Soooo, a three year old kid broke out the Crayola washable markers and went to town on the family dog.

This being Cute Overload the response was immediate and predictable.

HORRIBLE PARENTING!

BAH! HORRIBLE CHILDFREE OVERREACTION!

YIKES! HORRIBLE THROW ON THAT COUCH!

So Scalzi makes a post about receiving a boring email from "one of those nutbag childfree folks". Gretchen shows up and takes exception to his description of childfree people. To which Scalzi responds by basically telling her to shut the hell up. There is some back and forth between the two of them, before the thread turns to a discussion of childfree lifestyle between other commenters.

That is, until electric_bonzai jumps in, presumably linked from cf_hardcore. Several commenters respond to tell them how wrong, wrong and utterly wrong cf people are.

Scalzi makes a second post, snarking both Gretchen and, especially, the person who commented on cf_hardcore with a "lesson" for him. The snark is, as always, delicious:

spitzandeyeball: 1. Internets 101: When you publish something on a public blog and neglect to disable the comment function, you have already given readers your permission to reply. This little slice of Internet magic is also known as the First Amendment.

Scalzi: Reading this person’s understanding of how the First Amendment applies in these instances is like being slathered in a thick coat of ignorant, and then being put out into the sun to dry out before a second coat is applied, which itself will be topped off by a sealant of complete and utter stupid, and lightly drizzled with a glistening varnish of epic fail.

More comments from people baffled at the thought of a childfree comm. Baffled, I tell you.

Back at the first post, Scalzi and Gretchen make up, though that doesn't stop people from continuing to share their thoughts over multiple comments.

Poor cf_ioan is having a bad day. Over at the Childfreez, she posts about how an "idiot moo cunt" she is acquainted with "fortunately...miscarried". She does not receive acclaim for this viewpoint.

( Plenty of stereotypes and hate for everyone )

Ah, Cute Overload. A site that posts pictures of cute animals, what could people possibly wank about there? As the wiki shows, plenty.

I think Meg, the blogger, loves poking the crazies. One of the most reliable sources of "commentroversy" has been her "Cats n Racks" series. Yesterday she posted a video of a cat kneading some boobies with the hopeful tag "Nancy, it's a good thing you brought this to our attention, we've been just starved for commentroversies." Sadly, the commenters behaved themselves and mostly filled the comments with anecdotes about cats kneading soft squishy objects such as nads, ouch.

Meg would not be denied her wank, though! Clearly she had to bring out something NEW, something GUARANTEED to send her readers into apoplexy.

So today she posts... A HUMAN BABY.

*ominous chord*

263 comments so far, including the following gems:
She almost made the worst mistake of her life: Good Gods I was about to send a link to cuteoverload to someone, thank goodness I checked in first. BABIES NEED NOT APPLY.

You don't understand what your blog is about Meg! I DO: human babies are not what cute overload is about!

Whereas animals are completely silent and made of plasticine: Ugh, what's with all this worshiping at the altar of the baby? Babies are not cute, they're noisy and leak fluids. Do not want!

Uhhhh...: When I look at human babies, I just imagine the adult they will grow into... but puppies and kitties, etc., are babies forever!

I also love this comment where someone ponders changing their dissertation.

And finally, some pwnage:
human babies are not cute. if this is to be a regular occurrence, everyone i know who goes to this site will stop, including myself.

[Well, I can already tell how much we'd miss you... - Ed.]

Pass the pa-sickies.

Edit: HT to dragonfangirl. cf_hardcore cheers the brave commenters for speaking truth to power, or something. What's wrong with the word tummy? :(

glitteringlynx and lilenth bring Bill Cosby wank and racism wank to childfree. Break out all your bingo cards folks. It's a cornucopia of crazy.

Over on childfree_debate karynthia posts a question regarding whether it's rude to ask to be seated away from the person with the sexually suggestive tattoo because their kids might see it. Most replies involve "er, no, but how stupid is that?" My own response being a bit of the tl;dr, but that's nothing on wight1984.

Beginning with the quite succinct view that the whole notion is rather silly at which karynthia either takes umbrage or sincerely is curious, it's sometimes hard to tell with pixellated voice-tone, we wade into a tsunami of political spooge.

wight1984, not content with her/his/its? belief that s/h/it is right and karynthia is just plain wrong on whether or not making naked women taboo is silly and/or respecting the views of others even though you don't agree is the way to go, continues on and on and on...

No one has the right to be not-offended! The family in question has no right to ask to be seated away from something they find objectionable, nor to try and re-arrange seating so their kids aren't exposed. Behold the power of capitalism at work! If you don't like it just leave! If you do this often enough the owners of the establishment will ban people with tattoos!

Behold! The first of many discussions of how this word does not mean what you think it means! This comes complete with a side order of "What do you mean this idea is classist? Obviously it bears no relation to classism! It's just capitalism at work! I have no problems with rich people being able to unilaterally dictate how businesses function while poor people don't have the money power to do anything about it!"

But wait, There's more! scorpi084 get's in on the act. Nothing, I tell you, nothing good can come from this. Well, actually I kind of find the whole discussion interesting, but, my god, the character-count fairies are out in force.

Again with that word! I do not think it means what you think it means! -- Really, why not? -- This is my definition! -- Your definition sucks and I reject it -- No, your defintion sucks and I reject it.

Let us pause for a brief moment of agreement. Oh! And another with a side order of seasoned curly fries "Let's all be gender equalists because Feminism sucks." and "Clearly you cannot understand me because I hang out with the low brow and the intellectual elite and clearly I understand the world much better than you, dear girl." Is anyone else hearing "Please quit playing in my sandbox, you seem to be pissing on my castle's fortifications!"

wight1984 goes on to break out the dictionary and bemoan the use of the word privlege. I swear, s/h/it and scorpi084 have their ideological trains running with full heads of steam and are shoveling the coal at them frantically in a game of internetz chicken. I wonder who will bail first?

Oh, wight1884, some of your views are actually rather interesting and kind of thought provoking, what a pity you ruin their effect by being a pretentious twat.

Edited to add:
CF_debate is a comm for CF and parents debate/discuss issues involving children, parents, and society -- at least that's what usually shows up. In the main it doesn't generally stir up much wank. The current spoogefest is fairly unusual as the comm goes, overall.

I'd love to say that this is really funny, but mostly it's just chock full of WTF?!?

ETA the second:
The original post that sparked the discussion in question thank you michmatch

ETA the third:
wight1984 continuing to spread the love elsewhere, thank you arabwel. I vote we elect him the TL;DR Wankergizer Bunny. *iz ded from wank*