Well, he’s done it.  Donald Crabtree has reopened his Grand View Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, Maine, much to the delight of coffee-, freedom- and booby-lovers everywhere.  Granted, his new digs are an office trailer… but who cares? The coffee is flowing, the donuts are glazed, and the women are topless.  Every straight man’s dream, right?

I actually heard a wrinkled, humorless old woman on Wednesday night’s local news say that she thinks Don and his shirtless staff should go “someplace else” like New York or Boston.   Ah, fuck her.  Check out the broadcast here:

http://www.wmtw.com/video/21591387/index.html

While the arsonist who burned down the original shop remains at large (prudish bastard!), it’s heartening to know that Mr. Crabtree is bound and determined to keep plowing ahead.  I say good for him, and good for coffee-, freedom- and booby-lovers everywhere.

So, we had a chance in the state of Maine to live up to our Latin motto: “Dirigo”, meaning “I direct”.

Clearly not a mandate, but a victory for homophobia nonetheless, 53 percent of Maine’s voters repealed the same-sex marriage on Tuesday.  The shame I feel for my home state is almost more than I can express.

We had the chance to show the rest of the nation that it doesn’t matter what consenting adults choose to do with their genitals and how that choice informs who they’d like to marry and share a house and a car and mortgage and a checkbook and a bathroom and a life with.  We had the chance to stand up and say, “Everyone deserves equal protection under the law in regards to marriage.”  We had the chance to stand up to the bible-thumpers and the voyeurs and the peeping toms and the hateful bigots and the scaredy-cats and say, “Enough is enough!”

We had the chance, but did we blow it?  This time, maybe.

But this fight, like any other, will take time.  It will take time for people to accept the idea that not everyone makes love in the same manner.  It will take time for people to warm up to the idea of allowing men to marry men and women to marry women.  This may be the end of this particular campaign, but this is certainly not the end of the story.  Like any other civil rights fight, this one will be largely uphill, and will have to be won one conversation, one heart, one mind at a time.

Just listen to this guy.  He’s got it right:

Ah… another dispatch from the “Euphemism Sucks” department:

There has been a fierce debate in my state of Maine lately, about – what else? – gay marriage.  Our Guvna recently signed into law the equality in marriage that our gay neighbors deserve, and then the bible-thumpers got enough sheep to sign their little petitions to present the following referendum question on next month’s ballot:

Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?

The “yes on 1″ people have turned this into a scare-tactic fest, with warnings of “teaching homosexuality in the schools” if the law stands.  What the fuck are these people smoking?

If you’re a regular to this blog, then you already know how I feel about gay marriage.   But I’ve been thinking about these Yes on 1 wackos quite a lot lately, as they infiltrate my living room with the slime oozing out from my TV set.

Let me get this straight, good Christians – you believe that every human being has a soul and, depending on how one conducts their life, the soul will leave one’s physical body and go to heaven or to hell.  One of the motivations you have as good Christians in this gay marriage debate is to save these poor, sinful homos from themselves and try to help them see the error of their despicable ways.  Man shall not lie down with man, blah blah blah.

Each of us is born as either male or female (or sometimes a little of both).   If I understand the Christian way of thinking (Christian thinking, now there’s an oxymoron for you) then the soul of each person is also either male or female.  (Must be so – why else would these religious wackos have their knickers in such a twist?)  So, good Christians, riddle me this – what about those people who have a sex change operation?  What about a woman who lives her life as a lesbian, then has a sex change operation to become a man and then marries a woman?  I personally know one such person for whom this has been life’s lot.   Did this person change the gender of their soul?  Could one argue that this woman saw the sinfulness of her ways living as a lesbian and decided to become a heterosexual man?  Is this person going to heaven or hell when he/she dies?  And will the soul of this person be as it was from birth, or at the time of death?   If the physical and the spiritual are separate, then fornication and other such activities of human genitalia are of no importance, or they shouldn’t be.

It’s ridiculous, ain’t it?  Ah yes, just another of the myriad ways in which we can all see how silly and ignorant and backwards it is that we have allowed government to be more important than love.  So let’s keep Big Brother and his bible out of the bedroom already, alright?

Everyone’s asking, “Does Obama deserve the Nobel?” to which I say, “Who gives a shit?”

Deserve?  How should I know?  The Nobel award is bestowed upon those who show potential for creating change towards a more peaceful world.  Oh yeah, you mean people like Yasser Arafat?  Give me a fucking break.

The Nobel is like the Grammy Awards.  It’s not really based on merit – it’s a fucking popularity contest.

If you really want to know, I think Obama shouldn’t have gotten it.  In fact, I think it would have been funny if he had refused it and cleared his golden throat and said, “Listen.. no offense, fellas, but I think I’ve got enough going on here.  Just let me do my fucking job, as difficult as that already is.”

I mean, come on, enough with the Obama savior worship already!  The Nobel is just another huge weight to put on his shoulders.  With everything else on his plate, does he need the title of “Nobel Laureate” to live up to as well?

This is news?

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Fireman Ed has something new to cheer about.

OK, then, let’s hear it.

The Jets’ most famous fan received a game ball from coach Rex Ryan during the team meeting Friday for helping lead a raucous Meadowlands crowd during New York’s 16-9 win over New England last Sunday.

Big deal.

“On behalf of the fans and representing the fans, we gave him a game ball,” Ryan said. “There’s two, actually, one in our trophy case and we gave him the other one. He does a great job.”

A great job doing what?  Getting drunk and screaming at football games?

Ed Anzalone, a New York City firefighter, has been coming to every Jets home game for years, wearing a fire helmet and leading the “J-E-T-S! Jets! Jets! Jets!” cheer.

Wow, what an accomplishment.  That’s right up there with finding a cure for cancer.  Imagine looking back at your life and saying, “Yeah, I spent thousands of dollars and hours so I could go and scream and freeze my ass off and watch grown men run around a football field.“

“That’s really the first time I’d ever seen him,” Ryan said. “When I was here before as a visitor, I kind of blocked everything out and never really noticed him.

That’s because you were too busy screaming YOUR fucking head off to notice one of just thousands of all-American schmucks in the stands with no identity of their own – which is why they watch sports to begin with!

It’s hard not to notice him when you’re standing on the sideline and he’s getting the fans going and everything else.”

Yeah, because he’s so much more obnoxious than the rest of them.

Ryan sent a voicemail message to season ticket holders last week, urging the fans to make things “miserable” for Tom Brady and the Patriots.

That’s nice.  Isn’t that like both sides in a war invoking their dickless deities to help them win? Or like that pray-for-rain asshole during the DNC last year?

The fans answered that call, and after the victory, Ryan said they were the difference in the team beating New England at the Meadowlands for the first time since 2000.

Let’s win this one for the gipper skipper burger-flipper day-tripper pants-shitter!

“He wasn’t the only fan you would notice, but I don’t know the names of everybody else,” Ryan said. “I’m sure there was Fireman Joe and everybody else out there.

Yeah, along with Machinist Mike and Cabbie Louie and Pizza Man Pete and Drunk Dan and that crazy bitch LuAnn from the office who has football shit all over her cubicle.  You know who I mean.

It was great because they’re our fans and we decided it was a little token of our appreciation to give him a game ball.”

And I’m glad to see that a man with such a huge responsibility as coaching an NFL franchise holds similar command of the English language.

Anzalone was also able to briefly address the men he cheers for.

I wonder if it went something like this: “Um, wow, hey man, can I get a picture with you guys?  Oh wow, this is great, um.  Greatest day of my life.  Other than the birth of my son.”

“He was great,” Ryan said. “He was all fired up. He’s expecting a lot of wins, as are our fans, and he said this is only the start and our guys understand that.”

“Yeah, so we’re gonna keep coming and pouring money into this franchise that makes millionaires out of guys like you so that losers like us can live vicariously through your steroid-ridden lives.”

Anzalone, who usually wears a No. 42 Bruce Harper jersey to games, was included in the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Hall of Fans in 1999.

I can’t believe there actually is such a thing.

“Their passion is as great as mine is,” Anzalone told the team’s Web site of Jets fans. “There’s no difference. I’m just blessed to be able to lead the orchestra, to get them crazy.”

Yeah, there’s a difference.  The players get crazy money and fly girls, and all you get is a game ball, a sore throat and a hangover.  And “lead the orchestra”?  Listen buddy, if you’re going to compare drunken rabble-rousing with the swing of the maestro’s baton, then I have a suggestion as to where you can display your new game ball.

Just a tasty little nugget o’ cartoon goodness. Enjoy.

If you’re looking for a slice of unrelenting fury that cuts right through Kirk Cameron’s bullshit, check out this video:

The idea of a bunch of religious wackos handing out stacks of Darwin’s book, even with 50 pages of ridiculous foreword, is like FOX News saying, “Girls Gone Wild is destroying America” and then showing nothing but GGW in their B-roll.

And can someone please tell me why these nutcases insist on the link between Darwin and racism and Adolph fucking Hitler?  Oh wait, I know why – scare tactics.  Religions the world over have been employing scare tactics, torture, brainwashing and mind-fuckery since the dawn of the religious impulse in order to bring up the numbers of their respective folds and to mold the minds of otherwise pattern-seeking human mammalians.

Anyhow, enjoy the video, infidels!   Oh, and Ray Comfort can shove that homoerotic banana up his ass.

This is not staged, folks.  I don’t even know where to begin with this.  You need to watch this to believe it.  Welcome to the Republican base!  I think I may go vomit now.

So, everyone is screaming about how Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) was rude and disrespectful and blah blah blah during Obama’s speech on Wednesday night.

OK, agreed.  Shouting “You lie!” at the president during a joint session with Congress, televised live to the whole planet, takes some nut.

But isn’t it within this guy’s right to express himself?

Personally, yes, I think the guy is a rude crude bastard.  I disagree with his politics and he’s got some nerve.  But why aren’t any of the bleeding hearts defending this guy’s right to express himself?  What about the Repugs who sat there thumbing through their Blackberries and waving bits of legislation in the air?  Sure it sucks, and it’s a bit childish and downright thuggish, but don’t they have the right to express themselves in this way?

Do I think their behavior helps in any way?  Towards Obama’s larger goal of finding common ground,  I should think not.  But, if – and that’s a big IF – these guys are properly representing their respective constituencies, then fine.  Say whatever the hell you want.  Ain’t that why we sent these bastards to Washington in the first place?  To speak for us?  If Rep. Wilson is merely expressing his district’s voice, then by all means, get the guy a friggin’ bullhorn.

And the apology?  This is the worst of it.  All this “saving face” bullshit.  He extends “sincere apologies to the President for this lack of civility”.  Jesus, what a load of shit if I ever heard it.   No he doesn’t!  Are we really to believe this?  So insincere.  Now who’s lying?  I am actually more offended by the apology than by the outburst.  Yes, the outburst was shocking.  But isn’t a little honesty what we really need?  I really don’t mind the name-calling and the shouting and the heckling – hell, it makes things  a little more exciting and interesting if you ask me.  It breaks up the same old same old.  It gave us all something to talk about, didn’t it?