So there's this silly little Xanga thang¹ going around, and apparently I've caught it. Riis gave it to me. Most I would have ignored, but because it's Riis, one of the few men I can unabashedly call "sexay"², I do the whole 25 random things rigamarole. But, Riis, you call this 25 random things? I'll show you 25 random things:

This video has been going viral on teh interwebz for several days. It shows a women's soccer game between the University of New Mexico and Brigham Young University, and features particularly violent play (if you can call it "play") of Lobos forward Elizabeth Lambert.



Somehow, woman vs woman violence is always a big sale. Why is that? I wonder if it's because we don't expect it. And I wonder if it isn't because we tend to put women on a bit of a pedestal, praising them for being more even-handed, considerate and non-violent. Then we enjoy it when a woman proves us wrong, because it takes them down a peg. Or possibly we just find the idea of women exerting themselves to be arousing.

And where were the refs? If this were the NFL Lambert wouldn't be able to do half the things she did, because she'd be ejected from the game at the first punch. Now, after the fact she's been suspended indefinitely, but why didn't the refs step in and stop it while the game was going on?

Just a couple things things to ponder on a Wednesday afternoon.

It looks like conservatives have found the perfect person to callout House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the way she and other members of the Congressional leadership have stymied Republicans' attempts to put forth their own ideas and effect the outcome of the bill writing process all while claiming "bipartisanship". Madame Speaker, get an earful from...Nancy Pelosi.

With off-term elections and a "historic" health care bill passing the House (which looks to be DOA in the Senate), you'd think that it'd be time to get serious and put aside the usual snark. But, no, this is the time when some have to show just how much they loathe the other side.

First the (dis)honorable mentions:

• MSNBC's David Shuster, a guest on the Stephanie Miller show, opined about the peculiar problem with an electorate that doesn't always want to fully back the agenda of the Democratic Party, saying "Washington can focus on a lot of things at once, but for whatever reason the public can’t." Yep. It's like herding cats. Things would be so much simpler if voters just relented and let the government do their thinking for them.

• CNN's Roland Martin kept things classy by cheering Glenn Beck's emergency appendectomy last week. In a post on Twitter he wrote, "Glenn Beck had an appendectomy today. He must have blown a gasket after Hoffman lost the NY-23. Keep crying, Glenn!" Apparently the fact that he had an appendectomy back in 2000 gives him the right to revel in the pain of others.

• Keith Olbermann was in rare form last week, at times unintentionally funny, at other times just spewing the usual vitriol. Among the lowlights from his show:
  • Called out Fox & Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson for asking the question on whether Muslims should be given more attention. I understand where Olbermann is coming from here, but then he went on to suggest that the co-hosts were promoted into their positions because they're not black, Hispanic, Asian or Muslim. Apparently he is unaware that he and other members of MSNBC's primetime lineup are none of these as well. UPDATE: Olbermann Watch has the full story on this one. Suffice it to say, it's blatant character assassination and a classic case of quotes being taken out of context.
    
  • Said Sarah Palin was guilty of sexism for opposing liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election. I can totally see where he's coming from, as Palin is totally the type who's threatened by the notion of a woman in authority. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if she decides to run for president?
    
  • Said of the "house call" protest on the Capitol steps that it looked like a "pro-apartheid" rally. Yes, health care takeover reform is totally about race.
  • Showed just how open-minded and tolerant he is when, on his program, he told Glenn Beck and 9/12'ers opposed the health care takeover reform to "go to hell". Hoboy!

But the one that really makes your jaw drop this week is actually from an anonymous contributor. Racism and homophobia reared its ugly head in Baltimore city elections this week, as a flier was circulated imploring voters to maintain their race's power in the City Council and depicted an openly gay candidate as a child molester. However, the flier was advocating black power and voting for Democrat Classie Hoyle and attacking Republican Scott Bowling. Any other week Olbermann would have won in a runaway with his "go to hell", but this week, for descending into the depth of racism and homophobia that Democrats claim to be against, our anonymous flier writer is our Liberal Hater of the Week.

In case you missed from a few days ago, there were a few protests last Thursday over the Democrats' health care takeover reform agenda. The first one was small. Nine protesters briefly occupied Senator Joe Lieberman's office. Lieberman has recently come out against the government public competitive puppies and rainbows option. (Sooner or later they'll find the right phrase that will make all of America fall in line, just you watch!) This has angered left wing, so in an expression of the sort of inclusive, big tent thinking that Democrats like to claim they have, these protesters stormed into his office, chanted loudly and got themselves arrested.

The second and much larger protest occurred on the Capitol steps around midday. At the request of Michelle Bachmann, several thousand came to protest the bill taken up by the House of Representatives, the proverbial "switch" to the Senate's vapor bill "bait". There were signs and boisterousness. There were also a few arrests. Ten of them tried to enter Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and making enough of a commotion in the hallways that they were arrested.

For those of you scoring at home, that's 9 of 9 Obamacare supporters arrested and 10 out of a couple thousand arrested. The determination of which side was more law-abiding is left as an exercise for the reader.

Besides the arrests, the leftosphere is taking offense at some of the signage. HuffPo compiled a list of the 12 most offensive signs. Given that they included an sarcastic reference to Pelosi's ridiculous "astroturf" charge and a sign depicting Obama on the Titanic as "offensive"...yeah, they were reeeeeeeeeeeally reaching to come up with 12. But there were a handful that were genuinely offensive. The one that has the left most in vapors is this one:

A British court has ruled that belief in man-made global cooling global warming climate change, if genuinely held, can enjoy the same protections as religions under the country's Religion and Belief Regulations.

Tim Nicholson, former head of sustainability at property firm Grainger plc, claims that he was laid off (the British article uses the very British and thus adorably cute term "redundant") from his job because of his "philosophical belief about climate change and the environment". Grainger had challenged the ruling, saying that his beliefs were political and scientific, not religious and philosophical. Grainger argued that his beliefs were subject to scientific proof and thus not protected under British religious protection laws. But the court ruled in Nicholson's favor.

Observers believe this ruling may open the door to employees forcing their employers to accomodate environmentalist beliefs, such as providing recycling receptacles or offering "low-carbon" alternatives for travel.

Nicholson told the court that his beliefs were so strong that he refused to travel by air and had his house renovated to be more environmentally-friendly. In other words, he holds his beliefs a whole lot stronger than Al Gore does.

It should be noted that the judge in this case is the same one who ruled that Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth was political and partisan, and thus ought to be accompanied with material documenting its errors when shown in the classroom.

It's an odd numbered year, so here in the U.S. of A. there are only a couple of governor races and "special" elections. Wait. I thought last year's presidential election was "special". Anyway, only certain areas are going to the polls today. But as this is Xanga, we can all certainly vote on the great questions of our time and the issues that affect us all. So let your voices be heard.

It was an interesting week. Liberal commentators, personalities and politicians engaged in misogyny, playground taunts, religious crusades and contributed further to the Beavis-and-Butthead-ization of political discourse.

There were, of course, the usual suspects, the sort who could easily end up winning this award weekly. I have to raise the hate-bar for these people just to give the others a fair shot. Joy Behar called Obama critics "the stinky kids in the coatroom who eat their own boogers". And both Congressman Alan Grayson and MSNBC TV host Ed Schultz tried to earn their way into the he-man woman-haters club by calling someone a "whore". Grayson's target was an advisor to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, while Schultz went after the wife of independent Senator Joe Lieberman.

We saw more uses of the pejorative "teabagger" to describe tea party protesters. Note to the uninitiated: tea partiers do not use that term for themselves. It is actually a rather sick sexual joke, a term used to belittle those people disagree with. It's morally equivalent of referring to a homosexual as a "fudge packer": just incredibly sick and wrong. If you want to be taken seriously as an adult, don't use the term.

Unfortunately, too many liberals who ought to know better are still trying to mainstream the term. Frank Rich went the Beavis route in his column in the pages of the New York Times in which he also, incredibly, referred to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as "Stalinists" (somehow calling Barack Obama a "socialist" doesn't seem so bad any more). And NJ.com writer Jamie Duffy used the term not once, not twice, but seven times in her story on the Morristown, New Jersey, tea party.

And speaking of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd was the latest columnist from that paper to engage in Know-Nothing-ness, spreading lies about the Pope and the Catholic church. She misrepresented a letter Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote before he became Pope Benedict XVI, saying it called for women to be submissive when it actually spoke of "active collaboration" between the sexes and also said that


Hardly seems like wanting to keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, doesn't it? She also repeats the discredited claim that he had joined the Hitler Youth. Membership was compulsory and he deserted the group as soon as he was able, even though doing so made it harder to pay tuition.

And then there was Mike Malloy, radio show host, who responded to Dick Cheney's criticism of the President's policy (or lack thereof) in Afghanistan. Malloy showed what an astute observer he was when he exclaimed that Cheney was looking "very ruddy"...and concluded that he must have just eaten a baby. He then expounded for a bit on this observation, telling how it must have been a Jewish or Muslim baby and not a Christian baby, and referred to Liz Cheney as his "spawn" rather than his daughter.

On face value, Malloy is the worst of the bunch. But it is clear that he is joking, as over the top and sick as the joke is, while Dowd clearly believes her drivel. So I'm splitting the prize this week. Maureen Dowd and Mike Malloy are this week's co-winners of the Liberal Hater of the Week award.

All Saints Day. In Western tradition it falls on November 1, the day after Halloween. Or more properly, Halloween falls on the night before All Saints Day. But being Brethren, it's one of those things I'll never completely understand. You can learn more about it here.

But if you want to celebrate the august history of the church, go here.

CNN's Christine Romans discussing how capitalist trick-or-treating is. And apparently her mom was an "evil socialist."