Uncompassionate Conservatism

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a solution to the humanitarian crisis brewing at the U.S.-Mexico border, as thousands of unaccompanied minor children flee horrific atrocities in Mexico and Central America. Send the little lawbreakers back.

Cruz asserted that “the most heartbreaking aspect of this is you look at some 90,000 little boys and little girls coming in illegally, the people bringing them in, they’re not well-meaning social workers.”

“These are hardened, transnational, global carters,” he insisted. “They are cruel, vicious men. These little boys and little girls are being subjected to physical violence, to sexual violence.”

According to Cruz, drug cartels “cut off and send back body parts” of children to try and force their families to pay a ransom.

“They will force one little boy or one little girl to cut off the fingers or ears of other little boys or little girls,” he pointed out, adding that officials told him that children immigrating to the U.S. had been “maimed.”

“This is heartbreaking, and it is the direct result of President Obama’s lawlessness,” Cruz said.

But the senator proposed a solution: Send the children back to the countries where they had been mutilated and raped.

“The children will not stop coming, and will not stop being subjected to this horrific physical violence and sexual violence unless and until this administration begins enforcing our laws,” he warned. “That is the opposite of a humane policy.”

I’m still unclear how President Obama is wholly to blame for everything going on in various parts of Latin America right now, but I suspect that clarity is not the point for the Senator that my state shamefully elected.

I just want to know—specifically—which laws Senator Cruz thinks President Obama could enforce that would somehow end all of this and, presumably, allow all of these children to return to their homes on a wave of flowers and puppies. (Of course there are no such laws, or at least none that could offer any sort of solution to the conditions as they currently are. The Senator is just using whatever scenario presents itself to bash the President. If a group of children from, say, El Salvador had marched up to a border crossing in California requesting asylum in exchange for a verified cure for cancer, Senator Cruz would want to know why Obama hadn’t come up with the cure himself, since he’s supposed to be smart and stuff. Then he’d suggest he bomb the capital of El Salvador for withholding vital medical knowledge from American pharmaceutical companies. Then he’d eat a live goat as a sacrifice to the bald eagle god he secretly worships……okay, I’ve said too much.)

Fir0002 at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

“Wait, what was that last part?”


Photo credit: Fir0002 at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons.

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What I’m Reading, July 7, 2014

Introducing TV’s Best Female Monster Yet, Lili Loofbourow, New York Magazine, July 3, 2014

In horror, once a person has been cast as a victim, a victim they remain — or at best, a deeply damaged survivor. In Orphan Black, the victim becomes the monster becomes the victim again with bewildering and humorous ease. Just when you think you’ve settled, the camera cocks its head, says “don’t be baby,” and refuses to let things be so simple. The camera confounds our relationship to Helena by seesawing the horror script, and in doing so, makes us rethink what a female monster can be. You’re forced to shift your sympathies on a shot-by-shot basis.

Judge says man who raped sleeping woman is not a “classic rapist,” just “lost control”, Katie McDonough, Salon, July 3, 2014 Continue reading

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The Welsh Atlantis

Floods mostly just suck, as in, they kill people and destroy homes. Occasionally, though, they also reveal interesting bits of history by uncovering things long left submerged and/or buried. That was the case in Borth, on the west coast of Wales, when floods uncovered a 5,000 year-old forest.

There is a poem children in Wales learn about the sunken kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod, swallowed by the sea and drowned forever after. On a quiet night, legend has it, one can hear the kingdom’s church bells ringing.

When the sea swallowed part of Britain’s western coastline this year and then spat it out again, leaving homes and livelihoods destroyed but also a dense forest of prehistoric tree stumps more exposed than ever, it was as if one had caught a faint glimpse of that Welsh Atlantis.

The Daily Mail, in a rare bit of poetic writing, describes the legend as follows:

Folklore has it that Cantre’r Gwaelod, or the Sunken Hundred, a once-fertile land and township, was lost beneath the waves in a mythical age.

The land is said to have extended 20 miles west of the present Cardigan Bay, but disaster struck and Cantre’r Gwaelod was lost to floods when Mererid, the priestess of a fairy well, apparently neglected her duties and allowed the well to overflow.

I’ve always found all that mystical stuff from the British Isles pretty spooky, but an actual ghost forest??? Well played, Wales. Well played indeed.

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Hey, Fellow Guys, Please Don’t Try to [Re-]Claim the Word “Mansplain”

I noticed this yesterday (h/t Lynn):


Followed by this:

I can’t say for certain whether Mr. McCormack intended to use the word “mansplain” in any sort of ironic way, if he was trying to “reclaim” the word for us dudes, or if, as Ms. Marttila posits, he just had no idea. Of those three choices, his prior writings incline me to think it’s the third option.

Speaking as a guy, “mansplain” is not our word to claim—and it was never ours, so we can’t reclaim it, either.

There are some aspects of public discourse that men should not dominate. Let’s all get over ourselves, shall we?

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Monday Morning Cute: Inter-Species Grooming

This cat undergoes a grooming ritual by a family of deer every morning, apparently whether it wants to or not.

Via thedodo.com

As a bonus, here is a young fox that is possibly trying to groom a fellow young fox with its teeth, or is practicing a future life of fox cannibalism:

Via biomorphosis.tumblr.com

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Isn’t it awfully nice to have a penis?

The Raw Story has a list of “5 sexual health services insurance will cover… for men.”

I’m sure someone will make the arguments for the medical necessity, under whatever circumstances, of each of these five procedures, which is completely not the point of bringing up these five procedures. The issue is the way that someone is (or many someone’s are), sooner or later, going to rush to defend these five procedures as legitimate and medically necessary while still blithely dismissing various forms of women’s contraception as mere recreational implements for being a big ol’ Slutty Slutterson.

So I’ll just go ahead and get the ball rolling by making statements I know to be counter-factual, so that maybe people who are inclined to dismiss contraception as slut pills will get some smidgen of an idea of what it’s like to see demonstrably false statements treated as fact (or as “sincerely-held religious beliefs” when push comes to shove comes to science): Continue reading

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Religious Exemption Fraud

Think of it this way: the U.S. Supreme Court basically just created a way for people and/or corporations to get out of following laws with which they disagree based on religion. There is considerable concern among many in this country, justified or not, that people are voting, obtaining government assistance, and engaging in other activities fraudulently.

The proposed remedies for these alleged acts of fraud tend to involve paperwork, photo IDs, and large amounts of red tape. Why should the invocation of religious faith to obtain exemptions from laws that apply to everyone else be any different?

I fully expect American conservatives to take a firm stand against religious exemption fraud any minute now.

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The Most ‘Murican Thing You’ll See All Day

Does it get any more ‘Murican than guns, scantily-clad women, and the apparent present ability to kick your weenie commie ass? How much more ‘Murican is it to have all three not just in the same picture, but in the same person???

The Most 'Murican Thing You'll See All Day

(h/t to Imgur user mcpocg117 for his post “Freedom, Firearms, and Fitness Day!”)

The photo is actually by Jesse Hodge, and the model is Alicia Harris (official website) in the 2012 American Bombshells calendar (thanks, Google!). ‘Murica!

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Happy Fourth of July! We’ve Brought a Flag.

Just a friendly reminder that federal law proscribes certain uses of the American flag*, but has no means for enforcing those restrictions (nor are they particularly constitutional.)

Click to embiggen

Click to embiggen

Joining us in a bit of holiday subversion is model Jessiqa Pace (photo via brytips.wordpress.com).

Also, remember: no flag, no country: Continue reading

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This Week in WTF, July 4, 2014

– Just don’t upset the MCP, please: A woman in China bought an old building, which turned out to house a preserved 1980’s-era arcade spanning two floors.

And yes, that does resemble several important plot points from the Tron sequel. No word on whether she found any old PCs mysteriously still humming along after 20+ years, holding any of her long-lost relatives captive…..or any programs that somehow look like Olivia Wilde.

© Disney, via imageevent.com

Regardless, it’s already a better story than the Tron sequel.

– Mallrats of the sea (or pond, I guess): An abandoned shopping mall in Thailand has filled with water and is now home to a large population of koi and catfish. Dibs on naming one of the koi Orange Julius.

– The question everyone no one probably someone was asking: In case you’ve ever wanted to have sex with your iPad (and assuming you have a penis), Fleshlight is here to help: Continue reading

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