Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Zoo Poo"

Zoos are cool. 'Zoo' is even a cool word!

I goed to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha during my Nebraska trip. But I never got around to sharing footage of it until now!

Now I finally have the chance to regale you with scenes of this educational event that aims to instill good stewardship of our natural surroundings...

Occupy!

I told you that if the Republicans rigged the 2010 election, our side was going to come down very hard - when the Evil Empire least expected it. Now it's happening! It's called Occupy Wall Street.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have spread outside New York and into countless other cities - big and small, American as well as foreign. Towns as small as Stillwater, Oklahoma, are seeing their own homegrown brand of this movement.

The New York event has been met with police brutality, but organizers plan to keep protesting there for as long as it takes until right-wing tyranny is cleaned up. Events in other cities also need to stay open. I'm all for a Cincinnati protest, but we need to find a place somewhere in the area where we can keep the protest going for months or years on end if we have to.

These rallies should have begun the day after the election - in 1980! But we're pleased as poo to take what we can get. I've been dreaming of a protest like this for years, and it's ABOUT DAMN TIME!

According to the Occupy Cincinnati Gathering page on Facebook, a Cincinnati event is planned for Saturday, October 8 from 11 AM to 11:30 PM at Sawyer Point. I'll be out of town that day, but that's alright, because I trust this rally is just the beginning of a very, very turbulent era.

More details? Visit the Occupy Together website:

http://occupytogether.org

The revolution might not be televised, but it is blog-o-vised.

Rick Perry's Tenth Amendment hypocrisy

His cries to the contrary notwithstanding, GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Perry doesn't give a shit about the Tenth Amendment - or the Constitution overall.

"You either have to believe in the Tenth Amendment or you don't," Perry has been quoted as saying. "You can't believe in the Tenth Amendment for a few issues and then [for] something that doesn't suit you say, 'We'd rather not have states decide that.'" But guess what? He's doing exactly that!

Perry supports the national so-called "right-to-work" bill proposed by fascist Sen. Jim DeMint. In other words, Perry only supports state autonomy when it suits him.

So-called "right-to-work" laws are unconstitutional even without the Tenth Amendment argument. Many states have these union-busting laws, and they're unconstitutional because they violate individual rights - particularly freedom of assembly. What I'd like to see is a national free-bargaining law that strengthens individual rights by eradicating work-for-less laws.

Perry also backs the right-wing Federal Marriage Act, which would bar states from legalizing gay marriage.

Rick Perry and the rest of the Republican establishment are not about the Constitution or personal liberty. At all. The modern GOP is a fraud.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/29/331678/perry-states-rights-labor-law)

Rand Paul still useless

This clown proved last night he's as worthless as ever (even when he isn't crying about his toilet not working).

After a hard-fought battle, the Senate staved off a government shutdown by approving a must-pass funding bill by a vote of 79 to 12. Guess who was among the 12 to oppose this must-pass bill?

That's right, folks. Rand Paul.

How did Kentucky end up with a senator who doesn't have a Kentucky agenda? By opposing this bill, he voted against the interests and desires of the state's people. There's absolutely no excuse whatsoever - none - for opposing the bill after the Democrats found a way to conserve FEMA spending.

A Senate seat is a terrible thing to waste.

Incredible victory in shutdown battle!

Three days ago, who woulda thunk we'd not only see funding for both FEMA and an endangered green jobs program but also avert a government shutdown? It sure as shit looked like we'd get funding for neither - plus the shutdown.

But a funny thing happened. Not ha-ha funny but unusual funny. Senate Democrats stood their ground against the Tea Party-plagued House. For once, there was no DLC garbage. And guess what? The Democrats won the battle last night, and the looming shutdown was averted.

They fought - and then they won. Isn't it weird how fighting back brings better results than wussing around?

There's a lesson to be learned in all this. Being right isn't always enough - because sometimes you have to fight for it. There's no point in being right if you don't fight for it.

Clear Channel Taliban bans song

The book-burners at Clear Channel are at it again.

Everybody remembers when Crap Channel released a list of songs right after 9/11 that were blacklisted from its stations. Now one Clear Channel outlet has banned the song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People because it's about a spree killer.

As you know, "Pumped Up Kicks" is the song 'Lawn Chair Quarterback' mentioned a few weeks ago because it was the only song in the top 10 that week that sported vinyl-friendly production. But it's been blackballed by Clear Channel's WJJS-FM in Roanoke, Virginia, over its subject matter.

Probably at least 7 or 8 songs in the current top 10 are thoroughly unlistenable, but I bet WJJS plays them without any trouble. Yet they won't play the one song in the top 10 that's more popular than all the others.

No wonder K-92 is kicking the shit out of WJJS in the ratings. This reminds me of the late '80s when out-of-town stations encroached on the Cincinnati stations' listenership because lyrical censorship was so rampant in the 'Nati.

The Clear Channel stuffed shirt who made the decision to ban the Foster The People song also renamed one of Clear Channel's other Roanoke stations for himself. No, I'm not making this up.

Crap Channel puts on a facade of hip but tries to decide for everybody else what they should be allowed to hear.

(Source: http://www.wdbj7.com/news/wdbj7-local-radio-station-decides-not-to-play-song-about-a-shooting-20110922,0,4159139.story)

Some asshole is planting pipe bombs in my county

This isn't mere vandalism. This is terrorism.

In the past few days, 4 live pipe bombs have been discovered in rural Campbell County - particularly in the Licking Pike area. The most recent was found in a mailbox yesterday.

Who's the asshole behind this? Probably the same sort of neo-Nazi thug who set my trash can on fire back when I lived in Highland Heights. You can bet your bottom dollar it's the same club of spoiled lunatics. I've lived in this county for 38 years, and I know the hard way what it's capable of.

If you suspect a pipe bomb in this county, call 911 instantly. If that fails, call the Campbell County dispatch center at (859)292-3622. Or call the Campbell County Police at (859)547-3100 or the U.S. Postal Inspector's office at 1-877-876-2455.

This has gone on long enough, and it's about time it ends for good.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Watch Congress Ruin Your Vacation!"

You work hard and play by the rules. And now Congress is about to shut down the government and ruin that vacation you had planned for one of America's great national parks.

Congress gets off on this shit, don't they?

Not like they have to worry about when to take their vacation, because they go on recess about once every 2 weeks anyway - and they don't do shit even when they're in session.

No bother. I hear there's some Wall Street protests that need me...

Si still owes people their computers he took

Simon Leis Jr. is the longtime sheriff and a former prosecutor and judge in Cincinnati's Hamilton County. The 77-year-old Republican is like the Joe Arpaio of Cincinnati. But now he's retiring at long last.

Leis crusaded for years against porn - but eventually, the local citizenry stopped giving a shit about what folks were reading in the privacy of their homes. After attitudes started changing, he seemed just pathetic. About all he did after that was demand a sales tax increase to pay for a new jail nobody wanted. (The tax hike never passed.)

But in 1995, when Leis was at the top of his game, he assembled a task force to raid computer bulletin board systems, accusing them of distributing pornography. Leis even sent his task force across the state line into Kentucky, which was outside their jurisdiction. Countless computers were illegally seized by the task force. These computers contained private e-mails of the users of these BBS's. One BBS operator's tax records were seized too.

It turned out that one of the cops on the task force ran a BBS that offered premium services that competed against one of the BBS's that was raided. But nobody was allowed to say so publicly. My life was ruined when I pointed this out.

Local BBS's never recovered from this set of raids. For several years after, there was a bunker mentality, and most area BBS's winked out of sight. Those were awful, awful years.

BBS operators and users sued the sheriff's department over the seized computers and lost e-mails. But years later, I saw a tiny article in the local blab that said the court had - for some fatuous reason - ruled in favor of the despotic sheriff. So the victims of these roguish raids never got their computers or e-mails back. Ever. To this day, Simon Leis is probably still pounding out warrants with the Chicago font using one of the confiscated machines.

To add injury to insult, Leis's task force did absolutely zippo about the wave of Internet harassment I encountered sometime after the raids. Somebody should have gone to prison for a good long time over that garbage. If I supported the death penalty, I would have absolutely favored it for the type of harassment I experienced. But instead...nothing.

The Leis era has been a living example of conservatism's warped mores. They try policing private conduct, but at other times, it's always about "me, me, me."

L.A. Times blogger lies about bridge

Never trust right-wing loudmouths to get their facts straight.

Meet Andrew Malcolm, a far-right commentator at the already right-wing Los Angeles Times. We've profiled him before because of his inability to grasp basic truisms. Now he's at it again.

President Obama appeared at the I-75 bridge in Cincinnati yesterday to speak in favor of his popular American Jobs Act. Contrary to what Andrew Malcolm claimed in a column yesterday, this bridge qualifies under this bill. What's amazing though is how Malcolm lies in plain sight, thinking no Cincinnati area folks will stumble upon his bullshit to debunk it.

He said of the span, "It's the Brent Spence Bridge. It doesn't really need repairs." It doesn't? Lots of Tri-Staters would get a good laugh out of that statement! Except it wouldn't be so funny if it collapsed because Congress won't fund repairs or the proposed replacement bridge.

Malcolm went on to say, "The bridge was built to handle 85,000 cars and trucks a day, which seemed like a lot back during construction in the Nixon era." Except it was constructed in the Kennedy era, dipshit. That's why it needs replacing now. I suspect Malcolm knows this. He makes it sound like the bridge is brand new, even though it was built before Riverfront Stadium was, which has been gone for years now because sports team owners demanded the taxpayers buy them new stadiums. The Republicans were all for a sales tax hike to pay for Riverfront's replacements, but they won't support a bill that replaces a much older bridge - even though this bill is already paid for.

The right-wing intelligentsia has honed lying into an art form. Their lies rule The Media so thoroughly that it's not even news to us anymore. But when they lie so blatantly about something of such urgent interest locally, they will be called out on it for as long as I can catch them.

Have no fear, ish #463 is here!

Sometimes funny - but sometimes deadly serious. That's The Last Word, your road atlas to freedom - which I've published since 1993.

Now the Back-to-School edition of The Last Word is finally out, and it's a beaut. You'll find these fresh new articles about student issues to be quite informative...

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw110921

Everything from school uniforms to student court battles to silly Amazon meltdowns is covered in our latest issue!

Yahoo! censors e-mail about protests

Yahoo! has long been known for colluding with mainland China to rat out dissidents and reporters - which has netted lengthy prison sentences for some of the targeted journalists. The failure to rein in Yahoo! is now bringing more grief, as the online giant is now blocking e-mails about the Wall Street protests. (The protests have been almost completely ignored by The Media.)

Folks who use Yahoo! to send out information about the protests are finding their e-mail blocked with a message saying, "Suspicious activity has been detected on your account. To protect your account and our users, your message has not been sent."

AT&T customers might see their e-mail censored too - because AT&T now farms out its e-mail service to the pro-Red Chinese Yahoo!

This is the same Yahoo! that several years ago began blocking the e-mail list that I operated to distribute my newsletter.

Meanwhile, New York City police are violently suppressing the protests. I guess they didn't learn shit from being sued over what happened at the Republican National Convention.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/09/20/323856/yahoo-censoring-occupy-wall-street-protests)

GOP again warns of shutdown

It's 6 months ago all over again - as congressional Republicans are again threatening a government shutdown. This shutdown would begin October 1:

http://www.rollcall.com/news/reid_warns_of_possible_government_shutdown-208867-1.html

This time, they're holding disaster aid funding hostage - because we all know that's such a winning electoral strategy.

Some Americans might like to visit some of the country's fine national parks (which they already paid for with their tax dollars) right after October 1. Some Americans do not like having their plans spoiled over a partisan temper tantrum. Some Americans fight back.

My message to Republicans: Go ahead. Make my day.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Tim Buyed More Camping Gear"

Tim buyed more inexpensive camping gear.

Indeed he did.

Our latest 'LCQ' explores this blog's ongoing efforts to fight homelessness and other vagaries of unchecked capitalism...

Tea Party caught forging signatures

Now we know how the Tea Party manages to occasionally get its idiotic ideas on the ballot (not like voters ever approve their nonsense). They just forge signatures on the ballot petition.

Recently, the Northern Kentucky Tea Party and the Home Builders Association of Northern Kentucky submitted a petition that would have let folks in Kenton County vote on whether to pull out of the local planning commission. The entire effort was just a big temper tantrum. Now some who signed it say signature gatherers misrepresented the petition. Not only that, but it turns out some of the signatures were forged.

In response, opponents of the ballot measure are now asking people to check the signature list to see if theirs were forged too.

The teabaggers went through the phone book to collect names to falsify. They were caught when they forged the signature of a local lawyer and stupidly used her law office's address instead of her home address.

Now - here's the best part - prosecutors plan to prosecute the signature gatherers. GOOD!!! It is believed that the Tea Party committed second-degree forgery, which in Kentucky is a felony punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

They are so busted.

(Source: http://4nkapc.org)

ACLU sues over college drug tests

While the Tea Party movement falls silent on this issue, the ACLU fights!

Now that Linn State Technical College in Missouri has implemented forced drug testing of all students, the resulting lawsuit has followed even quicker than I expected. Within mere days, the ACLU has found 6 students to serve as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the school.

To find that many students at such a small college to serve as plaintiffs that quickly is remarkable.

I don't see how there's a chance in hell the school can prevail on this - especially since the drug tests don't even meet the guidelines established by the Supreme Court.

(Source: http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/got-urine-aclu-sues-college-over-mandatory-drug-testing)

Another Bush scandal: Solyndragate!

Almost 3 years after Bush is out of office, he's still a scandal-a-day guy! If he was still in office, this scandal would have been clearly impeachable. But it's just now coming to light.

Solyndra - a maker of solar panels - had long been trying to assure Congress of its financial viability after it got a $528,000,000 taxpayer loan from the Bush regime back in 2007. But last week it filed for bankruptcy. Now questions are being raised about why Bush loaned so much taxpayer dough to Solyndra even after the company appeared to be in trouble.

One of Solyndra's biggest investors? The Walton family - of Wal-Mart fame. The Waltons had donated millions to Bush and other Republican candidates.

Even though he's out of office, Bush can still go to prison for this. Yes, I said P-R-I-S-O-N. The clink. The pokey. The pen. The slammer.

And this year, Republican members of Congress had the nerve to gripe that Solyndra wasn't spending the taxpayers' money quickly enough.

The GOP is so busted.

Here's the funniest part: The Republicans are now blaming it all on Obama. Sorry, but the GOP owns this scandal. They might as well just blame Jimmy Carter for Watergate.

Sorry, DLC. You own this one.

Is the DLC happy now? Yes.

The Democratic Leadership Council (the Tea Party wing of the Democratic Party) did more to force Anthony Weiner out of his House seat than the Republicans did, and it's been clear for weeks that this was their way of sabotaging this seat just because they didn't like Weiner. It's much like how they sabotaged that election in Hawaii a while back by running their own candidate to split the Democratic vote.

In an attempt to "prove" Weiner and certain other Democrats are "too liberal", the DLC does this shit. If it causes a Republican to be elected, the DLC is always eager to trot out the GOP's win as "proof" of Democrats' excessive liberality.

Naturally, the DLC got its way again yesterday in the low-turnout special election to fill Weiner's seat. Tea Party Republican Bob Turner narrowly won yesterday in New York's 9th District - even though he doesn't even live in the district. During the campaign, he accused his leading opponent Democrat David Weprin of being anti-Semitic - even though Weprin is Jewish. Because Turner hates Muslims, he has a lot of nerve accusing somebody else of bigotry.

The good news? Turner is toast in 2012. Just ask Charles Djou.

Jobs bill would fight employment discrimination

After President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in last Thursday's speech, Congress's excuses for opposing it are wearing thin. Mighty thin.

Not only would the bill create perhaps millions of jobs, but it would also make it illegal for employers to discriminate against somebody because they don't currently have a job. In short, the bill would ream a gaping cavity through the tight fraternity that's come to dominate America's economic life.

There's no fairness in job ads that say, "Must be currently employed." Those who are employed are those who least need a job. It's clear the practice of not hiring the unemployed is a fraternity designed to permanently shut them out.

Who would possibly be against a bill to ban this form of discrimination? Probably the same people who yell about being for lower taxes but won't support Obama's payroll tax cut. (Isn't the payroll tax actually a flat income tax?)

Orly Taitz lands gig at pirate station

The FCC wasted no time in shutting down Tantrum 95.7, but it does absolutely nothing about a right-wing pirate radio station just outside Atlanta that's been on the air for 5 years.

This unlicensed station reaches the entire suburb of Sandy Springs (and more) and has been seemingly legitimized by carrying city council meetings and interviews with folks from major licensed stations. Local businesses (including a Mercedes dealership) even sponsor the programming.

Regular stations legitimizing this pirate shows there's actually a concerted effort by the big stations to advance right-wing causes. It's kind of like how the Washington Times loses money but they keep it going anyway. (The licensed station that allowed its personnel to appear on this pirate station was the same one that blacklisted Sinead O'Connor, but I don't know whether it was under the same ownership then.)

The Sandy Springs pirate covers a much, much larger area than Tantrum 95.7 did, so there's no way in hell it's legal. No way, no how. The FCC allows Part 15 broadcasts from a single transmitter - not a series of transmitters scattered throughout town.

Why do I classify this as a right-wing pirate? For starts, it actually has a whole program dedicated to Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, an Army doctor who questioned President Obama's birth certificate and got court martialed for refusing to follow the President's commands.

And now this station has given Orly Taitz her own show. Taitz, as you'll recall, is another birth certificate skeptic - who made a spectacle of herself filing ridiculous court claims and complaining that "Obama's brownshirts" (in her words) doctored the certificate. She also posted people's Social Security numbers on her blog, which exposed them to identity theft.

Long story short: This proves once again that rules don't apply to the Republican Empire. They're the only ones who can get away with running a pirate radio station in plain sight for 5 years and not be shut down. Even if it was a legally operating station, how irresponsible can they possibly be to give Orly Taitz her own show?

College institutes forced drug testing

Fascism is on the march at Linn State Technical College in Missouri.

This institution has just become probably the first public college ANYWHERE to require drug testing of all students. The school instituted the drug tests because the local business community told it to. And get this: The school is also requiring students to pay for the tests themselves.

Well, this is a lawsuit just itching to happen.

School officials need to mind their own damn beeswax about what students do in their private lives. What's next? Interrogating people about their sex lives?

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/07/linn-state-technical-coll_n_952586.html)

When blog ad companies steal

The Internet advertising industry is full of thieves and con artists, and I have no desire to deal with these lying sacks of shit any longer.

In April 2010, as you know, a certain major Internet company that served the ads for this site yanked my account. They also refused to pay me hundreds of dollars in ad revenues I was owed. It's a fact that this was politically motivated. Over the past few days, it's become obvious that the ad server I used to replace them has done almost the exact same thing because I've been blackballed by the industry.

This company set up a blank "zone" in my account without telling me, and then informed me that this "zone" was being deactivated because it didn't have any traffic. But they deactivated the rest of my "zones" too, including the one for this blog. When I informed them of this, they played dumb and acted like those weren't deactivated. There was no getting through to them.

Setting up the blank "zone" was a ruse that gave them an excuse to shut down the rest of my "zones." This became clear when I tried deactivating my account so I could get a fresh account. I told them repeatedly to close my first account - but the e-mails kept bouncing. When I set up my second account, they wouldn't activate my "zones." That was proof positive I'd been blacklisted for my political views.

They also stole a significant amount of ad revenue. As a matter of policy, they don't send out the checks until you've amassed a certain amount of revenue. I knew and understood that. But when they closed my "zones", that made certain my revenues would never reach that amount. And - by bouncing all my e-mails - they made it impossible to close my account, so I won't be getting the check they're supposed to send out when it's closed.

Yesterday, I signed up for yet another ad server. They did not activate my account, period. So I signed up for a fourth server. When I added this blog to my account, the page that's supposed to contain the ad code for it came up empty. I e-mailed them about it and never received a reply.

This is political blackballing, and anybody who doesn't think so has their head up their ass. The industry has me, this blog, and everything else I do on a blacklist. We know it's politically motivated, because have you ever heard of anything like this happening to a conservative website?

The Joe McCarthy era is supposed to be over. For pity's sakes, the Internet ad industry needs to start acting like it.

The government needs to raid these ad companies and seize their assets. Corporations are not supposed to have constitutional rights. The police can handle this matter any way they choose, and I'm not going to tell them how to do their job. But I guarantee you that if I wore the badge of police chief, the doors of the lying criminals of the Internet ad racket would go flying wide open TONIGHT - and the money they stole would soon find its way to the bloggers they victimized.

Right-wing governor lies about drug tests

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is one of the most unpopular and openly nasty governors in America today - and is deserving of impeachment.

Haley, a Republican, has publicly threatened labor unions - a topic she has been inordinately obsessed with. Her policies have also helped give South Carolina one of the worst unemployment rates in the country.

Now she wants to require folks to take a drug test to receive unemployment benefits. "I so want drug testing. I so want it," she boasted to a Rotary Club gathering.

Her excuse was that officials from the Savannah River Site - a nuke reservation in her state - told her that 50% of job applicants there failed a drug test. But that turned out to be a lie. A Savannah River Site spokesman says they don't test applicants. They only test people once they've been hired. Plus, hardly any of the hires failed the drug test.

So Nikki Haley lied.

In addition, drug tests for unemployment aid would be unconstitutional anyway. But you knew that, because you read this blog. Reading this blog is what cool people do, after all. That's what you do when you kick lots of ass.

This story comes days after Haley defended her recent week-long trip to Europe that she took on the taxpayers' dime. This outing cost taxpayers over $127,000 and consisted of lavish parties and 5-star hotels.

So who's the real class warrior?

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/nikki-haley-drug-test-exaggeration_n_955900.html;
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/09/nikki-haley-defends-her-ritzy-european-trip/42198)

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "The Ruined Bike Seat"

Here's a product liability suit waiting to happen.

On Tuesday, I discovered one of the thick metal bars on my bicycle seat was broken. I had to ride it all the way home from Finneytown that way. I replaced the seat on Wednesday.

Our latest 'LCQ' describes the ruinment of the old seat:

Bam! Lawsuit filed over welfare drug tests

The lawsuit some said would never happen is now under way.

In July, Florida became the only state to require welfare recipients to take a drug test without probable cause. Only 2 months later, the ACLU is now filing a federal lawsuit over Florida's fascism. The suit was filed on behalf of a Navy veteran who was forced to take a drug test in order to collect welfare.

So this is how Rick Scott treats veterans? He forces them to pee in a cup after they've served their country?

Predictably, since the drug tests began, only 2% of recipients were found to be abusing drugs.

Actually, federal courts have already ruled you can't test welfare recipients for drugs unless there's reasonable suspicion. The tests don't meet the Supreme Court's carefully tailored guidelines for when drug testing is allowed. It's settled law. In fact, it was settled when the Bill of Rights was written. I don't see how the safeguard against unreasonable searches can possibly be any clearer.

I'm going to make a prediction about what'll happen if this case ever goes to the Supreme Court - but I'm not going to predict how the court will rule. Instead, I forecast that if the Supremes rule against this forced drug testing, right-wingers in Congress will try to pass a constitutional amendment to gut that ruling. I can almost GUARANTEE that'll happen. After all, "Diaper Dave" Vitter already has a bill in Congress that would force the states to require drug tests for welfare. So not only is the Evil Empire against the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth amendments but also the Tenth.

(Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/07/alcu-sues-florida-for-drug-testing-welfare-recipients)

Tea in the mailbox...

Hahahahaha, what a bunch of clowns!

On Labor Day, the Tea Party (bowel) movement got its precious little fee-fees hurt when Teamsters head James P. Hoffa called them out in a now-famous speech. The controversy was fanned by media outlets that doctored Hoffa's remarks by cutting out crucial words. (And you think we don't need a Fairness Doctrine?)

So, in response to the speech, Tea Party cultists are now mailing a bunch of teabags to Hoffa.

Wow, I bet he's really running for his life.

Hephzibah House exposed again

A few years ago, we kept targeting abusive programs for young people. We even helped get a Midwestern chain called Pathway Family Center shut down completely. But in 2009, I also participated in a public rally against Hephzibah House in Warsaw, Indiana.

Remember that? I actually made that protest into my vacation that year.

Hephzibah House is an ultraconservative fundamentalist all-girls "school" that has faced decades of abuse allegations. The state of Indiana refuses to investigate, saying it can't. Yes it can. Officials are just making excuses.

Well, now CNN has finally taken notice, and it's produced a report about the abuse at Hephzibah House:

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/01/video-ungodly-discipline-investigation

This knocks the wind out of the sails of those who cry that we're unfairly targeting programs, doesn't it?

Right-wing congressman won't apologize for confiscating cameras

Even the Cincinnati Enquirer (hardly a voice of liberalism) is starting to act like it's seen enough of Steve Chabot's shit.

This entry at the Enquirer's website talks about it in some detail:

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/31/chabot-no-apologies-for-seizing-cameras

In brief, Chabot got police to confiscate cameras from folks who attended his town hall meeting. Now he refuses to apologize - saying he did this to protect people's privacy. That excuse won't wash, considering media outlets had all their cameras there, and he didn't stop them.

The Media is usually friendly to Chabot, so of course he didn't stop them. But I guess taking other people's cameras has finally struck a nerve with some commentators.

Lawn Chair Quarterback: "Walking On A Thin Line"

The Huey Lewis & the News song "Walking On A Thin Line" was about a man with post-traumatic stress disorder.

So is our latest 'LCQ' installment. PTSD is not something to fool around with. It disables many men and women, civilian as well as military. It's no joke. People live with it on a day-to-day basis. It can be from childhood abuse, war, or a host of other circumstances.

Why am I telling you this? It's news you can use. PTSD has happened to me, and it can happen to you.

In this episode, 'Lawn Chair Quarterback' gets serious...

Child abuse returns to British schools

The thought police at the European Union has the resources to extradite an author to face criminal charges over an "offensive" book, but they won't do anything about the outrage in this story?

Right-wing British Education Minister Michael Gove has now ruled by decree that corporal punishment is to be reintroduced in British schools. This reverses a quarter-century-old ban on the archaic practice.

Gove says his ukase is in response to the recent riots. He fails to say what the connection between the riots and paddling is.

If the EU doesn't act against Gove's order, we'll know the EU is a big sham. Of course we know it anyway.

(Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/09/02/55534909.html)

Tea Parties fight to keep cohabitation illegal

It's nice to know we have the Tea Parties around to keep government off our - wait! Now what's this?!

Florida has a law on the books from the 19th century that outlaws cohabitation of unmarried couples. Now an effort to repeal this law is being met with opposition from the Tea Party Republicans.

Fascist State Rep. Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala) insists the statute should remain on the books. "I'm not ready to give up on monogamy and a cultural statement that marriage still matters," he sniffed. So how does one parlay that into a law?

Corporate criminal Gov. Rick "Max Headroom" Scott (another Tea Party high flier) has also refused to endorse repealing the cohabitation law.

Nope, this isn't about morality. It's about control. Everything the teagaggers do is about control. They're a totalitarian movement wrapped in doublespeak and symbols. A decade ago, you could get elected by screaming about how the country is going to hell in a handbasket. That doesn't work today, so the Tea Parties tout their tyranny as a movement against excessive regulation - even though what they stand for is actually more regimentation of personal behavior.

Mind your own damn business, teagaggers.

(Source: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/01/309647/florida-republicans-fight-to-keep-cohabitation-of-unmarried-couples-illegal)