https://twitter.com/ABCWorldNews/statuses/301524235170484224

https://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews/statuses/301530006587310080

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/statuses/301530823511904257

https://twitter.com/CNN/statuses/301528042436710400

Surprisingly, only FoxNews — apparently intently focused on the State of the Union address at the time — managed to not erroneously report a body on twitter. They did however report on their website.

The LAPD had to set the record straight:

https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/statuses/301529848785022976

In a twitter world, a lie can literally make its way around the world before the truth even has a chance to tie its shoelaces (apologies to Mark Twain).

CBS banned SodaStream’s Super Bowl spot because, apparently, it was too much of a direct hit to two of its biggest sponsors, Coke and Pepsi.

Please pause and read that sentence again.

I am shocked that CBS would ban a spot for being too competitive. But I’m even more shocked that the advertising world isn’t up in arms about it.

The media’s job isn’t to judge.
SodaStream has a product that could be wildly disruptive to the soda industry, if successful. As in, the “automobile” to the soda industry’s “buggy whip.” If SodaStream takes off, Coke and Pepsi would have a lot to worry about, for sure. But isn’t that what progress is all about?

CBS is protecting its relationship with Coke and Pepsi. Those two brands spend big bucks on the Super Bowl and on the network, in general. I get it. But all CBS would have to do, if Coke and Pepsi put the pressure on, is say, “Hey, we’re just the unbiased middle man here. It’s not up to us what competitors of yours say about you.” There’s no need for the medium to have a say in the message. [...]

No more ‘Davids’ allowed.
I also called veteran creative director, David Baldwin, of Baldwin&, to get his take with CBS’s move. He nailed it. “That’s a disturbing turn of events. No more Davids allowed I guess at CBS.”

And it’s so unnecessary. If CBS had simply played the “unbiased middleman” card in this case, there’s very little Coke and Pepsi could have done. They certainly would not have pulled their Super Bowl ads. Instead, Coke and Pepsi would have been forced to retrench and figure out a marketing way to solve this SodaStream problem and not a mafia way (I mean that metaphorically, of course).

Now, CBS has essentially opened the door for its biggest advertisers to forever complain about those “annoying little competitors” that are trying to steal share. “Take them off the air. Make them stop!” is what they will scream. “You did it for Coke and Pepsi.”

And it won’t only be CBS. All media will have to bear the burden of this biased, un-capitalistic, anti-progress, move. But, guess what? This isn’t the first time in recent months CBS has overplayed its hand.

Libertarians have long complained of their blackout in the media, yet we’ve seen a more and more blatant bias towards Democrats and Republicans in news coverage at outlets such as CBS. “We told you so” has become the standard refrain from libertarians when it comes to voting for the lesser of two evils presented as the only viable choices.

Thankfully, corporations like SodaStream won’t take the affront lying down, and I expect a major campaign is in the works similar to when UK broadcaster ClearCast also banned them:

Clearcast said in a statement that the ad “denigrated other soft drinks.” In response, SodaStream U.K.’s managing director Fiona Hope called the move “absurd” and said that Clearcast clearly gives priority to soft drink giants.

But it seems SodaStream will have the last laugh. Bloomberg reports that the company is enjoying considerable levels of success on the stock market this year. In the U.K., the video has been viewed more than a millon times online. Jim Chartier, an analyst from research firm Monness Crespi Hardt & Co., explains the obvious — that “SodaStream got a ton of free advertising and publicity because the ad was banned.”

Regardless of whether or not SodaStream portrayed big soda companies unfairly in this ad, it can’t be denied that it has baited big outfits in the past. This past summer, SodaStream erected a caged display of used soft drink and water bottles in South Africa — including Coca-Cola products — to illustrate the wastefulness of bottled drinks. Similar SodaStream exhibits have popped up across the globe in the last two years, with stops in Times Square and Union Square in New York City.

Coca-Cola responded with a cease and desist letter — after which SodaStream announced plans to build a used bottle display not far from Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

Score for the little(r) guy, I hope they are planning to stick it to CBS as well.

Update by Stephen VanDyke: This ban is actually a little stale (over a week old), but SodaStream has capitalized on this in the best way possible, splashing the ad (over 2.2M views as of this update) on the front page of their website.

And no, it’s not low quality stuff that makes Ronco look good.

“Look, I made a bet with the producer of the film that if Amendment 64 passed (I did not think it would) that I would smoke pot,” he said through his research and education institute, the Rocky Mountain Foundation. “I will therefore smoke pot under circumstances we both agree are legal under Colorado law. Hey, it’s better than having to do a stupid dance as (Denver) Mayor (Michael) Hancock must perform as a result of losing a bet on the Broncos beating the Ravens.

The promise was apparently only half-hearted, because after some cajoling from his wife he’s now doing the politician thing and saying it’s not going to happen:

Tom Tancredo has just said “no.”

Under pressure from his wife and grandchildren, the former GOP congressman will renege on a public pledge to smoke marijuana, which he made after losing a bet on Colorado’s pot-legalization initiative on Election Day.

Tancredo, a conservative Republican who has been out of Congress since 2009, supported Colorado’s Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in his home state when it passed on election day. Tancredo said he had never smoked marijuana and that he did not condone its use, but argued that the government shouldn’t tell adults what they can or can’t ingest.

The former congressman never thought it would pass. “I thought it would take at least one more time around to do it,” Tancredo told ABC News last week. He made a bet with film producer Adam Hartle, who was in Colorado to make a film on the pot measure, agreeing to smoke marijuana if it became legal.

Recently, Tancredo said he would make good on the bet, agreeing to inhale “just a puff” with Hartle, leaving the filmmaker to handle the marijuana procurement. On Friday, he even suggested Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper should join in.

But that made a lot of people unhappy, including Tancredo’s family, and now the former congressman says he won’t do it.

“My wife is absolutely-she’s pissed,” Tancredo told ABC News last week. “Oh man, she is not happy.”

Also upset were his grandkids (really? that part is surprising).

To temper the wimping out, Tancredo has fully acknowledged that marijuana is a state’s rights issue and that the nanny state is a threat to individual liberties.

“My conservative friends just believe what I’m doing is encouraging people to smoke it,” Tancredo said. “I don’t think people should. That decision is up to an individual. An adult, in this society, is not something the government should have any control over.”

All in all, good on Tancredo for having the cajones to finally come around to libertarian principles on individual choice, but we’re more than a tad disappointed he’s only latching on to the issue after the battle is already won.

For his support, we give him honorary dreadlock status — which means very little because he merely ends up looking like a sober white guy acting like a poser at a Phish concert.

This week’s shameful story of authoritarian knee-jerk over-reactionaries comes from Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, where a 5-year-old girl was suspended for making a “terrorist threat” with a toy bubble machine:

A 5-year-old girl was suspended from school earlier this week after she made what the school called a “terrorist threat.”

Her weapon of choice? A small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower.

The kindergartner, who attends Mount Carmel Area Elementary School in Pennsylvania, caught administrators’ attention after suggesting she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles.

“I think people know how harmless a bubble is. It doesn’t hurt,” said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the girl’s family. According to Ficker, the girl, whose identity has not been released, didn’t even have the bubble gun toy with her at school.

The kindergartner was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation during her 10-day suspension, which was later reduced to two days. The evaluation deemed the girl normal and not a threat to others, Ficker said.

Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with America these days? Can’t we just let kids the play without cringing at “cops and robbers” or “cowboys and indians” and blowing everything out of proportion?

Is it any surprise, that with shit like this going on, smart people continue to have fewer and fewer children?

In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs.

Massive pro-gun and pro-freedom facebook page “The American Patriot Nation” has been running a series of wall posts eviscerating the argument against guns. Their angle? Pointing out that the most dangerous (i.e.- most people killed) weapon in America isn’t actually an “assault” rifle, rather it’s blunt objects such as hammers, baseball bats, crowbars and rolling pins.

Here’s the hilarious images:

According to FBI crime stats, hammers and other blunt objects are used to commit more homicides than rifles.

Pick your poison…

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Hammer control time!

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Guess which items are used more in murders?

No word yet on how Congress will react towards these ridiculously true revelations. We’re rushing to outfit Hammer of Truth with pistol grips, high capacity databases and some matte black paint just in case.

The Pueblo County Republican Party with support of members of the Constitution Party and Democrat Party requested a recount on December 5th, 2012, due to the following areas of concern:

• Critical election anomalies were observed in at least 25 precincts. Based on data posted on the Secretary of State’s web site identifying voter turn-out by Precinct and a report provided by Pueblo County Clerk’s office on active Mail in Ballots that were compared and found to have potential voter turnout to exceed 100% of the registered voters. It was verified by phone with both the Secretary of State and the Pueblo County Clerk’s office that this could not have occurred due to provisional ballots replacing mail in ballots. A sample of these precincts is attached. In attempt to further cross check these results, audit calls were made to these precincts, at least 6 voters in one precinct stated they had not voted which substantiated that the election results should be recounted.
• Election data provided later differed from the canvassing board summary created by the Pueblo County Clerk’s office.
• It was observed and reported to the County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz groups and individuals were observed picking up more than 10 mail-in ballots and delivering them to the County Clerk’s office. PCRP registered a complaint due to potential voter fraud. Mr. Ortiz stated he was aware this had occurred, to remedy this situation if a person delivered over 10 ballots he was having the individuals sign in on a sheet located at the election department. At the time of canvassing the Republican canvassing member asked to receive these lists of persons delivering more than 10 ballots. The Democrat canvass member stated, “This list is under investigation, so you may not have access to the lists”. No such investigation has been reported to the Secretary of State’s office to date nor is any record of the investigation available by the Pueblo County District Attorney.
• The integrity of the chain of custody of main in ballots was not preserved. Mail- in ballots were seen being carried into Democrat headquarters. Ballots were being collected by door knocking. Two judges were not present at all times at drop off locations for mail in ballots. No system was in lace to detect if one individual dropped off more than 10 mails- in ballots over the course of the election.
• It is the expectation the election department has limited access of individuals and security measures to protect voting machines, ballots and ballot processing. Mr. Ortiz gave the candidates a tour of the election department stating only limited personnel had access to keys to the election department. When various people were observed entering the election department after hours and through varying entrances that are not under video surveillance Mr. Ortiz later stated “All personnel have keys and access to the department”. During early voting, lights were observed on in the election department after hours of operation as late as 9:00PM to 11:00 PM at night with people inside the department to include cleaning crews file storage boxes were also seen leaving the department after hours. Upon inquiry of this breach of security, the county attorney’s office sent written notification housekeeping personnel were not allowed in the election department, Mr. Ortiz stated his staff cleaned the election office. Upon observation of the video surveillance cameras unsupervised cleaning crews were inside of the election department after working hours on at least two occasions. Furthermore, areas of the election department are not under camera surveillance to include a storage area where voting cartridges are stored. These oversights compromise the integrity and confidence of the voting public no matter what party affiliation.
• Once a candidate is elected is our belief that they represent equally all the people. In the spirit of cooperation, Mr. Ortiz was put on notice on 11/21/12 that we planned to ask for a recount of the election so that he was not caught off guard. It is our belief that it was as beneficial to the County Clerk as it was to our candidates to conduct a recount given the questions. A great deal of research was done to attempt to determine what the cost would be as no guidance or help was provided from the County Clerk. The result was a $6,000-$8,000 price. We were prepared for it to be double that cost. The price to us was $29, 385. We checked the validity of this price through various sources and were told this price was not appropriate. PCRP filed the final recount request on 12/5.12Mr. Ortiz then informed us at 7:00 PM that we needed to have the money to his office at 5:00 PM on the 6th. Mr. Ortiz had known for two weeks that we planned to ask for a recount but found no need to give us any guidance on how we make this happen and represent all the people of Pueblo County.
• These areas and other factors such as difficulties with poll watcher access prompted a recount request. These actions serve to disenfranchise election transparency and accountability by making fees for a recount unrealistic. A report of other county recount costs is attached as is a sample of the data that we sought to clarify.

According to a sampling of precincts, there is a major discrepancy in voter turnout (when non-voters are counted it goes well over 100%), which should be enough to raise eyebrows with the Colorado Secretary of State.

From my own personal investigation into the matter and speaking with several witnesses (who will gladly testify under oath, but fear reprisal if this investigation doesn’t take hold) they saw people loading mail-in ballots into cars and trucks at all hours of the night in the days prior to the election.

Worse, the people doing the “dirty deeds” were not even election officials, but complete unknowns that gladly flaunted the presence of security cameras.

Democrat Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert Ortiz has clearly showed a lax standard for ballot chain of custody and we’d love him to answer for it (again, we’ve gone after Republicans for the same scandals in the past).

We here at Hammer of Truth would love to see a formal inquiry launched into the matter. And to again be clear: if it were Republicans doing such dirty deeds, we’d be just as interested in a full investigation.

Becky Mizel, the Pueblo County GOP Chairwoman has being adamant that they aren’t trying to overturn the outcome (and indeed has conceded that Obama remains the president no matter the outcome here), but is seeking to ensure that there are elections free of impropriety now and in the future. She’s also claiming that a recount request was improperly handled, causing the GOP to miss the deadline.

[A full list of attached documents have been uploaded to Scribd as one file: The Pueblo County Attorney's Office response for requested video tapes, a sampling of precincts showing OVER 100% TURNOUT (ye gads), and the cost of a full recount as requested by the Pueblo County GOP.]

The “Gun Free Schools Act of 1994” made it a federal crime to possess a firearm on any school property. Many states enacted similar legislation at the state level, as the federal act required them to do so or lose certain federal funding. Thus, it has been a crime to go onto school property anywhere in the US while in possession of a gun for the past 18 years. Has that helped?
Well, I did some research and I cannot find a single mass school shooting in the US prior to 1994, when this bill was passed. For the purposes of this discussion, I will define a “mass school shooting” as one in which three or more people were killed. I have found 14 such incidents in the United States between 1997 and the Newtown, CT, incident of yesterday. That is an average of one incident every two years.

ALL OF THESE OCCURRED AFTER THE ENACTMENT OF THE GUN FREE SCHOOLS ACT OF 1994! Let me emphasize that—every mass school shooting in the US occurred AFTER it became illegal to possess a gun on school grounds.

Why?

The answer should be obvious. By making schools a “gun free zone”, you automatically disarm all law abiding citizens at those locations. This is tantamount to placing a sign on the front of the building inviting criminals and mentally deranged persons to come shoot up the place. “Come on in. We’re all unarmed, by law. We won’t interfere with your mayhem.”

Disgusting…

I, for instance, have a state issued handgun carry permit. I am certified by the NRA as a Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor and I have been certified by the FBI as a police firearms instructor. I am certified by two states to train and certify new firearms instructors for those states. I have held a law enforcement officer commission. I travel all over the US teaching defensive firearms use. Yet, by law, I would commit a felony by stepping onto school grounds while wearing my sidearm. Despite this, someone who, for whatever reason, wants to shoot up a school can walk right in. If he is willing to murder six year olds in cold blood, he certainly won’t be deterred by a law against bringing a gun onto the campus. Duh….. To think otherwise is so naïve as to be a form of mental illness.

I think it is truly ironic that in the first mass school shooting I could find, occurring in 1997, the mayhem was stopped when the Assistant Principal got a handgun from his car and confronted the gunman, who surrendered to him. Thank God the Assistant Principal had an ILLEGAL gun that day.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an attempted mass shooting at a mall in Oregon. The demented shooter had a high capacity semiautomatic rifle, but he only managed to kill two people and wound one other before killing himself. Why was the body count so low, given that this was obviously a copy-cat version of the Aurora, CO, shootings? The answer is simple. Because Nick Meli, age 22, was at the mall there with his wife and child. Nick has a concealed carry permit and was wearing a handgun concealed on his person. When the suspect began shooting, Nick drew his gun and verbally challenged the gunman. Meli held his fire because of innocent people in the background (excellent judgment under stress), but his actions caused the gunman to break off the attack, run into a nearby service corridor and kill himself, ending the spree. Of course, the lamestream media will not tell you about Nick. They would prefer a higher body count rather than tell you a legally armed citizen saved the day.

Here are a few other instances that two minutes of internet research brought to light. In each case, a legally armed private citizen saved lives by being there and by being armed.

• In Pearl, Mississippi in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school. As he was on his way to another school building , he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his car. Having that gun was illegal, but it saved lives.
• In Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1996, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun when he was confronted by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home.
• In Winnemucca, Nevada in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with three hundred people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed carry license).
• In Colorado Springs in 2007, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church. He was then shot several times by Jeanne Assam, a church member, volunteer security guard, and former police officer (she had been dismissed by a police department 10 years before, and to my knowledge hadn’t worked as a police officer since).

So, I do want some legislative action. I want “gun free zones” abolished, at least for legally armed citizens with government issued licenses to carry. This is real “common sense” gun legislation.

The transcript can be found here.

TL;DW – Trust yourself, not the government.

Oh, and “the internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex that controls the news and most political propaganda.” Yep.

“I never thought that I would say this, and this is the first time publicly that I’ve said it: We need a third party to save this country. Not Ron Paul and the Ron Paulites. No. We need a legitimate third party to challenge the current system that we have, because I don’t believe that the Republican Party … has the ability to rebrand itself,” Cain said.

You can listen to the whole radio interview here.

It’s pretty clear from his actions that Cain has no interest in building anything other than a gold palace to himself in his lifetime, so I say let him start off down the third party road to failure so many have traveled.

Cain’s Pro War and Racist Pizza Party can ignore the Federal Reserve’s deplorable fiscal policy of printing fiat money by the truckload, offer to leverage the government to force people to conform to socially conservative policies that are widely rejected, and we can all laugh when this inexperienced upstart third party fails miserably behind the Constitution Party due to the ridiculous ballot access laws.

The media sneering will of course be bipartisan in nature, but maybe we’ll come to like him again in Internet memes if he’ll flash that creepy smile at us some more.

This has been a helpful message from the fucking Hammer of Truth, where we haven’t said “fuck” in a while. We know you missed the needless profanity and make a promise (non-campaign, so it’s legit) to put in more swearing.

Please let us know in the fucking comments what candidates and issues you think are going to fucking win.

This demand, which even the bank’s inspectors saw as nothing more than routine, alarmed the Berlin political establishment. Indeed, the partially blacked-out report read like the prologue to an espionage thriller in which the stunned central bankers could end up standing in front of empty vaults in the US.

For decades, German central bankers have contented themselves with written affirmations from their American colleagues that the gold still remains where it is said to be stored. According to the report, the bar list from New York stems from “1979/1980.” The report also noted that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York refuses to allow the gold’s owners to view their own reserves.

Not surprisingly, this prompted strong reactions in Berlin: The relevant Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele was summoned to Berlin to provide an explanation to the parliamentary budget committee. Heinz-Peter Haustein of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) was even quoted by Germany’s mass-circulation Bild newspaper as saying that “all the gold has to be shipped back.”

[...] Such intense secrecy fuels legends. Many conspiracy theorists have suspected for decades that the German gold has long since disappeared. Others believe that it has been lent out. They contend that there are only promissory notes of little worth stored in the bank’s vaults.

Another myth that has been making the rounds in nationalist-oriented German circles is that the US refused to hand over the treasure and threatened during the Cold War to withdraw its troops from Germany if the Germans demanded their gold back. Former Bundesbank head Karl Blessing, according to the theory, had to provide the US written confirmation that he would never do such a thing.

This letter, as it happens, actually exists, as Blessing confirmed in his last interview with SPIEGEL in 1971 — except it doesn’t concern the German gold, but rather US gold reserves.

For decades Ron Paul has been the canary in the coal mine on auditing the Federal Reserve, something that hasn’t been assuaged by a September 2010 report claiming all the gold is accounted for:

In September, Treasury completed its latest audit, showing that U.S. gold reserves total 9,300 tons with a market value of $320 billion, Thorson said. The recent run-up in gold prices — the precious metal is trading at about $1,515 an ounce — puts the market value at $340 billion as of Wednesday, according to Thorson’s testimony. He added that each gold bar weighs about 27 pounds and is worth around $500,000.

Paul said that his questions were partly in response to the numerous Internet conspiracy theories, including those that accuse the government of secretly selling all of the gold in Fort Knox.

Thorson said Treasury doesn’t believe that anyone, including the Fed, has taken the gold or laid claim to U.S. gold bars. Any further audit as proposed by Paul’s legislation would be redundant, he said.

“There is no movement. There is nothing there that can happen, once those doors are sealed,” Thorson said. “It’s very obvious if those seals are ever broken.”

William Lacy Clay, a Democratic representative from Missouri, said that doing a complete audit as Paul is calling for is a waste of federal manpower and could cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Thorson reported that the U.S. Mint told him that moving, counting and testing the gold would cost around $60 million. Paul said he had heard from Treasury that it would only cost $15 million.

The Federal Reserve will certainly try to curtail the increasingly international demand for an audit, but the demands to “show us our gold” are growing louder with each hit the global economy takes.

With obvious second-rate video and audio production, Johnson was still able to deliver first-rate responses in real-time as he watched the “debate” and live-streamed the affair to Americans who are not content with the duopoly’s choice for 2012.

Below is the embedded one-hour video, where Johnson made it abundantly clear he’s laughing just as incredulously as the rest of us at what wasn’t said by Obama and Romney.

“Down in New Orleans, where they still have not rebuilt twenty months later,” he begins, “there’s a law, federal law — when you get reconstruction money from the federal government — called the Stafford Act. And basically it says, when you get federal money, you gotta give a ten percent match. The local government’s gotta come up with ten percent. Every ten dollars the federal government comes up with, local government’s gotta give a dollar.”

“Now here’s the thing,” Obama continues, “when 9-11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act — said, ‘This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you gotta put in. Well, here’s ten dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ‘Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not gonna wait for you to scratch it together — because you’re part of the American family.’”

That’s not, Obama says, what is happening in majority-black New Orleans. “What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money?” Obama shouts, angry now. “Makes no sense! Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!”

It’s a remarkable moment, and not just for its resemblance to Kayne West’s famous claim that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” but also because of its basic dishonesty. By January of 2007, six months before Obama’s Hampton speech, the federal government had sent at least $110 billion to areas damaged by Katrina. Compare this to the mere $20 billion that the Bush administration pledged to New York City after Sept. 11.

Moreover, the federal government did at times waive the Stafford Act during its reconstruction efforts. On May 25, 2007, just weeks before the speech, the Bush administration sent an additional $6.9 billion to Katrina-affected areas with no strings attached.

As a sitting United States Senator, Obama must have been aware of this. And yet he spent 36 minutes at the pulpit telling a mostly black audience that the U.S. government doesn’t like them because they’re black.

This will only serve to confirm suspicions that Obama has been racially divisive in his rhetoric. But at least he’s been making it up by stepping up the ridiculous government programs to give those “unfortunate” folks gobs of cell phones. No really, GOBS.

When “just another day,” isn’t:

Demonstrators attacked a U.S. consulate in Libya, killing one American, and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, amid angry protests over a film by a U.S. producer that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad.

Egyptian protesters climbed the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and replaced the flag with a black standard bearing an Islamic inscription, in protest of a film deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad. Matt Bradley has details on The News Hub.

The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam. It has been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots around the world.

In Benghazi, Libya, several dozen gunmen from an Islamist group, Ansar al Sharia, attacked the consulate with rocket-propelled grenades to protest the film, a deputy interior minister for the Benghazi region told the Al-Jazeera network. A government brigade evacuated the consulate, after which militants set it on fire, said the minister, Wanees Sharef.

One State Department officer was killed in the attack in Benghazi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday night.

Mrs. Clinton said the State Department was working with Libyans to secure the compound and protect Americans in Libya.

To the east, in Cairo, a crowd of some 2,000 people gathered at the Embassy to protest the video. Some of them climbed the embassy walls late Tuesday, pulling down and burning an American flag.

Hours after nightfall, dozens of young men remained standing on top of the embassy walls, shouting into megaphones. One of the youths climbed up the flagpole to hoist a black banner emblazoned with the Muslim profession of faith in white letters—”There is no God but God and Muhammad is His Messenger”—a standard used by hardline Islamist groups throughout the world.

I duly commend the incredible restraint the embassy security staff employed in evacuating the breached compounds in both Libya (one three four dead) and Egypt.

Few in the media are willing to acknowledge that Al Qaida is forming a popular revolutionary front in many countries across the Middle East. But here is the proof.

Even with (or perhaps due to) an unprecedented deployment of killer robots flying over the skies of the globe, remnants of the radically Islamic outfit are nothing if not hellbent on destruction — and have developed the uncanny ability to bomb and harass U.S. embassies and bases for well on decades now.

Well, what got them all bent out of shape? This an odd political film — Innocence of Muslims.

Here’s a clip which obviously shows how awful the whole thing really is:

This is some terrible shit. I mean: just bad writing, bad acting, bad green screen. It’s barely funny, if that’s what they seem to be aiming for, and I can honestly say I would not watch this movie by choice. But thanks to some fatalistic fanatics, I still won’t, but I had to see that crappy trailer.

Let me give some free advice to the morons over in MuhammadLand: A bad movie by some nobody in Hollywood is no reason to flip out and invade our embassies.

Sure, write the movie crew a litany of angry emails on the internet, burn some copies of the movie in protest, stomp your feet, and then get the fuck over it like every other civilized human on this planet who’s ever had their core beliefs mocked with weak jokes.

Make your own movie. It could possibly be worse than this, but at least it won’t involve violence and bloodshed, the very thing everyone mocks your religion for in the first place.

Don’t attack a bunch of U.S. embassy employees and prove your critics right, that’s just beyond stupid.

And certainly don’t ever give a weak film the one thing every movie mogul in Hollywood can only dream of: massive global interest in one day! I mean, shit… now you’ve fucked up. You have no idea.

The bad news is that with fanatic assholes almost predictably overreacting to poorly made indie films, we now are more than certainly guaranteed to hear from our own fanatic cult leaders here in the U.S. (right in time for elections, FUCK), and it shouldn’t be too long before one of them is urging a response in more violent fashion.

Thanks, jerksoffs. You’ll reap what you sow. Over and over.

Last week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa Florida, the GOP proudly unveiled a new addition to their platform:

Protecting Internet Freedom

The Internet has unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired freedom more rapidly and extensively than any other technological advance in human history. Its independence is its power. The Internet offers a communications system uniquely free from government intervention. We will remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new and disruptive technologies such as mobile delivery of voice video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem. We will resist any effort to shift control away from the successful multi-stakeholder approach of Internet governance and toward governance by international or other intergovernmental organizations. We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties; the only way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the private sector.

Most interestingly, the Libertarian Party has handily beat Republicans to the punch by more than two decades, having tackled the internet freedom message way back in 1991:

Stop Internet Censorship

Politicians are trying to take away your right to read what you want, and to say what you want.

The Internet is making it possible for new voices to be heard — the voices of people who simply could not afford to publish their ideas or display their artistic talents to a wide audience using older technologies. Established interests of both the left and the right fear new voices, and are trying to control what appears on the Internet through new laws and regulations.

America’s Founders couldn’t foresee the Internet, but they knew that government control of information was not only a violation of personal liberty — it was a threat to their hopes for a nation based on the principles of self-government. So they gave us the First Amendment.

The Libertarian Party carries on today in the tradition of the Founders:

• The Libertarian Party didn’t wait for the Internet to become popular to stand up for principle: The LP has always supported freedom of speech and the press, and has had language specifically supporting freedom of online communication in its Platform since 1991.
• The Libertarian Party joined with thousands of concerned Internet users in “turning its web pages black” in protest of President Clinton’s signing the unconstitutional “Communications Decency Act” in 1995.
• The Libertarian Party continues to speak out today against the attempts by Democrats and Republicans to find loop-holes in the First Amendment, so they can turn the Internet into a government-controlled medium.

Think about it: while the GOP has just given birth to a messy and still-diapered internet freedom policy, the LP’s plank is all grown up, growing a beard, and is old enough to drink.

Even for a totally empty rhetorical gesture, I suppose it’s better late than never.

From the official facebook page of the DNC where we’ve noticed the number of likes dropped off a cliff around the same time Congress took the much ballyhooed August recess (yes, an entire month off, which is typically spent campaigning, fundraising and otherwise servicing political careers).

It may be a coincidence here, or it may be that someone forgot to pay their bot network contract, causing the juice to be cut off.

As many as 45 percent of registered now say they are paying a lot of attention, including slightly more Republicans (47 percent) than Democrats (42 percent). In April, 43 percent were paying a lot of attention. In August of 2008, 51 percent said they were paying a lot of attention.

Another 34 percent of voters say they are paying some attention, while 20 percent are paying little to no attention.

[...]There is some room for movement in the race – but not much. About four in five voters say they have made up their minds which candidate to support, but for about one in 10 the race is not yet over, as they say it’s too early and their minds could still change. Similar percentages of Obama and Romney voters could change their minds.

The conventions will undoubtedly offer reviews, from both sides, of the Obama presidency thus far. A slight majority of voters says that the Obama presidency has brought more disappointment (55 percent) than satisfaction (45 percent).

Democrats are satisfied, but more apt to be just somewhat satisfied (53 percent) than very satisfied (29 percent). Another 18 percent of Democrats are disappointed. Most independents (58 percent) are disappointed. Republicans, perhaps unsurprisingly, are very much so.

It’s safe to say the democrats and republicans have done their part to disenfranchise Americans with extreme ballot restrictions measures and psychological barrages of hate. Is it any surprise that one in five are taking refuge in complete political solitude (and thus, powerlessness).