Jesus makes them do it ...

(Above: just one of the memes that's doing the rounds).


Whenever there's a lull on the local sexist scene, it's easy to look to the United States, where, it seems, god will provide.

At the moment there's a gigantic ruckus going down around one Richard Mourdock, U.S. Senate candidate, who is quoted as saying:

"The only exception I have to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother," said Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed state treasurer. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. I think that even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." (here).

It's dumb on every level imaginable. For starters it's right out there with the Taliban, and it puts the Mittster in a bad situation, if only because he'd just made an ad in support of Mourdock.

And it's bad theology. If god intended it to happen, and if a rapist's sperm results in a gift from god, then god's got a lot to answer for.

In that horrible situation of murder, is that what god intended to happen? In that horrible situation of the Holocaust, is that something god intended to happen?

The trouble with so many evangelical Americans is that they are so deeply theologically, biblically dumb.

Naturally Mourdock has said that the meaning of his comment has been twisted - though how you can twist the clear-cut meaning is hard to explain - and he apologised for people failing to understand his deeper interpretation and understanding, because deep down he's actually unapologetic and recalcitrant:

 "If they came away with any impression other than that I truly regret it. I apologise if they came away. I've certainly been humbled by the fact that so many people think that somehow was an interpretation," Mr Mourdock said. 

Uh huh. He's been humbled at so many people getting it wrong.

 "I spoke from my heart. And speaking from my heart, speaking from the deepest level of my faith, I would not apologise. I would be less than faithful if I said anything other than life is precious, I believe it's a gift from god." (here)

So god works her magic through rapists, and hands out gifts here and there to show She's really a giving god. What a strange world it is, and Indiana stranger than most places.

Confronted by this level of dumbness, it's easy to overlook little flights of dumbness.

Take it away Paul Ryan:

Appearing on "CBS This Morning," Ryan suggested the president was being petty: "To compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets - I just don't understand that comparison." (here)

He doesn't understand, he's confused? A simple zinger, a tidy gotcha? When even Joe Biden could explain it pretty succinctly? Ryan did try to claw back ground:

 "Look. We have to have a strong Navy to keep peace and prosperity and sea lanes open," he continued. "The president's, all these defense cuts, if all these defense cuts go through, our Navy will be smaller than it was before World War I. That's not acceptable. And, yes, the ... the ocean hasn't shrunk. You still have to have enough ships to have a footprint that you need to keep sea lanes open, to keep our strength abroad where it needs to be."

But clearly he just didn't get it, or the notion that a single aircraft carrier would whomp the heck out of the large pre-war navy (in much the same way as the American navy gave the much larger British navy a hard time in the 1812 war - look it up Mr. Ryan).

It took a while for Fox News to work out a come back, and that was to decide Obama had "gone native" with the zinger (that's what blacks do, you know, they go native). He'd been very condescending.

But first of all if you're going to condescend, you need a goose deserving of condescension. Well played candidate Ryan, prime goose.

And well played Megyn Kelly, for showing how the race card can be played (Fox News Host: 'Bayonets' Zinger Means Obama Has 'Gone Native'). Is it any wonder that social media has taken to mocking the Mittster and Ryan? You couldn't make this stuff up ...

Meanwhile, speaking of geese, or in this case ducks, is there a straw being floated in the wind, is there a deeper significance to Niki Savva scribbling furiously for The Australian That quacking is Abbott, sitting duck? (behind the paywall, think yourself lucky).

Savva is agitated about Abbott and his wayward way with words:

That quacking sound you can hear in the distance is Tony Abbott. The Opposition Leader is slowly but surely turning into a sitting duck, a stationary target for government and media pot shots. 
 The other bird sound you can make out, whenever Abbott says or does something silly, is the crow's cry that Graham Kennedy mimicked years ago on television and that got him into so much trouble. Textspeak boils it down to three letters, WTF. 
 Pretty soon, if he doesn't rewire the pathway from his brain to his mouth and change his strategy, the cocks will start crowing loudly too, as they always do when a leader is in trouble, and especially when the polls begin to narrow as they are doing.

That's as close to heresy as it gets at the lizard Oz, with Savva even going as far as floating that anti-Christ Malcolm Turnbull as an alternative.

This is outrageous behaviour. To deny the pond the pleasure of watching an Abbott premiership unfold, and quite likely self-destruct within a year, is incredibly selfish and petty. Sharpen up Savva, or ship out ...

Meanwhile, it seems that the woman involved in an alleged wall-punching incident has decided to take legal action against Michael Kroger and The Australian.

The pond is too canny to repeat the alleged defamations but Fairfax has the jolly story here. Naturally it also involves the Bolter and his show. At last a way to get some attention paid, since no one pays any attention by actually watching (could this be a handy defence? M'lud, look at the ratings, this was a private conversation unseen and unnoticed by anyone).

Meanwhile, gloomy generally grumpy Paul Sheehan gets stuck into the Arab spring and Islamic fundamentalists and the lot of women in a way that's worthy of the pond, in Despite the Arab revolt, women remain shackled to past.

It seems Sheehan needs to go to Republican camp for a little re-education. Then he could have opened his piece thusly:

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that the right to persecute and control women is a gift from God. I think that even when controlling and persecuting women might lead to some horrible situations, that it is something that God intended to happen."

And so the circle is closed, and Sheehan doesn't have the first clue, and if he can pretend to be an alarmed feminist anxious about the fate of women, why then the concept of feminism has been seriously degraded.

That just leaves time to note that the Hamster lads last night plunged to new levels of vomitous anal humour, but they did have a couple of okay skits, and they did include this joke:

At last! Recognition for Gerard Henderson, too often discriminated against by the Hamster lads, and leading into a set of in-house jokes which sent up Q&A and its twittering twits, and who can argue with that?

You can catch the latest show here while it's iViewable but be warned, in places it really is anally vomitous ...

And speaking of twittering twits, who can outdo Chairman Rupert?

Here he is climbing down in relation to Hugh Grant (Rupert Murdoch apologises to Hugh Grant over 'love child' tweet) and there he was abusing his own paper, as if he's got nothing to do with it (Rupert Murdoch Offers Twitter Support To WSJ Customer Who Didn't Get Paper Delivered), but he really is a recalcitrant, with his latest effort taking away from what he offered Grant in the first place:

What right do public figures
Have for privacy
After parading their families everywhere
To get votes?
Public has rights too ...

Yes Mr. Grant:

What right do public figures
Have for privacy
After parading their families everywhere
To sell newspapers
Which aren't delivered
And go native running cable news in America?
Public has rights too ... (and more twittering twits here which might make you wonder when chairman Rupert will think about retiring so he can take up full time twittering)

Truly each day brings joy and delight, whether from Tea Partiers or Tony Abbott or Chairman Rupert ...

(Below: and so to an aging meme which still has legs).