Science project

Teratogenic Effects Of Pure Evil in Ursus Teddius Domesticus.

Thanx to theweaselking

Defensive

Amanda Marcotte has a typically enjoyable post about culture war and how redneck-Americans distrust Willard Romney for more reasons than his fealty to the Scarlet Whore of Salt Lake City. In it she says, "You just get the impression that Gingrich or Santorum enjoys needling someone who orders the vegetarian entrée." I guess there are people like that, and I wonder if it's like sex: Latent vegans desperately "joking" about what they most fear in themselves, while those of us who are secure in our carnivory don't have to.

Thanx to Pandagon.

selective

One other point on this story: I really wish marijuana legalization groups would drop the “instead of banning pot, why don’t we ban this terrible thing” line of argument. Or if they insist on using that line of argument, they should at least stop pretending that their cause is motivated by freedom and individual liberty.

--Radley Balko, in a post about a media panic over energy drinks

Thanx to The Agitator

The sitting duck had it coming to him

There seems little point in ripping Ross Douthat a new asshole when he already has one and is one, but he is setting out to be the George Will of football (Tim Tebow is, as they say, an occasion of sin in that regard), and Charles Pierce does such a good job of it.

ETA: The Onion, as usual, rose to the occasion (Thanx, womzilla, for the pointer.)

Cafeteria

When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, many Americans believed that a Roman Catholic president would be a mindless tool of the Vatican. Kennedy made a great speech refuting* that paranoid delusion. When Rick Santorum said the speech disgusted him. I guessed that he was proud to be a mindless tool of the Vatican, but I was mistaken.

Some Catholic theologians believe that their theology is so perfectly consistent that one cannot accept part without accepting all of it. (So did Ayn Rand, but that's not important now.) Those who committed that error were called "cafeteria Catholics."

Rick Santorum is a cafeteria Catholic. He is wildly enthusiastic about the parts where all are supposed to take orders about sex from old men in dresses who are specifically forbidden from knowing what they are talking about. He is willing to ignore the equally mandatory parts about duties to resist tyranny and help the poor.

Catholicism is a shit sandwich. Rick Santorum wants to throw the bread away.

*Not just denying. That's one of the distinctions the Language Police are right about.

New Color to Hate

Orange-Americans

Thanx to (who else?) orangemike