It's been a quiet week in the old deleted comments queue; we somehow managed not to trigger any long manifestos from wingnuts about sovereignty or the UN Agenda 21 plot to pollute and impurify our precious bodily fluids. We'll try harder. We did get one notable tsk-tsk about our terrible conduct from "TheLongVersion," who was not at all pleased with all the cruelty directed toward poor innocent George Zimmerman, who once again found himself in trouble last week:
I heard this site was a cesspool of filth. These comments confirm it. Wishing death upon those with whom you disagree? ISIS would be proud of all of you.
Leaving aside the fact that we policed the comments pretty closely to remove any comments wishing that Mr. Zimmerman's assailant had better aim (and yes, you should know better than that!), we're mostly puzzled by that "ISIS would be proud of you" bit. Is ISIS out to get George Zimmerman? Do they recruit on the basis of initiates' ability to write snotty blog comments? Or is "you're as bad as ISIS" the new Hitler?
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Speaking of Hitler, which is all we ever do some days, "onepissedoffcracker" wrote in to defend Bradlee Dean from our completely unfair criticism. Dean's exciting poem updating Martin Niemöller for the Gay Marriage Holocaust is actually quite good, says onepissedoffcracker:
I see a lot of criticism here of this fine poem but the only problem with it is the timeline. We've been going to murder the unborn in their mother's wombs years before the Supreme Court sanctioned it. Only in the early 1960's did we get around to taking away prayer in school. Otherwise, the Biblical citations make this poem irrefutable. Ir, refutable.
That's pretty astute criticism; we weren't aware that shoveling in some biblical citations actually makes a rhetorical claim immune to criticism, so that's good to know (Deut. 23-1). We're also impressed by onepissedoffcracker's attempt to find a typographic representation of the Hipster Pause; usually, it's done with periods ("Worst. Comment. Ever."), but what about an ironic pause within a word? Should that be "Ir, refutable," "Ir-re-futable," or...? Please discuss amongst yourselves in the comments -- Which we Do. Not. Allow.
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Our piece on the Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia inspired "Conservative Mark" -- we're not sure if that's his first name or an indication that he's an easy target for con men -- to share a very funny comment that is also a reference to a funny movie!
Planes, Trains and Homosexuals.
In fact, he liked it so much that he submitted it a second time after the first one was deleted. Conservative Mark also decided that ISIS (again!) and Obama somehow had to be included, because why not?
A bullet train with ISIS in America and a crazy gay train engineer at the controls... What could go wrong? Can we point the tracks towards the Oval Office?
It's a nice try, but it needs more derp -- how about some Benghazi and Jade Helm 15, guy? You're not even trying.
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"IAmAProudAmerican" dropped by to defend Sarah Palin's bizarre claim that California doesn't need to limit water use just because of some dumb drought. Palin thinks it would rain more in Cali if the state would just build more reservoirs and let some fish go extinct, and IAmAProudAmerican wants us all to know that she's right!
Plain [sic] is absolutely correct! http: //spectator.org/articles/40982/emptying-reservoirs-middle-drought
As proof, IAmAProudAmerican links to an American Spectator article from 2009 which blames all of California's water woes on letting perfectly good water flow into the ocean, just to keep the Delta Smelt from going extinct. Shame on those terrible environmentalists, and let's ignore the minor detail that if freshwater isn't allowed to go into the river deltas, then they'll fill up with seawater, backing up farther into the now-depleted streams and rivers, and then you end up with saltwater going into municipal water supplies farther upstream. Can't see why you'd object to that. Stupid environmentalists and their fish-hugging!
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Someone with the username "Panther" didn't much care for our unkind words about Jessa Duggar and her discovery that the Bible makes Atheists impossible; Panther quickly figured out why they didn't care for this Wonkette place:
This site sucks.
I just realized it is all females. No wonder.
No males unless they are gay. This is a womans site
And then Panther just started calling everyone who replied to them "negro," which strikes us as a rather pathetic end to an otherwise promising string of stupid.
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Somebody going by the pseudonym "Tut" must have a Google alert set up for any mention of Muslims, and in reply to our piece on Iowa congresscantaloupe Steve King's belief that there is no discrimination against Muslims in America, "Tut" favored us with a couple of rants that they've copy-pasted all over the webs. They were pretty forgettable, but we felt compelled to share at least a snippet from one of them, which was just a collection of nutty claims with links:
Muslims prey on helpless and defenseless victims, from young girls to the elderlies, that would soon also include Liberal traitors and their offspring, despite their wishful thinking, if the rest in the West let the trend continue, due to ignorance, passivity and denial [...]
There are now more than 100 Shariah Courts in UK, with Muslim laws allowing honor-killing, stoning, sex-grooming, enslaving women, voiding non-Muslim and women's rights to properties and inheritances, etc.
We liked that one, because even the linked Daily Mail article doesn't say a thing about "honor-killing, stoning" or the rest of the horrors Tut warns us of. It's actually about a group of Islamic lawyers who put together guidelines for writing sharia-compliant wills -- and yes, there are worries that the guidelines might discriminate against female heirs, but there's not a word in there about Great Britain suddenly allowing honor killings or beheadings. But sure, those are basically the same thing.
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And finally, an impassioned reply from "Bruce Boelter" to our vicious attack on Ben Carson -- back in May 2014. Dr. Carson had told a story about how his mother was the only Welfare Mom who actually deserved any of the welfare benefits she received, because unlike every other recipient of food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance, she wasn't a lazy Taker. Bruce explained the essential difference between Ben Carson's family and every other family that gets welfare:
Dr. Carson overcame the shackles put on him and his people through determination and hard work. Only RACISTS like you think blacks can only succeed with help form their betters. The good Doctor became "wealthy" being the best he could at what he did, and helping many people along the way. Lazy welfare tramps like you could learn a thing or two from him.
Well that's pretty impressive proof it's racist to suggest that anyone other than Ben Carson can make something of themselves, because all welfare recipients -- with the sole exception of Ben Carson's mother -- are lazy welfare tramps. But...didn't Ben Carson receive help? We're pretty sure that was the whole point of the article. Maybe he became a success in spite of the government program that paid for him to get eyeglasses as a child. He didn't really need those glasses, and probably could have succeeded in school through hard work, determination, and squinting. Let's just close with the same inspiring video we ended the original article with: Actor Craig T. Nelson explaining how when he was on welfare and food stamps, he never got any handouts:
Obviously, we need to figure out which poors really deserve help and will work hard enough to become brain surgeons. Maybe if they don't become surgeons after a suitable period of time, they should be forced to pay back their benefits.
I'd always thought that myself, kind of like Jon Stewart once said about wanting your president to be the designated driver, not just a guy (or woman) you would want to have a beer with (he said that in 2000 and how Florida didn't listen......)
I'd rather have an experienced president too...