The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Conservative commentator James Taranto has come under fire for a op-ed he recently posted in The Wall Street Journal , entitled, "Drunkenness and Double Standards - A balanced look at college sex offenses." Taranto spends a decent amount of his time cherry-picking cases where men were wrongly accused of rape, before appearing to insinuate that intoxicated female rape victims are just as much to blame for the event as the male rapists. The common denominator for him is alcohol, which he believes is the main reason for this alleged double standard with regard to sexual assault in our country. In the article, Taranto writes the following: "Winerip notes that between 2005 and 2010, 'more than 60 percent of claims involving sexual violence handled by United Educators'--an insurance company owned by member schools--"involved young women who were so drunk they had no clear memory of the assault.' We know from Sgt. Cournoyer that the accused men typically ...

Another day and another dumb gay-marriage remark made by a die-hard conservative - this time by none other than Lehigh County (Pennsylvania) Commissioner Tom Creighton, who said the following: "The state has a ban on same-sex marriage, so why should the county be offering benefits for same-sex marriage? I don't feel the county should be looking for new ways to give away taxpayer money. Next it could be giving money out to people's pets or whatever. No, it probably won't go that far." Yes, Mr. Creighton just compared same-sex couples getting benefits via the taxpayers to pets receiving benefits. Yes, gay couples receiving equal benefits as straight couples is the same thing as a 65-year old's pet goldfish receiving such benefits. Excuse me for a moment while I attempt to unroll my eyes, which hadn't been rolled up so high since I auditioned for Linda Blair's part in The Exorcist . What is it with Republicans comparing gay marriage to animals? ...

This morning, I had the pleasure ::tries not to laugh:: of seeing a post on Facebook with a picture which said, "Obama lecturing us on gun rights is like getting parenting tips from Casey Anthony." I had to read this over several times and I imagine the look on my face was reminiscent of a person who just woke up at 6 am with a hangover, and is not exactly sure where they are. I suppose if we want to look at the comparison from a very vague, simplistic manner, then I suppose one could make the argument that since Casey Anthony was an awful parent, the post is merely trying to suggest that President Obama is an awful lecturer on gun rights. That's the only halfway feasible explanation I can come up with, however. Casey Anthony and her boyfriend appeared to be very careless with their daughter, which factored in to the child's death. They then allegedly attempted to cover up the girl's death out of sheer panic when they discovered she had indeed died. So no, i...

The entertainingly absurd right-wing comments pertaining to guns never seems to end. The most recent? Incoming Texas State Representative Kyle Kacal said the following: "I've heard of people being killed playing ping-pong - ping-pongs are more dangerous than guns. Flat-screen TVs are injuring more kids today than anything." That's right, ladies and gentlemen. It's not people with guns we need to worry about. It's people with "ping-pongs" we need to worry about. It's falling television sets we need to worry about. In 2011, over 19,000 were killed via gun and 29 people were killed by way of falling televisions in this country. 19,000? 29? A 655 : 1 ratio? Yeah, that's the same thing. As a matter of fact, the 1 in the ratio outweighs the 655. It's math - Texas style! I have not seen any reports about ping-pong-related deaths, but in light of Mr. Kacal's comments, the FBI has now placed Forrest Gump atop its Most Wanted List http://...

In an interview with the Washington Post , a top Romney foreign policy adviser - Richard Williamson - said with regard to the attacks in Egypt and Libya: "There's a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, you'd be in a different situation. For the first time since Jimmy Carter, we've had an American ambassador assassinated." Really? This is once again pretty low. We didn't hear then Democratic Presidential candidate, John Kerry, declare to the nation during his battle against Republican incumbent George W. Bush in the run-up to the 2004 election that if he had been elected president in 2000, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. I'm amazed by all the desperate moves the Romney team has made over this past week. Williamson's claim is merely speculatory, unprovable and through that, ridiculous. While he's at it, he should make a list of all the other things which may have happened if Mitt Romney had been the president at that point...