Recently in WTF???? Category

"This cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass."

(MSNBC) PHILADELPHIA - A woman jogging in a Philadelphia park has been killed by a falling tree branch just days after a similar incident in New York's Central Park left a man comatose.

Kilmeade and two colleagues were discussing a study that, based on research done in Finland and Sweden, showed people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's. Kilmeade questioned the results, though, saying, "We are -- we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other ..."

At this point, his co-host tried to -- in that jokey morning show way -- tell Kilmeade he needed to shut up, and quick, for his own sake. But he didn't get the message, adding, "See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes.... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society."

(TPM) According to Hill reporter Alexander Bolton, "This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' tongue and ears -- would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench."

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

Slightly gobsmacked, I called Bolton earlier today and asked him whether this was for real--whether any conservatives were genuinely raising this issue. He confirmed, saying, "a source I spoke to said people were discussing that her [speech] had brought attention...she intimates that what she eats somehow helps her decide cases better."

Bolton said the source was drawing, "a deductive link," between Sotomayor's thoughts on Puerto Rican food and her other statements. And I guess the chain goes something like this: 1). Sotomayor implied that her Latina identity informs her jurisprudence, 2). She also implied that Puerto Rican cuisine is a crucial part of her Latina identity, 3). Ergo, her gastronomical proclivities will be a non-negligible factor for her when she's considering cases before the Supreme Court.

Got it? Good. This is the conservative opposition to Sotomayor.

See, what's nice about other blogs is that I don't have to wallow through an entire article of standard batshit crazy just to get to this phenomenally stupid conservative talking point. In this particular case, I was able to cull the above piece of "wtf" from TPM by way of Mustang Bobby. The end result, I don't have to wipe up the green discharge of my brain leaking out of my ears.

Oh, and what is it about the people with the last name of Bolton? Are they all naturally insane, or is it a curse that comes with the name?

OK, this one shouldn't be surprising. We know, for instance, that the whack jobs on the social conservative extremist end of the GOP spectrum are a bit on the dim side and don't play all that well on the internet. Well, it was last Wednesday that the National Organization for Marriage launched their 2M4M campaign, not understanding that "M4M" is a standard abbreviation in personals for "man looking for man." In other words, their cute slogan reads like a solicitation for group gay sex. Hey, even Rachel Maddow has made fun of it. Today we find that the National Organization for Marriage was so stupid as to not buy up the domain names for their new initiative.

www.2m4m.org is now a place of inclusion that stands for civil rights.

BBC

Staff at a high school in the US state of Texas had students settle their differences by fighting inside a steel cage, a local newspaper has reported.

The Dallas Morning News says it has obtained a school board report that says two "cage fights" took place at South Oak Cliff High between 2003-2005.

Americablog

And I thought it was cool when my dad did this with his pipe. I can't give a description that will adequately describe what you're about to see. It's amazing. And even more amazing, this is apparently something these dolphins didn't do before. A few of them somehow learned it, then the other dolphins in the tank learned from them. Absolutely positively astounding.

"Do you get all upset about it? No, you just clean it up and get another glass of milk," said Scott J. Johnson, 38, of Kingsford, Mich. "It might sound sick or sadistic to come off that way but that's pretty much it."

[snip]

According to a psychologist's report released Tuesday by the state Department of Justice, Johnson felt empty and numb the day of the shootings and told the doctor his "purpose was to kill. Jesus could have been walking with Moses that day and I would have killed them."

After the shootings, Johnson told the doctor he walked past a female victim on the ground. "He said that he said to her, 'You can stop playing dead now,'" before seeing her gunshot wound.

Johnson added, "You don't have to be crazy to do what I did, just angry," the report said.

Johnson won't apologize to the victims' families that day.

"I don't care what they think," he told the AP. "Anyway, considering the act I did an apology would come off as pretty weak, you know?"

(CNN) -- Marvin Schur may have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the World War II veteran was chronically late in paying his utility bills during the two years before he froze to death last month at age 93 in his home in Bay City, Michigan, after his power was cut off.

[snip]

In February 2007, Schur tried to pay about $350 at his bank, according to a city accounts supervisor. Ten days later, the supervisor says, a city worker made a notation that Schur's bank was not an authorized payment center.

The following month, the same city official says records show Schur tried to pay $876 at a different bank that could accept utility payments. However, the city says its records inexplicably don't reflect that the payment was made.

After receiving a fine for unpaid bills, Schur wiped the slate clean with a $1,000 payment, according to Bay City Accounts Supervisor Tina Cooper.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A British Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in an accident with a French submarine while on operations in the Atlantic Ocean, CNN has learned. Both vessels are understood to have been carrying nuclear warheads at the time and to have suffered damage.