Biden's debate prep
This mock slideshow (h/t: Brendan Kiley at Slog) of Biden's preparation for tonight's VP debate made me laugh, so I'm sharing it with you.
October 2, 2008
September 26, 2008
good idea, poor execution
Question: What's wrong with this picture? [Answer below]
It's the same meme as this David Horsey cartoon I mentioned in January:
I'd avoid overdrawing the comparison, but it does address the "inexperience" argument rather dramatically.
[Answer: Lincoln was a Representative, not a Senator.]
September 21, 2008
Pastafarians 1, Phelps 0
Pastafarian pirates did some great work countering a protest by the Phelps hatemongers, as described by the Arkansas Times (h/t: Friendly Atheist):
...the cuckoo Phelps hate group walked the plank this morning after a happy bunch dressed like pirates and holding signs saying "God hates shrimp -- Leviticus" and "God hates cotton-polyester blends" stood opposite them... [...]With cars honking and waving at the pirates and a TV crew giving them all the attention, the Phelps group -- with a child in tow, sadly -- picked up their "fag" epithets and went away. Pitiful.
(photo by Brian Chilson)
Oh my FSM, that's the Best. Counter-protest. Ever.
links:
Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church
Pastafarians and the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
September 19, 2008
the world's best pie chart
I've seen far more than my share of information graphics, but this tops them all (h/t: Flowing Data):
Best. Pie chart. Ever.
September 17, 2008
The Dark McCain Returns
Matt Shepherd has posted "The Mavericking Maverick Mavericks More," a series of McCain photos with captions from Frank Miller's classic graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns (h/t: Paul Constant at Slog). It's well worth checking out:
Bravo!
September 11, 2008
a new Maurice Sendak book?
Children's author/illustrator Maurice Sendak came out yesterday, and I was wondering if he plans to revise and reissue some of his classic stories. Perhaps he could begin with this one:
WHERE THE WILDE THINGS ARE
"And now, let the Wilde rumpus start!"
(Oh, who am I kidding? Sendak's publisher would yank that book off the shelves faster than DC recalled the latest issue of All-$t@r Batman...)
September 10, 2008
drill, baby, drill!
David Kravets writes at Wired about the alleged Obama-having-sex-with-Ukranian-girls video, which is laden with malware:
While the video plays for 14 seconds, malicious applications are installed on the victim's computer, researchers reported. Voila, a trojan is installed, an information-stealing application, Websense said, that posts a user's data to a compromised Finnish travel site, hxxp://*snip*-hoel.com/.
Stupidity is its own punishment, and I'm not surprised to see credulous wingnuts--ever-eager to reinforce their prejudices--becoming targets.
September 2, 2008
ignorance-only sex education
The talented Jessica Hagy nails the GOP's head-in-the-sand theory of sex education:
If it works for the Palin family, it should work for everyone...right?
August 30, 2008
believe in this
This website (h/t: Hemant at FriendlyAtheist) creates Obama images with your choice of slogans, so I had to create one:
[The line break and the kerning bothered me so much that I had to fix them in Photoshop.]
August 19, 2008
amen
I mentioned someecards a few weeks ago in this post; here's another of their great images (h/t: Wil Wheaton):
August 18, 2008
new baby shampoo
Here's an important product announcement for overprotective parents:
"We at Johnson & Johnson have been making bath time a safe and soothing experience for far too long," company CEO William C. Weldon said. "Years of pampering have left our newborns helpless, feeble, and ill-equipped for the arduous road ahead." [...]The result of five years of intensive research and market testing, the company's "Nothing But Tears" shampoo contains only the most abrasive of natural ingredients and is nearly impossible to rinse from a baby's screaming face. According to directions printed on the label, the bath-time product is best used with scalding hot water for optimal toughening-up of newborns. [...]
"You'll notice a difference after just one use," said Michelle Baker, head of new product development. "Whether it's your newborn's more hardened appearance, the way he now approaches people with guarded skepticism, or just that look on his face that says, 'Oh wait, maybe life isn't all hugs and kisses and rainbows. Maybe I need to get my fucking act together.'"
(h/t: Andrew Sullivan)
this one's for all you Internet addicts...
(Click here to see the final panel...)
August 16, 2008
"Everywhere we look, the visible spectrum is rainbows...this cannot be natural."
I keep watching this video, looking for signs that it's a parody...it must be seen to be believed (h/t: Amanda at Skepchick):
"We, as a nation, have got to ask ourselves what the hell is going on."
Indeed. What the hell is going on in our schools that someone can be scientifically illiterate enough to believe that a rainbow from a lawn sprinkler is an unnatural phenomenon to be blamed on something "in our water supply" that is "oozing out of our ground."
It's almost as pathetic as believing that rainbows are caused by an invisible sky-daddy to remind himself to never again create an impossible flood that killed everyone except a mythical boat-builder's family and the residents of his impossibly-huge floating zoo:
9:12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
9:14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
9:15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
9:16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
I prefer to think of it this way:
Every time you see a rainbow, god is having gay sex!
August 6, 2008
game on!
The DNC has launched an Exxon-McCain website (h/t: Mike Allen at Politico) in response to McCain's tire-pressure-gauge stunt:
Game on, eh?
It looks to be an interesting three months until Election Day...
July 29, 2008
e-cards
If you enjoy the snark of Demotivators calendars, then check out some-e-cards for their great reinventions of normally-bland e-cards (h/t: Rebecca at SkepChick). Here's a SFW sample:
July 28, 2008
Pikachu always seemed just a little *too* happy...
"Step right up and see the one, the only, the stupendous, Pika-cooch..."
Who thought this was a good idea? (h/t: Bay of Fundie)
July 11, 2008
hope and disappointment
This t-shirt design is wonderful (h/t: Homosecular Gaytheist):
So is the commentary:
Cut the dude some slack for not being Jesus and you'll probably be a lot happier with him. The most inspiring politician in the world is still a politician.There's also the chance that McCain will win... but even the cynical t-shirt copywriter in me doesn't want to contemplate that.
July 1, 2008
no funeral for Carlin
A commenter at FriendlyAtheist mentioned a note on Carlin's website, which I hadn't visited since last week. According to Carlin's wishes, it looks like the Phelps clan won't have anything to picket:
I wish no public service of any kind.I wish no religious service of any kind.
I prefer a private gathering at my home, attended by friends and family members who shall be determined by my immediate surviving family (wife and daughter).
The exact nature of this gathering shall be determined by my immediate surviving family (wife and daughter). It should be extremely informal, they should play rhythm and blues music, and they should laugh a lot. Vague references to spirituality (secular) will be permitted.
anti-marriage "family values"
Over at Jesus' General, patriotboy highlights two GOP senators' hypocrisy (h/t: Towleroad) in co-sponsoring the anti-marriage "Marriage Protection Amendment:"
That's exactly the kind of snark we need...bravo!
June 29, 2008
write in Bush 2008
What's a diehard Bushevik dead-ender to do, with the clock ticking toward noon on 20 January 2009 and the prospect of a not-so-White House as Dear Leader Dubya retires to his "ranch" in Waco? Well, such a person could choose to lament the choice of John McCain as the GOP nominee...or, better yet, write in George W. Bush for president on 4 November (h/t: Jillian at Sadly, No!):
The Q&A page answers the obvious question first:
What about "term limits?"The important thing to understand about so-called "term limits" is that they are man's law, not God's Law. The God who parted the Red Sea is surely not worried about so-called "term limits". When you vote your faith you let Almighty God take care of the details.
Presidential term limits are not in the Bible. And they were not in our Constitution until added by an activist congress in 1951.
I wish them the best of luck in their endeavor! </snicker>
June 23, 2008
shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits
We can thank the late George Carlin not only for his immortal "Seven Dirty Words" (here's the Wikipedia article and a YouTube clip from 1978) but myriad other classics over a long and celebrated career. In 2004, Comedy Central rated Carlin the second-best stand-up comedian ever, behind Richard Pryor and just ahead of Lenny Bruce.
I was fortunate enough to see Carlin live in concert several years ago, not long after his "Complaints and Grievances" CD was released in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. (I would have written this post sooner, but I had to listen to his routine again and transcribe a few bits.) Carlin had this to say about dissent over the invasion of Afghanistan (before Bush gave up hunting bin Laden and went after Saddam Hussein instead):
Here's the way it works: The primate brain says, "Give peace a chance." The mammalian brain says, "Give peace a chance, but first let's kill this motherfucker." And the reptilian brain says, "Let's just kill the motherfucker, go the peace rally, and get laid."
Carlin excoriated parents who plaster their cars with those "My child is an honor student" bumper stickers:
Here's a bumper sticker I'd like to see: "We are the proud parents of a child whose self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn't need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."Or: "We are the proud parents of a child who has resisted his teacher's attempts to break his spirit and bend him to the will of his corporate masters."
Here's something realistic: "We have a daughter in public school who hasn't been knocked up yet."
"We have a son in public school who hasn't shot any of his classmates yet...but he does sell drugs to your honor student. Plus, he knocked up your daughter."
(I don't hear the names "Todd" and "Tucker" in quite the same way any more, either.)
Thanks for all the laughs, George...even Thomas the Tank Engine sucked a little bit less when you did the narration.
June 20, 2008
hope/nope/pope
This triptych made be laugh, but I think Pope Ratzi is superfluous:
The contrast between Obama and McCain is wonderful, and I would *so* buy that as a t-shirt!
June 19, 2008
great t-shirts
Teach the Controversy has some subtly hilarious t-shirts (h/t: Jim Downey at Unscrewing the Inscrutable and PZ Myers at Pharyngula) which parody the anti-science mentality that urges us to "teach the controversy" where none exists. This Satan-burying-fossils-to-deceive-us design is my favorite:
While you're there, check out Amorphia Apparel and Science! as well; there are many more clever designs, such as this one:
June 18, 2008
I'm Voting Republican
Don't worry, I'm only kidding...
"I'm Voting Republican" is the title of the YouTube video below. If you appreciate satire, check it out:
Ben Shapiro has penned a response of sorts, calling the video "insulting nonsense" and "tripe" before providing precisely that from the ClownHall perspective:
"the best strategy in war is defeat""Bin Laden is the only Islamic terrorist in the world"
"I'm voting Democrat because thought isn't one of my strong suits."
June 11, 2008
every time I see this, it cracks me up...
...and then I tell myself, "I should blog that." So now I have:
If you found that as funny as I did, visit Ironic Sans for more.
June 6, 2008
more mockery
Here's the second part of the energy-drink review I mentioned two days ago. Here are some highlights:
FRS can best be described as "liquid fart in a can," although they shouldn't necessarily attempt to market it that way. My one-month old daughter Jaylen regularly produces filthy diapers which smell much better than FRS's so-called "health drink." This unholy attempt at the popular yet obscenely fictional "wild berry" reeks like a used walnut enema kit sitting in a trash bag under the hot tropical sun.This obscene orange produces a stench that reminded me of my drunk uncle's first attempt to make bar-b-que sauce, using only ingredients located in his pickup truck's glove compartment. The drink itself combines the zing of nail polish remover with the deep, rich flavor base of corroded car batteries. The term "energy drink" has never been more true: one sip of this, and you'll be running the fuck away from it as fast as possible.
As for the taste? Two words: sugar free. As you're undoubtedly aware, this means "bad." Somebody wake me up when science discovers a substitute for sugar that doesn't make your brain feel like it's about to detonate.
June 4, 2008
awful drinks, great reviews
This "Awful Energy Drink Review Roundup" at Something Awful is a funny follow-up to their previous reviews here and here. Some highlights are below:
One sip of this disaster made me feel as if the world's worst clown blew a load down my throat. Unfortunately, the flavor of Monster's rancid bile soon shifted from a bouquet of rotten circus peanuts to a decaying cotton candy hell.I think the flavor is supposed to be "orange," but it really just tastes like "sneakers."
...it tastes like Gatorade... if somebody opened up an orange cooler and repeatedly vomited into it after eating a six-pack of expired White Castle cheeseburgers.
Drinking this seriously made me cry out in pain. It's like drinking rotted wood that's been decaying in a mummy's haunted tomb. The after-taste burns through your nasal passage with disgusting speed and intensity, like packing your nose with pure cocaine and then competing in a distance sneezing competition. I absolutely couldn't finish the two ounces I was given.
I was immediately surrounded by a strange chemical cloud which smelled like a trick or treat bag after it had been repeatedly raped by truckers. This noxious odor proceeded to stalk me throughout the day, offending nearby children and religious folks.
The good news: Blue Raspberry actually tastes like something. The bad news: that "something" is an electrified Bomb-Pop, ejaculated from the very loins of Lucifer himself. The confusing news: after drinking a can of this crud, your burps somehow become tomato-flavored. Don't ask me how; that's the miracle of science!
I'm not sure why they chose to label the can as "WILD BERRY FLAVOR," unless their test group has never been exposed to a berry their entire miserable lives.
The drink itself tastes like a watered down, pussy version of Mountain Dew, in nearly the same shade of radioactive celery.
Each can ships fully equipped with a tart, rancid undertone, suggesting the "juice" component had an expiration date three days before Max Headroom was canceled.
You know it's a bad sign when you open a drink and your sinuses fill with moldy orange spores... [...] ACE sports the "generic shitty energy drink" taste of fruity battery acid + Mountain Dew, yet again somehow makes it even more unpalatable.
You can tell you're reading a truly funny review when you're laughing so hard that other people stare at you...
June 3, 2008
genital symbolism
The webcomic Overcompensating has a great cartoon today; here's the first panel:
Click here to read the rest!
June 2, 2008
Wil Wheaton: Dancing Barefoot & Just a Geek
Wheaton, Wil. Dancing Barefoot (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2003)
Wheaton, Wil. Just a Geek: Unflinchingly Honest Tales of the Search for Life, Love, and Fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2004)
Almost everyone knows who Wil Wheaton is, but far fewer know that he is a writer as well as an actor. His blog resides in the must-check-several-times-every-day section of my RSS reader, purely for the pleasure of reading his great posts.
After having read his blog for some time now, I finally got around to picking up his first two books: Dancing Barefoot was Wheaton's first book, containing outtakes from the subsequent Just a Geek. With one exception, I can understand why the tales in Dancing Barefoot were cut from Just a Geek. Although entertaining, the first four of the five stories aren't as strong--or always as well told--as the fifth: "The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants" is easily the best (which is a good thing, as it comprises two-thirds of the book) and is worth the cover price all by itself. (You'll want to read the full Dancing Barefoot version, as the truncated version in Just a Geek leaves out too much.)
Wheaton's fanboy encounter with WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER--you'll have to read the story to fully appreciate the all-caps usage, which sounds in my head just like Shatner's "Denny Crane" self-announcing from Boston Legal--is heartbreaking, but Wheaton recovered well enough to write engagingly about it. Indeed, that's one of his strengths as a writer: to write well enough about Star Trek fandom, or music, or geeking out over meeting Tim O'Reilly (the founder of his publishing house) that the reader doesn't need to be a Trekkie or an alt-rock devotee or a PHP coder to appreciate his tales. Wheaton tells his stories well, and with a great sense of humor; from what I read on his blog, he's become an even better writer since these two books saw print.
Perhaps my favorite aspect of Wheaton's writing is how he handles his interior dialogue. The multiple "voices" in Wheaton's stories illustrate so much of what goes on inside his head, and he does it so well that it seems as effortless as his humor. That is the mark of a great writer. If you are an unrepentant Trekkie, or have an unfulfilled inner geek--or even if you just appreciate well-told stories--you should read some Wil Wheaton. (You can thank me later...)
Now on to the digressions:
I had noticed Wheaton's use of "thank Bob," which I took to be a freethinker's phrase, early in the book (p. 32 of Just a Geek, or this blog entry). This later passage confirmed my hunch:
I am not a religious person. I'm not quite an atheist, but I'm certainly not a theist, either. Friends describe me as an agnostic Taoist, whatever that means. I prefer to apply philosophies, rather than follow a leader, and I'm always coming back to the Tao Te Ching and the teachings of The Buddha. If I had the patience, I suppose I'd be a Buddhist. (p. 85)
When he used the phrase "for the love of Bob" later (p. 235), a wry little smile crossed my face; now there's something else I like about him. Also endearing is Wheaton's geekiness, which never lapses into a geekier-than-thou superiority. This email autoresponse from page 234 is a great example:
From: wil@www.wilwheaton.net Subject: Automated reply from wil@www.wilwheaton.netHey!
Don't you hate autoresponders, $GOOD_FRIEND?
I know that I do, and I would *never* dream of sending an autoresponse to anyone, not $MUTUAL_FRIEND, or $OTHER_MUTUAL_FRIEND, or even, $ENEMY.
You know, $THING_YOU_EMAILED_ABOUT really was ${fVAR=TRUE_FALSE)! It reminded me of $INTERESTING STORY.
Well, I have to get back to ${fVAR WORK_PLAY_SCHEMING}, $GOOD_FRIEND, so I'd better sign off.
$CLEVER_PERSONAL_CLOSING,
Wil
I laughed my ass off when reading that; it was the perfectly cheeky thing to do. </groan>
Wheaton is enough of a geek that he stumped me once, when he asked rhetorically: "I wonder if any of the other actors got it when there'd be a graphic in engineering labeled 'Kaluza-Klein Field.'" (p. 244) I Wikipedia'd "Kaluza-Klein Field" and--when it looked vaguely familiar--began looking through the science section of my home library: Sagan, no...Hawking, no...then I found it discussed in John Gribbin's In Search of the Big Bang: Quantum Physics and Cosmology. (After reading The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters for a class on the philosophy of science, I went on a serious science bender. Gribbin's books played a major part in that, although I haven't picked up Big Bang in--cough, cough--quite a few years...)
By the way, Wil...WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER may have acted like a jerk to you during that first meeting during the filming of Star Trek V because he was distraught over how much SERIOUS ASS his co-written-and-directed-by film was SUCKING. (I would complain that I actually fell asleep while watching Trek V, but that may have been because I watched I-IV back-to-back immediately beforehand. YMMV...)
May 24, 2008
Family Circus
We all know that Bil Keane's Family Circus comic strip is a waste of ink and paper, but these two sites (The Other Family and The Free-Floating Dysfunctional Family Circus) improve his trite hackwork immensely. A big tip of the hat goes to Bay of Fundie for mentioning (here and here) these great parodies...I wish the actual comics pages in the newspaper were this funny!
May 18, 2008
biblical marriage
Every time I visit the Landover Baptist Church website (or their similarly snarky WhiteHouse.org site), I am overcome by envy for their cutting humor. The LBC proposal to amend the Constitution to conform to "BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES REGARDING MARRIAGE" is a delightful parody of Christianist demands (h/t: Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist), and I recommend that everyone read it to see what we're up against when arguing with the "traditional marriage" con men.
Bravo!
May 1, 2008
Methodists reject Bush Library
Thanks in part to the Protect SMU Petition, the United Methodist Church has resolved to "prevent leasing, selling, or otherwise participating in or supporting the presidential library for George W. Bush at Southern Methodist University:"
We should support separation of church and state and if the Bush library goes on the SMU campus or property it will appear to the country and the world as an endorsement of that president by the United Methodist Church.
Maybe Bush's good buddy Prince Abdullah can scare up a replacement site in Saudi Arabia...you know, just as a little favor from one theocratic-minded authoritarian oilman to another.
(White House photo by David Bohrer)
"I don't like all the big words in them books, anyhow...so I'm thinkin' about a theme park instead of a library. Mr. Toad's Extraordinary Rendition Ride can go over here, with the Country Brush-Clearing Jamboree over there. Down this way, we can put the Pecos Bush Café and the Iraqland Shootin' Arcade..."
April 8, 2008
"What?"
The question everyone asks about "Lost" (h/t: New York magazine):
April 6, 2008
too soon?
Charlton Heston has died, and LOLTheist is already asking for submissions. Here's mine:
April 1, 2008
even better...
In the comments on this FriendlyAtheist post (mentioned previously), August Berkshire has suggested that "National God Day" be celebrated on February 30th.
It's a brilliant idea, to which I can only say: Bravo!
retort to the "National Atheists' Day" joke
Friendly Atheist lamented the Christian "joke" that April Fools' Day is really "National Atheists' Day" because atheists are fools, courtesy of--where else?--their Bible:
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." (Psalms 14:1)
The ideal response may be to point out this contradictory Bible passage:
"But whomsoever shall say 'Thou fool' shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5:22)
update (11:25am):
I left the same retort at Ray Comfort's blog to let him know that the joke is on him, and--to his credit--he published my comment. Whether he or his readers will have any substantive response remains to be seen.
March 23, 2008
have a blasphemous Easter
This YouTube video (h/t: Tommy at Exercise in Futility) should satisfy anyone's RDA for Easter blasphemy: it shows the crucifixion from Mel Gibson's Passion, set to the theme music from Benny Hill.
(NSFW, I assume...)
March 21, 2008
expelled from Expelled
PZ Myers wrote last night about being expelled from a showing of Ben Stein's creationist-friendly movie Expelled; it's a great story, with one of the best punchlines ever. Go read it, and be amazed at their ID idiocy. (There were barely 100 comments when I read it last night, and there are now nearly 800...)
His follow-up post here fills in a few more useful details.
March 3, 2008
Star Wars + Saul Bass = funny
Many thanks to Jason Kottke for linking to this YouTube video of the Star Wars movie credits done in the style of Saul Bass. (Saul Bass did some of the most memorable film credits ever, including Anatomy of a Murder, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Psycho.)
Great stuff!
February 22, 2008
did the Earth move for you, too?
(This isn't bleeding-edge news anymore, but--since I keep seeing it crop up elsewhere--I thought it deserved a comment.) In reference to last Friday's earthquake in Israel, Knesset member Shlomo Benizri commented:
"the Gemara refers to earthquakes as disasters, but you are searching only for the practical solutions how to prevent and repair. But I no [sic] of another way to prevent earthquakes; the Gemara mentions a number of causes of earthquakes, one of which is homosexuality..." [emphasis added]
(For all the gentiles in the audience, the Gemara is part of the Talmud.) I don't have much to say about this sort of lunacy, except to mock it: Israelis must be quite remarkable in bed if their lovemaking can shift tectonic plates (Did the Earth move for you, too?), but the 19-second duration may leave their partners unsatisfied. The geologically-inclined may be aware of the following information about the cause of Israeli earthquakes, unless they were homeschooled by scientifically ignorant parents and attended fundamentalist colleges:
Seismicity in the EMR [Eastern Mediterranean Region] is mainly associated with the northward movement of the Arabian plate. The 1,000 km-long western boundary of the Arabian plate is a complex plate boundary, extending from zones of sea-floor spreading in the Red Sea to zones of plate convergence in Turkey, and lies along the line of the Gulf of Aqaba, the Dead Sea rift, and the Ghab depression. The sense of motion along the transform fault system is left lateral, with the east side moving northward relative to the west side. Total displacement is estimated at about 107 km since Oligocene time, with an annual rate of about 0.5 cm over the last 7 to 10 million years.
Lest anyone think I'm bashing Jews instead of idiocy, I'll quote H.L. Mencken:
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. (Minority Report, p. 3)
In this case, to follow Mencken's analogy, Shlomo Benizri's wife is a troll and his children are imbeciles.
February 20, 2008
someone is wrong on the Internet
The cartoonist of xkcd doesn't know me, but this is nonetheless spot-on:
February 17, 2008
fisking the anti-gay fundies
The Watcher at Fundie Watch does a spectacularly hilarious job of fisking Matt Barber's "Unmasking the 'Gay' Agenda" screed (available at Concerned Women for America, ClownHall, Renew America, and Catholic Online...choose your poison).
The Watcher does such splendid work that I have little to add, except these two points:
The first involves Clinton Fein, who Barber claimed "addressed the 'gay' agenda in a 2005 article candidly titled, 'The Gay Agenda.' When I tracked down Fein's original article, I found an explicit caveat:
"Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of this piece, it can, and likely will, be taken out of context, and used destructively by bigots and homophobes with ill intentions."
Bigoted homophobe Matt Barber managed to pull five quotes from Fein's piece, thus showing that his hatred is matched only by his dishonesty. Perhaps that's why Barber doesn't link to any of his sources: He knows that he'll be caught misrepresenting them, and relies on his audience's lazy complicity in his deceptions.
The second point is Barber's reference to the "1972 Gay Rights Platform," which I found mentioned all over the wingnut portion of the blogosphere. Given their problems with factual accuracy, I decided to look for it from a more reliable source. Barber was bothered by the demand for the "Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent," which is represented here in its original context:
6. Repeal of all state laws prohibiting transvestism and cross-dressing.7. Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent.
8. Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.
One should remember that "age of consent" laws, along with anti-sodomy statutes, were widely used (especially in that era) to selectively criminalize same-sex acts; in the absence of evidence to the contrary, this demand should be read in that light. NAMBLA, to the extent that it even exists, is as much a pariah among the LGBT community as among straights.