An, Um, Novel And Incredible Stupid Arguement Against Interracial Marriage

Dave Daubenmire, easily one of the dumbest people in America

Almost everybody got over interracial marriages many decades ago. I mean, really, who cares, right?

There are a few particularly ignorant holdouts, however.  They are there principally so that we can mock and laugh at them. I've got a doozy for you.

According to the Friendly Atheist, via Right Wing Watch, one of these losers is some idiot named Dave Daubenmire, who claims to be a "Christian" pastor.  He said he recently took his daughter to the zoo, which proved to him that interracial marriage is wrong. Here's his "logic."

"You don't see eagles marrying buzzards, do you?" he said.

As is obvious to everybody except the extremely dumb and racist Daubenmire, eagles and buzzards are different species.  Plus, to be Captain Obvious, wild animals don't get married.  Animals of the same species mate, but last I checked, eagles and buzzards and other animals don't get a marriage license from the town clerk then go down to the courthouse to tie the knot.

But whatever.

Segregation is A-OK according to Daubenmire, too.  At the zoo aquarium, the guy that runs it keeps certain fish out of the tank because those certain fish would eat all the other fish.

Hmm. I have not heard of one human interracial couple in which the one partner eats the other. But I guess that's besides the point.

The idiot Daubenmire has said many, many spectacularly dumb things in the past. He says, for example, masturbation is gay sex because you are having sexual contact with someone of the same gender. He says, really oddly, that "big business" is using fetal tissue in food supplements, additives and sweeteners.

I'm writing all this as a public service: The next time you are feeling stupid or ignorant, remember you have nothing on Dumb Daubenmire.

"Meth: We're On It" Still A Big Talker In South Dakota

This very unfortunate drug awareness ad is still the talk of
South Dakota, to their chagrin.

I'm in South Dakota this week, and one thing I notice is people are still talking about the state's "Meth:  We're On It" campaign.

This caused a nationwide stir a month ago, when the state of South Dakota released its meth drug awareness campaign.

The campaign shows photos of iconic or typical South Dakota-type people with a tagline: "Meth: We're On It."

This naturally made South Dakota a nationwide butt of jokes, but the governor here, Kris Noem, says the campaign is working.

"The mission of the campaign is to raise awareness - to get people talking about how they can e part of the solution and not just the problem," Noem told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader last month.

Noem said the meth campaign, which cost something like $449,000 is a "bold, innovative effort like the nation has never before seen."

I suppose that last statement is true.

That $449,000 price tag seems high, and that prompted the predictable jokes. "The ad agency spent $1,000 on the PSA campaign and $448,000 on meth," wrote @MatthewHekerman on Twitter.

Another twitter denizen, Ian Boudreau (@iboudreau) suggested other ideas "Meth: It's What's for Dinner," "Where's the Meth" and "Meth: The Other White Drug."

According to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, businesses are capitalizing on this, so that's good.

A bicycle business called Spoke-n Sport -did an ad with the tag line Bikes; We're On It with a photo of a grinning mountain biker in what looks like the Badlands.

Somebody in Minnesota cooked up this idea
for a Meth ad as a companion to South Dakota's.

Even the cheap beer Natural Light tweeted a slogan "Natural Light: We're On It" which to me would be almost as bad as being on meth.

A t-shirt company is offering shirts that say "South Dakota is apparently on meth" and "Don't meth with South Dakota."

I don't know what it is about South Dakota. This isn't the first time the state came up with an ad with a questionable double entendre.

Back in 2014, wintry South Dakota was worried about motorists making unsafe, abrupt moves on icy roads. So, the catch phrase was "Don't Jerk And Drive." Yes, they meant don't jerk the steering wheel.  But really?

Also, in 2015, South Dakota promoted itself as a place to live and work because, at least unlike Mars, there is air in South Dakota. (It's true! I'm in South Dakota as I write this and I am having absolutely no trouble breathing. There is indeed air here!)

The way things are going, I can't wait to see what the next South Dakota slogan will be.  Whoever comes up with it, I'm guessing meth - they'll be on it.

My Annual Darlene Love Christmas Greeting

Darlene Love and Jason Derulo perform this year's "Christmas (Baby
Please Come Home." on "The View"

Every year, because Christmas is the season of tradition, I do my annual Darlene Love Christmas greeting.

Here's the recap: My favorite holiday song is Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) made famous by Darlene Love way back in 1963.

She sang it every year from 1986 and 2014 on the David Letterman show. When that went off the air   she moved to "The View."

It's now nice every year when Darlene Love comes on that show and puts a temporary end to the hosts' constant bickering.

This Christmas  is a bit different for me than recent ones.  Usually, I have to stay in Vermont while my husband travels to South Dakota to be with family.  Normally, I can't go, as since I work for a retailer, I have to stay to the bitter end at Christmas. No holiday trips to South Dakota for me!

Except this year. A generous boss at work gave me some time off, so I've joined husband Jeff in South Dakota this year. So it's beautiful chaos for me as numerous in-laws, nieces, nephews wander in and out. And I'm with my husband, so I don't have to whine about baby, please come home.

Of course, this means I'm not with family in Vermont, so you can't have everything.

On "The View" this year Darlene Love was joined by Jason Derulo for this year's rendition. Here you go and Merry Christmas!

Hallmark Channel Steps In It, Then Chases The Money

You might have heard the kerfuffle earlier this month about the icky sweet Hallmark Channel getting into a not-so-sweet mess over its short-lived ban over an LGBTQ-friendly advertisement, and the howls of controversy that followed.  

The controversy has since settled down. Still, it was a textbook case about how corporations ought to be in tune with public opinion, and basic fairness when they make some decisions.

The Hallmark Channel is in its prime season right now, with movies with the same, frankly tired theme.

A woman or a man is cynical about Christmas. The couple meet, don't get along at first, fall in love, and everything becomes so romantic and sentimental with the intention of driving the audience into happy holiday cheers.

That's not my style, but then again, a lot of people love it. More power to them! I endorse anything that brings people joy.

But here's the joyless part.

An outfit called One Million Moms, basically a wholly owned subidiary of the American Family Association, was hugely upset when they saw an ad on the Hallmark Channel of a same-gender couple, two women, in a wedding ad by Zola.

"One Million Moms is asking once again or Hallmark to stay true to its family friendly roots that so many families have grown to love, and to keep sex and sexual conduct - incluing the promotion of homosexualithy - out of its programming."

Though, apparently, One Million Moms seemed perfectly fine with straight couples kissing, but whatever.

Even worse, One Million Moms cited the Bible, Romans1:18-32, which suggests we should just kill all the gays:

"Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die."

OK, we should note that One Million Moms probably does not consist of one million real moms. Whatever this organization is, they basically boycott everything that doesn't adhere to Christian fundamentalists' White Jesus perspective.

One wag on Twitter suggested that One Millon Moms is just 20 Karens.

At least according to GLAAD, an LGBTQ support organization,  One Million Moms is basically just one annoying woman. Jeremy Hooper writes:

"It is basically One Meddling Mom with an agenda, and no company should be giving her the credence she so desperately craves.

Her name is Monica Cole. I the decade that I have been aware of One Millio Moms, she is quite literally the only staff member I have ever heard anyone name. She is the one and only person who appears on their petitions, as well as the one and only person who speaks for them to the media. She is the mom. Her. Solo. One Person, supposedly representing one."

Hallmark officials, thinking that "one million moms" were pissed off about the lesbian wedding ad, pulled the plug on it.

Of course the problem with that was, more than a million people for sure, including me, were pissed off at Hallmark for being bigoted, or least appearing to be.   News of this broke on a December midmonth Saturday.

By that Sunday night, facing a furious backlash, Hallmark just as furiously backpeddled. As Buzzfeed News and many other media outlets reported, Mike Perry, president and CEO of Hallmark Cards said the company was "truly sorry" for the brief ad shutdown.

"The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we've seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision. We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused."

Hallmark also said it would work with GLAAD to better represent ethe LGBTQ community.

The abrupt reversal, I'm sorry to say, was probably not some newfound sense of fairness, but one of money. Hallmark quickly realized that the people who objected to Zola lesbian wedding ads airing on the network was far smaller than the number of people pissed off by the decision.

Which has better revenue potential? A few religious zealots or a huge bunch of basically fair minded consumers?

I'm not saying this is really wrong. It is the free market. People can choose to patronize or not patronize any business for any reason (unless it goes to the extreme of violating hate laws).

Corporations must always sort of thread the needle to figure out how not to annoy its customers, because they want to keep them.  Hallmark did not thread the needle, and a public relations fiasco resulted.

In the end, Hallmark managed to mostly recover.  Zola said they would resume advertising with Hallmark, other advertisers stuck with them, and the outrage over the Hallmark Channel's initial has waned.

All the more reason to research outfits that are attacking you to see if there is any bite behind the bark.  In the case of One Million Moms, the bark had nothing behind it. Oh well. Let other conpanies beware!

Fake SNL Macy's Ad Nails What We Hate About Christmas, Especially When There's Children

Things aren't nearly this happy in a fake Macy's Christmas ad
from Saturday Night Live that gives us a dose of reality in the
midst of all the fake Christmas cheer. 

I'm a bah hum-bug kinda guy during the Christmas season, so I really get irritated by those chirpy-voiced ads on TV from those retailers announcing their holiday sales specials.

Most of the narrators sound like they are offering a sippy cup to their toddlers.

I don't know why they're offering me things in that tone of voice. I'm not a toddler and I like to think I'm more mature, smarter and more experienced than a toddler.

But who knows?

Now, Saturday Night Live hasn't been very great this year, but this week, they did a fake commercial from Macy's that is just perfect.

The sippy cup voiced actress touts the latest clothing offerings from the retailer. The first few seconds of the video offer the standard offerings for the adults. You'd easily mistake it for a real Macy's Christmas ad.

Then the bulk of the rest of the ad gets into those cute childrens' outfits that will ultimately be worn by not-so-cute children. And their exasperated parents have to deal with it. Which causes all kinds of stress, such as public embarrassment, hatred toward kids and marital discord, all things that are NOT supposed to happen at Christmas, according to the marketers.

Sample ad copy from this video, which is so like real life:

"All month long, we're taking 25% off boys' merino wool sweaters that won't fit over his head," the sippy cup narrator states.  The video shows a fed-up dad trying to put the sweater on his squirmy young son. "If you'd stop squirming, it would be on already!," the blandly handsome dad hisses at the kid.

As we all know, the stress of Christmas brings all these on more than any other time of year. So yeah, bah-humbug!

I think the video, at least in one sense, brings us the true feeling of Christmas, or at least the aspect of it in which society demands that everything be perfect and happy, but we can't quite live up to reality.

I think a lot of people agree. The video had 4.3 million views within less than 48 hours of when it was posted.

It's a great video for everybody. But I imagine it's fantastic for parents of young children. Watch and enjoy and feel the catharsis:

Everybody Is Flushing Trump's Toilet Talk Down The Um, Toilet

I'm going to go against my better judgement here and talk about toilets.

Donald Trump made the same mistake when he discussed this plumbing feature last week.  It's old news now, but worth revisiting.

To wit, he said as Vox and just about everybody else reported:

"'People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times as opposed to once. They end up using more water,' Trump said, complaining that water flow in other fixtures has slowed to a trickle. 'You can't wash your hands practically, there's so little water comes out of the faucet, and the end result is you leave the faucet on and it takes you much longer to wash your hands, you end up using the same amount of water.'"

Let's set aside for a moment that you'd think the president has bigger things to worry about than low-flow toilets.  I guess he's against regulations that make toilets use less water.  Maybe he poops a lot more than you and me.  Some people call him a shithead, so there's that.

Although early models of low flow toilets did seem problematic to us non-shitheads, as far as I'm concerned they fixed the problem.

So if I, and I presume most people need just one flush per poop, what is Trump pooping that requires 15 flushes to go away?  I really don't want to think about it, but still.

As usual, Twitter came to the rescue with this crisis.

One of my favorite tweets in response to all this was the following:

Susan Stone @SusanStone12

Replying to @chrislhayes

To be fair to the POTUS, it's hard to get the whole Constitution and Bill of Rights down in one flush.

 Referencing Trump's recent mysterious Saturday trip to the Walter Reed Medical Center: 

Anthony Chergosky@achergosky

Replying to @atrupar

Now we know why he went to Walter Reed

Maybe some corruption is involved? 

Eric Ranschau @eranschau

Replying to @chrislhayes

Christ… Was he trying to flush his tax returns?

And finally, here's a good diagnosis: 

The Artful Roger. Diamond of many Facets.@Rojodi

Replying to @chrislhayes

Wow! Proof he's full of sh*t!

Don't Let Your Dog Drive. You'll Get Dizzy

A man in the foreground tries to figure out what to do as a dog in the
car drives backwards in circles around a Florida cup-de-sac.
Police eventually stopped the car, and the dog, named Max,
was miraculously not charged with reckless driving. 

I do love this report from Florida that came out last month.

A dog decided to go for a drive.  Maybe the dog wanted to be a little mavericky, too.

A Port St. Lucie man arrived home one day and left his dog Max temporarily the car while he ran into the house for a minute.

Police said:

"The dog named Max accidentally hit the shifter into reverse causing the car to circle the cul-de-sac, leaving the owner locked out of the car.....As the car circled the cup-de-sac, it struck and damaged a mailbox."

I guess police in Port St. Lucie are pretty mellow and understanding.  They entered the code on the key pad of the door and managed to stop the car.

Max, who was not wearing a seat belt, wasn't hurt and wasn't issued a citation, despite the obvious dangerous driving and lack of a seat belt. I guess dogs get a pass, which I can understan.

 Here's a video from Good Morning America: