Oh, by the way. It may be a bit off-topic but have you read about the state legislatures attempting to pass some bizarrely harsh penalties for people convicted of the “knockout game?” (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/12/17/3069111/lawmakers-propose-harsher-punishment-assaults-involving-knockout-game/ )

I wonder if that would apply to a Salvation Army worker being assaulted by an irate “Christian?” And around whom would FoxNoise rally? The “knockout game” victim or the “Christian?”

I think Todd’s just pissed off because RuPaul turned him down AGAIN for a shot at being “America’s Next Drag Superstar.” (Not that you could blame Ru. There’ve been some supremely enormous pains in the butt over the years but not one of them started off as a a pig wearing lipstick—which is what Toddie must look like in drag.)

It’s okay, Todd. Not everyone was cut out to be a drag queen but if you want to pull out your drag for Halloween, that’s perfectly alright. No one’s going to judge you on it. Halloween is, after all, our day (or night, more accurately). If Martin Mull could pull off a not-bad Halloween drag on “Roseanne” (not even shaving his beard), then you too can do it.

Oh, for a time machine to whisk away all of the FoxNoise liars, back to the time of the Pilgrim forefathers whom the FoxNoise brigade claim arrived on these shores for freedom of religion, and let the (mostly Catholic) FoxNoise brigade ask the beloved forefathers where all the Christmas decorations are. Ask them what gifts the children will get. Ask them what they plan to serve for Christmas dinner.

Watch then (with mild amusement) as the FoxNoise brigade are swiftly rounded up, denounced as “Papists,” and sent into exile or forced to renounce their “evil” ways. Bear in mind that “exile” was considered a “humane” way to execute wrongdoers by the Puritans—especially those who hadn’t been accused of witchcraft. Since the early English colonists depended on society (watch out there, that sounds a bit like “socialism”) for something as basic as survival, being physically cast out of the community—any attempt to return was punishable by death—was tantamount to a death sentence. (And given the smug superiority on display against non-whites among the FoxNoise brigade, I don’t really see any of them managing to develop enough of a friendship with the Natives to gain their help in surviving.)

So, is this O’Reilly’s “Mission Accomplished” moment?

I guess BillO really should avoid the Wikipedia entry on St Nicholas. The first image (top of the page, at the side) is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Icon_c_1500_St_Nicholas.JPG

While one could say the “browning” is due merely to age, the image features a pretty “tanned” individual (who’s a few shades darker than I am—and I don’t exactly do much sunbathing, even in the height of summer). Plus, the image is a RUSSIAN icon from the 15th or 16th century but there’s another image of the Saint—also Russian, but this one from the early 18th Century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Nicholas.jpg

and this image is slightly browner than the first image.

Again, these were done by RUSSIANS who didn’t have a lot of “black” people running around the country.

But the idea that the historic St Nicholas was a “white” guy—at least in the sense of the images we see of Santa Claus—is preposterous. At BEST, he’s “white” in the same way that modern Greeks and Turks are white (that is to say, somewhat olive-complected).

Question for BillO: Is it “nice” to talk over your guests? Frankly, if I were on O’Reilly’s show and he started talking over my answers or response, he’d get a great big fistful of the Christmas spirit, right smack dab in the middle of his face. Then I’d follow with, “Now, Bill, would it be okay if I finished answering your question without being so rudely interrupted?”

J B, go back to Stormfront or whatever “white power” website you usually hang out at.

Supremacists—regardless of color—believe they are better than anyone else. The problem is that the white variety have been in power in this country for the better part of the past 300 years and they’re desperate to keep that power and they’re terrified because the country is no longer that Norman Rockwell “White America” picture that they’re so desperate to hold on to.

Not sure why they’re hoping for a “read my lips, no new taxes” moment since Obama can’t run for re-election in 2016. The only “moment” that came about from Bush the Elder’s sudden moment of clarity and return to Earth where taxes actually pay for government operations was a lot of GOP purists sat out the 1992 election—or went completely bonkers and voted for Perot—thereby allowing Clinton to become President. Since Obama can’t run—by law—for another term, there’s no real political downside to his comment. (And, if you want to believe the far right’s most nutty concern—that Obama will somehow turn into a dictator and just prevent a Presidential election*—the moment isn’t important either, for rather obvious reasons: A dictator doesn’t care what the public thinks.)

It is rather intriguing though that PolitiFact’s own explanation notes that there’s less of a deliberate effort to willfully lie on Obama’s part and more on the problem with the whole soundbite culture: “Boiling down the complicated health care law to a soundbite proved treacherous, even for its promoter-in-chief.”

*I’m not really sure why the far-right thinks Obama will try to prevent a Presidential election but they’re not overly concerned about his cancelling any other elections. Nor does it make sense for GOP state legislatures and governors to go out of their way to make it harder to vote if we’re going to see Dictator Obama emerge in the next few years.

What Todd Starnes knows could fit on the head of a pin.

And still have plenty of room left over.

And I’m not so certain about Krauthammer’s claim that there’s a “growing resistance to abortion among young people” for the reasons that BillO and the anti-choice movement would like. I kind of think that these “young people” fall more into the category of wanting abortion to be “rare but safe and legal” (which is really what the pro-choice movement has ALWAYS advocated) as well as letting the woman have the final say without government intervention.

The anti-choice movement would obviously prefer that “young people” simply oppose abortion outright but groups like NARAL have shown that most “young people” tend to take abortion rights for granted, not having lived during a time when it was absolutely illegal (and the only women who could get abortions were “well-to-do” white women, simply by hopping a plane to a country where abortion was, if not fully legal, at least available for the right price). And most of the polling that I’ve seen of “young people” does seem to indicate that there’s no mass consensus to banning abortions—just that, for most of them, the topic doesn’t seem to come up that often. Then too, there’s the aspect of birth control which has made the topic of abortion a second tier concern. Presumably, the idea that you now use condoms more to avoid an STD rather than preventing a pregnancy pushes abortion to the back burner while girls tend to be expected to be “on the pill” (or using some other “back-up” birth control in case of condom breakage) so the idea that an abortion might be needed sometime down the road rarely occurs.

Brian, the only problem with your “solution” is that a business is required to obtain a state-issued license (and often a city-issue license as well). These licenses designate businesses as “public accomodations” and a business owner isn’t allowed to discriminate against ANY customer for ANY reason.

Now, having posted all that, there isn’t really anything that would prohibit a business owner from posting signs which would allow potential customers to know what kind of bigot the owner wishes to practice. For instance, a big sign saying “This business disapproves of marriage equality” (much like the doctors’ offices in Florida which posted signs “advising” Obama supporters that they probably wouldn’t be welcome in the practice). OR, they could do things that would make some customers uncomfortable such as playing hellfire-and-brimstone sermons or have a TV playing rebroadcasts of the 700 Club and other right-wing evangelical crap (sort of an evangelical version of the stereotyped comic and gaming shop, designed to horrify or terrify potential female customers and, occasionally, male customers).

But you’re also forgetting that people do like convenience. This particular bakery may have just been closer for the men who tried to get their cake. It’s not really fair to make a potential customer have to go out of his or her way to accomodate a businessman’s personal bigotry. This guy was only being asked to bake a cake—nothing more. (And, from what I hear, the judge in this case noted that the bakery actually made a “wedding cake” for a couple of dogs—literal animals that go woof. But the last time I checked, no government sanctions “weddings” for dogs and I’m not aware of any religious body that permits a minister or priest to officiate at a “doggy wedding.” I didn’t read if the dogs were of the same breed or if they were a “mixed” couple but either way, isn’t that a bit more of a “travesty” to the “institution of marriage” than a same-sex wedding would be? To all the heteros who claim their marriages will be lessened if gay or lesbian couples can wed, how do you feel about your marriage knowing that some dogs are “married” just like you and your spouse?)

What the new troll doesn’t seem to get is that the police need to be dealing with more important crimes than people having sex in public places.

Just remember “John” (interesting name when ranting about “sex crimes”) that for every cop involved in making a bust made at a sex shop, that means one less cop available to investigate a rape or arson or drug deal at a school or case of child abuse or murder or carjacking or home burglary or armed robbery.

Well, if anyone knows about “ignoring election laws,” it’s Teabagging Republicons.

Only on FoxNoise can you, in one story, have a “reporter” pointing out how the “majority” of Americans are Christians and then pointing out how they’re “persecuted.” The FoxNoise brigade really need to learn the meaning of “persecution.”

Maybe we could persuade the evil Obama to show them what REAL persecution is like. Starting with a forcible takeover of the FoxNetworks and a deportation of Rupert Murdoch and a confiscation of all the company’s property and bank accounts. Then, we could have all the “reporters” on the network locked up indefinitely with no access to lawyers and all FoxNoise programming redirected by the FCC to CNN or MSNBC or (shudder) Al Jazeera America. Then, after they’ve spent, oh one or two years (minimum) in “police custody,” they can be released but put under surveillance and monitored with the possibility of rearrest turned into a genuine likelihood for no real reason.

Maybe with a few years of being treated like people who are TRULY persecuted by other governments around the world, these blowhards might not be quite as willing to use the “persecution” meme just because people don’t bow down to the blowhards’ whims.

(All of the above in lieu of someone’s developing a workable TARDIS or WABAC machine and depositing these jerks into appropriate historical eras and places when their viewpoints wouldn’t be so welcome. I’d enjoy seeing how “good Irish Catholic” Bill O’Reilly would fare in Puritan Plymouth or in Elizabethan England. And I’m not sure he’d do very well even in some Catholic authoritarian places like Richelieu’s France, given Bill’s dislike of all things French.)

“Funny, while Fox News is concerned about imposition of Islamic law in the US, they have no problem with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who, in pushing their dogma, spend millions of dollars to lobby for the criminalization of abortion and the right for Catholic employers to refuse to pay for their employees birth control. In fact, Fox News actively promoted the bishops point of view. Fox has no problem with Texas evangelical Christians trying to impose their creationist beliefs into Texas biology textbooks.”

And don’t forget all the right-wing CHRISTIAN “family” groups doing their best to prevent same-sex marriage—all in the name of “God’s plan for marriage.”

It’s kind of funny how the Catholic Church played such a big part in the vote in Croatia this past week which would ban gays and lesbians from marrying the person of their choice but that doesn’t pose a problem for FoxNoise and its audience. (And apparently one of the Croatian leaders supporting the ban on same-sex marriage in the overwhelmingly Catholic country happens to be divorced.)

Is it wrong to be hoping for a Category 5 late season hurricane to hit Montauk, to be swiftly followed by a powerful nor’easter, turning O’Reilly’s “investment” into a pile of rubble?

Yeah. It probably is since BillO’ll wind up whining to the “gummint” to “do its job” and “help rebuild” the area. And the rest of us will, in our effort to help the GOOD folk of Montauk rebuild their lives, end up helping BillO rebuild his investment property.