Time to Get Kenny Loggins Out of Retirement.

by matttbastard

First they came for the “queers” [sic], then they came for the (apparently heterosexual) Baptist kid trying to take his freakin’ girlfriend to her freakin’ prom:

A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.

Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School’s prom Saturday.

Frost, a senior at Heritage Christian School in northwest Ohio, agreed to the school’s rules when he signed a statement of cooperation at the beginning of the year, principal Tim England said.

The teen, who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an “incomplete” on remaining assignments, England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said.

Frost’s stepfather Stephan Johnson said the school’s rules should not apply outside the classroom.

“He deserves to wear that cap and gown,” Johnson said.

Sez P.Z. Meyers:

I also think the school has stepped way out of bounds when it tries to control activities well outside the domain of the school itself. But sure, go ahead and act like repressive tyrants — Mr Frost may well go looking for a more tolerant religion, or will perhaps leave that body of superstition altogether.

Oh, and just in case you thought this couldn’t get any more like a bad Footloose remake:

The handbook for the 84-student Christian school says rock music “is part of the counterculture which seeks to implant seeds of rebellion in young people’s hearts and minds.”

Speaking as an apostate survivor of a rigid private Baptist high school (c’mon, don’t act so shocked), I can attest from personal experience that these sorts of rock-hatin’, boogie-fearin’ true believers really DO hate us for our sweaty, high-decibel freedoms–and ‘us’ constitutes an increasingly expansive category.

Regardless, whatever you do, always remember the following words of incitement from anti-authoritarian negro hedonist George Clinton: “Free your mind and your ass will follow.”

For srs — just ask iconic Midwestern dance floor rebel Kevin Bacon:

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I don’t think wingnuts should be anywhere allowed blog.

by matttbastard

DRJ, squatting at Patterico’s pad, plops out this wet, stinky turd-like nugget of what passes for insight deep in the bowels of Outer Wingnuttia, regarding Joe the Plumber War Correspondent’s recent, um, statement on the SCLM and its uber-treasonous war coverage:

I know this drives liberals crazy — they think we’re rednecks. Maybe we are but I love this guy.

No, we actually think you’re an idiot.  The fact that you unabashedly “love this guy” (and have apparently deluded yourself into believing that the Left is collectively pissing its Chinos over the subliterate fauxpulist wisdom of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) perfectly illustrates precisely why we think you’re an idiot–and why you and your fellow travellers are all now irrelevant.

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Gaza Propaganda War: Let the Character Assassinations Begin

by matttbastard

Well, looks like Fox and co. have discovered this years Green Helmet Guy–and he’s *gasp* a communist Euro-weenie!

Yes,  Bob, this totally proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that ordinary people aren’t actually dying in Gaza (shorter Lawhawk: “the chest compressions were produced on a computer in a Times New Roman typestyle that would not have been available in a war zone”).  Israel is (reluctantly!) using top sekrit SMRT ordinance that only explodes upon hitting Teh Bad Guyz.  Any evidence to the contrary should by default be dismissed as fauxtography mass-produced in Hamas’ secret underground lair (and people wonder why Israel continues to bar the international press from entering the strip…).

Fuck’s sake, it really is 2006 all over again–only the burning stupid engulfing Greater Wingnuttia is now a raging inferno.  They deserve to have their simplistic bizarro-worldview clumsily affirmed by Joe the War Correspondent.

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Words Fail.

by matttbastard

Kee-hrist.  First Joe the War Correspondent and now a proposed pr0n industry bailout. Today is the day The Onion got diced by reality.

Ripley @ Whiskey Fire sums up ‘Joe goes to Israel‘:

Leave it to the nutless wonders of PJTV to glom onto some pseudo-celebrity du jour whose claim to fame is being schooled on the finer points of tax policy, on video, by Presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

And Michael Goldfarb says there’s no conservative equivalent to TPM. Pshh. Wev.

As for the jimmy-hat-in-hand routine from Larry Flynt and co., Thoreau points out that, unlike certain other recent recipients of federal aid, Flynt is actually, um, good at what he does:

[Flynt’s] actually still turning a profit, but, hey, every other asshole out there is hustling for a bailout, so why not join and hopefully get people pissed off about the bailout? I’d just like to note that turning a profit makes Flynt a far better capitalist than anybody at AIG, Goldman Sachs, Wachovia, Ford, GM, Chrysler, or most of the major airlines. Yes, I’m sure that his industry is the recipient of public-sector favors like every other industry out there, but there are relative degrees of favor and benefit, and at the end of the day Flynt manages to make a profit while so many others don’t. That has to count for something.

Heh. Indeed.

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The Stench of Desperation (I am [not] Joe).

by matttbastard

Right wing identity politics and carefully-manufactured pseudo-populist rage against ‘vote fraud’; Race/red/God-baiting Obama to ridiculous extremes; the hyperbolic overreaction to McCain’s latest campaign stunt FAIL.

Oh, and my personal favourite, McCarthyism redux from Rep. Michele Bachmann:

Everywhere you turn, it seems doctrinaire right-wingers, in concert with the McCain campaign, are flailing wildly, lashing out with every trick they know, every demonstrative tactic that used to be filed under ‘slam dunk’ in the wingnutosphere handbook.

But you know what?

None of it means a goddamn thing, because–sorry, wingnuts–it’s still the fucking economy, stupid; all the irony-free ‘I am Spartacus’ circle jerks in the world won’t magically reverse the real average Joe and Josephine’s negative home equity, protect their jobs, nor will it restore their 401k, inoculate them from losing it all. Like it or not, in this election cycle, issues are trumping (trouncing, trampling) identity. Which is why your out of touch, totally overwhelmed and over-matched Maverick is losing.

Deal with it.

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