Need a quick birthday party idea?

Children. God love 'em. They truly are the future. But sometimes the "future" needs to be severely traumatized and made to think that they are being stalked by a murderous demon who wishes to do them harm. We all know this. It has been a bog standard part of child raising since time immemorial. Thankfully one Swiss company has decided to take the hassle out of you yourself doing the own damage to your kid. You can now rent out that kind of psychological trauma.

Dominic Deville stalks young victims for a week, sending chilling texts, making prank phone calls and setting traps in letterboxes. He posts notes warning children they are being watched, telling them they will be attacked.

But Deville is not an escaped lunatic or some demonic monster. He is a birthday treat, hired by mum and dad, and the ‘attack’ involves being splatted in the face with a cake.

‘The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,’ said Deville. ‘The clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.’

See? He's not an escaped lunatic, just a professional one, and he's not a demonic monster, just dressed like one. Can't you see why this is such a great idea. I mean if the kid does avoid the attack/shitting his or herself.... they get to keep the cake! Surely that is a valid reward for a week of being stalked by a demonic clown.

As if you needed another reason to think this was perhaps the greatest idea ever, it has the full endorsement of Clowns International. I have no idea what Clowns International is but I really, really hope that it's a clown and clowning trade union, with leadership votes, dues, strikes, and everything. Smokey rooms filled with cigar smoking fatcats saying things like "We gotta bust up this clown union! Then we can really start makin' some money!" or a man in a full clown suit banging his hand on a table and yelling "You can't push the clowns around any more! We get a fair wage for a days clowning or we strike and shut down this clowning factory!" Maybe a weepy businessman says "These clowns have got us over a barrel... give in to their demands." At least that's the way it goes in my dreams.

So, if you wish to traumatize your kid and you're too much of a pussy to get a divorce and blame it on him/her, then this is he next best thing. Unfortunately it's only available in Lucerne, Switzerland for now. Hopefully someone will be bringing this service stateside soon, otherwise our kids will only have general American society and culture to do grievous mental harm to them.

Progress

As one of the landmark Supreme Court decisions in US history, Brown v. the Board of Education was one of the landmark steps in the civil rights movement. Honest. It's in the history books and everything. Seems someone forgot to tell the state of Mississippi that though. So the Justice Department had to send them a little memo about segregation. In 2010.

“More than 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education, it is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
...
According to the motion, the district’s practice of permitting hundreds of students — the vast majority whom are white — to attend schools outside their assigned residential attendance zone without restriction prompted a disproportionate number of white students to attend a single school in the district, leaving a number of other schools disproportionately black.

Indeed, evidence in the case suggested that the community regarded certain schools in the district as “white schools” or “black schools.” The United States also asserted that officials in certain district schools grouped, or “clustered,” white students together in particular classrooms, resulting in large numbers of all-black classes at every grade level in those schools.

Yeah, the Justice Department of the US had to remind the Walthall County school district in Mississippi about the fact that they weren't allowed to segregate students any more. I wonder how they're going to take the revelations about the water fountain and lunch counter thing. Or the black President. Bonus points for segregating kids in a county where it's almost a 50/50 split between whites and blacks. That's a a high racist degree of difficulty.

Still, this is all understandable. 1954 was a long time ago; who can remember what landmark civil rights decision came when and applied to what, or if they were even still applicable?

There's a phrase about Mississippi: last in everything and proud of it. I guess they just had to be the last to come in compliance with desegregation. Maybe they just didn't read about it. Doesn't strike me as a big newspaper culture and they might be getting their textbooks from Texas. In any event, the next time someone asks Mississippi, they can answer "Yes, we are somewhat in compliance with historically significant civil rights legislation and Supreme Court court rulings." That's progress.

In which we offer PR help to the Catholic Church

Pope Prada I meets Cardinal Pedobear

The Catholic Church is in a bit of hot water as of late, what with the whole 'raping kids and not doing anything about it' scandal. From revelations that the church refused to do anything to a man who molested 200 deaf kids, to revelations that the Pope himself resisted action against pedophile priests citing "the good of the universal church", accusations that you've "killed the church", inaction in other child rape cases, to threats of legal prosecution against the church, stripping of papal immunity in the UK, to the imminent buddy cop team-up and arrest of the Pope by rogue cops Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, it seems the Pope is in for a rough couple of months... followed by a rough eternity in one of nine circles.

So seeing as he's in a spot of trouble, we figured that The TB Public Relations Conglomerate are the obvious ones to give him advice on how to proceed and provide critiques of their recent media strategies and statements. First, my credentials: I was born on Good Friday and thus am probably the resurrected Messiah, I have been to or seen a church within the last decade, and can remember several instances and interactions with priests where I wasn't raped. Satisfied?

Onward with a critical review of current Vatican media strategies. Remember, this is for you own benefit, Benedict.

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League.

"The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis,: when all along it's been a homosexual crisis."... “It’s not a pedophilia” because “most of the victims were post pubescent,” as old as 12 or 13 years of age. Anything older than that is the fault of gays."

Nicely deflected. Not only is it an overarching gay conspiracy, but it isn't pedophilia, because the priests were merely raping 12 and 13 year olds. It's practically not a crime then. Still, some might not be swayed by the logic of that argument, so you might want to emphasize how raping kids once they hit their teens is practically a commandment. Plus, you referred to the New York Times as "The Times" and not "The Jew York Times". It seems like you were attempting a full triple twisting back crazy and pulled out and only singled it. We're going to have to deduct points for mild sanity in between blaming gays, parents, and everyone but the priests or the church for it. Practice the full crazy and get back out on that horse.

Grosseto Bishop Giacomo Babini

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is. ... Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: "They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers."

Nicely played. The controversy so much isn't child rape, church negligence, and cover-ups, no. The controversy is how the Jewish run media is coordinating coverage of these legitimate claims of abuse and accusations of church inaction/malfeasance. This is the kind of advanced blame shifting and Jew baiting that one can only learn from a lifetime in the Church. Take notes, Mr. Donohue. Do be careful about trying to ascribe conspiracies, Jewish or otherwise, to this scandal. It has the danger of making people thing of other conspiracies. Like a conspiracy to cover up sexual abuse of children over a period of decades by a central religious authority.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, during an Easter Mass at the Vatican.

Sodano's praise for Benedict as well as the church's 400,000 priests worldwide cranked up a vigorous campaign by the Holy See to counter what it calls a "vile" smear operation orchestrated by anti-Vatican media aimed at weakening the papacy and its moral authority. ... "Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers," Sodano said.

Again, nicely played by a high church muckity muck. Glibly reducing credible accusations and investigations, teary confessions, and tacit admission from the church that these accusations are true and that they saw no need to punish guilty priests further as "vile smears" and "petty gossip" is always the right track when discussing facts. Though I would not that your choice of venue, the Easter Mass at the Vatican, does smack a little of "preaching to the converted". It might be the textbook definition. Try to get a few feet outside of the Vatican next time. Also, embracing the Pope immediately afterward might not have been the best idea. If charges are brought that incident could make you an accessory to a crime.

Writer Matt Taibbi

The Catholic Church is a Criminal Enterprise.

This may be true but it is not helpful to the cause to point this out.

Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn

Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict's long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope "had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up." ... "I admit that I often feel a sense of injustice these days. Why is the church being excoriated? Isn't there also abuse elsewhere?

Ahh, nicely done. When in doubt, state the exact opposite of everything that the media is revealing about Pope Benedict's actions while in charge of disciplining priests. Acknowledging someone else's reality is the first step towards losing an argument. Which is why I'm more disappointed in the second statement. Sure, the "everyone else is raping kids and covering it up, we aren't the only ones" defense looks sound on paper and is a real winner in terms of public support, but you acknowledging the media narrative and also tacitly admitting that priests rape kids and the church covers it up. Which is bad. The admitting it, I mean.

Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

"I am not proud of America's newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness."

Yes! Question the source. Just how reliable is one of the world's most reliable papers anyway? Though in the Times defense they are just passing on the accusation of 200 deaf boys, not making the accusations themselves. So the question is: do you want to question the credibility of 200 deaf children and wage a PR battle against them? The answer might seem like an obvious yes, but keep in mind there is a lot of sympathy on their side. After all, they were raped over a series of decades and nothing was done about it.

Anthony Fisher, bishop of Parramatta

''Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating,'' he said. ''Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism.''

Nicely pointed out. Where would we be without the Catholic Church? What if we were all atheists? What would we be getting up to if we rejected the teaching of the church? Probably something awful like raping kids and covering it up. I can't bear to think of that reality.

An unsigned editorial from the Vatican

[it accused] the NY Times of willfully ignoring the "truth" of Ratzinger/Benedict's record and of attempting "to instrumentalize, without any foundation in fact, horrible episodes and sorrowful events uncovered in some cases from decades ago." The media, it continued, showed a "despicable intent of attacking, at whatever cost, Benedict XVI and his closest collaborators."

That's right, not only is this really only an issue that the Times is dragging up, this all happened decades ago. Who can remember what happened last week, let alone decades ago? The past isn't important or legally actionable. Though again, try to refrain from alleging a conspiracy or using words like collaborators. It tends to make people think a group of people within the church, including the Pope, might have "collaborated" on trying to cover up abuse cases. Best not mention that kind of thing at all. Bonus points for not signing the editorial. That takes bravery.

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Ross Douthat

In reality, the scandal implicates left and right alike. The permissive sexual culture that prevailed everywhere, seminaries included, during the silly season of the ’70s deserves a share of the blame, as does that era’s overemphasis on therapy.

Yes, blame the left. It works well in American politics, why won't it help shield the church from rape allegations? I mean weren't these crimes the hallmark or leftist hippies and their 60's and 70's culture? What was it they said at Woodstock "Watch out for the brown acid and if you see a kid grab him and do whatever you want"? Wasn't Purple Haze about covering up abuse allegations? Still, while these are useful additions to the defense, they should not be made from the pages of the New York Times. Haven't you seen the attempts to demonize the Times and blame it for the scandal. Or should I say "scandal". If op-ed columns blaming hippies and saying the Pope shouldn't resign are coming from the Times then how is it an effective demonization tool? It isn't. Shape up.

So there, I hope that helped out with the Catholic Church's efforts to blame everyone else. I hope that these tips and messaging strategies will provide useful when attempting to pretend that credible stories, abuse allegations, evidence, and paper trails leading to the Pope don't mean anything. But I want you to remember the keys to this strategy: don't ever admit you did anything wrong (infallibility), don't ever apologize, don't ever attempt to punish or give a stern talking to any accused priests, don't ever appear to have a shred of human compassion, ethics, morality, or empathy, above all think of yourselves, and protect the Pope at all costs to your credibility and religion.

You stick to that plan and soon you'll have completely eradicated Christianity from the earth. That is your goal, right? If it isn't I'm going to have to change my advice.

Video of the day

Children acting out a school play. That play being the end of Brian DePalma's 1983 film Scarface.

This man needs to drink more

Vice President Biden: "This is a big fucking deal."

President Obama: "No fucking shit, Joe. No motherfucking shit."

Things that are both surprising and unsurprising

From Avert's comprehensive country-by-country (and US state-by-state) listing of the age of consent laws and anti-gay laws.

Vatican State: 12 years old

There are also no known laws or ages of consent for man on man sex or woman on woman sex.

The jokes kind of write themselves.

Is our children learning?

For 49 out of 50 states, the answer to the question posed above is "Yes... at least by shoddy American standards." The soon to be exception to that rule? Utah. Maybe we were too harsh to call them out for their blinkered state legislature backed climate change denialism. It seems that education isn't their strong suit.

The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade. The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican’s assessment that many seniors frittered away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters, including in his hometown of West Jordan.
...
During a hearing of the state’s Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee earlier this month, Buttars suggested that funding 12th grade amounts to “spending a whole lot of money for a whole bunch of kids who aren’t getting anything out of that grade.” The state senator also has also suggested ending “all busing for high school students,” which would disadvantage poor students and only save a paltry $15 million.

Something that dumbs down education tacked on with a semi-racist/classist measure to cut costs because your retrograde Republican policies can't function with raising taxes or scaling back the tax cuts to the rich you've handed out to cover a nearly billion dollar budget shortfall? You knew Utah, or possibly Texas, was going to blaze that trail first.

Frankly they're just responding to the realities of our financial apocalypse. Who needs education when there aren't any jobs? Furthermore nearly everyone in Utah derives an income from one of those "Isn't it precious how we have 14 kids" reality shows, so doesn't really need an education, skill set, or pliable trade.

I know what you're saying, "Matt, don't Mormons believe that if you record them for television, the camera steals their soul? How can they all have TV deals?" Well you can't steal their soul if they're wearing special underpants that deflect the heathen voodoo rays. Plus 14 kids is a lot, a man has to be willing to put his soul at hazard to care for the fruits of his loins.

So, apologies to Utah. We didn't mean to make fun. We didn't realize you were one of the "special' states. Enjoy your eleven grades. It's all going to be fire, spears, and animal skinned barbarians heaving rocks at each other pretty soon. Who needs AP Physics or English 7/8?

Message

Via Coffee Ghost comes this look at how previous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policies benefited humanity.

That's why it's nice to see the Obama Administration and the military finally moving on trying to get this repealed. And despite the overwhelming and increasing popularity of the idea (even in the military), the same hypocrites and troglodytes and fearmongers come out of the woodwork to warn how this will crack the planet in half, legalize armed pedophilia, and make the military susceptible to defeat from a sufficiently armed boy scout troop.

So with the support of the President, the Defense Department, the military, and a general population that doesn't see supporting bigotry or a tacit acceptance of bigotry as aspiring to American ideals, hopefully this can get past Congress in a reasonably sufficient amount of time. By which I mean sometime before the sun burns out. But hey, at least they're finally moving on it. I don't think we're in danger of any more Turing type situations, as I think we've advance a tiny bit since then, but hopefully we could at least avoid firing all those arab linguists that it would probably be smart to have in all those public and secret Middle Eastern wars we start.

Warning

As part of the These Bastards Child Protective Services we would just like to pass on a warning to those of our readers from Indianapolis or New Orleans who are headed to Miami to partake in the festivities surrounding Super Bowl XLIV. If you have a child and a British man comes sliding up to the little angel on his knees from a great distance while windmilling a guitar: take caution. This man is a danger! There may or may not be a mop headed man wailing in the background.


No, seriously.

Protect Our Children, a non-profit community watchdog group based in Brevard County, is mailing thousands of postcards out in Miami Gardens and the areas surrounding Sun Life Stadium.

Townshend and his group, The Who, are slated to perform during halftime at Super Bowl XLIV on Feb. 7, and Protect Our Children has spent the past couple months trying to stop him from taking the stage.

If you really want to protect your children, don't play them the albums Face Dances, It's Hard, and Endless Wire after they've heard Tommy, Live at Leeds, and Who's Next. Strike that, it's OK to play them Eminence Front off of It's Hard.

Be forewarned, Townshend may be elderly and still able to shatter eardrums with a well placed windmill on Won't Get Fooled Again.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.20

Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals
Worried that not enough of your food was either made of corn or sweetened to the point of tooth pain with high fructose corn syrup? Well, what would you say to those things if they were made with genetically modified corn that also caused your liver and kidneys to shut down? You probably wouldn't want to eat them, right? Too late, they're already on the market, having been deemed by Monsanto to be safe after a 90 day study. Ah well, everyone in this country is either going to die of obesity or a recession related alcohol problem. Why not have dangerous mutant corn help speed us on our way into Jesus' loving embrace?

An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
Since Sean and I are both the proprietors of These Bastards, the web's number one parenting and child rearing blog, we have a duty to speak out to all you moms and dads out there who look to us for advice on vaccinating their child. DO IT!!! What the fuck, are you fucking insane or something? What's wrong with you?! Yes, of course vaccinate your little snot nosed brat. If not for its sake than for the sake of everyone else's child or, more importantly, for my sake. I'm not catching air herpes just because you think Jenny McCarthy is a credible medical source. Scientific studies are showing just how dangerous it is when people don't get vaccinated. You remember science, right? It's what we listen to in the 21st fucking century. Vaccinate your little puke before everyone dies of the mumps or the goddamn ass spewing plague.

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes
Pop quiz. When you've got Mommar al Raghead in the sites of your sweet ass fucking sniper rifle and you're about to plunge a hollow point into his jugular at such force that it'll cause his head to pop off his shoulders like a goddamn NASA space launch, do you prefer your rifle scope is inscribed with a reference to Corinthians 4:6, John 8:12, something from Matthew, or Revelations? Which one do you think personifies the faith you live by while shooting the shit out of America's enemies? Which one would Jesus put on his sniper scope? You don't have to come up with an answer now, I'll let you think it over.

US Military BitTorrent Users Targeted By MPAA/RIAA
Just a word of warning to our soldiers overseas: if you think that just because you're fighting in a warzone you can download the new Vampire Weekend album or the Hurt Locker from a torrent site, well think again motherfucker. The MPAA and RIAA will be on your ass with a lawsuit so fucking fast it'll make you wish the insurgents would stop attacking you long enough for you to deal with this petty, tin eared, shortsighted legal bullshit. If you want to watch a movie, you go to the goddamn Kandahar Blockbuster and you rent in on the level, Mr. Army Guy. Freedom to steal movies isn't one of the freedoms you're fighting for. They MPAA and RIAA will see you in the courtroom, you fucking amoral, shiftless crooks. That'll teach you to serve in a godforsaken desert hellhole.

Help Wanted
Pop quiz 2. If you had to guess the number of Obama Administration appointees still languishing in the Senate confirmation process after one full year because of Republican holds, delays, and filibusters, what would your guess be? Did you guess 177? Because that's what it is. 177 positions, from TSA head to head of the Office of Legal Counsel to the director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to any number of officials that run agencies responsible for security, foreign policy, diplomatic, and defense are unfilled because of petty Senate bullshit. That's over a 100 more unfilled positions than at the end of Dubya's first year. Just in case you needed a reminder: we are governed by adults. I'm sure this situation will improve dramatically now that Republicans have 41 Senators, right Massachusetts?

Quote of the day

Say anything for a buck, corporate owned, no real beliefs of his own, political hack/carpetbagger Harold Ford Jr. has decided that what New York needs is a Democratic Senator that is not only completely embarrassing, is the Democratic equivalent to Sarah Palin, but also tries to out-Lieberman Joe Lieberman. It doesn't sound like a great campaign strategy to me, but what do I know? I'm probably going to have to choose between Arlen Specter or Pat Toomey in November.

In between declaring how he's a real New Yorker because his helicopter once touched down in Staten Island thus technically qualifying him as having visited all five boroughs, flip flopping on gay marriage, opposing health care, backing large salaries for bankers while not understanding capitalism as a principle, and generally making people question what the hell he is doing and what the hell he is thinking, he dropped this little nugget in an almost 'too bizarre to believe it was anything other than a parody' NY Times interview:

Q. Guns. Let’s talk about this issue.

A: I never got an A rating, like my opponent — would-be opponent — has enjoyed. I don’t own them. I do shoot them, and I shoot them at things that can’t shoot back. And will continue to do that. And by that, I want to be clear, I don’t mean children.

Well, thanks for clearing that up. But I think you might want to soften that stance a little bit. It's New York and the kids there definitely do shoot back.

Still, it's a hell of a political slogan.

Ford '10! Let's be clear: I do not shoot children.

Beats the shit out of 'Hope' or 'Change'.

Pick one

Author Maurice Sendak during a press junket for Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, commenting on the particularly American tendency to get the vapors when filmmakers don't "think of the children" and allow them to view scary monsters in a movie about scary monsters:

What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?
Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate.

Because kids can handle it?
Sendak: If they can't handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it's not a question that can be answered.

Why is that important in art?
Sendak: Because it's truth. You don't want to do something that's all terrifying. I saw the most horrendous movies that were unfit for child's eyes. So what? I managed to survive.

Choices, choices, choices. But really, asking adults to know their kids, asking adults to explain things to their kids, or just plain trusting kids to be able to process what's going on? What country does he think this movie is opening in?

Cheap health care scaremongering of the day

Minnesota's shame, Michelle Bachmann, decided to repeat some stuff she hallucinated this morning after she started up her car, forgot to open the garage door, and sat in the driver's seat for a good 45 minutes or so:

"The bill goes on to say what's going to go on -- comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser."

Well yeah, if me and Roman Polanski have our way that will be the law. But unfortunately those assholes in Washington haven't written anything like that into any health care bill. It's a complete fabrication. In fact Pulitzer Prize winning non-partisan fact check site Politifact broke out it's rarely used "Pants on Fire" Lie-o-Meter graphic.

Really Minnesota, how much longer are you going to make us put up with her? Her repeated re-elections are beginning to look like an aggressive act of hostility towards the other 49 states.

Broken In Brief: Polanski shocked Los Angeles DA doesn’t remember how good Chinatown was

ZURICH—Today lawyers for Roman Polanski, the embattled Oscar winning auteur who fled the United States 31 years ago after raping a 13 year-old girl, took to the media to express the director’s confusion over his recent arrest and planned extradition back to America. According to his legal team Polanski seemed most confused over the fact that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, which filed the detainment request with Swiss authorities, could be so unfamiliar with just how good the director’s 1974 masterpiece Chinatown was.

“Mr. Polanski is finding it a little hard to believe that Los Angeles law enforcement could be so unfamiliar with a heralded film about crime and intrigue in Los Angeles,” said Robert Mikkleson, head lawyer for Polanski. “In fact he’s beginning to suspect that they have heard of it, know how good it is, and still have chosen to drag up this little matter of my client being on the run from justice for three decades. May I also remind them that he directed Rosemary’s Baby as well as Knife in the Water, both of which were extraordinary films.”

Polanski’s lawyers were quick to point out that their client had already suffered enough, having been forced to live on his many estates in Europe while living the life of a multi-millionaire director, and being shamefully forced to have his Academy Awards shipped to his French villa because he was unable to show up to accept them.

Furthermore they feel that Polanski can’t be expected to go back and face a cruel and capricious California justice system that, while good enough to investigate, capture, prosecute, and imprison the Manson Family that murdered his wife, was not fit to judge him for the rape of a 13 year old that he had admitted to.

“All we’re saying is that he got a best director Oscar in 2002 for the Pianist,” said Mikkleson. “He still might have another one of those left in him. Do we really want to risk that with prison time?”

Witchcraft

ThinkProgress hits us with another except from former speechwriter Matt Latimer's book on the White House, which may or may not be titled I'm Not Shitting You: This Is Really What Was Going On For Eight Years. This go around he looks into the practice of awarding Presidential Medals of Freedom. You know, the award that was designed back in 1945 by Truman in order to award those who had toadied longest and hardest for his most unpopular policies and make it look like some level of success had been achieved. At least that's what I think it was for. Anyway, this bit is about why Harry Potter author JK Rowling didn't get one.

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.

This in addition to the fact that she had ladyparts, she's a foreigner, and Dick Cheney felt her novels unfairly slandered snake faced, demonic warlocks. That's right, in an office populated with hundreds of adults, the question over whether to award an intensely politicized award hinged on a serious discussion about witchcraft. And the person they were debating over wasn't Aleister Crowley. It's a shame that waterboarding, rendition, or illegal wiretaps didn't involve mystical incantations, lightning scars, or wands, otherwise we might have been able to avoid that whole bit of unpleasantness.

National Organization for Marriage...Mark II

The National Organization for Marriage is back. This time they aren't going to scare us with ominous storm clouds and doctors who are afraid they won't be able to deny treatment to the gays, this time the threat is to our nation of perpetually confused children. The horror. They will be taught a new way of thinking. Or just be taught to think. I'm not sure which the NOfM thinks is worse.

And really "Anna and Eve"? Please, we all know the pairing that you're supposed to yell out is "Adam and Steve". I'm just glad we can finally start outlawing things that are confusing to children. Like fractions, physics, clouds, the later works of Kierkegaard, the infield fly rule, why mommy and daddy don't love each other any more, how God can let bad things happen to good people, and the underlying mythology of Lost. Confused children is the new terrorism. We must fight it with every fiber of our being.