ESPN might take itself too seriously

A real news flash, I know.

Check out "The Onion."

Walnuts and sex (you're welcome!)

You probably heard about John "Walnuts" McCain's latest gaffe involving his position on health insurance paying for contraceptives (and only tangentially related to Viagra, but the media picked that up and ran with it anyway). Well, here's an interview from last year in which the old bag of bones got thrown off by a question about AIDS. This man CANNOT seriously be running for preznit, right?

Reporter: “Should U.S. taxpayer money go to places like Africa to fund contraception to prevent AIDS?”

Mr. McCain: “Well I think it’s a combination. The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn. He believes – and I was just reading the thing he wrote– that you should do what you can to encourage abstinence where there is going to be sexual activity. Where that doesn’t succeed, than he thinks that we should employ contraceptives as well. But I agree with him that the first priority is on abstinence. I look to people like Dr. Coburn. I’m not very wise on it.”

(Mr. McCain turns to take a question on Iraq, but a moment later looks back to the reporter who asked him about AIDS.)

Mr. McCain: “I haven’t thought about it. Before I give you an answer, let me think about. Let me think about it a little bit because I never got a question about it before. I don’t know if I would use taxpayers’ money for it.”

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Q: “I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?”

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) “Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it.”

Q: “But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?”

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) “Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before.”

The asshole of the South

Di and I travelled to South Carolina twice recently. Once to Charleston (a very fun little city) and once to a state park (where we camped and went to the beach).

Both places were nice enough, and the people in Charleston were pleasant, but the rubes who make up the rest of the state are downright fugly. I should have known this when they spent the entire weekend staring at us like space aliens. (For those who don't know, she's black and I'm a 'Nilla/cracker/Altoid/honky.)

So I wasn't surprised that a campaign to attract gay tourists to South Shithole is being criticized by rightwing fucknuts.

Here's state Republican Sen. David Thomas:

“South Carolina is a wonderful, family friendly destination not a Southern version of San Francisco. This campaign goes against our core values.”

Of course, one of the Wonkette commenters pointed out that South Shithole also regularly produces stories like this one.

Some highlights:

- The victim's name is Tammy. (shocker!)
- The perp's name is Pooh Bear. (He also has two first names and is Tammy's son. Again, none of this should surprise us.)
- The perp supposedly urinated on his mother.
- Tammy then stabbed Pooh Bear six times. (This being S.C., Pooh is lucky he didn't get shot.)
- The following quote was uttered: "Why did you pee on me Pooh Bear? This was met with the reply from Pooh Bear of: "Mama you done stabbed me."
- The police didn't charge Tammy with assault

Google suggests some stereotypes

You've probably encountered Google Suggestions already, even if you don't realize it. It's the feature in the Google toolbar/Firefox search menu that automatically pulls up the most searched terms as soon as you start typing. Hence, if you type in "S," up pops the most common serach terms starting with "S."

So I happened to type in "stereotypical," and before I could complete the phrase, up popped the list of most stereotypical search for stereotypes:

- stereotypical gay
- stereotypical British phrases
- stereotypical Australian names
- stereotypical black foods
- stereotypical chinese song
- stereotypical college student
- stereotypical gay names
- stereotypical working class

Make of this what you will.

Walnuts misses the train

I'm going to keep harping on how out-of-touch, and behind-a-few-steps John "Walnuts" McCain is. Don't get it twisted, the "Maverick" is really just a half-senile old bag of bones without an ounce of forward thinking.

Here's a nice smackdown of his record on Amtrak and rail transit. Walnuts thinks we can engineer emissions-free cars sooner and more efficiently than we can improve transportation options. What planet is he from?

Rat rides on a cat riding on a dog

Yes, that's an actual CNN.com headline. Thankfully, someone has finally created WTF CNN, a blog devoted to screen caps of the site's most inane headlines. I also dig their logo.