[London, September 11. Image via Getty]

A mother and daughter look out of the window as they watch anti muslim protestors being arrested by the police in Harrow, North London on September 11, 2009. Riot police intervened to quell clashes between Muslims and anti-Islamic extremists protesting outside a London mosque on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. AFP PHOTO/Carl de Souza (Photo credit should read CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Less than 50% of female residents of Ontario who had abnormal pap smears received follow-up care, a new study says. Unsurprisingly, many of the untreated women were from lower-income communities. • AdAge breaks down what we can learn from online dating. Among the bullet-point nuggets of wisdom: "the vast majority of people out there are hurting, confused, bitter, uncertain, cynical and, yes, crazy" and "We are all biologically programmed to be 'about the looks.' Apple has built a small empire based on its remarkable aesthetic." • Ever wondered what happens when you sneeze? This article will answer that question, and several others, like why does a sneeze sometimes feel so fucking good? • Margaret Atwood on the environmentalist message of her new novel, Year of the Flood: ‘‘We tend to pay attention to immediate needs and desires, but we are not so good at looking down the road, and it is really hard for us to look a hundred years down the road.'' Read the rest of the (awesome) interview here. •  A 14-year-old mixed race girl from the UK was driven to attempt suicide by the taunts of her racist 15-year-old classmate. Last month, the boy was convicted of racially aggravated harassment, but he was only sentenced to a six month supervision order and a fine. The victim said of the ruling: "That's pants." •  One Texas sheriff's deputy has been fired and four other deputies have been disciplined for asking a scantily-clad waitress named Bambi to pose on the back of their police cruiser holding a AR-15 rifle. • Controversy is brewing over a book on Frida Kahlo coming out this fall that the publishers say contains "an astonishing lost archive of one of the 20th century's most revered artists … full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humour." Unfortunately, Kahlo scholars say the items are fake and are pushing Mexican art institutions to step in and "put a stop to this type of fraud." • Director Kathryn Bigelow says she filmed The Hurt Locker, her critically-acclaimed film about the Iraq War, in Jordan because, "It's a movie about the Middle East and, call me crazy, I wanted to shoot it in the Middle East. I don't think Arizona would have been quite right... The nature of this film was so reportorial – if you don't immerse yourself, how are you going to tell the story responsibly?" • A federal judge ruled today in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota challenging informed consent laws that South Dakota abortion doctors must tell pregnant women the procedure terminates the life of a human being. However, she ruled that pregnant women don't have to be told abortion increases the likelihood of suicide or that they have an existing relationship with the fetus. • A British man who had a cornea transplant says he must have received the "cornea of a woman". His wife used to have to pester him to do housework but he says, "Because of my new eyesight I now notice every speck of dust and dirt and immediately want to clean it up... There is a reason why men don't clean normally and I think it's because we just don't see the dirt. But since the transplant I now see it wherever I go."

In a two part series for Esquire, writer John H. Richardson goes where few of us dare to tread - deep into the stronghold of the birthers, that group of people who are convinced that Hawaii is a foreign country and that Barack Obama is an illegitimate president. (Where these people were when Bush 43 was installed, I have no idea...)

But more frightening than their fractured logic is the not-quite-hidden undertone of the movement. As Richardson writes:

By focusing on the "news hook" about our president's birth certificate, we are ignoring the broader mixture of paranoid apocalyptic fantasies that feed this troubling - and growing, perhaps into the tens of millions - group of people. People who told me they're not just looking for the president's birth certificate. They're looking for his death certificate.

Richardson provides a list of scary events leading up to these events, including this now-notorious gem:

4. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said she wanted her constituents "armed and dangerous" because Obama was planning "re-education camps for young people." She also said that "Thomas Jefferson told us having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.

These are the words of an elected official.

And of course, there's our buddy Glenn Beck, Mr. Healthcare-is-Secretly-Reparations:

But nobody vibrated with the new sense of alarm more vividly than Fox's new talk-show host, Glenn Beck. "The year is 2014. All the banks have been nationalized," he began one show. "Unemployment is about between 12 percent and 20 percent. Dow is trading at 2,800. The real-estate market has collapsed. Government and unions control most of business, and America's credit rating has been downgraded."

In another, he sounded exactly like a militia member from the backwoods of Montana: "They'll take away guns, they'll take way our sovereignty, they'll take away our currency, our money. They're already starting to put all the global framework in with this bullcrap called global warming. This is an effort to globalize, to tie together everybody on the planet!"

So, in review - suddenly, the banks are nationalized instead of pissing away money, unemployment for the nation is on par with unemployment for the black community, global warming is "bullcrap" even though I'm wondering why LA was colder than DC when I visited last week; and the fact that most of our goods come from other areas around the globe and most of the internet is a multi-national space is not tying people together. No, it's all a commie plot!

Glenn, it's time to stop watching Falling Down on repeat in your 1984-era VCR (which is made in the US, dammit!).

Richardson also peers into the under currents of racism that ebb and flow around the movement:

In the first open tent, I heard an air-gun salesman named Sam Kravets selling toy monkeys that reminded him of the president. "They even sound like him," he said, urging his customers to give them a squeeze.

"Everyone who voted for him ought to leave the country," a customer said.

Because nothing's more patriotic than racism and stifling dissent!

But even worse is the blatant celebration of racist tropes:

An hour later, I found the "birther" booth behind the cafeteria. A big sign loomed above it:

URGENT: CALLING ALL PATRIOTS
Barry Soetoro AKA Barack Obama is SHREDDING THE CONSTITUTION

Behind the table, a man named Carl Swensson passed out flyers that were still warm from running through the photocopier. "If you agree with this," he called out, "we need you to sign up."

"String him up," said a man passing by.

I'm waiting for someone to try to play this off as a joke, as they did with all those noose incidents in 2007.

"Do you know his mother did pornography?" said a woman sitting on the bleachers.

Okay, I'm going to break this one down. Now, on the surface, this seems like a strange comment to make. What would make someone think Obama's mother did porn? Regular Crappy Hour readers might remember one chat where I told Megan we had some heightened white supremacist activity on Racialicious in reference to the pictures we posted of Gisele Bunchden posing with ripped black models.

Many of the comments there asked how Gisele would "lower" or "defile" herself by placing herself in a sexual position with a black man. In white supremacist thinking, there is nothing worse than a white woman who would lay with a black man. She is the lowest of the low, asking to be disrespected, a whore. The same references to being a whore or acting in pornography were aimed at Gisele by these people based on the view of some photos done for her modeling portfolio. Imagine what they think of Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, for having the nerve to sire children with a black man!

But back to the birthers.

Another man stopped to look over the flyer. "What are you demanding?"

"We're just looking for his birth certificate."

"Or his death certificate," said a third man.

"The media's not going to report it."

"That's why you got to listen to Rush Limbaugh."

Swensson chuckled. "If you cut off the head of the snake, the rest of the serpent is pretty much gon' die."

The thinly veiled death threats take on a more sinister tone when you consider that there were two people outside of the town halls yesterday packing heat. Richardson agrees:

Let me be clear: I have no problem with guns (that's me with the M-4), and I love blowing stuff up - as long as we agree to keep the guns out of the hands of criminals and crazies. And Jesus is just fine with me - as long as you keep the Morality Police out of my bedroom.

But that night, back at my motel, the TV news was all about a man named Richard Poplawski, a gun collector who had just killed three police officers because he believed that the cops were no longer able to protect society as a result of the economic collapse. Later it came out that he was also a regular visitor to the Stormfront white-power site, where he posted a clip of Glenn Beck raving about the "FEMA camps" that Obama was supposedly building to lock up patriots come the revolution.

This drove home a scary truth: Ideas can have a body count.

Ideas can and do have body counts. That's why we may mock those calls for revolution from pampered folks who can afford their own healthcare, but we should not lose sight of the fact that many of these people are not necessarily rational. Check out this exchange, when the Birthers (led by Orly Taitz, grand poobah of cray-cray) decide to confront the state attorney general about opening an investigation.

Finally Wilding held up a hand. "Let me just stop you right there. What applies to Kentucky?"

One of the citizens starts showing him documents. "This is clearly his school record that shows that he was a citizen of Indonesia..."

"I don't understand what that has to do with the Kentucky attorney general's office," Wilding repeated.

"He was on the ballot here in Kentucky," Taitz said.

"That was a federal election. There are federal-election laws. The FBI investigates those. So I believe that your best venue and jurisdiction lies with the U.S. district court and the FBI."

That's when Taitz lost it. "I can see that you are hell-bent on doing absolutely nothing," she said, eyes flaring. "You want to pass the buck."

"No ma'am. I'm trying to follow the law."

"I'm going to the FBI and not only reporting Obama, I'm going to report you for refusing to investigate crimes. You have a duty to investigate those crimes! Why are people paying salary for this whole office of attorney general of Kentucky? To do nothing?"

"I think we're finished," Foster said.

I think we're all finished with Birther shenanigans.

But as Richardson's articles report, the fanatical fringe is out in full effect. As they are being stoked by the Republicans looking for political relevancy, and cultural bombasts like Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, it is up to us to make sure their declarations of hatred and intolerence don't turn deadly.

When Did Americans Turn Into A Bunch Of Raving Lunatics? [Esquire]
What Really Happens When You Demand The President Produce His Birth Certificate? [Esquire]

Related: The Destruction Of The Black Middle Class [Barbara's Blog]
Falling Down [Wikipedia]
Nooses Are Racial Threats, Not Pranks [Racialicious]Gisele Bündchen's Photo Shoot Is A Study In Interpreting Racially Charged Images [Racialicious]
Man Arrested Outside Obama Event Had Loaded Gun [Raw Story]

Earlier:
They Think They're Mad About Healthcare?

Sonia Scherr from the Southern Poverty Law Center explains the origins of the Pendergrafts' hatred for Jews and people of color.

The blond, fair-skinned Pendergrafts come from a long line of Aryan activists. Their grandfather is veteran Klansman Thomas Robb, leader of the Arkansas-based Knights Party, and their mother, Rachel Pendergraft, serves as spokeswoman for the Klan group.

Some things, it seems, can be passed down.

Charity Pendergraft sporadically maintains a blog in which she posts attractive pictures of herself and her younger sister (she thinks her sister is, like, totally hot!) and talks about how important it is to teach kids that hate is good.

I believe that there should be many meetings much like that one. Where the focus is on the youth. People need to remember that they are the future and they have to be prepared for the responsibility of spreading the message of White Christian Heritage to all their white brothers and sisters. We need to encourage them and give them the right tools to stay faithful and push on. There needs to be a balance of inspiring speeches, truthful music, and having just plain fun with their white brothers and sisters.

She also covers their eating habits (Pizza Hut's a big fave) and their daily activities in stultifying detail.

Testimonials from their commercial site are about what one would unhappily expect.

Hello,

Thank you for putting out a CD that my family can actually listen to. No hate, violence, swearing - just good solid white nationalist song writing. You make us proud!

Washington

Gotta get those kids early.

But, as Scherr notes in her piece, all the accolades from white supremacists and the hate-filled lyrics can't disguise one fact: the Perndergraft sisters really bite.

If that's the cultural shift white supremacists want to bring about, they've already lost everyone without a tin ear.

Another Adorable White-Power Sister Act [Southern Poverty Law Center]
An Update On Us....LOL [Heritage Connection Band]
Testimonials [Heritage Connection]

ANA MARIE: I don't think I'm going to see "W." It looks like it's TRYING to be funny. And Oliver Stone movies are the most amusing when the humor is completely unintentional.

MEGAN: I believe it is trying to be funny.

ANA MARIE: Chris and I watch "JFK" pretty much every time it's on basic cable. Now THAT is a funny movie. I mean, Joe Pesci in a leotard and fucking Kevin Bacon? Pretending to do amyl nitrate? You don't make that funnier just by saying they're playing Republican political leaders. Because then it's just a documentary.

MEGAN: Joe Pesci in a leotard is basically the nightmare I hadn't yet had, so I'll report back tomorrow on my utter lack of sleep tonight. In my mind's eye, it's purple and there is a tutu involved. And he pirouettes up to a car and proceeds to beat someone with a tire iron.

ANA MARIE: It's actually gold lame and he's (or Kevin Bacon, I forget) is dressed as Hermes. Seriously: one of America's finest cinematic events.

MEGAN: Ok, I'm just going to pretend it is Kevin Bacon. Now that I'm thinking about Kevin Bacon boogeying in a gold lame unitard.

ANA MARIE: Perhaps dancing in a county where DANCING HAS BEEN OUTLAWED? That's probably as good a segue as we're going to get to talking about McCain, btw.

MEGAN: And suddenly, in the movable diorama that it my imagination, the tiny, gold lame unitard clad Kevin Bacon stopped his dancing, and hangs his head with sadness as the old man stumbles out and starts yelling at him to get off his lawn or he's going to nuke it.

ANA MARIE: I was watching "Morning Joe" earlier and they were joking around with Robert Gibbs about something or other and he brought up the "get off my lawn" trope and I thought: That's just really unfair to people who legitimately care about their lawns. McCain's commitment to lawns is just base-pleasing pander. Besides, McCain lives in a condo.

MEGAN: Well, in one of his residences, yes.

ANA MARIE: Also? I think McCain lost Scarborough a long time ago, but the happy-happy jokey-joke with Gibbs was still kind of amazing. Not as amazing, however, as McCain loosing Peggy Noonan. Did you hear about that?

MEGAN: I saw Peggy speak last weekend, but I was very hung over.

ANA MARIE: Yesterday on "Hardball" she said she "doesn't know" who she's going to vote for.

MEGAN: She doesn't like the faux populism, which she considers empty and stupid and not a strategy as much as a pander.

ANA MARIE: And I think she once accidentally threw her baseball into McCain's lawn. (It's very hard to stay away from that joke)

MEGAN: (I'm okay with that.) So, why is McCain so fucking angry this week? Because he's losing? And will he lose it on stage tonight?

ANA MARIE: I don't think he's any angrier this week than in the past. He's just taking more pleasure in it. And as for "losing it"... I guess that's why he can't look at Obama, maybe? It's funny how the right makes fun of the liberal "grievance industry" but, essentially, what McCain is mad about is being treated unfairly. To which I believe the traditional R rejoinder is "Well, life isn't fair."

MEGAN: Well, he understands life isn't fair. He was tortured! Didn't you know he was tortured?

ANA MARIE: I am familiar with the outlines of that story, yes. I can't decide if McCain is going into this debate tonight with ridiculously high expectations or if he's entering Palin territory: like, as long as he doesn't forget what day it is, he'll be fine. This is assuming he knows what day it is to begin with.

MEGAN: Well, it's his format, right? He's Mr. Town Hall, he's going to kill tonight and between that and the torture experiences with which I am sure he will make more Americans more familiar, he will be made President as is only his due because life isn't fair. By the way, are you as familiar with Obama's supposed terrorist leanings and his radical friends and whatnot as with McCain's experience as a tortured and yet still heroic POW? Because if you're not, Fox News has a show for you. It sadly doesn't feature Jerome Corsi who has been unavoidably detained in Kenya for working without a work visa. I know I should be all like "free press! free press!" but it made me just a teensy bit pleased in a way I don't like to admit.

ANA MARIE: My favorite thing about the Corsi story is the quote from the Kenyan official, who basically admits they arrested him because, you know, he's an asshole. And,

"We still haven't decided what to do with him."

I kind of feel the same way!

MEGAN: If being an asshole is illegal in Kenya, I guess we know where John McCain won't be visiting...

ANA MARIE: Or either of us, for that matter. Were you shocked to learn about that "new poll of 600 female voters found that most view Hillary Clinton as a better mom, role model and leader than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first woman to be named to a Republican ticket"? Because I sure was! I mean, for Palin to come in second... if it were fair, she'd come in behind "a comfy chair" in all those categories.

MEGAN: Actually, I think the right word my be "flabbergasted." You mean, Americans aren't buying her shtick? I feel like I might have underestimated Americans. I mean, except the ones calling Obama a terrorist at McCain rallies and threatening to kill him at Palin rallies.

ANA MARIE: Yeah, that does not reflect well on the Silent Majority, does it? Or rather, it explains why they are usually asked to stay silent.

MEGAN: Well, and the Palin supporter who told an African-American sound guy to "sit down, boy" at the Palin rally. I thought we had all agreed that it was unacceptable to be an open racist in modern American society? Wasn't there a consensus or a referendum or something?

ANA MARIE: Good thing that black people at Palin rallies are pretty rare!

MEGAN: Hell, I'd make myself scarcer than a condom in the Palin house were I African-American at one of those.

ANA MARIE: And as for that referendum, I believe that's scheduled for the first Tuesday of November.

MEGAN: I'm just going to go waaaaaaaay out on a limb here and suggest that racism will still exist in this country even if Obama gets elected.

ANA MARIE: But it no longer will be the first thing other countries think of when we come up.

MEGAN: That said, where would racists threaten go to avoid an Obama Presidency? Liberals are all, like, going to Canada or France, but it seems like racists hate everyone else.

ANA MARIE: Iceland is apparently in a real financial crisis right now, so a loose coalition of rich racists could probably pick it up cheap. And you don't get countries much whiter.

MEGAN: I don't think that there are enough dirty hooker toes in Iceland for Dick Morris, though.

ANA MARIE: And with that advice, I feel like my dream of ridding the country of racists is one step closer to reality.

MEGAN: We're sorry Iceland! You guys can come here, there might be a lot of space available. And, um, bring the Penis Museum for safekeeping.

ANA MARIE: Aye. Dick Morris. Why is he still appearing in public? Besides being the George Michael of toe-sucking jokes, why do I know ANYTHING MORE ABOUT HIM besides that? Who can I blame?

MEGAN: Have you seen his teeth recently? He's rather obviously still at it.

ANA MARIE: Never has a sexual fetish seemed more poetically appropriate, really. It'd be like finding out that Todd Palin likes to cross-dress. Almost too perfect.

MEGAN: See, I think cross-dressing would be too vanilla for Todd Palin. He's more like mint chocolate chip, you have to throw in a little pegging or something to make it work.

ANA MARIE: Cross dressing and dungeons.

MEGAN: I bet Sarah Palin has been wondering for a while why her nice underwear keeps getting all stretched out.

ANA MARIE: Oh, oh, oh: This is teh awesome. That awful American Carol movie? Apparently it is tanking because of a liberal conspiracy! Not because it sucks ass (or toes).

MEGAN: And not because it sucks? Also, since when to theatre owners have a political agenda that doesn't involve making money?

ANA MARIE: That's what happened with Ishtar, too, right?

MEGAN: Fucking radical commie theatre owners, trying to keep conservative movies down and out. You know they're just doing it to make sure W. does better, which it will and not just because it has, like, recognizable actors and a famous director and shit.

ANA MARIE: Well, theater-owners bias toward experimental liberal films is well-documented. And that why the megaplex down the street has five screens showing Reds.

MEGAN: It's like you think you're going to see the Batman movie and SHAZAM!! you're being indoctrinated again.

ANA MARIE: And the Koyaanisqatsi midnight showing. It's like Rocky Horror Picture Show but with people dressed as mountains.

MEGAN: And throwing glitter for snow. Unlike Rocky, though, it totally ends in a plushie orgy. Because that's what radicalized Commies do. It's why they never really succeeded — too busy fucking to fuck shit up.

ANA MARIE: And then everyone gets quiet for the five minute shot of a plane taking off. (Which is an actual scene in the movie. And, fwiw, I'm sure it does get Todd Palin hard.)

MEGAN: But, really, what doesn't get Todd Palin hard? I'm sure even Joe Pesci in a leotard and tutu holding a tire iron would do it.

[Image via Oh! My God! I Miss You]