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H/T: drf

Wanna do a pole trick ? ? ? ?

This article from the local paper in our former homeland is too good to pass up. Here in it's entirety because as "drf" says, there's too many good lines to single out just a few*:

Bikini-clad strippers protest church in rural Ohio
August 27, 2010

By JEANNIE NUSS
Associated Press Writer

Strippers dressed in bikinis sunbathe in lawn chairs, their backs turned toward the gray clapboard church where men in ties and women in full-length skirts flock to Sunday morning services.

The strippers, fueled by Cheetos and nicotine, are protesting a fundamentalist Christian church whose Bible-brandishing congregants have picketed the club where they work.

The dancers roll up with signs carrying messages adapted from Scripture, such as "Do unto others as you would have done unto you," to counter church members who for four years have photographed license plates of patrons and asked them if their mothers and wives know their whereabouts.

The dueling demonstrations play out in central Ohio, where nine miles of cornfields and Amish-buggy crossing signs separate The Fox Hole strip club from New Beginnings Ministries.

Club owner Tommy George met with the preacher and offered to call off his not-quite-nude crew from their three-month-long protest if the church responds in kind. But pastor Bill Dunfee believes that a higher power has tasked him with shutting down the strip club.

"As a Christian community, we cannot share territory with the devil," Dunfee said. "Light and darkness cannot exist together, so The Fox Hole has got to go."

New Beginnings is one of four churches in this one-traffic-light village of 900 people, 60 miles outside Columbus. There's one gas station and a sit-down restaurant that serves country staples like mashed potatoes with gravy and Salisbury steak.

On Sunday, four of The Fox Hole's seven strippers and more than a dozen supporters garnered both scorn and compassion from churchgoers — and quite a few honks from pickup trucks and other passing vehicles.

One woman offered her skills as a hair dresser to the dancers: "If you or your kids ever need a haircut, give me a holler." Another woman from the church waited on the protesters with plates of noodles and chocolate cake.

Laura Meske — known as Lola, stage age 36 but really 42 — hid behind a sign proclaiming, "Jesus loves the children of the world!" as the preacher extended his hand for a shake.

Two nights earlier, Dunfee and more than a dozen churchgoers stood outside the club, one of them calling out Meske's stripper name.

"He who casts the first stone ... ," Meske said Sunday.

The pastor cut her off and repeated, "Lola, Lord bless you."

"Everybody has sinned, and that doesn't mean I'm not gonna get into heaven," she said, the stud piercing in her chin shimmering in the sunlight. "I believe in Jesus. I don't believe what they preach. They preach hate."

Debi Durr, who attends the church, disagreed. "You don't stand up there for four years for hate. That's not hate. That's love," she said. Durr left Meske with a copy of Jeremiah 3:13 — a Bible passage that urges sinners to acknowledge their guilt.

Inside the church, voices from the 121 congregants seemed to float to the cedar rafters as they sang lyrics projected on a screen. Outside, a man strummed a guitar and sang, "God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes."

Dunfee has offered to help the strippers pay for food, rent, utilities and gas if they leave The Fox Hole. But many of the women say their jobs are only a stopover on the way to work in cosmetology or the medical field — a meal ticket that shelters them from another stigma: welfare.

"No little girl is growing up like, `I wanna do a pole trick,'" said Anny Donewald, a former stripper who lives in Grand Rapids, Mich., and ministers to dancers, prostitutes and porn stars.

She and other Christian groups that work with women in the adult entertainment industry have criticized Dunfee's methods of ministry as a means of putting the strippers on the defensive instead of showing support.

"I never saw Jesus with a picket sign," Donewald said.

Community advocacy groups, including Citizens for Community Values in Cincinnati, support Dunfee's protests. But the group's president, Phil Burress, said the strip club has a right to be there.

"It's a legal business whether he likes it or I like it or not," Burress said.

The club operates in a white plywood box of a building. Beer cans and a dollar bill peaked out from the grass like Easter eggs last Sunday.

The Fox Hole encourages customers to check out its $30 private dance special, promoting it on the kind of sign convenience stores use to advertise cheap milk and cigarettes. Out back, letters on a bulletin board have faded away so that "No touching" now reads "ouch."

It's here where dancers strip down to panties and pasties for cash. Meske — a tattooed mother of four — said she made $30 instead of a couple hundred dollars last Friday with the protesters outside.

"I'm not the most beautiful woman in the world," she said. "I go out there and I try to make my money."

A few houses and a ribs joint called Peggy Sue's separate the club from another white building, a church where some of the strippers donate blood during drives for the American Red Cross.

"I got a church 900 feet down the street that causes me no problems," club owner George said. "And I got this moron nine miles down the street that causes me more headaches."

Rae Anderson, who heads New Castle Ministries with her husband, says her church believes Dunfee is doing what the Lord called him to do, but her parish takes a different approach.

"You can share the truth, but you can't make anyone believe what you believe."

Life in the Excited States.

Rather nice looking at it from up here north of the 49th . . . .

* Although, this one did give me particular chuckles: But many of the women say their jobs are only a stopover on the way to work in cosmetology

And so it goes . . . .

It's crap like this that validates my decision to leave the Excited States.






"They" just don't get it.









Kind of makes one crazy, eh ? ? ? ?



And so it goes, ya'll . . . .

Going to the Vatican? Wear a sleeping bag

Apparently the officials at the Vatican have nothing more to worry about than seeing peoples' knees and bare shoulders.

Tourists and Romans clad in scanty summer clothing were being told to cover up before entering the Vatican City on Tuesday. Long-standing rules on modest dress, previously applicable only to those visiting St Peter's Basilica, appear to have been extended throughout the tiny walled state. Swiss Guard officers manning the official customs point between Rome and the Vatican City began pulling aside members of the public dressed in 'inappropriate' clothing early in the morning. Men in shorts and women with exposed knees or uncovered shoulders were all stopped by the officers, who asked them if they knew "how things worked here". Bewildered locals, accustomed to treating the Vatican much like any other part of Rome, initially assumed a new bureaucratic procedure was in force. Prescriptions, letters and shopping permits were hastily produced as evidence of plans to use the Vatican's pharmacy, post office and shop. Only to be told the real reason was their clothing. "This is the Vatican City and for reasons of respect, you are not allowed in with uncovered shoulders or wearing shorts," was the standard explanation. Some retreated without protest, while a number of the women made impromptu purchases from one of the many stands selling shawls and scarves near the Vatican gates. A cheap, quick solution to cover the bare legs of men in shorts was harder to come by, although some duly trudged off to the nearby shopping district of Cola di Rienzo to buy a pair of trousers. However, a number of visitors, especially the more elderly, refused to budge.

And from the Telegraph ...

The crackdown on inappropriate clothing comes at a time of almost unprecedented crisis for the Vatican, with senior figures, including Pope Benedict XVI, accused of failing to act against priests who sexually abused children.

Priorities. The Vatican has some.

(The unclad statue of Perseus in the image above is from the Vatican Museum)

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden? Who knew?

If you're going to sail your yacht anywhere in the world it pays to:

a. Know your position at all times;
b. Make sure you know the conditions around you at all times;
c. Keep your maritime mobile radio system on;
d. Oh yes... and if you're planning on being anywhere around the Horn of Africa you might want to check in with the EU Maritime Liaison Office to find out more about pirates and the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC).

Apparently, not all yachtsmen have the brains to manage more than one thing at a time.

The commanding officer of the Netherlands frigate Hr Ms Tromp, on patrol off the Horn of Africa, reports this on his Twitter account from 26 Feb, 2010.

Encountered a small sailing yacht in the IRTC, when queried it stated “what do you mean piracy?” welcome to the real world.

Epic... whatever.

Darwin Award nominee

This young fellow should have stayed home and watched The Witches of Eastwick.

The culture of conspiracy has probably hung one of their own

Ha! This is almost too funny.

It's not as though the "Birthers" conspiracy hasn't already been torn to ribbons as less than the most ridiculous bullshit ever to arise from a U.S. election, but it's quite likely that US Army Reserve Major, Stefan Fredrick Cook, a combat engineering officer from Florida, will face disciplinary action, possibly up to a general court-martial, for his antics.

Although the US Army is onto Cook's little game and have removed him from the picture in such a way that Cook doesn't get to squirt his conspiracy theory all over a Georgia courtroom, I expect Major Cook will indeed find himself in court in the not too distant future - as the defendant.

And before somebody comes haulin' in saying they can't do that to a reservist not on active duty... oh. yes. they. fucking. can.

Call the miracle detectives!!!

It looks like we have a winner in West Point, Georgia! Yes... Jesus always wanted the United States to have Korean car manufacturers. Honest... it's a miracle.

Until some of the the locals take umbrage with the proliferation of Kim chi restaurants.

Hat tip Hairy Fish Nuts.

There are some things that just shouldn't be on Facebook

Like your name, your picture, your address and the fact that you've just been appointed the head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

The new head of MI6 has been left exposed by a major personal security breach after his wife published intimate photographs and family details on the Facebook website.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all Britain's spying operations abroad.

And just to make sure...

On the day his appointment was announced, she wrote: 'Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!'

There are those in the British government who held strong reservations about Sawers' appointment. Although he started out his career with MI6 he has spent most of his life as a diplomat. He currently represents Britain on the UN Security Council.

I somehow think he was hoping nobody would take to writing on his wall.

And, from Dr. Prole.

Another Alberta Conservative acts like a hillbilly

Jeebus, these people are dumber than an elephant at a roundabout.

Edmonton-Calder Conservative MLA Doug Elniski apologized late Monday afternoon for controversial comments that he posted on his blog, and insisted that he is not sexist.

Elniski posted the text of a speech on June 13 that he said he gives to junior high school students at Grade 9 graduation ceremonies.

Part of the posting included advice to girls saying, "Ladies, always smile when you walk into a room, there is nothing a man wants less than a woman scowling because he thinks he is going to get s--t for something and has no idea what."

It continues, "Men are attracted to smiles, so smile, don't give me that 'treated equal' stuff. If you want Equal, it comes in little packages at Starbucks."

Oh good. Now the women of Alberta (and beyond) are getting "How you little ladies should behave" advice from an overweight, middle-aged hillbilly.

Here's a piece of advice for all those who read his original statement (which he conveniently sent to the memory hole) and his subsequent apology (which he wouldn't have had to offer if he wasn't such a mindless, sexist pig).

Tell him to go fuck himself and stuff his apology up his hemorrhoidal ass. That apology is similar to the word "but" placed in a sentence. Everything that came before it is irrelevent, but when an apology is issued from a politician, it's an attempt to camouflage how they really feel.

And would you like to know a little more about this piece of work? Let's see what we can dig up...

Right here.

Elniski has now taken down his blog, where more than one remark offended more than one group of citizens.

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Google cache. Yeah... Doug, old boy, technology trumps your 1950s view of the world.

I n t e r e s t i n g!!!

It's bad enough that Elniski so lacks an original though that he found it necessary to give an address which he substantially ripped away from celebrated Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, but that the significant alteration was a line Mary never included in her column:

Men are attracted to smiles, so smile don't give me that "treated equal" stuff, if you want equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks.

Some advice to the schools of Edmonton-Calder. Don't invite columnist-aping Conservative politicians to address your graduating class. Get the real deal and have Mary Schmich do it with the level of respect every person in the room deserves.

Hat tip reader Cat.

I demand the freedom to pursue any opportunity, and should it fail....

.... I can just turn to the taxpayers and suck them dry.

General Motors Corp.'s last-ditch, Hail Mary bid to avoid bankruptcy fell with a thud Wednesday as its bondholders overwhelmingly rejected a deal to swap their debt for equity in the company.

That offer was a central element in the automaker's efforts -- guided by the federal government -- to restructure outside of court. Without it the company appears almost certain to file a Chapter 11 petition by Monday.

Let's face it. This is not a Keynesian approach. This is not even Orwellian. This is a clueless libertarian shoveling our money into gross failures of a system in which we unwillingly become the owners of poorly regulated, poorly managed enterprises. In short: We don't like Keynesian style control when we're making buckets of money, but when we fuck up.... well Keynes is way cool!

General Motors Corp.'s bid to have its bondholders exchange their holdings for company stock failed to attract enough support, the company said Wednesday, making a bankruptcy filing all the more likely.

[...]

The failure of the debt-for-equity plan means the U.S. government could wind up with more than the 50-per-cent stake that was originally envisioned. The U.S. government's stake could now grow to 69 per cent.

The government of Canada is also in line to get a small equity stake in GM in return for lending the company money.

And this... is a Harper sycophant desperately grasping at a falacy in defence of his Dear Leader.

"Profound ignorance of industrial economics"? Give us all another fucking lesson, Charlie.

I'm sure it will be just, like, totally awesome.

Hat tip CC.

This piece of work was making strategic decisions for the United States

Uh, with all due respect, Nazi Germany never attacked the homeland of the United States.

Former US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice
30 April, 2009

Which could be interpreted as another Rice lie or, as I believe, the response by someone whose depth of education is so lacking that she should never have been permitted through the front doors of the State Department.

Between December 16th and December 25th, 1941, Nazi Germany dispatched five type IX U-boats to the waters off the United States. They took up stations inside US territorial waters. In the months that followed they sat off the east coast of the United States, in places like New York Harbor; Cape May, New Jersey; right off Cape Hatteras and inside Rhode Island Sound.

On the night of January 14th, 1942, the German submarine U-123, inside US territorial waters and watching the headlights of cars on the Rhode Island shore, sank the Panamanian-registered tanker Norness. It was the second ship to have been sunk in what was officially known to the Nazi regime as Paukenschlag - a deliberate and directed attack on the United States intended to cut off their supply of vital oil.

This attack by Nazi Germany on the homeland of the United States resulted in 259 ships lost to German torpedoes. In the six months of Operation Drumroll, the German U-boats sank more tonnage within sight of the US east coast than the Japanese did from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the end of the Battle of Midway.

Rice needs to do some reading. Try Torpedo Junction by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.

Every time the Bushies open their mouths....

Next. Let's hire a witch-finder.

There's a buzz coming out of Coweta County, Georgia. (Warning. Slow PDF. But I'll explain if you're impatient.)

First though, take a look at this Google search using the term sex toy laws. You might notice the direction it takes. The vast majority of the responses on the first page of that search will lead you to stories of laws in the US banning the sale of sex toys; putting people on trial for selling sex toys and even, (yes, because there's nothing more important), the US Supreme Court telling its citizens that what they do in the privacy of their own homes is the business of the government if that thing that buzzes and uses a pair of AA batteries vibrates off the counter and towards any region of one's body that might find it... stimulating.

Why?

Because if a person is going to get pleasure from some rapidly moving mechanical device, especially if that person is a woman, it must be wrong.

So let's say you actually agree with that absurd notion. Let's go with the unpowered stuff. You know. Warming goo, ribbed condoms and confectionary flavoured lubes.

No harm... right?

Wrong! In Coweta County it's against the law!

The sale of sex toys, and perhaps even the sale of some condoms and lubricants, is now prohibited in Coweta County.

The Coweta County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to approve a new obscenity ordinance and a new ordinance regulating sexually-oriented businesses at a specially-called meeting Monday afternoon.

The obscenity ordinance prohibits sale or distribution of obscenity, and prohibits anyone from “knowingly” selling, or possessing with the intent to sell, “any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.”

Quick discussion.... most devices designed to provide stimulation are designed to stimulate which of the sexes?

Bingo!

The Board of Commissioners is comprised of how many women? ZERO!

They're all men. Funny how that works, isn't it?

So, given this new ordinance the fat old men running Coweta County seem so intent on passing it begs a question. Given that sildenafil citrate is sold in drug stores, does that mean the pharmacies have to stop selling it? I mean, it is designed and marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs and is the active ingredient in Viagra. Let's face it, sildenafil citrate is marketed for one purpose and one purpose only.

Or were the Coweta County commissioners only referring to items which would be useful for the stimulation of female human genital organs?

Oh the horrors! That women, especially the women of Coweta County, Georgia, might actually be having it on... in private... alone... without their man!!! By passing an ordinance, women will have to get all their sexual pleasure from their men... directly. Because if those men know what they're doing, sexually I mean, those women won't need any of those obscene, genitial stimulatin' thangies.

(Yes, women, I will enlighten the fat, old, sexually unenlightened commissioners.)

Note to commissioners: Even if you were voted stud of the year not one of you can do what a vibrator does. Not one of you. And I'll take odds that this comment was written by a man.

Makes you wonder what happens in places where how hot to make the fire is the decision of those who are naked. One change to the Google search term... sex toy laws canada.

Anyone notice the difference?

Too good to pass up: On the 26th of January, the Commissioners of Coweta County passed their ordinance making pocket rockets illegal. On the 29th of January something out there replied. Oral Roberts might have something to say about that. Coincidence?

Hat tip Cheryl for some stimulating input.

Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

What you write on Friday may come back to haunt you on Monday

John McCain should know this. It is taught at the US Naval Academy to every midshipman. This often refers to late-night letters impetuously written about a specific policy which, once dawn breaks, is best burned rather than delivered.

We bloggers often get caught in this trap and I stand as living proof of one who sends a series of irate words down the "publish" t00bs only to regret them eight hours later. But then, I'm not running for President of the United States. In fact, I'm not running for anything.

John McCain, who I am sure understands the principle of re-reading those bits of conservative ideology sent out for publication, is running for POTUS and in that regard should be aware of events going on around him, particularly when the country he's asking people to let him lead has been in a year-long and increasingly dangerous financial melt-down.

So you have to ask, what the hell McCain was thinking when he wrote this in the latest edition of Contingencies, the journal of the American Academy of Actuaries. (Emphasis mine)

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

The evidence of the runaway corruption and excesses of an unregulated banking system has been laying in a bloody mess on the public sidewalks for at least a year now. Anybody with a functioning synapse could see that it was only a matter of time before the corpses of the American banking system, let off the leash by Republican free-market ideology, would start to pile up on the Main Streets of America.

Yet, McCain's comparison was published in the September/October 2008 edition of Contingencies with no regard to the financial mess that was going on all around him while he wrote.

As of today the 12th American bank was closed by regulators this calendar year and more if you go back twelve months.

Would you want to put the health care system in the hands of this cognitively challenged fool?

More from Paul Krugman.
H/T Crooks and Liars

Yes, Virginia, she is allowed to vote.

NPR went to George Mason University to find out what the College Republicans were saying about Sarah Palin. They captured this prize.

Get this widget | Track details | eSnips Social DNA

Blue Gal has the transcript and the questions that Sarah Palin needs to be made to answer.

(Leave your comments at Blue Gal's post)

What is it about these "Family Values" freaks anyway?

We're trying really hard to just have a vacation. Really we are. Even if the fishing is bad, the scenery is great and the anchorages are peaceful. Until the weather blows us into a frigging marina. Weired weather. Very weired weather. Go figure.

But that's not what this is about. No.

It's about somebody who's stupidity reaches levels beyond astounding.

Lord lifting fuck! Don't these people learn from anything?!

Pass the Cuba Libre! I need to get numb.

With all the credibility of a ...

Well, you name it. Somehow, taking the advice of a Catholic bishop on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases doesn't rank much higher than asking a Golden Retriever how to prevent shedding.

Alberta's Catholic bishops are warning parents to think twice about letting their daughters be vaccinated against a cancer-causing, sexually transmitted virus.

But the bishops, in a joint statement issued Monday, stop well short of barring Catholic schools in Alberta from administering the vaccine, and acknowledge that parents are the "primary decision-makers" when it comes to their children's health.

That's right. And it might do well for these supposed celibates to keep their mouths as shut as their minds when it comes to the sex lives of others and the prevention of disease.

The bishops said the HPV vaccine has raised questions about whether it sends a message to girls that casual sex is acceptable.

"Catholic teaching is that sexuality is a God-given gift that should be reserved for marriage," the bishops wrote.

I'll give you good odds that if you conducted an honest survey of Catholics in Canada and the US, and received honest answers, that you'd find that "reservation for marriage" was regularly preempted in wholesale numbers.

And let's see what else the Roman Catholic clergy is up to. Oh yeah. They're a real prize lot alright.

(And, yes, we're all about looking things up for others. Google search: 3 seconds. Knowing another blogger is on it: 2 seconds. Adding Catholic hypocrisy: timeless.)

There is a reason Florida has its own tag on FARK

Even if there are two sides to this story, the fact that the climate exists in which a teacher could believeably be accused of "wizardry" boggles the mind. Yes, the school board is now giving other reasons, but the telling bit is where the supervisor says it wasn't just the wizardry, meaning that while there were other reasons, wizardry was one of the reasons for firing the teacher. And least you think this is an isolated incident in the climate of Florida crazy, I would argue that it isn't the heat down there in the Sunshine State, it's the stupidity.

So far, there is no word on whether the teacher in question has a wart or weighs the same as a duck.

Doughy E. Pantload, Super Genius


A "long-time reader" fluffs the Pantload in such a way that I can only assume the letter is a joke that, typically, Jonah didn't catch. They're laughing Jonah, but their not laughing with you.

Instead, you've written a brilliant, hyper-intellectual yet accessible book correcting a historical fraud (sadly, sans women's prison movie humor) AND you've sold a ton! You, Jonah Goldberg, are a Super Genius.

Yes, a "Super Genius." If only he had his own copy of the Acme catalogue, he'd really show that pesky roadrunner those pesky liberals who was boss.


Really, it must be difficult for him having to shave his palms every morning before sitting down to the keyboard in his Capt. America underoos going to work.