Quick Hitts

Some British deaf groups are demanding the “right” to create deaf embryos.

Ballard, …said: “Most parents would choose to have a hearing embryo, but for those few parents who do not, we think they should be allowed to exercise that choice and we would support them in that decision.

“There are a number of deaf forums where there are discussions about this. There are a small minority of activists who say that there is a cultural identity in being born deaf and that we should not destroy that cultural identity by preventing children from being born deaf.”

Words don’t fail me very often, but I’m finding it difficult to come up with a pithy comment on just how creepy and disgusting this is.

The mass media has been ignoring Ron Paul until recently.

He set a record for raising the most money in one day – nearly five million dollars – in an internet campaign that wasn’t even officially connected to his political campaign. If any of the other candidates had done that, it would have been front page news. Some of the media reported on it, buried on the inside pages, but most ignored it completely.

Then he broke his own record – raising over six million dollars, again in one day, and again mostly from individuals making relatively small donations. Again, the story was mostly ignored by the media.

But they can’t keep ignoring him, so now they’re concentrating on smearing him. The lefty media (i.e. most media) hates him because views the government as the problem, while they think government is the solution, and because he believes in individual freedom and has the voting record to prove it. The right hates him because he hates corporate welfare, including government laws that give big business tremendous advantages over their competition, and also because he believes in individual freedom and has the voting record to prove it.

On a recent interview he was asked about the Civil War. He responded that killing 600,000 Americans wasn’t the best way to resolve the issue. One alternative, he suggested, would have been for the north to buy the slaves, then free them. A very popular lefty blog (which doesn’t deserve a link) said he suggested the north buy the slaves – and left off the rest of his statement. Why are they so desperately dishonest?

On the right, Fox has been smearing him at every opportunity. We reported how they “forgot” to include him on polls. Their news analysis programs go out of their way to paint him as a loony. And now they’re leaving him out of the upcoming Republican debate they’re concocting. He’s raised more money than any other candidate, proving his popularity, but they’re squeezing him out, making the debate a complete sham. Instead of Ron putting other candidates’ feet to the fire and making the debate a wild, interesting show, it will consist of six ho-hum candidates expressing minor disagreements. I would suggest a drinking game where everyone does a shot when Rudy mentions 9/11, but I’m afraid it would lead to severe alcohol poisoning.

If you’d like to try goading Fox into growing a pair, Downsize DC has made it easy.

Some of my fellow Ron Paul supporters are upset with this chicanery, cowardice, and out right lying, but not me. Ron still doesn’t have the visibility he needs/deserves, and these weasels are giving it to him as dishonestly as they can. Every time they do, it provides his supporters another chance to talk about who he really is and what he really stands for. And as the lies and smears pile up, it will become undeniably obvious that both the left and right are deeply afraid of this man. For any thinking person, that alone makes him worth serious consideration.

No matter what the problem is, sooner or later someone will Blame The Jews. In yet another example why it’s so difficult to write satire in this world, a group calling themselves “Green Hanukkah” is calling on Jews to combat global warming by lighting one less Hanukkah candle. Each unburned candle will save a whopping fifteen grams of CO2.

The founder of “Green Hanukkah” says, “”the campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle.”

Over the yeas I’ve heard several Jewish friends admit that Hanukkah is so dull they usually make it to the forth or fifth day before they say “screw it” and stop bothering with the ritual. Little did they know they were saving the world.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to write satire in this increasingly bizarre world. As an example, how can you possibly make this headline any funnier:

 Catholic coloring book warns US kids of pedophile priests

At least, someone on Fark noted, it’s not a pop-up book.

Raise a glass to Clifford E. Clark, who took out a traffic light camera with three rounds from a .30-06. Clark was fined $50.

$50? That’s quite a bargain. Where do I sign up?

You may already be following the story of Gillian Gibbons, the school teacher who asked her class of seven year olds to name the class teddy bear. They picked the name Mohamed. She was promptly arrested, thrown in jail, and told that she could get 40 lashes for such a heinous crime.

She was trying to teach the kids about animals and their habitats. Instead, she showed the world about animals and their religion.

She was found guilty of insulting religion and sentenced to 15 days, without a beating, and that’s where most news coverage ends. But there’s more to the story – a thousand Muslims, with hate in their eyes and swords in their hands, protested, demanding that she be executed. Over a teddy bear.

And yet, we are told, Islam is a religion of peace.

Meanwhile, we haven’t heard much about the Saudi woman who was raped by seven men and sentenced to 90 lashes for being out with a male who wasn’t related. When she complained about it publicly her sentence was raised to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

She should have just run away. Then she’d only be getting 60 lashes to go with her six months.

And still we are told that Islam is a religion of peace that highly respects women. So respectful that they’ve published a guide that shows the proper way to beat your women.

Why do so many of them despise women? Because those evil women distract men from their prayers. A spiritual leader in Malaysia says men are “abused” by seeing them. “We always [hear about] the abuse of children and wives in households, which is easily perceived by the eye, but the emotional abuse of men cannot be seen,” Nik Abdul Aziz said. “Our prayers become unfocused and our sleep is often disturbed.”

If their faith is so fragile it can be damaged by a glimpse of a woman wearing something sexy, we may have a new, cheap weapon in the war on terror.

Victoria’s Secret will send free soft core porn to anyone requesting it. Let’s have them print up a few hundred million extra copies every month and air drop them over Muslim countries and communities. Over time Muslim males will collect a secret stash to enjoy over and over. It will take a while, but maybe, just maybe, it will cure them of their insanity.

(Thanks to Dr. Atlantis at the Skepticality forum for the picture.)

If you live in Boston and think your kid might have an illegal gun stashed in his room, don’t go looking for it yourself. No, that would be too much trouble, especially when Officer Friendly is volunteering to conduct the search for you.

The Boston Globe reports, “in the next two weeks, Boston police officers who are assigned to schools will begin going to homes where they believe teenagers might have guns. The officers will travel in groups of three, dress in plainclothes to avoid attracting negative attention, and ask the teenager’s parent or legal guardian for permission to search. If the parents say no, police said, the officers will leave.”

They say they’ll only confiscate the guns and won’t press charges. Unless they were used in a shooting, of course. And if they find any drugs, they’ll confiscate those too, without pressing charges. Although they might. They’ve received lessons in discretion, so parents can trust that the friendly officer will make the right decision.

A better way to invade bedroom privacy is being tested by The Huston Police department. They were caught conducting secret tests of an unmanned spy plane. They refuse to specify what they’re going to use it for, only saying they aren’t ruling anything out. They say they’ll tackle privacy and illegal search issues “later.” Check out the video from local news station KPRC.