Derp Roundup: Your Weekly Aggregation Of Aggravation

Welcome, one and all, to another edition of Derp Roundup, where we smoosh up a bunch of stuff that fell to the floor of the Wonket Sekrit Chatcave that was too stoopid to ignore altogether, but that didn’t quite rise to the level of full-length Wonkenpost. This being the traditional feast month of Cocktober, we feel compelled to lead off with this inspiring story of Trace McNutt, the winner of the "Courage Award" from Voice of the Voiceless, that brave band of "ex-gay" activists whose big Ex-Gay Pride rally in Washington drew almost a dozen proud demonstrators. Mr. McNutt is a former "Satanic Drag Queen" and drug abuser who is now hooked on Jesus and being an ex-gay activist, and Now he is a happily straight person, except for the part where he's still attracted to men, what with falling in love with the bassist in his Christian rock band. In an interview with Christianist podcaster Janet Parshall Monday, McNutt acknowledged that he's not quite as ex-gay as he'd like to be:

“We know God heals some and others he doesn’t,” he told Parshall. “For me, the thorn remains…. Not all homosexuals get delivered of the same-sex attraction.”

Of the many things that have gone badly in Mr. McNutt's life -- drug addiction, a messy family life, sex addiction, Christian Rock -- we have a feeling that the "being gay" part is the least of them. Wouldn't it be nice if he'd found a counselor who didn't ascribe all of his problems to that?

1. More News of the Gay Agenda: Richard Perque, an openly gay man who is running for traffic court judge in New Orleans, has been targeted by anonymous mailings from a fake PAC, the "Committee for Common Decency." The mailing features a photo of Mr. Perque and another man, standing close to each other while wearing swimsuits (Both gentlemen look pretty good in swimsuits, which may actually set Perque apart from other politicians far more than his being gay). The flyer is emblazoned with the scary line "Before you even consider voting for this individual for judge, think about it long and hard," and warns "Please keep out of the sight of children." Because god knows, if a known homosexual decides traffic ticket cases, Louisiana's children will suffer.

1. A Florida man set himself on fire while assembling a Halloween display that was supposed to feature a burning cross. Protip: Burning crosses isn't really all that funny. What's more, setting a cross on fire inside your house is really, really stoopid.

1. Another Florida man was arrested for keeping an alligator in an unused hot tub in his yard for over a year. The gentleman, Tony Wells Jr., 32, "said the alligator had already been in his Vero Beach house when he moved in," and that he had fed it a diet of "chicken, just chicken." Mr. Wells was arrested for not having a license to keep the alligator, which means of course that some people in Florida do have licensed alligators. The alligator was discovered while Indian River County Sheriff's Deputies served a drug warrant on a woman living at the house; sadly, there was no stripper pole at the house, so Mr. Wells fails to win the Wonkette Alligators-n-drugs triple crown.

1. No charges will be filed against yet another Florida man (there may be a trend here) who caused the evacuation of a Sarasota mall for two hours Tuesday when he scattered a portion of his late fiancée's ashes at a LensCrafters store at the mall. Police said that the unidentified grieving man

   sprinkled some of the ashes in places that were special to the couple. Officials said the woman had a connection to LensCrafters in the Westfield Southgate Mall and because of that, the man released some of the ashes there

   Police and a HazMat team were dispatched to the mall when the man threw what witnesses described as an unidentified powder into the LensCrafters store and fled the area. The mall and Sarasota Fire Department may seek to recover costs from the man. It is not known whether he was muttering anything about all those bright flowering young men who died before their time at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, and at Hill 364.

1. George Zimmerman's brother Robert now has a column at wingnut blog TruthRevolt. His inaugural column explains why Al Sharpton is a very bad man who is the greatest source of race-baiting in America today. He also wants to start a petition drive and boycott to "defund" Sharpton, who Zimmerman believes may be a "genius -- a very dangerous and toxic genius" whose "only actual work...is picking psychological scabs of old wounds and in return our society rewards him for it," because there is of course no racism today other than the pernicious racism of The Blacks against poor victimized whites. Hey, if Paula Deen can be hounded off teevee forever -- or a couple of months -- maybe Al Sharpton can be defeated too. Keep dreaming those golden dreams, Mr. Zimmerman! Maybe Fox News will come calling the next time your brother loses it.

1. In what may also mark something of a trend, a few minor wingnut blogs praised Dianne Reidy, the House stenographer who interrupted the vote to reopen the government with a strange rant about how America cannot be "one nation under God" because Freemasons. Julie Severo at Last Days Watchman acknowledged that Reidy "had no right" to seize the microphone in the House, but also noted that Reidy had said "what U.S. Representatives have never spoken," and wondered "if there was Somebody behind it," citing 1 Corinthians 1: 27: "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." And "Cynthia" at Patriot Action Network asked, "Who was right? The Congressional Stenographer or the 87 Turncoat Republicans?" and concluded that "Reidy obviously had her fill of working for representatives who do not reflect the soul of America and her parting words were chilling, the devil is here!"

   And Scott Creighton at American Everyman said that "except for the God stuff I really can’t see what she said that was altogether wrong… which might explain why they dragged her from the mic." He followed up with what appears to be the first hint of a mind-control conspiracy theory, passing on a reader's observation:

   "Go back and look at the video from the beginning. A gray haired man, presumably a congressman approaches her as she is gathering her stuff up. He says something and then she just gets up like a Stepford Wife and goes to the podium to give her rant.”

   Creighton agrees that "It’s very odd," notes that most news networks "edit out" the start of the C-SPAN video (not because news shows don't want a single wasted second between ads, but because they're hiding something, right?), and concludes that "there is no denying something happened between Dianne and “grey-haired guy” just before her stunt." It must be nice to live in a world where nothing just happens, and shadowing networks of secretive insiders pull every string. Also, we'd like the Bilderberg Group to turn down the volume on the loudspeaker at the Greyhound station 2 blocks away, because the announcement of the 1 AM bus to Spokane wakes us up at least twice a week when the wind is right.

[ RightWingWatch via TruthWinsOut / Bilerico Project / Gawker / NBC Miami / NBC Miami again!  / TruthRevolt / Last Days Watchman / Patriot Action Network / American Everyman ]