I think the distinction here would be that Ludacris publicly degrades women through his artistic output (or at least as it has been alleged; I will confess unfamiliarity with his work), whereas with Billo it's a personal, private hobby. Hate the sin, love the sinner and all that.

I respect that. It does feel like it's based in taunting rather than any sound science. There is undoubtedly that element out there (looking at you Senator Larry Craig), but ultimately it's really like suggesting that people are only racists because they secretly desire to be black. Probably not the case.

And how exactly is that different from the whole "let's make fun of Trump because it makes him angry" tack employed by a large segment of the internet population? (You know, funny though it may be, Trump is probably not fucking his daughter.) Is it just the gay angle that you object to? I myself feel that the whole…

My package's journey already has a soundtrack: Only the Lonely

It was a big deal in the sense that it got a lot of ink, but that's not the same thing as people caring about it in any consequential regard. Ellen continued to have a very viable and lucrative career. "People made lots of jokes"? People here are making lots of jokes; are they all homophobes?

You have made an inaccurate presumption based on very little evidence.

No, people did not freak out. People paid attention, because at the time it was still somewhat novel. But nobody really cared. I mean, One Million Moms cared and the Family Research Council cared, but they still care now and nobody cares that they care. She did not become suddenly unemployable. She and the…

Yes, that was a great transition our culture made 20 years ago.

The only people who deserve to be mocked and judged more harshly than your typical spring breaker moron are Fox News morons.

To have weighed as much as she did, and even more significantly to have had the substantial weight fluctuations that she did over the course of her life, to get to that age, youngish though it may seem, is pretty astounding.

Okay, so it looks like they haven't given her ridiculous tits, but she is sporting more than she actually has, so I don't know. How do we all feel about that?

Yeah, whatever. What I want to know is who's playing the pink elephants? Might I suggest…

I think we've got a prime example of Outrage! fatigue happening here. If the kid sitting next to me in 6th grade would have said, "Dude, it looks like she's peeing!" I would have replied, "Jesus Christ, grow up, would you?"

The thing is, the magazine did not refer to her, or anyone else for that matter, as "plus-sized." The theme of the issue was "Chic at any Size", and on the cover had her listed among the "women who inspire us." I've never quite understood why Amy or anyone else decided this was some sort of grave insult.

A more conspiratorially minded person might suggest that they never intended to actually cast her, just get a lot of free chatter and publicity by floating her as being "attached." And even if that's not the case, maybe advanced word from test screenings for her new movie, her belly-flop of a Budweiser ad campaign,…

Yes, "scheduling conflicts." [wink]

True dat, which makes it all the more egregious. "Remember when Joe Biden said that Obama was clean and articulate?" "Yeah, remember when Trump mocked McCain for being a POW, or cruelly imitated a handicapped person, or called his pageant winner a pig, or…" "Yeah, but that's different. Trump wasn't stumbling over…

Remember how the right used to love to pick on all the stupid shit Joe Biden would say? It seems like they have gotten a lot more forgiving about that sort of thing these days.