SpongeBob & Patrick Wish James Dobson a Happy Retirement

It's a good thing I'm wearing my anti-sea rhinoserous undergarments.

Dobson Resigns [Washington Monthly]
Focus on the Family to cut 202 more jobs [Denver Post, 11/17/2008]

Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge [NYT, 1/20/2005]

blogenfreude adds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZrU9MdECgM

58 Comments

As Plankton said: ““That’s it Mister! You just lost your brain privileges!”

my favorite part of the times article was the quote from the lawyer, who said, presumably straight faced, “he needs to be on medication” HA!

comic relief is mandatory when a wingnut is espousing.
don’t we know it.

Heh. Reading the comments from the odd upset wingnut who gets huffy with the schadenfreude. Hoping libtards would show mercy on poor widdle James.

Somewhat like James doesn’t rate any feelings of mercy in my book. You have to show some to get some.

As Margaret Cho pointed out to the fundies, SpongeBob is … “a sponge.”

@blogenfreude:
yes but sponge with a face, and arms and hands and legs and he’s a boy!
a sponge who could *gasp* give some hapless child teh ghey!!!!!!!!!

@blogenfreude:
always loved her. what happened to the other half of her body?
i loved her bits about her mother.
the best line in the clip:
“as if we would move into trailer parks”
and “shouldn’t you be getting ready to be raptured?”

i wrote about this before, when i was in israel in august. i met the rapture crowd at masada, played dumb and had them explain their philosophy to me. with a huge smile i told them , “well i certainly hope you all die very soon!” they thanked me profusely. still makes me giggle.

@baked: That’s very good. I should try to remember that instead of getting all bent out of shape because none of it’s in the Bible.

But what’s going on here? Should we be expecting a new sex scandal in like three… two… one… ?

@baked: I’m hoping they all go to some far away land to prepare. There was one on the subway a few days ago, and I was ready to grab his Bible and feed it to him page by page. Ultra-religious = mentally ill.

@blogenfreude:
i see that every day. those hassidim weirdo’s. they sit in alleyways and read the bible–OUT LOUD. i try to kick them if it’s opportune.

@Benedick:
as for it not being in the bible….huh?
the bible is a fairy tale. like margaret said, she wish’s jesus could come back and say, “that’s NOT what i MEANT!!!!!”

Speaking of fundies, I just lobbed a LibDem bomb into the comments over at thefireamrsblog.com. We’ll see how that goes.

Thanks to the AG’s comments yesterday on the assault weapons ban coming back, I had to go put my name on the waiting list for a 15-round Glock 19 in 9 mm before our side outlaws high capacity magazines (again). Goddam Hope is costing me some money.

@redmanlaw: I had to go put my name on the waiting list for a 15-round Glock 19 in 9 mm before our side outlaws high capacity magazines …

Why do you need this particular firearm?

@blogenfreude: To acquire diversity in skill and experience in my sport, since I have only revolvers now. To fill a knowledge gap. For recreation. To complete my battery.* To one day be able to teach others in hunter education, firearm safety and target shooting. To exercise my right to purchase, own and use it as a responsible citizen. To make a political point in diversifying both gun owners and liberals. I’m my own Venn diagram.

*Seriously. At this point I’ll never have to guy another gun for as long as I live unless I get a bolt action .308 for elk hunting, but I already have a vintage .308 lever action Savage 99 for elk that’s good to 200 yards, so I could do without it. I have only 20-25 years left out in the field so the goal is just to get out as often as possible until I can’t anymore.

I have a lot of fun with shooting. I’m OK to good and can only get better. My son tell me I smell like dust and gunpowder. I think that’s pretty cool. And talk about clearing your head. It’s like fly fishing in that you gotta pay attention at all times.

@blogenfreude:
15 rounds is pretty handy to have especially as we might be on the eve of Cannibal Anarchy (joke as we might.)

I’m seriously contemplating taking a shooting course soon to get my Ontario firearm license (not because I’m a hunter or shooter) but to gain a skill I might need in the future.

@redmanlaw: I can see your point about revolvers. I’ve shot handguns a couple times – would you recommend that gun for apartment protection? Not likely to get one, but you never know.

@Benedick: My first thought exactly! Cuing tranny hooker with hillbilly heroin.

@blogenfreude: Thank you for Margaret. I netflixed her immediately. I need something to pull me out of the slough of despond caused by kitty health problems (just returned from 4th visit to vet in a week) and dealing with a loved one’s bipolar disorder. Right now I’m hanging by a fucking frayed thread, and need some smart-as lesbian humor to cheer me up.
ADD: Love the new avatar.

speaking of sponges, who remembers the contraceptive sponge?
immortalized by elaine bennis. (the company stopped making them and she hoarded her supply, rating men as “sponge worthy”)
and after you popped it out…you could wash the bathroom sink! why did they stop making them? they were dandy!

@baked: there were a few cases of toxic shock syndrome, and not enough sales to justify the liability risk. A friend of mine got pregnant while using one, so I never gave it a try.

@Mistress Cynica:
misery does love company. i’m also hanging by a split end. the only thing to do is picture gene london at his magic screen singing

“let’s pretend that it’s story time, and i’ll tell a tale to you
i’ll tell you a story of make believe and all your dreams will come true
and when the story’s over, and when we reach the end
we’ll live happily ever after…WHERE???
(all together now) in the Land of Let’s Pretend!!!

i’m having another drink now for remembering that. feel better?
oh and i was in love with gene london, and knew he was gay when i was six. prophetic.

@Mistress Cynica: The avatar is Lili – the feline who runs my life. She’s asleep in some laundry – I’ll fold it when she’s done.

I’d get on YouTube now and watch Margaret’s assassin tour. It’s all there. Also Lewis Black always cheers me up. He’s more cynical than I am, and that’s saying something.

@Mistress Cynica:
i really did think of your babies when i was lighting candles last night.
that shit WORKS. don’t worry.

i want to marry lewis black, seriously.

my kitties love laundry too! i’m missing them so bad, i’m getting very drunk tonight. a warning and a promise.

please. stinquers, lurkers….someone tell me you also remember gene london singing that, or i’ll have to consider checking myself in somewhere.

@blogenfreude:
I think this:

Come right on in to the General Store
We have licorice, gumdrops and sourballs;
Anything that you’re hankering for,
You’ll find in Cartoon Corners General Store.

There’s lots of stories and songs that you know,
Toys to build and a big pot belly stove;
Cartoon fun with your favorites so,
Let’s ring up the curtain on this show!

There’s something else I’ve forgotten, let’s see,
Of course, Gene London, that’s me!

Courtesy of Wiki.

@blogenfreude:
GENE LONDON! STORY TIME SONG!!!!!!
i wrote the lyrics.
you have no idea what i’m talking about?

@baked: Hey Baked, has Bibi nuked anything yet?

@ManchuCandidate:
oh thank you manchu. but wiki-cheated!
no one else remembers the show???

@Dodgerblue:
every time i hear a siren i turn on the tv. just came back from a walk, everything opens up again 9pm saturday night, all quiet…for now.

c’mon dodge, you remember gene london, dontcha?

where is nojo, i know he does!

@baked: In L.A., we had Sheriff John. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiOyG-Iuero. I can still sing the birthday song.

@baked: Knew of Gene London, but not the song. Can’t find it on YouTube.

@blogenfreude:
then it’s lost to the ages. i just have to tune into my brain.
what kind of facility was rainman in?

that’s some relief dodger, thanks.

@baked: I grew up watching “Cartoon Corners” (I mean really, what else was on?), but had to wiki-cheat to be reminded of Quigley mansion.

Most of our television came out of Philly (3, 6 and 10), although we picked up Channel 11 from New York sometimes. We got a local station in the 70s that was hilariously given channel 69 on the dial, just in time for puberty.

@baked: It’s somewhere. Everything is somewhere. You’ll find it.

Patrick Starfish: Spongebob, what is a “twink?”
Spongebob: Why do you ask?
PS: Well, these magazines on your table there.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

baked: I see this mostly in airports. Their rocking back and forth and leafing through a prayer book just before their row is called. I don’t know whether to be comforted or freaked the fuck out. I went with the latter — it is kinda sorta beautiful in its own freaky way.

@chicago bureau:
remember the story back in the 70’s when a isolated sect of ethiopian jews were found and taken to israel? that’s the strangest. the black people with the pais, and lots and lots of black jews around, the next generation. amazing. it’s not just sammy davis jr. anymore. i had occasion to talk to this beautiful young black girl the other day, and i asked her if she was jewish. she looked at me like i had 3 heads. of course! she said in english with a heavy hebrew accent. that has been the weirdest thing so far.

@blogenfreude: 1) cell phone, 2) cop grade hippie beater multi-D cell flashlight, 3) if you want a firearm, you can’t go wrong with a .38 special caliber revolver loaded with 125 grain jacketed or semi-jacketed hollow points.

Also, I’d look the book “Combat Handgunnery” by Mossad Ayoob to read about the legal landscape of home defense and personal protection use of firearms, including civil and criminal liability and PTSD. You could probably skim it standing in the aisle at Borders or whatever. Pretty sobering stuff.

Last night as Mrs RML and I were walking thru the Plaza here, I asked her, “man with a knife pops out. What’s our defensive reaction?”

“Run,” I told her.

@baked: Is it a law of nature that Ethiopian women are beautiful?

@redmanlaw: Interesting. I always thought a revolver was sort of old tech. I’ve never fired one. Fired a couple automatics I don’t remember. Girl I dated in high school’s father was a Marine, so there came a day when he took me out to the firing range so we could bond. I was best with a shotgun and clay birds, but that’s to be expected.

@Dodgerblue:
YES! passing out now, midnight here and i’m sloshed
g’night stinquies xoxo

@blogenfreude: Without getting too earnest here, I recommend against firearms for home defense. I had a friend who was all gung-ho to defend his apartment, until someone broke in while he was at work, and stole all his handguns and short-barrelled shotguns. Ooops. He wasn’t there to defend anything, and now there’s a much better-armed criminal out on the streets.

For my personal and home defense (not that I’ve ever had any indication of being attacked either personally or at home) I have pepper spray. The particular type I have is pepper spray plus CS (tear) gas plus UV dye. I’ve got a little one in my pocket, and a big one by the bed, next to the 3-D cell flashlight. This is the one I have by the bed. This (or something very like it) is what I carry in my pocket. Both are available in local sporting goods and variety stores.

The big problem I have with firearms is that those projectiles go through things like walls, and can hit your neighbors, particularly in an apartment building. Also, how do you feel in the moment after you’ve shot some asshole in your kitchen, and now there’s blood, gore, bone chips and viscera everywhere, plus a dead body, plus a hole through your good china? Now how do you feel when that dead/wounded body is your wife/girlfriend/child/cat, who was rooting around in the kitchen without turning the light on, and you reacted with the speed/wisdom of adrenaline?

All that said, I’m a fellow Liberal Gun Owner, think guns aren’t the end of the world, and am comfortable enough owning them (although I only own a .22 rifle and a 16 ga shotgun, which are kept locked up in the recesses of the basement, ie, completely useless for “home defense”).

The other problem with firearms is that they lend a largely false sense of power, particularly if you’re not skilled and/or humble with them. There’s a swagger that goes with having a gun in your hand, and unless you have the skills and experience to back that up, chances are reasonable that you’ll be shot by your own gun in an actual confrontation.

All that having been said, if you really gotta have a gun in the apartment, get yourself down to the local range where they rent handguns, and try a bunch out. Pick the one that makes the most sense to you (regardless of size — in an apartment shootout, it doesn’t matter too much whether you have a .22 or a .45), then get some Glaser Safety Slugs for it so if you do have to waste a bad guy, there’s a smaller chance of wasting your neighbor, too.

I LUUURV CHO! I’d forgotten how funny she can be. And so svelte these days!

The new dis:

I hope you love crafts!

Classic.

@baked: They’re back, came back like 2 years ago. I loved them. The sponges, I mean.

And they act kinda like shoulder pads for the cervix, noone likes getting their cervix robustly poked, I have heard.

@redmanlaw: I have always thought a moderate sized pike would be good.

A complicated, spear-like, razor sharp blade on the end of a 6 foot long stick. What are they gonna do, grab it? A good one is designed to cut on the backstroke, too, so if they grab it, they are gonna get shredded as you pull it back. And noone studies how to defend against a pike, these days.

There was a time 10 years ago when I was being seriously and menacingly stalked by my wife’s ex. He slashed the tires on my car several times, I discovered later that there were occasions when he got into the house she and I were living in, and did little acts of sabotage, and then we discovered that he had entered the house through the crawlspace, crawled under the house and sawed a trap-door uo through the floor, but under the couch in the formal living room we never used, so noone would ever see it, and had been coming into the house and going through our shit for months.

I was prepared to kill him. I bought a two foot long piece of black iron pipe, I screwed caps on each end, and with duct tape made a handle with a loop that wrapped around the wrist so it could not be grabbed out of your hand. I kept it near me always. And some pepper spray I got from a cop friend of mine.

But really, just always being aware, there was never danger, anyway, turns out he’s the “sneak” kind, sneaks will slash tires and sabotage, but they often fear face to face confrontation. A few months into this, we had occasion to be at the same large public event at the same time, I saw him, and started walking toward him to have a little talk. He saw me, and turned and ran like death itself were after him. And in an act completely unlike me, I chased him. Mind you, I do not fight, I am not a tough guy, I was not seeking to get into a fight when I approached him, I just wanted to like try to address it and talk. But when he ran, and I realized he was afraid of me, I thought to myself, “well, he’s wrong to be afraid of me, but as long as he thinks he should be, I am going to try to ad to that fear, so I started running after him screaming, “I’m gonna kick your ass, motherfucker.” He ran out the doors of the venue ans sprinted off into the night, and by the time I got to the door, he was gone.

Stupid fuck. He coulda kicked my ass.

@redmanlaw:
Hey there RML, how’s your nephew?
I have my St. Francis candle in San Francisco burning for him (hope that’s not too painful of an image).

@Promnight: I thought they were just used as replacement tampons so one could still enjoy carnal favours during that time of the month?

Never heard of them used as contraception though. You can’t trust sperm, wiggly bastards.

@CheapBoy: I’ve been trolling through George Carlin DVDs the past few weeks, and he has a great bit about a fundamental problem with life beginning at conception:

90 percent of fertilized eggs never get implanted in the uterus. Which makes women monthly mass murderers.

(The actual percentage is lower, but still significant.)

@nojo: Oh dear. More taxes for extra prisons then?

The only way to be sure is to remove all the eggs from all women at puberty, and make them apply for access to their ova for reproductive purposes only.

@CheapBoy: Also, capital punishment for wankers. Every male who has sperm is commanded to report to the authorities forthwith. Sperm is hereby declared property of the State. Nocturnal emissions will be punish-ed to the full extent of the Law.

@ManchuCandidate: Well Onan got into a hell of a lot of trouble for wasting his seed upon the ground. So between the bible and the fundies we are all screwed.

The only saving grace is that testicles produce sperm, as opposed to ovaries that store eggs, so testicles have to stay connected to the body.

But wait… Ain’t their moral objections to in-vitro fertilisation? Well that’s it for the human race under the fundies….

@blogenfreude: The revolver is old school and they work. What eve you get -if you do go down that road – practice like hell. I’m going to the range later with 2-3 revolvers in .22 LR, .38. and .375 with four boxes of my handloads. I made 800 cartridges last year and shot well over 1,000 rounds in .38 and .357 alone.

That being said, I’m with my esteemed colleague from Rain Town on this. I don’t leave a heater lying out for “home defense” or theft (one guy here lost $20,000 in guns and tools when they opened his garage with his remote). I don’t want to arm bad guys. I, too, carry the jogger tear gas and think that would be great for in the house. Thanks and tip of the hat to Ian J. He had a lot of good common sense stuff to say. Friend of a friend pulled his gun on his brother recently, who had a key to his house.

@SanFranLefty: The pain, anxiety, resentment and sense of confinement are kicking in. It’ll be a long haul. Thanks for the candle and good thoughts.

@redmanlaw: The “now you’ve shot someone, and there’s body parts and holes all over your kitchen; what do you do?” scenario is the one that I came up with that permanently ended all thoughts of firearms for home defense.

ADD: I thought you might be interested to know, my girlfriend and I hit the range with my .22 rifle and an assortment of rented .22 handguns on Friday. She’s a good shot. To my utter shock, I put 5 out of 5 shots on the paper with a CZ 75 Kadet at 50 feet (elbow braced on the bench, but still). Didn’t like the trigger much on the CZ. I’m definitely not a handgun person.

@redmanlaw: I don’t want to arm bad guys.

I’m the last person who would even consider firearms for self-protection, but that’s the argument I’d raise: As a practical matter, not only will it not work, you’re more likely to set the conditions for an accident or worse. It’s not the body parts in the kitchen, it’s whose body parts.

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