Baiting a Racist on the MBTA

This happened a week or three ago, but I never got around to writing it down.

I was riding the train to work in the morning. It was crowded, with people packed close. Among the fresh surge of new commuters cramming on at Wollaston was a man with a very expensive suit. His hair was slicked back with so much grease he could have wrung it out to lube a car. He also had what may have been the single worst spray-on tan in history. The man was so orange cast members of Jersey Shore would tell him to lay off the fake tans. Willy Wonka would mistake him for one of his employees, and then comment "Wait, no, that's a traffic cone." Orange Man also had a tablet, which was proudly displaying a white supremacist web site.

At first I thought nothing of it. People read strange things on the "T" and he might have been a lawyer doing research on a civil rights case for all I knew.

Then I noticed the death-glare he was giving an African-American woman a couple feet away, facing the other direction. The look on his face reminded me of a quote from Babylon 5, where one alien commented that another species hated his so much that their hate could form a white hot-ball and incinerate his home world. That's the look Orange Man was giving the African-American woman, a death glare that could set a planet ablaze.

I wasn't the only one who noticed it. A brunette woman somewhere in her early 30's looked him over. She whipped out her smartphone and positioned herself so he could see the screen. She was smirking as she looked at whatever it was she was reading. Soon Orange Man noticed too, and he glared at her phone, slowly turning an inhuman purple under the orange. It wasn't a shade I ever thought I'd see on a human face. He looked like some sort of monstrous alien that had died and succumbed decay. I wondered if his head was about to explode.

He stormed out at the next stop, pushing his way past several people. As he jostled past the woman with the smart phone I got a glimpse of what had been on her screen. It was a blond woman with pale skin, her mouth stretched wide around a dark, tube-shaped object. I wanted to laugh, to give her a high-five, but the African-American woman who had been the subject of the death-glare was oblivious to what had happened, and I decided it was best to let the matter drop.

I noticed Orange Man standing on the platform as we left. I wondered if he was lost, or just waiting for the next train.

I've repeated this account to a few friends, and one of them asked me if it was possible the woman with the smartphone had been looking at pictures of herself. I doubt it, in part because of the hair color change, but I can't be sure. Besides, it was only a glimpse, and a good portion of the blond's face was obscured by what was in her mouth.

Thank you Jenny Lawson

I was having a really crappy morning. My son was cranky, I was running late, the MBTA CLOSED the parking garage I normally use and the next nearest one was inaccessible. I had to go home, drop off the car and restart my commute using the bus for the portion I often drive. By the time I found myself on the train I was looking at being a good two hours late to work. Then I read about a pet sloth and a child finding a kangaroo in her living room. And suddenly all was well with the world.

grilling coffee on the fourth of july

grilling coffee on the fourth of july
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Bleach Enemas to Treat Autism

Jim Humble and his MMS nutjobs are at it again.

The Awful Inhumanity of Using Bleach Enemas to Treat Autistic Children

Quote

You read that correctly. Bleach enemas to cure autism. The protocols the members of this trio recommend for the MMS treatment are just… traumatizing even to read. One calls for a "treatment" every two hours for 72 hours, "every possible weekend." Humble writes of overcoming the "nausea barrier" to up the dosage. Evidently, a "therapy" that induces nausea and vomiting and fever and diarrhea is a "good" thing. And if you make up a "baby bottle" of it, that makes it seem even more innocuous—or insidious, depending on your perspective.

Any child who is subjected to this abusive and torturous treatment would find it more than insidious. Orac quotes a parent who writes about her non-speaking autistic teen that the boy can't tell her how he feels as she doses him with the bleach solution. He vomits and has diarrhea "all day"; she writes that he generally has a "sensitive" gut. Another mother set up a blog to describe trying MMS on both her autistic son and herself, a sufferer of rheumatoid arthritis. It's heartbreaking but also enraging to read her posts as they reveal more than she seems to see: Her son develops a sudden extreme fear of the bathtub, and she can't seem to understand why, even though six days earlier, she wrote that they were about to try an "MMS bath" (i.e., a bleach solution bath) on him. Then suddenly, the blog ends with, "I cannot continue this blog. Sorry."

The full article can be found here: Dangerous Interventions: MMS and Autism

You can read a primer on MMS here: Bleaching away what ails you

Here is a petition asking the FDA to ban bleach enemas for autistic children.

This article has some information on a clinic that actually does this: You Can’t Bleach Autism Out of a Child

Open Letter to the moron who banned Five Wives Vodka

An petty, small minded control freak has banned the sale of Five wives Vodka in the state of Idaho. Reports vary as to the reason. Some claim it's because the label might offend Mormons. Howard Wasserstein, The Juice Bag who banned it, has since claimed that the use of women from a risque vaudeville act were the reason for the ban. This raises questions about his familiarity with the use of sex in liquor sales. Does he do his job with his head in a bucket, or is it merely so far up his rear he can taste his own Brylcreem? The Utah distillery has hired a lawyer to challenge the prudish ban. This is the offending label:

This was my letter to the blithering idiot who banned the Vodka.

to: howard.wasserstein@liquor.idaho.gov
date: Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 1:42 PM
subject: Five Wives Vodka


Mr. Wasserstein,

I want to thank you for banning Five Wives Vodka in Idaho. Were you not such a petty, small minded, control freak, I'd have never heard of it. I had to do some digging but I found some and gave it a try. Your claim that it's not good enough to sit on the shelf beside Absolute is complete rubbish, showing you are not only a prude but incompetent when it comes do discerning the relative quality of different vodkas.

I am particularly amused by your claim that the label would be offensive to the majority of the population because the source of the image on the label is an obscure Vaudeville act. How many people would have recognized the label in the first place, in order to BE offended?

You are a first class ass, but your rank incompetence and terror of the opposite sex have introduced me to a very fine Vodka. For that, I thank you.

Matthew Miller

Caleb in the observation bubble

Caleb in the observation bubble
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Black Salve

You'd think with all these miracle cures resulting from black salve someone would have published case studies in a peer reviewed journal. "Big pharma is suppressing the evidence" is the cry of quacks who want to avoid having to provide scientific evidence of their claims. If you really believe it works, get the ball rolling on FDA approval. Start with having a few doctors publish case studies. That's cheap, easy and gets the attention of the people who fund independent pilot studies.

Mississippi lawmaker: Coat hanger abortions might come back. 'But hey, you have to have moral values'

Mississippi lawmaker: Coat hanger abortions might come back. 'But hey, you have to have moral values' at least for certain, twisted and bizarre versions of "morals." Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter makes sense if you look at things from his point of view. The women resorting to coat hanger abortions as a result of these laws will be mostly poor minorities, scarcely human in his eyes. Even when it's a white woman dying from a botched abortion, it doesn't matter, because in his eyes, they're murderesses anyway. Dying as a result of a botched abortion is God punishing them for murdering a child. In this politician's eyes, the rape victim bleeding out in a motel room because she, in desperation, turned to a med-school drop-out for help, is getting exactly what she deserves. So what if the kid was the result of rape? It was probably her fault anyway, right? It's amazing how much conservative "logic" makes sense when you assume the man speaking is a closeted homosexual who has sublimated his lust for other men into a boiling, cancerous, vile, vindictive hatred of women.

Cornerstonepayday.com Revisited

Back in September of 2011, I wrote an article entitled Payday Loan Scam Site cornerstonepayday.com. In that post I took a look at the "security" behind the spam advertized site cornerstonepayday.com. I decided to revisit the site after a spam comment was posted to my blog post.

There were many issues with cornerstonepayday.com:

1. Annoying popups trying to prevent you from leaving the site.
2. Rip-off fee structure.
3. No security or encryption protecting your name, address, social security number and bank details.
4. Spam based marketing strategy
5. The stolen SSL certificate being used ion the site
6. The hard coded submission from making it impossible to submit your data securely even if you wanted to.
7. False claims on the site of using encryption to protect your data.

The site has made two major changes since the original article. The annoying popups trying to prevent you from leaving are gone and their fee structure is no longer as readily accessible. That's it. The major security problems remain.

cornerstonepayday.com's facebook page links to needcashpaydaynow.com, which has a slightly different design, but still has NO encryption, despite having the logos of several security vendors on the site. This site is a bit worse, as you get an error message when you try to load the site using HTTPS instead of HTTP. It doesn't even have a stolen security certificate for you to use in submitting your social security number.

needcashpaydaynow.com has links to a few other sites:

• holidaypayday.com
• speedypayday.ca
• eloanadvance.co.uk

These sties at least load over SSL, which is small comfort given the company they keep.

To be blunt, you'd have to be a complete idiot to trust any of these sites with your information. They're probably con artists looking to steal your identity. Even if they aren't con artists, they're incompetent when it comes to rudimentary data security. You'll probably have your identity stolen if you give them your information.

not many people eat lasagna with chopsticks

not many people eat lasagna with chopsticks
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

daddy daddy can I climb the sculpture?

daddy daddy can I climb the sculpture?
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

I spy with my little eye...

I spy with my little eye...
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

second breakfast of blueberries

second breakfast of blueberries
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Reaction to Santorum aborting his Presidental campaign

Santorum Term
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Chilling with his Bambi, waiting for school to start

Chilling with his Bambi, waiting for school to start
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Chilling with his Bambi, waiting for school to start

He just felt like yelling for the fun of it

He just felt like yelling for the fun of it
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

He just felt like yelling for the fun of it

Karl Giberson, Deception in the name of Chirst

As a Christian, I find it deeply offensive when people lie about atheists and agnostics. Flat out lying about the nature of non-theism does nothing but help believers shore up a false pride and undeserved smugness. Condescending garbage like that spewed by Giberson only serves to alienate the very people he pretends to be ministering to. Giberson's gibbering serves only to harm the body of Christ.

On a side note, I live in Quincy, MA, and have been looking at the local churches. I want to thank Giberson for making it clear I don't have to waste my time on St. Chrysostom's Church. I have no interest in a church that will deliberately lie to me about what others believe in order to encourage the less educated members to circle the wagons. My wife is Jewish, and if St. Chrysostom's Church is as liberal in it's definition of "facts" as Giberson then I really don't want to spend my Sunday mornings being told that the blood libel is real and I married a Christ Killer.

I recommend checking out the excellent article "Uncle Karl says atheists are ignorant of religion" for a breakdown of some of the nonsense and absurdity Giberson spews as if it were based in reality.

Inspired by George Takei, Send Stacey Campfield some hay

Inspired by George Takei's "Fireside Chat" video, it's time for a "mail this item" campaign for these jokers. They might get the hint if they each receive a few thousand identical packages / letters in the mail.

Let's start with mailing hay to Senator Stacey Campfield.

http://www.capitol.tn.gov/senate/members/s7.html

District address:
2011 Flagler
Knoxville, TN 37912

Nashville Address:
301 6th Avenue North
Suite 4 Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN 37243

Phone (615) 741-1766

sen.stacey.campfield@capitol.tn.gov

In the package / envelope include a piece of paper with the URL for Takei's video http://vimeo.com/38068014 and some hay. If you can't find any hay, include a picture of hay, a scarecrow or a straw man.

Racist Jackasses vs a Dead Woman

Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull is in a spot of trouble for circulating a racist joke that accused a married woman of engaging in drunken bestiality because she happened to be married to a black man.

The subject line of the email, which Cebull sent from his official courthouse email address on Feb. 20 at 3:42 p.m., reads: "A MOM'S MEMORY."

The forwarded text reads as follow:

"Normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.

"A little boy said to his mother; 'Mommy, how come I'm black and you're white?'" the email joke reads. "His mother replied, 'Don't even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"

I decided to check out OpenBook to hunt up anyone passing around the same joke, not to report on it as the news outlets are doing, but because they apparently think it's funny. I searched for the phrase "From what I can remember about that party, you're lucky you don't bark!'"

I was pleasantly surprised that I only got a handful of hits.

The last one illustrated the fact that minority groups have their share of racists who don't think much of .mixed race children.

Former HRN foster bunny Holly lounges during romp time

Former HRN foster bunny Holly lounges during romp time
Originally uploaded by flakingnapstich

Former HRN foster bunny Holly lounges during romp time at her forever home.