FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From Whatever:

The Webb Schools of California, which is the high school I went to way back when, has updated its handbook with a section for “Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students” and as far as I can see it gets it right — establishing explicitly that Webb students have a right to identify their own gender and to be called by the names and pronouns they choose, and that the school will work with them to accommodate their choices with dignity and respect. The relevant section of the handbook is here (and is immediately followed by a robust harassment and discrimination policy, which I also applaud). Note I am a cisgender hetrosexual so there may be things I miss, but to the extent I know about about this stuff, this is pretty great.

It makes me proud of my school, and it also shows the distance it’s come since I graduated there more than 30 years ago.

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From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

“Dark Money” is the language of dictators who want to silence the free speech of private citizens. Another word for “dark” is anonymous. Given the inextricable link between spending and speech, anonymous spending equals anonymous expression. Anonymous expression is a right that should be protected. Political anonymity has been used throughout history by free speakers to avoid harassment and intimidation by both governments, political opponents, and private thugs. It was used by Revolutionary advocates of freedom and independence to shield them from British reprisals. It was used by 20th Century black Civil Rights advocates to shield them from white racist lynch mobs.

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From PZ Myers:

I picked up this book (actually, my brother gave it to me), and I couldn’t put it down. It’s got everything. It’s got a brave heroic protagonist. It’s got a god-soaked repellent psychopath for a villain who could have stepped straight out of a Steven King novel. It’s got establishment schemers who make everything worse. And most of all, it’s got grisly body horror. I kept reading because I had to know what abomination would be perpetrated on the innocent victim next.

Only it’s not a novel. It’s Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, and it’s about the assassination of James Garfield.

The protagonist: James Garfield was one of those forgotten, minor presidents I didn’t know much about, because he served less than a year and months of that was was spent slowly dying in agony. But, I learned, he was a rather progressive candidate who accepted a nomination by popular acclaim reluctantly, and was a vigorous defender of civil rights who campaigned for dignity and equality for all races. He was a Republican. That tells you how much the party has declined in the last 140 years.

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From Tommy Christopher:

Trump wants to distract you from the real problems he has done nothing about.

Trump spent the waning hours of his vacation attacking former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman — but he still hasn’t found time to address new reports of the ballooning death toll from Hurricane Maria.

On Thursday, national news outlets reported that the Puerto Rican government has dramatically updated its official death toll from Hurricane Maria, from just 64 deaths to a shocking 1,427.

And even this new official estimate may be hopelessly rosy.

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From The Borowitz Report:

“People were impressed by Omarosa because they saw her on a TV show,” Trump told reporters from his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. “Well, I’ve got news for you: being on a reality show does not qualify you to work in the government.”

Explaining why he considered her a “lowlife,” Trump said, “She’s rude, abrasive, and offensive. Having someone like that in the White House is an embarrassment to our country.”

But worst of all, Trump said, was Omarosa’s lying, which he called “constant.”

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From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

I have been blogging for ten years now. I was a Christian when I started blogging, and readers who have been with me from the beginning have watched me journey from Progressive Christianity to atheism. They have watched me start and stop blogging several times, aware of how painful for me deconversion has been. They have watched as Evangelicals savaged me in their churches, on their blogs, and former iterations of this blog; watching as this savagery cut me so deeply that I bled out before their eyes. In time I would arise as a phoenix from the ashes, only to abandon my blog twelve or eighteen months later. Long-time readers will remember blogs such as Bruce Droppings and The Way Forward.

In the fall of 2014, I had yet again another meltdown and stopped blogging. Close friends waited to see if I would rise from the dead. In December 2014, I indeed — unlike Jesus who remains buried in a forgotten grave in Palestine — arose from the dead, ready once again to tell my story. In December 2018, this blog will be four years old. Imagine that, long time readers, FOUR YEARS OLD! Evangelicals haven’t stopped attempting to silence me, so why no classic Bruce meltdowns, why no running from the battle bruised and bleeding?

There are five reasons why this blog has survived…

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From driftglass

So, we find there are at least three things which big-thinking, professional Conservative Havers-of-Opinions agree on.

First, a Very Bad Thing happened to Conservatism at some point in the past.

Second, despite being big-thinking, professional Conservative Havers-of-Opinion, they have no idea what exactly the Very Bad Thing was (Spoiler: I guarantee that, sooner that you will believe possible, somehow, some way, Conservative dogma will settle on blaming the Libtards.)

Third, whatever the Very Bad Thing was, it was definitely not their fault.

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From Frances Langum:

According to this painfully long article in Politico, Trump picked up the phone and wanted to call the Japanese Prime Minister when it was 1:30 in the morning Japan time. This allegedly wasn’t an “oops I forgot” situation.
…
Almost as bad as Trump’s complete lack of diplomacy or willingness to learn are the Trump defenders who excuse this behavior in the article: “One White House staffer said, ‘He’s the President of the United States. He’s not stopping to add up’ time differences, the official said. ‘I don’t think anybody would expect him or Obama or Bush or Clinton or anybody to do that.'”

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Like other progressives, I was very happy when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortz won the Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat from New York City (The Bronx). I think she’s going to make a great representative.

What I am not so happy about is what she has been saying in her trips around the country and on TV. She has been saying a couple of things that simply are not true. She says unemployment is low because “everyone has two jobs”, and because people are people are “working 60, 70, 80 hours a week”.

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From The Onion:

BERKELEY, CA—Challenging long-held views on the origins of divinity, biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, presented findings Thursday that confirm God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, evolved from an ancient chimpanzee deity.

The recently discovered sacred ancestor, a divine chimp species scientists have named Pan sanctorum, reportedly gave rise over millions of years to the Lord Our God, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

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