Add to the list of not a racists Georgia businessman Patrick Lanzo, who put up a large sign outside of his bar, reading: "OBAMAS HEALTH CARE PLAN - NIGGER RIG IT". Lanzo explained:

"I've used the N-word most of my life and there is different ways to put your opinion up, but that's just the words I choose to use."...

Despite the presence of a mannequin clad in a Ku Klux Klan outfit standing amid the pool tables, Lanzo maintained he's not a racist.

Anyone know where I can get an uncensored version of the sign?

Source: New York Daily News

From CNN via The Huffington Post:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did....

Now it's clear to me why atheists are the least trusted group in America.

Photo credit: The above photo was taken at the Museo Nacional del Prado by cactusbones and posted on flickr under a Creative Commons license.

One of my favorite satirical sites is The Peoples News, which describes itself as "a satirical look at the lives of Black folks....While the stories are intended to be humorous and entertaining, they are also designed to spark discussions and make people think."

Here are some recent stories:

• Undercover Democrat Michael Steele Sabotages GOP
• African Americans Thankful Multiple-Birth Mom Isn’t Black
• March 16: This Day in African-American History (1621): Samoset, a Mohegan Indian, arrives at the Plymouth Colony with a message to the Pilgrims that he thinks says "Welcome, my name is Samoset." But tragically, his prankster friend, Leroy, had actually taught him to say "Please tell your countrymen back home to come steal our land and wipe us out."

The site also contains occasional true stories that are beyond satire, such as this one about child abuse and welfare fraud that is too tasteless for me to post here.

In honor of Barack Obama's inauguration, doughnut purveyor Krispy Kreme announced:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet 'free' can be.

Triggering on the words "freedom of choice", The American Life League issued this statement:

KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS
Washington, DC (15 January 2009)

The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme, you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand....

Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that 'choice' is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of 'freedom of choice' is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

Comments Kyle Munzenrieder:

File this under "Overreactionary Wing Nuts" and another attempt of conservatives to redefine words for their political means (You can try to rewrite the Constitution, but not the dictionary). Of course, the "overreactionary libtard" counter to this is that conservatives want to demonize all choice from America until we're living under a fundamentalist dictatorship. A fundamentalist dictatorship without doughnuts.

[Source: Riptide 2.0 via Ian]

I was surprised to hear that Pastor Rick Warren considers homosexuality to be comparable to incest, polygamy, and pedophilia. I hadn't even known he'd tried all of them.

My sister Andrea spotted this photo of disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Good news from The Wall Street Journal:

One promise of [Obama's] victory is that perhaps we can put to rest the myth of racism as a barrier to achievement in this splendid country.

In related news, Marie Curie's 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics put to rest any myths about biases against women in science.

From The O'Reilly Factor (Nov. 5) via The Huffington Post via Keith:

• Sarah Palin did not know that Africa is a continent. She thought it was a country.
• Palin could not name the countries of North America.

You can see the video at The Huffington Post.

I'm almost feeling sorry for her, especially after listening to the funny but mean Sarkozy prank call.

My sister Andrea thinks they should let her keep the clothes as a consolation prize.

While I'm generally taking this election very seriously, there is an amusing measure on the San Francisco ballot: a proposition to rename the local sewage plant after President Bush. I expected the far left San Francisco Bay Guardian to endorse the proposition, but they opposed it on the grounds that it "is a pretty good sewage plant. It's insulting to the plant, and the people who work there, to put the name of an environmental villain on the door".

The argument for the proposition in the official election guide, written by the self-proclaimed Chairman of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, includes:

Just as France presented the Statue of Liberty as its gift to the nation, the citizens of San Francisco may now bestow their own special gift to the country by renaming our award winning waste water treatment plant in honor of outgoing President George W Bush. We think this is a fitting memorial for a truly outstanding Commander-in-Chief. On matters ranging from diplomacy to fiscal and environmental stewardship, no other President has had such a dramatic impact on the country and the Constitution in such a short time. Most presidents wait years or decades to receive their memorial airport or highway. We think President Bush deserves immediate recognition for his eight years of public service....

While the argument for the proposition nominally praises Bush, the argument against renaming the sewage plant vilifies him:

I agree that the invasion of Iraq is the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the US. I also agree that Bush has been the most ignorant man to ever occupy the office of President. To call him the worst President since Warren Harding is to insult the memory of Harding, who at least did not enter this country into any unnecessary wars.

Moreover, the federal debt at the end of this Administration totals over $9 trillion.... Maybe it would be more appropriate to name the local bankruptcy court or a consumer credit counseling center after Bush?

Besides, if we name the local sewage plant after Bush, then what's left to name after Jesse Helms?

[The above photograph was taken by Jamison Wieser and posted on flickr with a Creative Commons license.]

Have a nice election!

Some extraordinary women, such as Marie Curie, achieved success despite their society's biases against women, leading to a feminist saying attributed to Frances "Sissy" Farenthold: "We will have a achieved equality when mediocre women are as successful as mediocre men." Sarah Palin's presence on the Republican ticket proves that this day has been reached, but feminists aren't happy!

There's just no pleasing women.