Muslims—if not in deed, then most assuredly in word. And as any LGBT person can tell you, words can hurt just as much as a fist. (And, incidentally, you can only die once from physical violence; the brutality of words can inflict death time and time again.)

Go back to your bridge.

Perhaps “Tom” should be reminded that the Teabaggers themselves proudly used the term “teabagger” UNTIL they were reminded there is a sexual activity of the same name.

Is it our fault that your folkkks were so completely unaware of the term’s multiple meanings before they used it? I say “No.” I say, “Education is your friend. Research before you embarass yourself.” Unfortunately, the Teabaggers don’t want to deal with education (nor do their Congressional allies who couldn’t quite seem to grok that groups describing themselves as being “Taxed Enough Already” might have only had themselves to blame for a touch extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from the government organization responsible for collecting taxes).

Now, go back under your bridge.