Just had to post this as a follow-up to yesterday’s story about recliner sales.

MSNBC.com reports that a man driving a motorized Laz-E-Boy was charged with a DWI after crashing into a parked car. He drank “eight or nine” beers and then headed home in his souped-up recliner, which police said was “powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.”

We slouch closer and closer to the dystopias described in Idiocracy and Wall-E.  All this guy needs is a toilet and maybe a retractable roof feature, and he’ll never have to use those weird fleshy appendages attaches to his pelvis again.

According to the Atlanta JC (can’t find the full name of the publication and can’t be bothered to spend more than a minute looking for it), sales of recliners has increased during these tough economic times.

In addition to an aging, widening population and the increasing popularity of giant televisions, analysts believe that the recession itself is partly responsible for the rise in recliner sales (emphasis mine):

Sales of reclining chairs are getting a lift from the growing popularity of high-tech TVs, home theater equipment and video games, as well as an aging population that is less active. Even the recession, which forced many Americans to cancel vacation plans, seemed to have help sales of the comfy lounge chairs.

I realize that Americans are vacationing at home rather than Disneyland these days, but part of me giggles at the idea that some Americans might be celebrating their unemployment by treating themselves to a Laz-E Boy.

From here:

A Saudi woman filed for divorce after discovering by chance that her husband gave her name “Guantanamo” on his mobile phone, reports newspaper al-Watan.

The newspaper said the woman, aged 30 and living in the city of Jeddah, saw this after her husband left the phone at home.

The furious wife filed for divorce, arguing that by assigning such a nickname, the husband saw her as a tyrannical person and she could no longer continue to live with him after 17 years of marriage.

I don’t know; she sounds pretty reasonable to me!

Also, I’m not a math expert or anything, but 30 years old minus 17 years of marriage equals holy shit!

Honestly, I figured it was just a matter of time before violence broke out at one of the health care town hall meetings, but I didn’t realize it would be so stuperb.

The story comes from the Kansas City Star, but to avoid having the AP go apeshit on me for pasting its text here, I’ll paraphrase:

The Scene

A St Louis health care town hall meeting, organized by the Tea Part Coalition.

The Incident

A lot of he says, she says, but the end result is that a fight breaks out and a conservative man, Kenneth Gladney, is injured. He says the Service Employees International Union started the fight; they say he did.

The Aftermath: Hilarity Ensues

The unfortunate Mr Gladney, in addition to being beaten up, is also recently unemployed and has lost his health care coverage. Therefore, he will accept donations from the general public to help cover his medical costs.

(Insert joke here)

Hearing this just made my heart sink. It’s a horrible mischaracterization of what happened to Matthew Shepard, who was selected, tortured, left for dead, and yes, robbed, because he was gay.

Congresswoman Foxx was arguing against a hate crime bill when she went off the deep end. Sure, the bill bears Matthew’s name, so evidently she wanted to clarify her thoughts on the case itself, but what in the hell was she thinking? How does this explanation even help her case? What does it have to do with hate crime legislation? Was she hoping to prove that crimes against gays just don’t happen, thus negating the need for a hate crime law?

I’m not hugely in favor of hate crime laws, but this seems like just about the weakest argument one could make against it - not to mention that it’s horribly ignorant and hurtful.

I read that Matthew Shepard’s mom was present when Congresswoman Foxx made these remarks. I can only imagine how much that hurt her to hear them.