Lèse Majesté

A well-deserved award for Michelle Bachmann

With the end of the year inevitably come awards in all kinds of fields.  Ginandtacos.com has chosen the Anoka lunatic for a well deserved award, albeit one whose name I'm not going to quote here. You'll have to read the official announcement on their site. It's delicious, and takes some lovely swipes at Joe Lieberman along the way.

A few passages from the announcement:

Michelle Bachmann is the new It Girl of Teabagging – the combination sex symbol / Great Conservative Leader for people who think Sarah Palin is a bit soft and a little too book-smart.

Like all great specimens of pure Bircherite insanity, Bachmann forces us to ask repeatedly, "Is this idiot for real?"

Bachmann's award-winning year is more about reliability; no matter what issue becomes salient or what events transpire we can rely on her to represent the lunatic fringe. You can set your watch by her consistent, surreal insanity.

Prairie Home Bigotry

Well, if there were any question whether Garrison Keillor's recent stroke left him with any permanent mental deficit, he has put the question to rest with the rant in his latest weekly column. After a lengthy, misinformed attack on Unitarians, he landed himself smack in realm of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the "War on Christmas" camp:

If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.

Christmas is a Christian holiday -- if you're not in the club, then buzz off.

Wow. Talk about taking the Twin Cities back to its roots...its roots as one of the most anti-Semitic communities in the nation. Reviving the tradition of restricted clubs, no less...modeling the inclusive teachings of his beloved savior, right?

If you think he was writing this as satire, read the whole piece. He really believes this crap. Not a shred of irony to be found about Christians stealing so many of the traditions of Christmas from pagans. No recognition that it was in fact the Unitarians and Universalists of Boston who led the campaign to make Christmas a major holiday - after the Christian Puritans literally outlawed its celebration. Or that Charles Dickens, who practically defines so many of the modern traditions of its celebration, was a Unitarian in spirit if not fact when he wrote A Christmas Carol.

No, what we have here is a prime example of small town mainstream Protestant bigotry. In prime form. Anoka would be proud.

WTF?

Toby "boot up your ass" Keith playing at the Nobel Peace Prize concert? Are you freaking kidding me?

Chinese food == Linux ?

The TED conference is always a fascinating mish-mash of stuff. I've stumbled across a rather interesting presentation by NYT reporter Jennifer 8. Lee on the TED site (apparently recorded at Mondavi's TASTE3 conference, which I must learn more about). She discusses the spread of Chinese food across the U.S. and across the world, noting how vastly it has mutated but also how successful recipes or concepts spread almost virally although she doesn't use that word. Instead, she proposes that Chinese food is analogous to Linux and open software versus McDonald's Microsoft:

Heath Ledger's video for Modest Mouse

Before he died Heath Ledger had envisioned a video for Modest Mouse's song King Rat and persuaded them to let him direct it. His production company completed the animated piece and has now released it as a fundraiser for Sea Shepherd. You'll see the connection as he turns whaling completely upside down:

The story of the project is told here.

The return of Nipplegate

Unbelievable. The Supreme Court has a real grasp of the critical issues of the day. They just ordered the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl. Good thing we have them guarding civilization against the evil bare breast.

Religiosity = support for torture ???

Somehow, I'm not surprised:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.

After all, the image of a torture victim is an icon to so many of these folks...

Batshit-crazy doesn't come close to describing Bachmann

Now she claims AmeriCorps is intended to establish "re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward." Check out this and more lunacy from local talk radio:

Modified 1959 Lincoln Continental gets 65 mpg

You won't believe who's behind the Lincvolt project to reinvigorate the automotive industy:

Lincvolt, an X Prize contestant, is a 2.5 ton, 19.5 foot American classic now attaining 65 MPG utilizing electricity and domestic fuel. The converted 1959 Lincoln Continental MK IV demonstrates that today's big sedans SUVs and pick-up trucks can get at least 50 MPG if they are fuel-efficient and use electric power, making it obvious that smaller cars could do even better than that. Ultimately, the Lincvolt team aims to demonstrate a Lincvolt hydro bio-electric series hybrid that will attain 100MPG with domestic fuels and very low emissions.

The Automotive X prize they're shooting for is sponsored by Progressive Insurance. It features a $10 million award. The winners will be the vehicles that exceed 100 MPG, meet strict emissions standards and finish in the fastest time. By 2010.

Oh, and the Lincoln is Neil Young's.

A very telling graphic