The magic dog ...

Talk about a horrible travesty of justice ... via BalloonJuice:

Canine Justice by John Cole

This sounds like something out of a bad movie, but apparently a load of people in Florida were convicted of crimes and jailed for years on end based on the supernatural powers of a dog and its handler. You know where this is going, don’t you? It was a load of nonsense, and now many of the men are being released three decades later after DNA tests clear them.

You have got to read this.

Lying for laughs

You can't believe everything you read. But you can have fun at the expense of those gullible idiots who do:

I was amazed at how easily conservatives were willing to accept and repeat lies about spending in the stimulus package, even after those provisions had been debunked as fabrications. The $30 million for the salt marsh mouse is a perfect example ...

To test the limits of this phenomenon, I started a parody Twitter account last Thursday, which I called "InTheStimulus", where all the tweets took the format "InTheStimulus is $x million for ______"... I was able to get 500 followers in less than a day, and 1000 by Sunday morning.

You can read through all the retweets and responses by looking at the Twitter search for "InTheStimulus".

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Fearmongers Among Us

Haven't you heard?
Obama is going to take away your guns!
Apparently, that's the big fear for a lot of people in this country who have limited cognitive abilities. And the fear is being exploited by people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
DevilsTower at DailyKos has a great post that notes "to be a successful fearmonger ... you need people who are easily scared" and there are a lot of them buying guns and ammo right now:

"People are buying guns to protect themselves. Because the government is bailing out banks? Wait, that doesn't make sense. People are buying guns because someone
-- certainly not the president -- is talking about taking over oil companies.

And having a gun at your house helps with that... how? Hmm. Let's go on. People are buying guns because the government is going socialist and giving things to people without jobs who aren't working hard enough and if criminals know you're unarmed, they'll get you.

Oh! You're buying guns because you believe that President Obama is going to take away your stuff and give it to shiftless Negroes. Well hells bells, Billy Bob, why didn't you just say so?

You know, the NRA, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and all their kind can spread fear, but only if they have a ready supply of the kind of ammo they all fire: people stupid enough to believe them and cowardly enough to jump when they shout 'boo.'

Hoarding weapons because the outcome of an election didn't go your way doesn't make you tough. It only proves that your belief in America is no bigger than a gnat's ass. That your faith in democracy is as transient as a mud puddle on a hot day. That your love for country goes about as far as you could throw your lifetime supply of AK-47 ammo.

NPR: How's business today?
DURY (gun dealer): Today's an average post-Obama day.

You know, it's just another post-Obama day for me, too. Another day when the will of the American people gets done by duly elected representatives. A day when we try to clean up the mess created during the eight years while the wingnuts took off their camo and picked up pom-poms.

You guys with the cleaning out the shelves of ammo? Better stay home and guard that collection of Father Coughlin commemorative plates. Mean old Obama will be sending in the urban hordes any day now. Any day. Any... hey, what's that over there?

Boo!

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