No evidence of mermaids, says US government

Yes, really. 

The National Ocean Service made the unusual declaration in response to public inquiries following a TV show on the mythical creatures.

It is thought some viewers may have mistaken the programme for a documentary.

“No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found,” the service wrote in an online post. 

Texas state senator's office firebombed

cognitivedissonance:

“Pro-life, these people aren’t pro-life, they’re killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they’ll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?” — George Carlin

Or, apparently, a female Texas State Senator who fought against the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Luckily, no one was killed, but this is horrifying. From Fox 4 News:

The Fort Worth Fire Department is investigating an arson attack at State Sen. Wendy Davis’ legislative office.

Fire officials said just after 4 p.m. on Tuesday someone threw two Molotov cocktails into the third-floor office on West 7th Street. Two of Davis’ staff members were there at the time. They used a fire extinguisher to put out the waist-high flames. No one was hurt.

According to UPI:

Davis, a Democrat, played a high-profile role last week in arguing against plans by Texas state officials to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, saying such a move could deprive 130,000 Texas women of healthcare services including cancer screening and contraception.

This is not fucking funny. This past August, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas was firebombed. The McKinney, Texas clinic is less than one hour from Fort Worth. In January of this year, Donny Mower received five years in prison for firebombing a California Planned Parenthood Clinic and vandalizing a mosque in late 2010.

From Texas Right to Life:

Click on a dot, get all the info about the clinic, or “abortion mills” as they call them. The McKinney Clinic is still listed as open.

Texas Right to Life on Sen. Davis:

While the Pro-Life super majority has been a blessing, there were a select few who would stop at nothing to squelch the advances for Life. Most notably, Representative Jessica Farrar and Senator Wendy Davis were determined to stop all Pro-Life efforts.

Writer Robert Gieb at Catholic Lane calls Sen. Davis “a political handmaiden of the abortion industry which makes millions of dollars from killing weak and vulnerable human beings.” Gieb also writes:

“The state senator who represents the district in which I reside, Wendy Davis, is a most fervent supporter of killing the innocent unborn, and has been well compensated by the abortion industry, having received thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the pro abortion group called Annie’s List, and both money and substantial in kind political advertising and telephone work from Planned Parenthood.”

When in the hell are we going to call these firebombings terrorism? When are we going to examine the heated rhetoric involved in calling a state senator a child murderer?

The entrance to the McKinney PP Clinic:

Sen. Davis’ door:

This is domestic terrorism. Period. It’s often religiously motivated. Bet you won’t hear Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney condemn it on the campaign trail — it’s just a feeling I have.

Sen. Davis’ staffers are very fortunate, and I hope the arsonist — the attempted murderer of innocent, already-born people — is brought to justice swiftly.

Pro-life my fucking asshole. 

I don’t care what the liberals say, I don’t care what the naysayers say, this nation was founded as a Christian nation. …There’s only one God, and his name is Jesus. I’m tired of people telling me that I can’t say those words. I’m tired of people telling us as Christians that we can’t voice our beliefs or we can no longer pray in public. Listen to me. If you don’t love America, if you don’t like the way we do things I have one thing to say — get out!

…We don’t worship Buddha! I said we don’t worship Buddha, we don’t worship Muhammad, we don’t worship Allah, we worship God, we worship God’s son Jesus Christ.

The Reverend DENNIS TERRY, in remarks delivered at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum at the Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in Louisiana yesterday.

Rick Santorum stood up and applauded these remarks, along with those from the Reverend denouncing homosexuality and abortion.

Because if you aren’t like Rick Santorum, then he doesn’t give a fuck about you.

(via the New York Times)

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck


THE NEW YORKER: "Woman-beating rage-broccoli Chris Brown lip-synced his single “Turn Up the Music” (without being threatened by Sir Elton John) and danced roughly as well as a third-rate Chicago footwork dancer. He ended his performance by back-flipping off the stage, though sadly not off the earth. He returned to the stage one or two or maybe eighteen times. It was one of the Grammys’ weirdest choices ever, since the person who almost unanimously invigorated R&B in a variety of ways last year was Drake, but his album came out after the September 30, 2011, cutoff point. So we got Chris Brown."

If Chris Christie is going to veto the New Jersey Legislature’s bill approving marriage equality in the state, he should issue that veto not behind the walls of his office in Trenton, but in a room full of the very men, women and children whose happiness and love for one another he is going to unilaterally dismiss and diminish with a rubber fucking stamp. Since this fuck is all about holding himself accountable, this should be of no problem to him.

jtotheizzoe: Valentine’s Day Climate Denial Bombshell In documents leaked yesterday, The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded at various times by the Koch family, ExxonMobil and and R.J. Reynolds, detailed plans to create a K-12 curriculum designed to dissuade teachers from teaching science in order to support climate change denial. A key passage: We are pursuing a proposal…to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools…[this] effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. A coal industry consultant named David Wojick (who has a Ph.D. in something called “Philosophy of Science”) was to be paid $100,000 to design these classroom materials. Heartland also targeted publications like Forbes as new mouthpieces, since “Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.” The documents were released by an anonymous leak, and have thus far been verified by budget comparisons, tax documents and metadata in the documents that were released. Ironically, Heartland was one of the cheerleaders for the manufactured email-leak controversy known as “ClimateGate” in 2009-2010. This is some of the most damning proof I’ve ever seen of the depth of organization, money and conspiracy that goes into today’s science denialism movement.  Rundown of good coverage: DeSmogBlog has released the full documents and has more background Bad Astronomy for comparisons with ClimateGate Shawn Otto details the denialist machine at HuffPo Science Chris Mooney at Science Progress’ Intersection blog
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jtotheizzoe:

Valentine’s Day Climate Denial Bombshell

In documents leaked yesterday, The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded at various times by the Koch family, ExxonMobil and and R.J. Reynolds, detailed plans to create a K-12 curriculum designed to dissuade teachers from teaching science in order to support climate change denial.

A key passage:

We are pursuing a proposal…to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12 schools…[this] effort will focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science.

A coal industry consultant named David Wojick (who has a Ph.D. in something called “Philosophy of Science”) was to be paid $100,000 to design these classroom materials. Heartland also targeted publications like Forbes as new mouthpieces, since

“Efforts at places such as Forbes are especially important now that they have begun to allow high-profile climate scientists (such as [Peter] Gleick) to post warmist science essays that counter our own. This influential audience has usually been reliably anti-climate and it is important to keep opposing voices out.”

The documents were released by an anonymous leak, and have thus far been verified by budget comparisons, tax documents and metadata in the documents that were released. Ironically, Heartland was one of the cheerleaders for the manufactured email-leak controversy known as “ClimateGate” in 2009-2010.

This is some of the most damning proof I’ve ever seen of the depth of organization, money and conspiracy that goes into today’s science denialism movement. 

Rundown of good coverage:

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