Oz transplant Rod Taylor dead of heart attack at 84; starred in 'Time Machine' and 'Birds'

Along the way he acted in TV's Falconcrest and even a couple of Doris Day movies, of which "The Glass Bottom Boat," right, was the more interesting because it was one of, if not the first Hollywood movies to ridicule the evolving national security state. Immediately below: 1956's World Without End. Below that, Taylor in an interview.

Russia, lurching toward financial meltdown, may ban gay drivers

Buzzfeed says "a decree Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed on Dec. 29 could ban transgender people from driving cars, along with others diagnosed with a long list of “disorders of sexual preference.”

New GOP NE AG taps antigay promoter of discredited Regnerus Study who was affiliated with Focus On The Family, for top staff post

From left: Joshua Shassere, Justin Lavene, Suzanne Gage, John Freudenberg, Attorney General Doug Peterson, James Smith, Abigail Stempson, Dave Bydalek and Jay Bartels

     The rumors that just-elected GOP AG Doug Peterson would pack the Nebraska Attorney General's office with right-to-lifers and anti-gay activists seem to have been correct.
     Newly-appointed Chief Deputy Attorney General Bydalek isn't the only ultra right-winger picked by Peterson to serve in his inner circle — Suzanne Gage, his new director of communications, was legislative liaison for Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion legal group.
     Peterson's new chief of staff is Joshua Shassere, most recently executive director of the Catholic Foundation of the Diocese of Lincoln.

     Bydalek was the policy director of Nebraska's most vehemently anti-gay pressure group, the financially secretive Nebraska Family Alliance, associated with CitizenLink and Focus On The Family.
     In 2013, Bydalek shamelessly misrepresented three adoption-reform bills to KETV.   
     In 2014, Bydalek, testifying before the Unicameral's Judiciary Committee against adoption reform in Nebraska, cited the infamous Regnerus Study as evidence against adoption by gay couples, despite the fact that Mark Regnerus' study was:

• engineered and funded by right-wing groups to influence SCOTUS gay marriage deliberations
• discredited by 200 PhDs and MDs
• excoriated by the prestigious American Sociological Association
• called "bullshit" by Darren E. Sherkat, an editor of the very journal that published it, after he was assigned to audit the study following the uproar it caused

Nebraska's new attorney general has gathered a cadre that shares his far-right agenda and has put them on the state's payroll. How right-wing is Peterson himself? Here is some of what he told the Lincoln Journal-Star:

On the problem of finding drug dealers in order to score lethal pharmaceuticals for executions:
"I would be aggressive in trying to find the appropriate lethal drugs to effectively carry out executions. Currently most drug manufacturers are not willing to provide states with the lethal injection drugs..."

The responses below are Peterson's written answers to VoterInformation.org questions during last fall's campaign, for which we have substituted our own snarky introductions. To see the actual questions, go here.

     On ex-alcoholic Glenn Beck's favorite crackpot conspiracy theory:
     "Thank you for bringing Agenda 21 to people's attention."
     On the prudent application of discipline (generally):
     "I believe the death penalty s primary purpose is to serve as a measured punishment..."
     On the prudent application of discipline to some pregnant women who take steps not to be:
     "I do believe it is necessary to have the death penalty used on limited occasions based upon the current enhancement factors that we have in the Nebraska statute."
     On the evils of neighboring Colorado:
     "Two immediate educational needs in fighting the drug problem is making young people aware of the high THC factors in marijuana coming out of Colorado"
      On the snotty states surrounding Nebraska (see map) who think they're better than we are just because they let homos marry:

Peterson: "I do believe that Nebraska’s constitutional amendment defining
marriage as being limited to that between a man and a woman is constitutionally
sound." —Lincoln Journal-Star, 10/3/2014
The above statement is probably nonsense, given that in the overwhelming
majority of the above states surrounding Nebraska, marriage equality was
won when courts struck down recently-enacted bans on same sex marriage.

     "Recently, at a meet and greet event, one of those in attendance asked "\'when is Nebraska going to wake up and allow for same sex marriage? ...based upon my faith in Christ, I told them I did not think it was a matter that Nebraska needed to wake up on. ...I told them I believe in those values and I am not impressed by those states who seem to think they are superior to us simply because they allow same sex marriage.'
     On why civilization would collapse (look at map again, and be very scared) if it acknowledged same sex families:
     "The history of civilization, the knowledge of science, and common sense, all dictate that for a society to sustain itself, the only purposeful recognition by government of a family relationship is that relationship between a man and a woman."
     On the little-known  and pernicious fact that dispensing marriage licenses to same sex couples would bring GOVERNMENT into the most personal part of their lives and cause their SEXUALITY TO BE KNOWN PUBLICLY, also society would collapse, DON'T FORGET THAT:
     "If government thought it was necessary to broaden that definition it would significantly effect a society's ability to sustain itself, and would bring government into the most personal part of an individual s life, their sexuality, and create it as part of their identity to be known publicly."
     On why the Voter Information Project questionnaire is insufficiently spacious to accommodate his frustrations with uppity deviants who think they are worthy of protection:
     "It is ridiculous to suggest that government now has to identify the 42 different recognized sexual orientations, or individually perceived orientation and conclude that they are all worthy of protection. There is not enough room in this questionnaire to explain my frustration with the sexual identity movement groups."
     On never, in 28 years of living in tolerant, liberal Nebraska, having seen or heard about one single gay person ever having been jerked around:
     "I have advised employers on employment law matters for 28 years and not once during that time have I perceived either discrimination based upon sexual identity, or seen a value in identifying it in the work setting."
     Finally, you should not think that he is a crazy extremist or anything:
     "I ve been endorsed by Coach Tom Osborne and former Governor Kay Orr based upon my experience and integrity."

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Catholic League president has some tough love for the corpses of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists

Bill Donohue is outraged by "...these smart-alecs, who want to take their middle finger and put it in the face of people of faith..."
     And remember, Godless heathens: ""You can't have reason without faith. That leads to problems..."

Guardian: most Canadian tar sands oil must be left untouched to ward off imminent global warming spike

Alberta, Canada tar sands oil "development"

Vast amounts of oil in the Middle East, coal in the US, Australia and China and many other fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change, according to the first analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned... Read more.

A selfie stick worthy of the name

Unless wi-fi trees grow in your yard, you'll have to spelunk the menu of your camera phone for a self-timer feature for this one. More alternatives for cheapskates at Buzzfeed. Our favorite was a vacuum cleaner attachment with an upholstery tool into which you could wedge a cell phone. Perfect.

Me and @lemonadejar made a selfie stick it's high tech pic.twitter.com/wTjbecP7jB
— KAYLA HADLINGTON (@kaylahadlington) November 7, 2014

New antibiotic kills drug-resistant TB, MRSA

     Like many early descriptions of promising drugs, this sounds too good to be true, especially since it has only been tested so far in mice.
     It is called Teixobactin, and like most antibiotics, it was discovered in dirt. Unfortunately, only about 1% of such antibiotics can be grown in the lab, so the discoverers figured out a way to grow and harvest Teixobactin in soil.
     What is arresting is that the sorts of mutations which usually enable bacteria to flip off traditional antibiotics don't seem to affect Teixobactin.
     Human trials could begin in 2-3 years but the drug would not become commercially available for 5-6 years assuming the drug works in and doesn't hurt humans.
     We wonder whether, in the interim, the government will finally stand up to Big Meat and prohibit factory farms from routinely adding new antibiotics to animal feed, subsequently cultivating a new generation of superbugs, which currently kill 23,000 of the 2,000,000 Americans they sicken each year.

Why is gas so cheap? Because Saudi Arabia is trying to kill off development of ND shale oil and Canadian tar sands oil, that's why

Normally when a oil glut occurs, Saudi Arabia tightens the spigots, but the country is now flooding the world with cheap petroleum, leaving money on the table.
     Why are the Saudis doing this? It wasn't hard for NBC to figure out — the country wants to kill or stall North American development of new oil sources.
     Why aren't right-wing U.S. politicians screaming bloody murder? Well, some of them really are as dumb as Louie Gohmert duct-taped to a Sandhills fencepost, but others realize that Saudi actions also have the effect of defunding the economy of an increasingly belligerent Russia.
     To a Saudi prince (there about 1,000 of them) Russia is the biggest oil competitor of Saudi Arabia in the world.  Surely the effect on Putin of plummeting petrol prices must be icing on the royal family's Spartan cookie of relative (and temporary) self-denial.
     Should we patriotic Americans fear for our loss of the "energy independence" that cynical GOP pols/grifters have groomed to be an incessant talking point/fabrication?
     Hell no. If the world insists on continuing to burn through fossil fuel, better to use cleaner Saudi Arabian crude which generates somewhat less CO2 in its production than the much filthier American alternatives that TransCanada and North Dakota drillers are producing.
     We should probably thank Saudi Arabia for the enlightened self-interest of its well-managed greed, because without same, the global warming apocalypse would be arriving even sooner.

Video: muslim terrorist shoots cop in attack on French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. 16 others shot

L'amour plus fort que la haine. El amor es más fuerte que el odio. Love is stronger than hate #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/RWeYOGOT6c
— Esppeonza (@EsppeonzAguirre) January 7, 2015

So far, 10 Charlie Hebdo staffers, including four of France's best cartoonists, and two policemen are dead. Five other Hebdo staffers are injured. (Update: CNN is now reporting that 12 died and 11 were wounded, including four in serious condition.) Three gunmen who used automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade launchers are at large, not including the initial getaway car driver. Shouts of "We have avenged the prophet" accompanied the attack. You can see what kind of magazine Charlie Hebdo was by going here.

How the Catholic Church uses its 'religious liberty' to restrict freedom of speech of gay marriage supporters

Via JoeMyGod via @Str8grandmother

Here in Omaha, the archdiocese used the religious liberty dodge to make sure that no housing rights were included in the City's recent inclusion of LGBTs as a (semi) protected class. Of course Christers, including Catholics, enjoy full protection in housing.
     In addition, the Omaha Archdiocese has flagrantly and repeatedly violated Omaha's electioneering-at-polling-stations ordinance (one example is below) and Omaha officials have done nothing to stop it.

Meet Charlie Hebdo, the viciously funny Paris magazine attacked by masked Muslim gunmen

Charlie Hebdo relentlessly mocks Muslims, Christians, Jews, and, of course, politicians. At left, the magazine skewered French President Nicolas Sarkozy's nepotism depicting his son saying: 'I slept with my dad to get ahead!' Other covers below depicted a Jewish, Christian and Muslim trio urging: "Charlie Hebdo must be veiled," and a depiction of Mohammed: "100 lashes if you don't die of laughter." More covers at The Daily Beast.

Memo to NE boosters, tourism & biz development officials: Don't show prospects this map

You wouldn't want them to think Nebraska is backward, bigoted and culturally isolated vis-a-vis the rest of the nation, now would you?

Seven in 10 Americans now live in states where same-sex marriages are allowed http://t.co/2DdrflP6N8 pic.twitter.com/MA8HOhOWNt
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 7, 2015

Dems fricassee FL ex-gov. on marriage equality: 'It took Jeb Bush 69 words to say absolutely nothing'

The Democratic National Committee's statement, today, on Bush's statement, yesterday, about gay marriage in Florida:

It took Jeb Bush 69 words to say absolutely nothing - 69 words not to say, ‘I support marriage equality.’ Nothing’s changed. At the end of Bush’s statement, he still had the same position: he opposes the right of gay and lesbian Floridians - and all LGBT Americans - to get married and adopt children. If he wants to tell us he’s changed his position, great. But this was not that statement. It was typical Jeb Bush.

Bush's statement, Monday, was:

We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law. I hope that we can also show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue -- including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.

Politifact has chronicled Jeb Bush's all-over-the-map statements about gay marriage over the years here, and ranks as "mostly true" the Democratic National Committee statement that "Bush not only opposes marriage equality, he’s said he ‘personally’ believes gay couples should be banned from adopting children."
     One statement Politifact missed is the one that CNN remembered, Jeb Bush's 1994 Miami Herald guest editorial about LGBT rights:

"We have enough special categories, enough victims, without creating even more." He wrote that he didn't want to see "sodomy be elevated to the same constitutional status as race and religion."

Revenge of the Vegans: new synthetic meat, egg firms, backed by software tycoons, poised to wreck ranchers

New-generation fake meat and chicken products are no joke; they are instead a cattleman's worst nightmare. When — not if — they catch on, they will be devastatingly disruptive to the $177 billion meat industry. The new products have no cholesterol, no soy(!), no hormones, no antibiotics, no transfats and can be made cheaper than chickens or cows can be raised.
     Taste? In the last year, they have become good enough to fool Today Show hosts in blind tests on live TV, foodies from the New York Times and the Food Network and, perhaps most importantly, Bill Gates, who promptly put his money where his mouth is in backing not one, not two, not three but four of the new enterprises..
     Silicon Valley smart money is flooding these startups. Gates has been firstest with the mostest, with investments in (1) Hampton Creek (fake eggs) along with Yahoo's cofounder Jerry Yang, (2) Beyond Meat, with billionaire Twitter cofounders Biz Stone, a vegan, and Evan Williams, who grew up on a Clarks, Nebraska farm and later coined the word "blogger," (3) Nu-Tek, a low-salt salt company, and (4) Impossible Foods, the brainchild of Stanford University biochemist Patrick Brown, who has showcased a raw “ground beef” containing bioengineered “plant blood” designed to approximate hemoglobin, which helps his patties turn brown and savory as they cook. Brown says livestock is an "outdated technology."

     [Beyond Meat's] Veggie Chicken Strips have already proved wildly popular, so much in fact that one San Francisco Whole Foods reportedly went through its entire inventory in just two days.

     In 2014, Beyond Meat's presence in supermarkets exploded from 1,500 locations to 6,000.
     A coming switch to manufactured meat will have huge implications on the amount of CO2 released into the earth's atmosphere. The Worldwatch Institute estimates that the world's 22 billion livestock animals and crops raised to feed them and forests leveled to support them pour three times as much CO2 into the atmosphere as cars and trucks do.
     Rowan Jacobsen, of Outside magazine, has seen the writing on the wall:

Considering the speed of change, the money and smarts being thrown at the problem, and the desperate need, it seems likely that sometime in the next decade, Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods or another rival will perfect vegetarian beef, chicken, and pork that is tastier, healthier, and cheaper than the fast-food versions of the real thing. It will be a textbook case of disruptive technology: overnight, meat will become the coal of 2025—dirty, uncompetitive, outcast.

Jacobsen was one of the first to eat a Beyond Meat Beastburger and pronounced it "very meat-like:"

And it was vegan. “More protein than beef,” Brown told me when I rang him up after tasting it. “More omegas than salmon. More calcium than milk. More antioxidants than blueberries. Plus muscle-recovery aids. It’s the ultimate performance burger.”

A miserably cruel sow confinement facility, ideal for the
rampant spread of disease then mitigated by the overuse of
antibiotics, in turn contributing to MRSA and other
drug-resistant bacteria

     As "animal agriculture" erects an iron curtain to hide its revolting cruelty and even sexual abuse of animals (via Ag-Gag laws which actually put whistleblowers behind bars) vegetarian competition is doing an end run around the torture chambers of factory farms, their trade group PR duplicity, and their statutory attacks on freedom of the press.
     Ironically, Vegan businessmen, backed by software billionaires, may succeed in financially bankrupting factory farms faster than PETA or the Humane Society or Mercy for Animals are able to expose the moral bankruptcy of their owners to most grocery buyers.

Texas Tribune Rick Perry mashup video presages next stage of Texas governor's political career: oblivion

For many fond remembrances of Gov. Perry from fellow Texan well-wishers, be sure to check out the comments on the video at the Texas Tribune. Our favorite: "Bye Felicia"

Frontline: Gunned Down: The politics of the NRA

"Once again, innocent victims shot down, and then legislation voted down..."
     How the NRA makes things easier for kid killers, enabled by politicians like Senator Deb Fischer. Tuesday, on air and on line on Frontline.

Chick-fil-A data breach: Customers nervous about theft of personal info

Chick-Fil-A's data breach may have started as far back as December of 2013, though the chain didn't admit that payment systems at its restaurants were compromised until the last day of 2014. A Texas television station interviewed wary customers here.

Friendly advice from Robert Redford to Will Ferrell: 'Seek help soon, Will. You need it.'

Nothing like a fake fight to publicize the plight of the Colorado River, so overused it doesn't even make it to the sea any longer.

Marriage News Watch: unlike every other state, support for marriage equality in Nebraska isn't evolving

Matt Baume breaks the news that the Cornhusker state denizens are stubbornly resisting the evolving consensus in favor of marriage equality.

Kid Rock again gratuitously insults however many gay fans he has left

In a Q&A published yesterday in The Guardian, the former rock/rapper and current country music jerk brags about being loaded, about how he was "hell" as a child (what changed?), about how he is not as educated as some politicians (Louie Gohmert?), about how he didn't set a very good example for his kid, bringing home girls with more in common with his son than him, about how he doesn't smoke weed much any longer because it makes him dumb — and then he said this dumb thing:

Rap-rock was what people wanted at the time, and they still love those songs at shows. But it turned into a lot of bullshit and it turned out to be pretty gay… If someone says you can’t say “gay” like that you tell them to go fuck themselves. You’re not going to get anything politically correct out of me.

Downton Abbey Season 5 trailer

Best quote of the Season 5 premiere was, naturally, from Lady Grantham: "Principles are like prayer. Noble, but awkward at a party." Here are the trailer teaser notes (for British viewers; the U.S. premiere was Sunday, January 4th):

Downton Abbey returns to ITV Sunday 21st September at 9pm for a brand new series featuring a host of familiar faces as well as introducing guest stars Richard E Grant and Anna Chancellor. Dame Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Hugh Bonneville, Joanne Froggatt, Elizabeth McGovern, Rob James-Collier, Brendan Coyle, Laura Carmichael, Allen Leech, Lily James, Sophie Mcshera and Tom Cullen will all return in series 5.

Manly-sounding lawyers lose more SCOTUS cases

ALSO: Is Nebraska's most anti-LGBT organization hiding its biggest donors?

New Scientist reports the findings of a team led by linguist Alan Yu of the University of Chicago and legal theorist Daniel Chen of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who played 60 recordings of male lawyers in the Supreme Court making the traditional opening statement: "Mister Chief Justice, may it please the court" for 200 volunteers, who then rated the clips for how masculine-sounding they thought each speaker was, as well as other perceived traits like confidence, education and trustworthiness.

     After accounting for the age and experience of the lawyers, statistical analysis showed that only one of the traits could predict the court outcome. Lawyers rated as speaking with less-masculine voices were more likely to win.
     ...Lawyers who think they're going to lose may project a different kind of voice, perhaps overcompensating by sounding more masculine" says Yu, who is keen to stress that the findings are just the beginning of wider project looking at the impact of voice and gender in the courts.

You can read an abstract of the study, The Peril of Sounding Manly, here. 

     Barely related: manly, truck-smashing Texas DUI Attorney Adam Reposa has had run-ins with the Texas Bar over his advertising. In the video below, he advertises his services in part by noting, "I'm what you want. I'm what you need... Not everyone has ten... long... hard... years of experience..."
     At about the 4:30 mark, Reposa (dressed more professionally in a white Tee shirt) argues hilariously with one Mike Dobbs, of the Advertising Review Committee of the State Bar of Texas.

The world according to Vlad Putin, 2014

Russophiles and snarkists rejoice! There's a new hastag, #MakeAMovieRussian, to which AKSARBENT has humbly contributed "Oil for Chocolate" and "Brokeback Steppe" as well as two others.

Oh, look: the KKK is now borrowing from the Family Research Council, American Family Association and other antigay groups

The homophobes' religious liberty victimhood narrative and the we're-just-doing-what's-best-for-you narrative translate just beautifully to a KKK narrative. When Christers rally to preserve the right to fire gays arbitrarily, refuse them public accommodation and boycott companies that treat them equally while simultaneously deploring boycotts against Christian bigots as homofascist intimidation, it's because Christers are all about the love! A tact duly noted by the Klan on at least one Arkansas billboard:

(Via JoeMyGod)

Why movie stars secretly laugh at interviewers who ask them what their love scene with so-and-so was like

This is a scene from Psycho showing Janet Leigh and JOHN FREAKING GAVIN, future U.S. ambassador to Mexico, about to suck face. Note that Mr. Gavin technically has one foot on the floor, which used to be a big deal in Hollywood.

Scottish independence movement interpreted as gay romantic comedy

Somehow we missed this, but it's still funny even if the outcome is no longer in doubt.

RIP Little Jimmie 'Chicks Love Rhinestones' Dickens

Hank Williams, Sr. wrote Hey, Good Lookin' for Dickens in half an hour on a sheet of paper provided by Minnie Pearl during a flight to Wichita, Kansas — and then cut the song himself a week later, just before Dickens went into the studio to record it.
     Dickens was the longest running member of the Grand Ole Opry, from 1948 to his last appearance, Dec. 20, 2014. Below is Dickens in a cameo at 2:45 in Brad Paisley's Celebrity music video. (Other cameos here.)



Below, Dickens mocked Kanye West at the 2009 Country Music Awards:

This car gets 29 MPG or flies 430 miles on a full tank

Odd looking, but since you can drive it home and park it in the garage, you could save a lot on hanger fees. Also, we'll bet it's one of the quietest single engine planes around — look where they put the engine.

GLTVNews' Joe Krinock discusses gay sex scenes in 'How to Get Away With Murder' with someone who has never seen the ABC show

Also, not one of the gay sex scenes discussed is shown during the interview, a major gyp. Aside from that, the discourse was quite informative. And the banner for the video never shown in the program is quite titillating, don't you think?

Gap's 'Dress Normal' campaign flops

We thought the ads were great, which shows how much we know about the aspirational nature of slaves to fashion. Slate has the bad news:

Gap’s comparable sales for November were down 4% versus a 2% increase last year. Sales were down 7% year-on-year in October and declined 3% in September. Gap's other brands, Old Navy and Banana Republic, saw sales increase this last month—so this is a Gap-specific problem.

Whereas dressing comfortably, sensibly and tastefully is laudable, we suppose dressing to be ignored is a bridge too far. Maybe the commercial should have thrown the aspiring viewer a bone and had the golfer more enthusiastically notice the distaff dancer, although that may be precisely what the ad was trying to avoid. There are three more clever ads here.