Thanks to the very generous help of Katie of Katieweb fame, we’ve been able to return Sadly, No!’s design closer to its previous glory. (How we had missed the little boxes around our entries!)
We’ll be tweaking things in the days to come, and while we generally pay very little attention to anyone else’s opinions, you’re free to submit comments and suggestions.
Barack Obama, apparently unable to stick it to Condi without sucking up to Colin:
“Your predecessor had a reputation of being willing to maybe tell the president some things that he didn’t always want to hear,” Obama said. “I think he displayed a certain independence that was encouraging and I think that people felt that he was speaking on behalf of the American people and not simply being a mouthpiece for the administration.”
You think, Barack? Sadly, No!:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
We often seek to make sense of wingnuttery here at Sadly, No!, but sometimes even our arguably talented staff just can’t make sense of it all. Things start off pretty well, by wingnut standards. James Dobson [or SpongeDob StickyPants as some call him] doesn’t like make SpongeBob SquarePants:
Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob’s creators had enlisted him [Mr. Dobson?] in a “pro-homosexual video,” in which he appeared alongside children’s television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others.
So far, so good. (Of course, it is a sliding scale.) Things get kind of funky after that:
“We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids,” he said. “It is a classic bait and switch.”
So kids are being baited with SpongeBob, and then they’ll have the old switcheroo pulled on them by getting cock instead? Seeing some hot girl-on-girl action? The bait is clear, but the switch? How does that make any sense as a bait and switch scam? Inquiring minds want to know.
Following this post, the awards just keep coming in for Sadly, No!:
The fact that I included the topics of teen pregnancy (not births) and abortions in my list seemed to irritate really rabid fans of abortion [that’s us! –S,N!] They did not challenge the porn statement as I’m sure many of them had to put down their magazines just to send me their heated hate mail.
There is (or are as we like to say) bad news however. The bad news is that Kevin can’t read beyond a 6th grade level. To wit:
Please note also that I did not imply that Clinton’s years set NEW records…
What Kevin originally wrote was:
It was no secret that condom use in America under her husband’s leadership was at an all time … er … high. A lot of things were: the flow of pornography, teen pregnancy, abortion
So, abortions were at an “all time high” which is totally different than “setting new records,” which, somehow, doesn’t mean what everyone else thinks it means.
Kevin also throws out this one in his defense:
It should also be noted that the majority of the drop-off in the numbers of abortions between the 91-98 comparison and the 99-2000 was mostly among white women, which experienced significant drop offs. Averages amongst African American women showed a slight drop but stayed on average quite close to previous levels, and amongst Hispanic women – the drop off was nearly immeasurable.
Kevin linked to the data he “used” when making up his facts, so we can offer these actual numbers (pages 7-11 of this PDF file):
* In 1991, the abortion rate per 1000 women (Hispanic) was 35.8 In 1999 it was 31.4. Immeasurable? (1998’s was 31.6.)
* In 1991, the abortion rate per 1000 women (Black) was 65.5. In 1999 it was 57.2. Can you not measure that?
* For white women, the 1991 abortion rate was 18.1, and in 1999 11.9.
What we see is a drop across all groups, while the drop in abortion rates for white women sinks the overall rate by a great deal, presumably on the basis of the fact that there are more of them than there are of the others. (Crazy thing that.)
Kevin went one step further and tried to play clever pants by giving average total number of abortions per year for the 1991-1998 period. Those averages are fairly constant, and we hope you can see where this is going. Given population growth, even lower rates of abortion can produce fairly stable totals. [Besides, who the fuck adds total numbers of abortions over a 7-year period to give a bizarro average? Could it be because we would see lower totals with every passing year? We don’t know, but we wouldn’t put it past Kevin to do just that.]
Kevin’s response also added a lot of stuff about how the CDC and the FDA [?] do bad things, a link to a newspaper article that offers an unsourced claim that abortions were at an all time high, sorry “experienced their peak” in 1994-1995, and, knowing that he he has been beaten (senseless) threw this in at the end:
All of this to get to the ultimate point of the column.
Sure sounds like someone is trying to play the Besides That Game.?
Besides the fact that there is no factual basis for the assertions in my column, my point remains valid.
SADLY, NO!
PS: Bonus Wanker Points: Kevin links to an op-ed written by a fellow at Concerned Women for America and, because it was published in the Knight Ridder-owned Tallahassee Democrat, states:
On top of that (according to Knight-Ridder/Tribune) Teen Births (not pregnancies) experienced their peak in 1994-95.
There are, (or is as we like to say,) no words for that.
Thanks to the pioneering work of Nancy Salvato (as reported by World O’Crap,) Our army of researchers has discovered a memo some people would rather you did not see. Before we get to it, a quick recap of what Nancy had to say last week:
It has just come to my attention that Kerry Sieh, a professor of geology at California Institute of Technology, “repeatedly warned Indonesian officials that an earthquake and tsunami would soon strike their shores.” Because these officials weren’t acting on the warnings, he and his teams began warning people directly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reach all of the people in time.
Now I have complete and utter sympathy for the people who have suffered and lost loved ones due to this tragedy, but I also feel resentment that because their government didn’t heed the warnings and that other countries have to bail them out.
Sadly, No! presents this world exclusive. A still classified memo detailing early Tsunami related warnings issued to the competent authorities. Known in intelligence circles as the Pretty Dire Bulletin (PDB,) it is dated August November 6.
Ready?
November 6 PDB (PDF format.) (70KB.)
Over at WorldNetDaily, Kevin McCullough is yet another nut extremely preoccupied by condoms and related matters:
It was no secret that condom use in America under her husband’s leadership was at an all time … er … high. A lot of things were: the flow of pornography, teen pregnancy, abortion and, yes, the use of, discussion of, demonstrations in public schools of … condoms.
Ah Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. There’s something we need to tell you, and it goes a little something like this: SADLY, NO!
Teen pregnancy rates have reached historic lows dropping 25 percent from 1990 to 1999. The birth rate dropped 19 percent and the abortion rate was down 39 percent in this age group.
That’s gotta hurt we don’t care where you come from.
What else happened in the 1990s?
The pregnancy rate for unmarried women has continuously declined through the 1990s.
Damn Clenis!
All of which explains why when we see Kevin write this:
Does she know that the entire teen portion of Planned Parenthood’s website ? which continues to be promoted in most public schools through the local PP clinics ? encourages massive sexual experimentation? Sometimes directly promoting such ventures to children as young as 6 years of age?
We tend to think he’s pulling it out of his ass.
Update: Kevin replies and the wanking continues here (or scroll up.)
Norbizness provides a codensed version of Bush’s interview with the Washington Post here. We were especially struck by this section:
The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?
THE PRESIDENT: PERSONAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS.
The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been —
THE PRESIDENT: We don’t want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.
The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The fuck I did.
The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.
THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now? (not a shortening or alteration)
Maybe the President should tell his web site:
Even we’re not quite sure what to say about “our” latest The Rant columnist, one Jane Jimenez:
Condoms have made front page news again this month.
Again? Is Jane’s daily paper The Chattanooga Daily Condom Press?
Once again, our discussion of condoms is boiled down to a statistical “failure rate” expressed as a measure of “strength and reliability.”
Too bad they opted not to rate flavors we guess. This year’s Durex Chocolate Passion vintage offers a rich, deep cherry colour. The nose has mint and capsicum which add a dash of variety to rich, sweet blackcurrant/dark berry fruits. The palate is ripe and sweet with concentrated black curranty fruit. Soft tannins and gentle acid round out a tasty and quite classy condom. Oh well, maybe next year.
In a well-lit laboratory, one by one, a laboratory tech unwraps each condom and follows a well-rehearsed, methodical, and uniform procedure to place the condom on sterile lab equipment and inflate it with air until it bursts. No STDs are present. No sperm, no emotions, no shadows, and no youthful inexperience will cloud the results.
While we said goodbye to the condom forever the day that we got engaged, we’ve never heard of condoms’ propensity to break being affected by STDs, emotions or shadows.
Using the context of controlled laboratory “perfection,” some educators want us to believe we can rest assured that condoms will save our children from the consequences of sex.
Jane has two children. And you know what that means:
MR. BLACKITT: What do you mean?
MRS. BLACKITT: Well, I mean, we’ve got two children, and we’ve had sexual intercourse twice.
Back to Jane:
If our children were stainless steel robots living in a germ-free laboratory, they might have a point.
Stainless steel robots do what now? Frankly, we don’t even know why the scientists make them. We have to add — Jane sounds like a bit of a germophobe too.
Condoms are not mechanical devices submitted to uniform stress. And when they fail, you don’t get to return the toaster for a refund.
Where is Jane buying her condoms?
Toasters don’t rejoice when they make perfect toast. And they don’t care if they explode and burn up. They are things.
It’s 1 am on a weekend night. Do you know where your toaster is?
We’re not sure where this one ranks, but it has to be near the top:
Annie Jacobsen Speaks Out??
Yes, that Annie Jacobsen.
We’re not quite sure on what day wingnuts figured out Google could be used to provide them with the illusion of having a point, but it’s too bad that they never bothered learning how to use it properly. Naomi Ragen (no, we’d never heard of her either) sticks it to Syria:
And just try to Google Syrian aid for tsunami victims… See what you come up with. Zero.
Well, provided you put the search term in quotes, you do find something of course — Naomi’s columns. Yet if you think that one may write an article about Syrian aid using, oh let’s just be extra creative and say one might write Syria instead of Syrian (you know, because it’s the country’s name,) you might find this:
Syria, a country without the Gulf’s oil riches, sent a plane loaded with 40 tons of food, medicine, drinking water and blankets to Indonesia on Thursday.
Or that:
Other Arab countries without the Gulf’s oil wealth such as Syria, Jordan, and Egypt have sent planeloads of food, medicine, drinking water, and blankets.
Those cheap bastards in Syria should of course do more. With a GDP per capita of $3,300 per year, one wonders why they don’t.
Then again, one wouldn’t expect much from someone who writes:
First, the UN (Americans are the largest financial contributor to the UN, with 3 billion dollars in 2003 alone) called America “stingy.”
Right, the UN called the US stingy. Just like the US always pays what it is supposed to the United Nations:
However, when one adds in UN peacekeeping, the total of unpaid assessed contributions leaps to $2.1 billion, with a staggering $1.8 billion owed for peacekeeping. Some 38 per cent of this figure ($690.9 million) represents outstanding contributions by the United States, with $373 million relating to the current period and $316.9 to prior periods.