Windmill Tilter

Torture Defenders

2009-04-22T22:53:00.007-04:00

The thing is, I can kind of understand the conservative position on the torture scandal.

Bear with me.

I find arguing with the lay torture defender is infinitely harder than hearing Dick Chaney defend his sadistic policies. To cite a great example by Cenk Uygur, all you have to ask them is "Would it be ok to describe cold-blooded murder as 'so-called' murder?" Then why do reporters use those words and others like them, and why is it ok to label the controversy a 'political' controversy.

The reporters are arbitrarily drawing the line. The proper line would be if the law calls it torture, or if it is universally understood to be torture and the law is ambiguious regarding specific definitions (as ours are, the Geneva Conventions, as well), it must be called torture by reporters and commentators who claim to be objective. The proper analogy for this behavior is to the conservative insistence on calling the Democratic Party the "democrat" party. Factually incorrect (the party gets to chose its own name, as you and I do) and only done to assuage the primal impulses of their viewers and/or themselves.

At least with Cheney and other Bush operatives you know that they truly believe that a controversy about even blatant murder should be described as 'political'. Because they believe that Article 2 grants the executive literally unlimited powers during wartime, and wartime is to be defined and described ONLY by the president.

This is extraordinarily radical and yet it has been mainstreamed by the press as a whole, and especially by Fox News' small plurality of the viewing audience.

These people always existed, they just didn't have such powerful representatives.

Taxes Do Not Equal Socialism

2008-10-21T17:18:00.007-04:00

The last post reminded me of something I saw yesterday on CNN.

Yesterday on Wolfie's show, they ran a report about the recent claims by the McCain crew that Obama is a socialist. Found nowhere in the report? Any mention of what socialism is or if Obama is one. Of course, after the report, which consisted mainly of interviews with people on the street, we were treated to two opposing operatives claiming over and over that Obama is/is not a socialist but no insight into why this factual claim is true or false.

If Donna Brazille cannot cogently and tersely explain, the way Colin Powell (a goddamn Republican, btw) did, that to describe a tax increase as a foray into socialism is to render the word meaningless, she shouldn't have a job and someone at the DNC needs to leave her at the dogtrack and offer up a better Dem talking head for CNN to eventually neuter. And can someone besides the goddamn Republican Colin Powell inform viewers that simply saying a sentence that kind of sounds like "redistribution of wealth" is not to advocate actual Marxian redistribution of wealth? Either all taxation is socialism or there is a difference. There is no in-between and someone needs to articulate that on a mainstream show. Either they assume it's obvious and everyone gets it (very untrue) or they don't understand themselves (entirely plausible).

Here's what Powell said which should be memorized by all liberal talking heads:

"And now I guess the message this week is that ... Mr. Obama is now a socialist because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have. Taxes are always a redistribution of money.... Taxes are necessary for the common good and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more and who should be paying less and for us to say that that makes you a socialist I think is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate. And I don't want my taxes raised, I don't want anybody else's taxes raised, but I also want to see our infrastructure fixed, I don't want to have a 12 trillion dollar national debt and I don't want to see an annual deficit that's over 500 billion dollars heading toward a trillion, so how do we deal with all of this?"

There's no reason to get more or less complicated than this.

"Small but Steady"

2008-10-21T16:49:00.007-04:00

CNN chyron this afternoon: "Obama's Small But Steady Lead".

The sub-chyron (I guess you'd call it) read, "CNN Poll of Polls: Up by 9-Points". Seems to me that one or the other can be correct, but no both. Seems to me that 9 points in late October is not only not "small" but almost insurmountable. But, seems to me, of course I could be wrong so I waited to see what Wolf Blitzer had to say. Sure as shit, his intro to the report included this: "Nine points! That's the highest it's been since we've been doing these 'Poll of Polls'."

Obama 51, McCain 42, Unsure 7. The fact that Obama is polling at a majority is even more damning because even if all the undecideds eventually went for McCain he still could not win. Now I know this isn't set in stone, but I'm not making any claims as to the accuracy of the poll itself, only the Chyron.

I guess if I ever date a CNN producer, I should tell her I'm "small but steady".

Vintage CNN. All balance, all the time.

Olberdouche With A Side of Chris, Please.

2008-08-26T22:05:00.007-04:00

Even Chris Matthews has lost it.

And it's only the second day of the convention. And his hair looks like it's been "tussled" by a creepy older gentleman who looking to sleep with his mother.

He defended himself against a perceived slight by Keith by sputtering something that didn't even make sense when Keith wasn't even (for once) picking on him. I'm sure this is because he's so frustrated over the baldly inappropriate cheerleading and the resulting loss of credibility and not just a grown man acting like a child who wants to hit back but doesn't know how without seeming foolish. At least the rest of us can be pissed because of that loss of credibility stuff.

The lack of morale is palpable among others on the team. Tom Brokaw must be wondering why he hung on this long. Judy Woodruff is looking even frownier (if that's possible these days). Eugene is unable to muster his usual level of guffawing during his conventional wisdom spews. Rachel is angrier than I've ever seen her and she's unashamedly taking it out on Pat (Though it could rightly be due to merely having to sit next to him, but he seems to have embraced his mascot roll of cranky white dude with humor and aplomb, though he really had no choice other than to get angrier, which he's tried and failed at too many times already and he probably sees his only chance for good notices in this debacle is playing the unserious goofball and he's taking it. Which is actually a little refreshing, and sad at the same time for what it exposes, that Pat F-ing Buchanan is the most likeable person on the screen).

I usually hate Matthews even more than Olbermann but I cannot blame him for standing up this freak on a power trip.

Maybe the saddest thing is that Matthews is certainly going to be the one to go. His show's been hanging on by a thread for a while now (terrible ratings) and now this. He's the Hilary of MSNBC. He irrationally feels that his "turn" has been usurped by a snot-nosed punk. Who gives a crap any more about these fools.

Isn't it clear by now? The liberals finally (kind of) get a network and Keith Goddamn Olbermann, you're ruining everything.

Baseball Heaven (not in Iowa)

2008-07-09T01:04:00.009-04:00

Just saw the highlight of Brewers fans chanting "Let's go, C.C.!" as the big man took the mound in his first start as a Brewer.

Those fans are in the heaven zone.

That's when it's the first time in a long time (or ever) where you're inspired by your team and you LOVE those players and you feel it when they lose and it's innocent, not encumbered by perpetual suspicion (Sox) or crusted with the arrogance of perpetual winning (Yanks).

Most teams' fans have this anytime their team makes an unexpected playoff run. Sox fans were only able to have this (in my life as a fan) in '86, '88 and after Johnny Damon's grand slam finally clinched the 2004 ALCS.

Yankees fans may never have had this.

The thing is, Sox fans have now lost this even with the continued winning. We lost this some time in the last two years. The fans are as passionate and present as ever but the result now is an unpracticed over-confidence that just comes across as belligerence. We're never happy and we take a loss or a bad decision or play as an actionable injury to our person. We can't have the heaven again until the Sox lose for an extended period of years.

... but ...

Yanks fans can have this as soon as THIS YEAR. They aren't the best team, they are VERY mediocre and the fans act like they've actually lost hope. Because of the Yanks annoying history of always winning, the stasis of unrequited playoff appearances, most of them exhaustingly average, makes them feel like Pirates fans. A team of broken players past their prime playing with passion led by a sensational and dominant everyman (Joba) would ignite Yankee fans and probably the city. It should. If it doesn't, then maybe I don't know Yankees fans as well as I thought I did.

Now in "Worse Than O'Reilly" Flavor

2008-06-28T16:19:00.010-04:00

Again, liberals should abhor Keith Olbermann. Specific candidate advocacy. That's pretty much what Olbermann's show has become.

Greenwald

"Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a 'shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government.' ... Strong and righteous words indeed. But that was five whole months ago, when George Bush was urging enactment of a law with retroactive immunity and a lessening of FISA protections. Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed."

And this after Keith replied weakly on Daily Kos:

"In his Kos reply, Olbermann pronounces that my piece yesterday was 'simplistic and childish' but then adds the standard dismissive Journalist defense: 'I don't know much about Mr. Greenwald and I didn't read his full piece.' ...
Olbermman then denies that he was justifying Obama's support for the FISA bill but then goes on to do exactly that:
Seriously, there is little in the polls to suggest McCain has anything to run with other than terror . . . . So why hand them a brick to hit him with -- Obama Voted Against FISA -- if voting Aye enhances his chances of getting himself his own Attorney General to prosecute FISA.
How can Olbermann accuse me of distorting his commentary and deny that he's rationalizing Obama's support for the bill and then write the above -- which does nothing but justify Obama's support for the bill? That's exactly the mentality I was criticizing yesterday -- that Obama should be excused for supporting this assault on core Constitutional liberties and the rule of law because doing so is necessary to avoid appearing Weak on Terrorism. That's the behavior which Obama has repeatedly vowed to reject, and it's that precise mentality that has to be extinguished, not perpetuated."

With all the coverage on the liberal blogosphere, and with almost all the blogs agreeing with Greenwald (some don't even reference it and I assume they're pro-Keith truthers who are embarrassed by that fact), one thing you don't see is anyone calling it what it is, what the implications are because of what it is, and thereby why it's worse than what O'Reilly does. Olbermann is engaging in open advocacy of a candidate.

We all observed his sycophantic treatment of Obama during the primaries but we had a weaselly way of justifying it because the criticisms of Clinton were all true and defensible. We could all fool ourselves into thinking his words were issue based. Even the over the top attack on Clinton over her reference to Bobby Kennedy. We forget that a big part of his criticism was independent of the controversy of whether she purposefully meant to scare voters by planting in their head the a feeling of anxiousness over whether the country could calmly handle the assassination of a president or president-elect. It was mostly not about her intention but the effect and how she should have been conscious of the potential fear and censored herself. He was almost always right on the issues.

Here, he is not.

He is unquestionably wrong on the issue (because he claimed to be an advocate against unprincipled politicking) and Glenn is 114% right.

This is nothing more than specific advocacy of a specific candidate. He simply cannot continue to host or co-host the debates. MSNBC's credibility is on the line. Hell, you might even see conservatives call for campaign rules to apply to MSNBC's 8 o'clock hour. "Hi, I'm Barack Obama, and I approve of this pimping." You've seen them do crazier things. But what I'm most worried about is the substantial defense they now have against accusations of hypocrisy. No longer can we we bring up when Hannity campaigned for Rudy. We as liberals are generally much more principled and knowledgeable and one idiot who got lucky and filled a vacuum is now our "leader" by our choice. He is far less representative of us than Rush or O'Reilly or Glenn Beck are representative of the right. Now everyone thinks we're all like Olbermann. This just extends the mindless charade indefinitely and sets back our fight in the "truth" war back a decade.

Please, Keith.

You're ruining everything.

Liberals Should Abhor Keith Olbermann

2008-06-17T20:55:00.017-04:00

This will be a regular feature at the Tilter. Why should we abhor this man? Because he's just Bill O'Reilly in hipster glasses.

In Worst Persons tonight he called the odious Darrell Issa "monstrous", without a heart, a "cur", and "not human". A "cur" is a dog, by the way. I looked it up.

Please tell me the difference between this and the eliminationist rhetoric from the likes of Michael Savage. ("If you take to the streets with the vermin who are trying to dictate to us how we should run America, even though they're not even entitled to vote or be here, you're going to be thrown out of office.")

Obvious civics lesson in three, two, one ... Conservatives are by nature enemy-creators because to be conservative is to seek to maintain the status quo (circa 1954). The first step to keeping what "belongs" to "us" is to define who "us" is. And by defining "us" they also define who's "not us". The simplest way (always the most agreeable to the primordial portions of conservatives' brains) to solidify this divide is to draw the line in that place between human and non-human. That is the conservative instinct.

Liberals are inclusive; we at least claim to believe that we are all the same. Keith crossed the line into parochial, shallow reasoning long ago but tonight was his most grotesque display. This is what O'Reilly does. How can liberals ever claim the upper hand if our biggest media friendly is nothing more than Sean Hannity without the Catholic angst and fear of brown people. The most damaging thing about this is that since he's the only option out there liberal big shots, from bloggers (except Somerby, of course) to succubi politicians who opportunistically attach themselves to the side of this bloated, bottom-feeder when it's "media-ly" necessary (Kerry, Pelosi, Clinton, Obama).

One of the biggest shames is that seemingly honest people with personal causes like Paul Reickhoff, Donna Edwards and Cindy Sheehan are already too deeply into this mess because there's no other option. Give Rachel Maddow a fucking show for shit's sake. This couldn't be more frustrating.

You're ruining everything Keith Olbermann.

Metablogging

2007-04-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

This is how one special person found my blog:

Referring URL: http://search.yahoo....e=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

Search Engine: search.yahoo.com

Search Words: guy fucking a windmill

As my girlfriend is the only one who reads this blog, I think we need to talk.

The Rudeness of Gay Marriage

2006-08-08T17:02:00.000-04:00

Over at The Rude Pundit, a guest poster has given one of the most succinct and entertaining defenses of legally recognized same-sex marriage I've ever read. Here's a sample but reading the whole thing is necessary if you want to get the whole "rude" experience: I am not a Christian or Jew or Muslim. While I occasionally have a conception of a Higher Power that I choose to call god -- simply because it's a lot fucking shorter than "Spirit of the Universe" or even "Higher Power" -- I practice no religion. Further, I do not hold any part of the Bible or the Koran to be the word of god.
One of the basic fucking tenets of the separation of Church and State is that at no time should the government of the United States of America be countenanced as a theocracy. Our laws, while oftentimes influenced by religious beliefs, are not dictated by the Bible (Old or New testament) or any religious text.
The definition of marriage in a religious context is not the definition of marriage in a legal context -- period. I cite the words of the civil marriage ceremony: "By the power vested in me by the (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)..." NOT: "By the power vested in me by God..."
Separation of Church and State, while difficult to maintain at times, is crucial to the continuing evolution of a nation. As a person who does not recognize the validity of the Bible or any other religious text as being the word of god, I DEMAND that the government I support with my taxes and by whose laws I abide leave the religious beliefs of its members out of the equation when making those laws. I do not demand equality or even consideration from any religion; I consider myself and every other person not affiliated with a religion to be outside the sphere of those religions. (Emphasis mine.)

Lyric Blogging

2006-07-13T02:34:00.000-04:00

Give me one good reason why I'm up at 2:30 in the morning listening to a Dwight Yoakam Christmas song! Laugh now, but find the song, listen to it, and tell me a better Christmas song:

Santa Can't Stay

Dwight Yoakam

Cold tears fall from his eyes

As he turns into the night and walks away

Lucille runs outside Just to see if there might be a sleigh

Little Bobby stares down

At the plate where cookies still lay

And tries to understand

Why momma said Santa can't stay

Chorus: Momma said Santa can't stay

Said she told him that twice yesterday

Then a car just like Dad's

Pulled out and drove away

After mom said Santa couldn't stay

They both heard him coming

Saw Mom run down the hall and holler, "Wait!"

Doug you're drunk don't come inside

I'm not joking I've had all this I can take

He threw a present really hard

That almost hit Mom's new boyfriend Ray

And yelled ho-ho lucky for you she's here

And said that Santa can't stay

Good Old Fox

2006-07-11T20:13:00.000-04:00

I'm watching the All-Star game on Fox right now and they're doing one of those painful retrospectives of the history of the host team, in this case the Pittsburgh Pirates. When they got to the part about Roberto Clemente, the greatest Pirate, who died when his plane crashed into the ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, the music Fox chose to play in the background was "Drown" by Smashing Pumpkins.

I bet they thought they were being poignant.

Hollywood Phony

2006-07-10T20:19:00.000-04:00

To my vast readership:

I implore you all to visit the blog of my friend Eric, hollywoodphony.com, who is trying to get noticed more widely. This applies particularly to the directors, producers, agents, famous people and star-fuckers who frequent my blog. He fancies himself a bit a wit and his blog is great sampling of his work. Even I have to admit at least two of his posts are mildly funny. He even has a podcast where he periodically interviews some interesting people. You can listen on his other blog, chadrobuckle.com, or you can find it on ITunes.

Your pal,

MJB

Violence

2006-07-09T09:52:00.000-04:00

Here are the bookend paragraphs of a recent post on the blog for a pleasant little organization called "Stop the ACLU":

A recent appellate court ruling has decided that it is illegal for companies to pay Hollywood for movies and then sanitize them of gratuitous nudity, over-the-top profanity, and puerile violence. For years, Hollywood has found ways to insert into otherwise coherent storylines scenes of nudity, sex, profanity, and violence.
...
With the incredible success of films like The Passion of Christ, Lord of the Rings, and other family-friendly films one would think that the movie industry would see that there is an untapped market to be exploited. (Emphasis mine.)

Don't those two movies contain pretty much non-stop violence? Well, I went to CleanFlicks.com, apparently the most well-known of these companies, to check out a few things and you'll never guess which two movies (as well as The Chronicles of Narnia) are having their family-friendly content edited out.

So I checked out their editing standards:

We edit out:
Profanity This includes the B-words, H-word when not referring to the place, D-word, S- word, F-word, etc. It also includes references to deity (G-word and JC-words etc.), only when these words are used in a non-religious context.
Graphic Violence This does not mean all violence, only the graphic depictions of decapitation, impalements, dismemberment, excessive blood, gore etc.
Nudity This refers to male and female front and back nudity.
Sexual Content This includes language which refers to sexual activity or has sexual connotation. It also includes visual content of a graphic or stimulating nature. (Emphasis mine.)

I would love to see the remaining 17 minutes of these films. But of course, the violence per se is not the point for them because fundies actually don't hate violence, and I'm sure the vast majority of the violent scenes are not edited out of these Christian themed movies. One more important fact is that these are "Utahan" companies. Violence for the Lord is just as acceptable to them as lying for the Lord.

Happy Fourth and the Birth of a New Name

2006-07-04T13:53:00.000-04:00

I was never totally happy with the previous name of this blog but I think this one works. One constant among people who know me is that they all tell me to settle down and not worry about the nonsense, in other words to stop tilting at windmills. I won't, but that's no reason for you people not to try.

Now, here's a puppy:

Awwwww.

Ugh

2006-07-04T13:00:00.000-04:00

Thus ends my dumb fascination with this sad creature's blog:

http://stephanieklein.blogs.com/greek_tragedy/2006/06/barely.html

Don't mind me, I'll be in the corner drinking razor blades.

The Of Vinci Code

2006-05-19T16:06:00.000-04:00

I have no desire to see this movie, but PZ over at Pharyngula has a decent post on the topic and the hype. I read (listened to) the book, and wasn't impressed. On top of that, no scholars of the era or of Leonardo support any of the book's conclusions (What's more likely: that the feminine looking person sitting to Christ's right in "The Last Supper" is Joseph, who was a teenager and would have been portrayed femininely as was the custom to portray young men in Leonardo's time, or that Leonardo only painted 11 of the 12 disciples and decided to throw in Mary Magdalene for shits and giggles as a piece in some strange historical puzzle?). Finally, it seems pretty clear that the Priory of Zion, the alleged secret society charged with protecting the secret of Christ's living bloodline, the society of which Leonardo was or was not a member, seems to be a complete hoax.

As usual, I wish I had written this, but PZ did:

The Catholic church has no grounds for complaining about a badly written, ridiculously improbable, mass-market driven work of popular fiction unless it's because they see it as in competition with their similarly atrocious foundation document.

Now to piss some people off: How can there be descendantss of a man who never existed?

Lyric Blogging

2006-05-17T16:11:00.000-04:00

This is the most inspiring song ever written consisting primarily of sad themes.

The Rising - Bruce Springsteen

Can't see nothin' in front of me

Can't see nothin' coming up behind

I make my way through this darkness

I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Lost track of how far I've gone

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed

On my back's a sixty pound stone

On my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning

Bells ringing filled the air

Wearin' the cross of my calling

On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

(chorus)

Spirits above and behind me

Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright

May their precious blood forever bind me

Lord as I stand before your fiery light

(chorus)

I see you Mary in the garden

In the garden of a thousand sighs

There's holy pictures of our children

Dancin' in a sky filled with light

May I feel your arms around me

May I feel your blood mix with mine

A dream of life comes to me

Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)

Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)

Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)

Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)

Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)

Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight

Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)

Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life (a dream of life)

(chorus)

Lying

2006-05-11T13:10:00.000-04:00

I posted this comment on another blog in response to a comment up the thread by someone who claimed that there is no Bush fatigue:

“Bush fatigue. It ain’t gonna happen.”
That really is priceless.I guess an extremely low approval rating is proof of lack of fatigue, just as the majority of Americans who oppose warrantless wiretapping shows support for the NSA program, or the vast majority of Iraqis who want us out is proof that, as Dick Cheney said, “with respect to the question of were we greeted as liberators, I think we clearly are viewed as liberators by the vast majority of the Iraqi people.”
One more point, how is that not a lie? He knows for a fact that it is not “clear” at all, and that every poll conducted has shown huge majorities want us out. To claim something is “clear” is a lie when you know it’s not. How do you cons defend that? It’s time you own up and admit, as I got one of my con friends to do, that you feel there are greater goals which justify lying to the people. Then think of the company you are intellectually keeping by reaching that conclusion.
Just admit it, my friend seemed relieved after he did. It seemed a weight was off his chest now that he no longer had to throw out the patently false BS talking points regarding the NSA scandal, the lies to gather public support for the runup to the war, Social Security, etc… He no longer felt the need to say that no one lied in the runup, then pretend that I didn’t just show him a blatant example of said lying to maintain the shroud of false consistency. Now he just says that of course they lied, they had to, they wouldn’t have gotten the support otherwise. This is a great guy and great friend. Shows how cultish the idea power can make people.

Broomstick

2006-04-07T15:59:00.000-04:00

This is what I posted on another site in response to a comment by a particularly annoying, persistent and dishonest troll who bitched that his patriotism was questioned:

“My love of country is questioned here 10 times a day. I ignore it because it comes from people who don’t know any better.”
Pedro,No one here has any doubt that you have a love for “America”. We just have a different definition of America. To me it’s the principles on which it was ostensibly founded, but have never been honored. To me it is American to strive for these principles. Some, you, view it as a team, and the fact that you happen to be here at the moment, or were lucky enough to have been born here, means that you must defend your team at all costs, even when your leaders are undermining those principles which real Americans strive to uphold.
I had a talk with a cop today (I work in law enforcement) who said that he would have personally arrested Volpe and his cohorts if he was working the night he brutalized Abner Louima. That is a real cop. The fake cops are the ones who covered for him and lied and watched while an innocent human being was almost killed.
The Republicans are shoving a broken broomstick up the ass of America and you feel that it’s more important to maintain that red, white and blue wall of silence.

As depressing as it is immerse myself daily in reading about the ugly sides of political thought, and ideas in general, that cop really made my day.

McCain - Still dead to me, but with a slight redemption

2006-04-05T17:13:00.000-04:00

Senator Fuzzy Feelings sank deeper into the morass of being dead to me by agreeing to give the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's college, Liberty University, which is the most fundyest of fundy schools.

But he slightly redeemed himself by admitting that he is "going into crazy base world". His expert ability to pander to everyone from Jon Stewart to Jerry Falwell probably shouldn't earn him any points, but he set the bar so low with his pro-torture actions and fake lobbying reform pose, how can he go wrong at this point. Officially, still dead to me, though only in the 6th ring now.

And I think Stephen Colbert got the hint because he hasn't done a "dead to me" bit since I called him out.

Flying Spaghetti Monster hate mail

2006-03-28T13:03:00.000-05:00

The guy who runs the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster apparently receives a mess of hate mail. Enjoy. Some samples:

How fucking dare you make fun of my lord and savior Jesus Christ. He died on the cross for my and your sins you fucking peice of shit. You can't fucking do that you fucking fuck. Go fuck yourself you fuck!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!! ANTICHRIST!!! YEA, YOUR THE ANTICHRIST YOU FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO GO FUCK UP ISREAL YOU FUCKING FUCK. BOBY BITCHEMSOMS = 666 666 666 PISS WHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!! YOUR GONA BURN IN HELL FOREVER YOU LARGE FUCK. You are an ass crack. You know what an ass crack is bitch? Thats exactly what you look like. Piss whole!!!!! You should go shuve your face up someon's fucking ass you fucking fuck of a fucking fucker fucky fuck fuck fucker fucky fucker fucky fucker fucky fuck fuck!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!! YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!! YOUR LEADING THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE INTO HELL YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!!! YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT TO DO THAT YOU FUCKING BASTARD GO FUCK YOUR SELF OR FUCK A TREE OR FUCK YOUR WIFE!!!!!!!! GO FUCK THE FLYING SPHIGETTI MONSTER YOU FUCK!!!!!! -Guido Arbia

heyo, i think you are by far the most cracked out, butt fucking, dick sucking, fagit ass bitch that i have ever seen on the face of this fucked up and corrupt earth. you really need to get a fucking life you neo-nazi bitch. i hope god kills your ass. thank you for causing hysterical laughing as a result of your retardedness. mike nobar

LISTEN DUMBASS YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE SO COOL BECAUSE YOU THINK SOME PUSSY SPAGHETTI MONSTER RULES THE FUCKING WORLD YOU STUPID FUCK YOU NEED TO FIND JESUS YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER. IF I WERE YOU I WOULD TAKE MY ASS IN TO ON COMMING TRAFFIC AND LET EVERYBODY KILL YOUR ASS. AND YOU BETTER PRAY TO YOUR GOD THAT I DON'T FIND BECAUSE IF I DO I'M GOING TO JAM AN OAR UP YOUR ASS NEVER MIND I'M SURE YOUR HOMO BOYFRIEND DOES THAT ANYWAY YOU FUCKING DICK. DOES YOUR ASS HURT BECAUSE IF IT DOES THAT MEANS THAT AN OAR IS ALREADY BEEN IN THERE. AND IF I SEE THAT LAST SUPPER PICTURE AGIAN I'M GOING TO PUT ANOTHER OAR UP YOUR ASS AND YOUR GOING TO LOOK FUCKING STUPID WITH TWO OARS JAMMED UP YOUR ASS. YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR A PUSSY AND YOUR HOMO BOYFRIEND IS A PUSSY AND YOUR SISTERS A PUSSY AND YOUR WHOLE FAMILY ARE PUSSYS BUT YOUR MOMS NOT SHE A FUCKING IDIOT FOR HAVING YOUR ASS. MY GOD WOULD BITCH SLAP THE HELL OUT OF YOUR FUCKING PUSSY ASS GOD AND SEND THAT MOTHERFUCKER BACK TO HELL AND I HOPE YOU ARE WITH HIM SO YOU AND HIM CAN BURN FOR THE REST OF YOUR FUCKING LIVES AND THEN YOUR FOLLOWERS WILL SEE WHAT A PUSSY YOUR GOD REALLY IS AND THEY WILL TURN TO MY GOD FOR AWNSERS ABOUT WHAT YOU DID AND I WILL TELL THEM THAT YOU WERE A FUCKING HOMO AND SO WAS YOUR GOD. AND IF YOU TRY YOUR SHIT IN HELL THE DEVIL WILL LIKE IT BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING HOMO TO HIM AND YOUR GOD ARE FUCK HOMO'S TOGETHER AND THEY FUCK YOU UP THE ASS. GOD BLESS SIGNED CHARLES MCMURREY

Consider me converted! Praise Jesus!

Brokeback Mountain

2006-02-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

I've found movie reviews are not to be read prior to viewing a film, but after, especially after you've had time to seriously reflect on what you've seen. Then, and only then, should you read someone else's opinion, but you must be open-minded to the author's analysis. I always allow for the fact that the reviewer noticed something (many things, usually) which I did not. In that context, reading a movie review can be as emotional an artistic experience as seeing the film itself. Reading this review made me feel like I was seeing Brokeback Mountain for a second time. And I think the thesis of the piece is exactly correct, that the movie is, and should be viewed as, a movie uniquely about the Closet. A sample:

The climax of these visual contrasts is also the emotional climax of the film, which takes place in two consecutive scenes, both of which prominently feature closets—literal closets. In the first, a grief-stricken Ennis, now in his late thirties, visits Jack's childhood home, where in the tiny closet of Jack's almost bare room he discovers two shirts—his and Jack's, the clothes they'd worn during their summer on Brokeback Mountain—one of which Jack has sentimentally encased in the other. (At the end of that summer, Ennis had thought he'd lost the shirt; only now do we realize that Jack had stolen it for this purpose.) The image —which is taken directly from Proulx's story—of the two shirts hidden in the closet, preserved in an embrace which the men who wore them could never fully enjoy, stands as the poignant visual symbol of the story's tragedy. Made aware too late of how greatly he was loved, of the extent of his loss, Ennis stands in the tiny windowless space, caressing the shirts and weeping wordlessly. In the scene that follows, another misplaced piece of clothing leads to a similar scene of tragic realization. Now middle-aged and living alone in a battered, sparsely furnished trailer (a setting with which Proulx's story begins, the tale itself unfolding as a long flashback), Ennis receives a visit from his grown daughter, who announces that she's engaged to be married. "Does he love you?" the blighted father protectively demands, as if realizing too late that this is all that matters. After the girl leaves, Ennis realizes she's left her sweater behind, and when he opens his little closet door to store it there, we see that he's hung the two shirts from their first summer, one still wearing the other, on the inside of the closet door, below a tattered postcard of Brokeback Mountain. Just as we see this, the camera pulls back to allow us a slightly wider view, which reveals a little window next to the closet, a rectangular frame that affords a glimpse of a field of yellow flowers and the mountains and sky. The juxtaposition of the two spaces—the cramped and airless closet, the window with its unlimited vistas beyond—efficiently but wrenchingly suggests the man's tragedy: the life he has lived, the life that might have been. His eyes filling with tears, Ennis looks at his closet and says, "Jack, I swear..."; but he never completes his sentence, as he never completed his life.

I've been saying for a while now that the emotional and physical scarring inflicted on gay men in most of the world over many centuries due to religion and ignorance amounts to nothing less than a holocaust. Entire generations of gay men, past and present, and the friends and lovers who love them, will never know what life could have been like with unconditional support and a mentality free from the constant managing of a "straight" persona. And Heath Ledger lives in my neighborhood and not yours (unless you live in Cobble Hill), so there.

I'm famous

2006-02-07T13:45:00.000-05:00

Apparently I've gotten a job writing for the American Prospect and TMP Cafe. Go here, scroll down to the picture and you'll see what I'm talking about. BTW, this guy graduated from college in 2003. And he was recognized by New York Magazine for accomplishing so much at such a young age. I'll be right back, I just have to go chew on some glass.

Short lyric blogging

2006-02-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

Now THIS is a love song (the chorus, which I've highlighted, just kills me):

"Soul Meets Body" - Death Cab for Cutie

I want to live where soul meets body

And let the sun wrap its arms around me

And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing

And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station

Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations

So they may have a chance of finding a place

where they’re far more suited than here

I cannot guess what we'll discover

We turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels

But I know our filthy hand can wash one another’s

And not one speck will remain

I do believe it’s true

That there are roads left in both of our shoes

If the silence takes you

Then I hope it takes me too

So brown eyes I hold you near

Cause you’re the only song I want to hear

A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

John McCain - Dead to Me or Not?

2006-02-07T11:32:00.000-05:00

In a little homage to the Phony's now defunct Dead Celeb or Not site, John McCain is ..... Still dead to me:

Senator McCain is putting together a bipartisan task force to address lobbyingcorruption reform in Congress. Of course, when any Republican mentions the word "bipartisan" they really mean Republican and Joe Lieberman, which, in essence, isn't really bipartisan at all. True to form, ol' Joe has signed aboard McCain's task force, as has the reliable Democrat Ben Nelson. Today, an angry and vitriolic McCain express outrage that Senator Obama has refused to play in his bipartisan sandbox.

Read the whole thing for the McCain's pissy schoolyard note-passing fit of pique. And I was seriously considering bringing him back to life after his initial grandstanding over the Republican ethics scandal. But that's all it was, grandstanding. BTW, Stephen Colbert is dead to me because he stole my "dead to me" idea. I guess I'll still watch him because the show is "incredibly funny" or something like that, but he crossed the line this time.

Irony?

2006-02-07T08:50:00.000-05:00

I'm surprised no one else has picked up on this little nugget from yesterday's wiretap hearings, and remember the purpose of the hearing is for the Senate Judiciary Committee to try to pry info out of Gonzales over a program which the president feels he is justified in keeping, shhh, secret:

FEINSTEIN: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to make clear that, for me, at least, this hearing isn't about whether our nation should aggressively combat terrorism; I think we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use sophisticated electronic surveillance to learn about terrorist plans and intentions and capabilities; we all agree on that. And it's not about whether we should use those techniques inside the United States to guard against attacks; we all agree on that. But this administration is effectively saying, and the attorney general has said it today, it doesn't have to follow the law. And this, Mr. Attorney General, I believe, is a very slippery slope. It's fraught with consequences. The Intelligence Committees have not been briefed on the scope and nature of the program. They have not been able to explore what is a link or an affiliate to Al Qaida or what minimization procedures are in place. We know nothing about the program other than what we read in the newspapers. And so it comes with huge shock, as Senator Leahy said, that the president of the United States in Buffalo, New York, in 2004, would say, and I quote, "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." Mr. Attorney General, in light of what you and the president have said in the past month, this statement appears to be false. Do you agree?

GONZALES: No, I don't, Senator. In fact, I take great issue with your suggestion that somehow that president of the United States was not being totally forthcoming with the American people. I have his statement, and in the sentence immediately before what you're talking about, he said -- he was referring to roving wiretaps. And so I think anyone...

Dennis Miller is Officially a Hack

2006-01-23T21:35:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the new Dennis Miller special. At first I thought he was just warming up with old stuff (why one would do that anyway in their comeback HBO special I don't know) but the hack jokes never stopped. Seriously, he talked about hotel towels, fat people in Vegas, Cialis and that pesky 36 hour erection, those darned new drugs with all their side effects, Attention Deficit Disorder, old flight attendants, his awesome common sensical take down of global warming (apparently the sun was also hot when he was a kid), smoking bans, CRRAAZZY Howard Dean, pussy liberals, Bush's real world toughness, suits against tobbaco and fast food corporations, illegal aliens and their wacky outfits, and on and on. It wouldn't surprise me if one day a couple of years ago Dennis had a little conversation with himself that went like this:

"You know, I think I just realized away I can get another few years out of my career before I retire to sleep on bags of money. I haven't been relevant for a while so I'll get noticed by being the token pro-war comedian (High five Ron Silver!). Then I'll parlay that into a tour and a special even though I lost my edge and creativity years ago. You don't have to tell me that I got nothing left, I kept it going with stunts like hosting Monday Night Football and the whole conservative darling thing. I know that some of my large-worded similes don't exactly have much to do with what I was talking about, but those same fat Vegas tourists will laugh."
"Sounds like a plan!"

He didn't have to be this bad.

After one of his awful pro-war jokes, or after some anti-global warming pseudo-populist bullshit, he could have taken a shot like this: "Just hold on a fucking second you conservatives, I'll get to you. It's just not your turn yet, but please don't think you're clean. I'll fucking get to you." But no. He actually did a rundown of the most annoying politicians out there while not mentioning a single Republican, with the coda being a 10 minute rant on (are you fucking kidding me) Bill Clinton. Then immediately progressing to calling the US soft in the face of terrorism. He then said he was getting sick of the Iraqi people not being loyal enough to us. Next up was how we have to save over-taxed corporations. That's all I can write, you can see where this is going.

Good crap Dennis, if you had talked from your brain (which made you famous) and not just from your heart, you could have made me believe there was something behind your new persona besides ego and money then I would have been entertained. Do you really think that good people will take you seriously merely because you don't oppose gay marriage like an animal? Tell another "hedonistic and irresponsible baby boomer" joke you f-ing hack. F you.

Why the opposite sex fake hug and kiss?

2006-01-20T11:11:00.000-05:00

Maybe this rant is dated, but I've noticed lately that in even the very most casual interactions between people of the opposite sex the greeting and goodbye must, absolutely must, be accompanied by the half-hug-kiss. Only on the first meeting is a simple handshake or nod allowed. Any subsequent meeting automatically affords the participants a level of familiarity and comfort with which I was unaware perfect strangers should have with each other. I suppose I lost this battle long ago, and there is no way to reverse it, so I'll embrace it. Maybe throw in a little tongue. Maybe I'll just drop my pants before hugging someone and nature take over.

Fiona Apple is a genius

2006-01-10T14:20:00.000-05:00

The Phony might not like this so much:

[Q:] It was six years between your second CD, When the Pawn..., and your new one, Extraordinary Machine. What were you doing all that time? [Apple:] Um, I really didn't do anything. I know I obviously had to have been doing a lot--because I'm a lot different now than I was then, but there's nothing that I can show you that I've done. I've tried to scrape my mind and rake up and little things that I might have done: I read some plays for a while; I spent a lot of time walking. That's something that still happens. I just walk around.... but the truth is that I haven't really done anything of consequence. Were you writing a lot of songs? No. [laughs]... What was with the play reading? ... I'd always wanted to read more plays, and I felt like "Oh, that'll be my thing now. I'll read all the plays that everyone knows." I went to the bookstore and bought 20 plays, and I would just really get into them. I had a great time reading them. Unfortunately, I look at them now on my bookshelf, and ask myself what they're about, and I can't remember.

Fun facts about our world

2006-01-10T01:03:00.000-05:00

How many of you knew that the phrase "quitting cold turkey" comes from the goosebumps, and "kicking the habit" comes from the restless kicking, that a heroin addict experiences during withdrawal?

Average Joe

2006-01-06T10:05:00.000-05:00

Go here first. But how can you really blame him, he's just a good old traditional "common sense" type of guy? He means well, and besides, what harm can really come from it?

Media Matters rocks

2006-01-04T21:25:00.000-05:00

Media Matters lays its daily smackdown on Bill O'Reilly:

Later in the interview, Letterman admonished O'Reilly, asserting "I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. ... I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint," to which O'Reilly replied, "I respect your opinion, you should respect mine." But O'Reilly had apparently been aware of Letterman's unrelenting style. In a 2001 column titled "The Letterman Experience," O'Reilly praised Letterman's interviewing abilities: "The late-night program hosted by David Letterman is the toughest interview show on television. That's because Mr. Letterman is a smart guy who can spot a phony with telescopic accuracy and expects his guests to bring something to the table. If a guest begins to sink on this show, the bottom is a long way down."

Oy.

2006-01-04T14:00:00.000-05:00

Digby:

[I]n light of the deaths of 12 coal miners, a timely reminder that Mr. Alito is on the record as deciding that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act should protect miners less than it does.It's also worth remembering that since reaching office, Our Fearless Leader cut MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) funds in real dollars, fired a whistleblower, put a mining company executive in charge, reduced staff by 170, tried to slash funding even more, and exempted the MSHA from the Freedom of Information Act.He did, however, arrange a photo op with the last group of high-profile miners trapped in the ground, and said this for the cameras: "It was their determination to stick together and to comfort each other that really defines kind of a new spirit that's prevalent in our country, that when one of us suffer, all of us suffers."Mr. Bush, we are told, has given up spirits.

Things I Would Have Believed

2006-01-04T10:01:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why this took so long, but I just now realized that a few years ago (especially the college years) I would have been an adamant Intelligent Design supporter. I know my inner contrarian would have loved to have had that argument. Down boy.

Libertarians?

2006-01-04T09:30:00.000-05:00

I have always wondered what people meant when they said they were libertarians, because when I ask them what that means they usually don't have any idea. Of course they are conservatives who feel like it gives them some credibility to pose as being above the two-party system. They aren't. They vote for Bush. And they don't seem to have a problem with unchecked executive powers. This writer says it better, obviously talking about the illegal wiretaps:

Now answer the following question: do you find all of the above perfectly okay, and, in fact, an obviously necessary part of the Globah Struggle Against Angry Foreigners? As a follow-up, are you perfectly comfortable with all of the above happening in direct violation of the law, and in complete secrecy? If you answered “yes” to either of the questions above, congratulations! You’re not a libertarian. Time to find something else to call yourself (Totalitarian? Dominionist? Kaye Grogan?)! You might even be ready for one of our other seminars, like “Eat Yourself Thin: Small Government Edition,” “9-11 Changed Everything But My Diaper,” or our special 30 day intensive course, “Ignorance By Example.” If you answered “that could never happen to me! I’m white! Baby Jesus! Baby Jesus!”, you might qualify for one of our advanced courses, such as “40′ Electrically Charged Spiked Border Fences That Shoot Lasers At Brown People: Better Than Sex?” or “White Men Unite: Take Back the Night.” If you answered “no” to any of the questions above, STOP FUCKING VOTING REPUBLICAN, DUMMY.

Things I Used To Believe (and actually still do believe)

2006-01-03T19:29:00.000-05:00

That Rush Limbaugh believes what comes out of his mouth. When I would argue with sane people about Rush back in the day, they would always say that he's a good entertainer but that he can't possibly believe most of the nonsense that billows from his fat maw. I would inevitably say that of course he believed it, because I believed it. I still think he believes it. That's why he sucks so bad. No one can be that passionate about something they do not feel deeply.

The Phony gets political

2006-01-02T16:15:00.001-05:00

Usually he's too "aloof" or "above-it-all" to pull his brain away from the funny, but his latest post provokes a thought or two:

Of course, most reasonable religious people understand that public schools are a place for learning about things like math and science and English. They know that God is something that should be taught in church, or Sunday school or in the home. Like music or art. Or gym. And it's not just because some people are Jewish and some people are Muslim and some people don't believe in God and you have to cater to their whims. Even if every single person was Christian and believed the exact same thing (again, completely made up), school is not the place to teach these beliefs. You go to school to learn how to be a productive member of society and not merely a stereotype for the whole rest of the world to laugh at and hate.

God hates the heartland?

2005-12-30T17:24:00.000-05:00

The lovely Ms. Machiavelli was just making this observation last night:

I’ve been trying to figure out why God has been sending all those horrible grass fires to Texas. At first I thought it was because God dislikes George W. Bush, and so is punishing Texas. But then in fairness, I realized that God’s time is different than man’s time, and it may be that God is having a delayed reaction to the governorship of Ann Richards, which means the grass fires are the Democrats' fault. Or maybe God doesn’t like Molly Ivins and is punishing Texas because of her. Maybe he’s having a conniption fit about Brokeback Mountain. Of course, most of the sex scenes take place in Montana, while it’s only Jake Gyllenhaal’s pretend marriage that takes place in Texas. So if God was being more exact, He should send grass fires to Montana, not Texas. So maybe it is Molly Ivins.

She is smart.

Interesting

2005-12-29T19:55:00.000-05:00

This is a take I had not heard:

There is no need to yell and scream. No need to be strident and shrill. What is needed is that conservatives learn their proper role. Now by conservative, I mean people who are not creative, but who are, in the main, reactionary.In America, it has long been the case that the creative class tended toward liberality, since that is, in large part, what enables them to be creative. Creativity is a generative and generous act. But many of those who are not creative make the mistake of becoming, or being, reactive, as if reactivity balanced creativity. But this is not the proper order. The proper thing for the non-creatives to do is to be receptive, not reactive. Creativity is the yang, receptivity is the yin. All of life is infused with both characteristics. No one is completely one way or the other. There are simply aptitudes and orientations. America is prevented from evolving naturally by this miscalculation. Instead of great ideas being nurtured and developed by those who would be receptive, instead they are reacted against, shot down, and the balloon bursts…if it is ever given wind in the first place.

I link to this guy too much

2005-12-22T12:12:00.000-05:00

But he consistently has the most interesting take, read the whole article:

Funny how things work over there in Conservative Land. If a conservative mouthpiece actually harms national security in the pursuit of attacking a liberal president or policy, well, then, that's just good old hardball politics. Just ask Valerie Plame.And besides, you can always just give it a few years. Then, when everyone's forgotten who actually caused this security breach and why, a smart, Orwellian conservative figurehead can always use the incident later to bash the "mainstream media" for doing its job.

This is beautiful

2005-12-20T17:42:00.000-05:00

Talking Points Memo has a great post on the historical context of Bush's latest crime:

Jefferson's argument, however, wasn't that the president had the prerogative to set aside the law. It was that the president might find himself in a position of extremity in which there was simply no time to canvass the people or a situation in which there was no practicable way to bring the relevant information before them. In such a case the president might have an extra-constitutional right (if there can be such a thing) or even an obligation to act in what he understands to be the best interests of the Republic. The clearest instance of this would be a case where the president faced a choice between letting the Republic be destroyed or violating one of its laws. But that wasn't the end of his point. Having taken such a step, it would then be the obligation of the president to throw himself on the mercy of the public, letting them know the full scope of the facts and circumstances he had faced and leave it to them -- or rather their representatives or the courts -- to impeach him or indict those who had taken it upon themselves to act outside the law.

Yes!

2005-12-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

Intelligent Design has been trounced in Dover, PA.

"Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Good analysis here. And here.

Mark My Words

2005-12-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

The fact that the president authorized illegal and unconstitutional wiretaps will be either his downfall or the downfall of the Constitition. Seems like every time a constitutional crisis happens (Watergate, Internment, etc...), the guilty party/parties are eventually shamed into doing what is right. This time I'm not so sure that will happen. The right has such a hold on the media and their half of the "intellectual" sphere, I think they will continue to do what has been working for them. That is, not admitting guilt or fault on any level. This is what scares me. The only reason the other crises ended was that one branch eventually gave up. Nixon resigned; Bush would have insisted to the (country crippling) end that his branch is sovereign. Korematsu was overturned and Reagan signed an act passed by Congress admitting fault and paying reparations to the internees; Bush would have acted like Michelle Malkin. The bad guys never actually think they are wrong. They just eventually see that what they did was illegal and against a huge amount of public sentiment. If they control the emotions of the public and their lawyers define away criminality when the crime is commited by the President, there is no reason they can't hang on forever. Also, this is funny.

Things I Used To Believe

2005-12-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

That the United States truly was exceptional. You know, American Exceptionalism, the way of thinking that leads many Americans to believe that when our government tortures or murders or kidnaps it isn't really torture or murder or kidnapping. It's something else. What, I don't know. But it is. Because they're terrorists, or something. Again, why did I think this? I haven't the faintest idea. I just did.

This guy is smart

2005-12-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

Wish I thought of this:

I think what you can say is that the Bush team is cynically manipulating public sentiment for the sake of pushing the limits of presidential power. It's a brilliant move, really, tapping into an aspect of the psyche that has been preconditioned by a hoary myth that has been perpetuated over the years by Hollywood: the notion that the action-driven hero's instincts for "saving lives" are superior to careful reasoning and principled restraint.But it sure is weird for a bunch of people who make a living out of deriding "Hollywood values."

Things I Used To Believe

2005-12-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

Tax cuts for the wealthy are actually in the best interests of the poor and working classes. Why did I believe it? I have no idea. I guess it was because Rush said it.

Feel the love

2005-12-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

He loves me! The Anonymous Liberal really, really loves me! Read the comments.

Burden of Proof

2005-12-14T10:53:00.000-05:00

So many in the media/political establishment are attorneys. Because of this, burdens of proof should be fundamental in their analysis. Unless you are paid to destroy all notions of proof and fair play:

Charges of bias require no substantiation whatsoever -- they merely have to be seconded enough times so that they become, ipso facto, truth-esque. And once they're truth-esque, they simply must be addressed, lest the credibility of the whole organization be questioned by a "great many" people, none of whom are acting out of bad faith, none of whom can be dismissed as cranks or ideologues. It's a bizarre state of affairs. The onus has left the accuser. Somewhere along the line, the burden of proof was lifted from them and dumped on the accused. So now our methods for evaluating bias are fairly similar to British libel laws: the plaintiff needn't prove that you're biased, but you still need to prove that you weren't. The very fact that such questions are being asked is more than reason enough to conduct a full and pointed investigation. Never mind that most who've participated in the discussion mock the premise: that so many are not asking such questions even further proves that such questions must be asked. If you think it's bias when someone else accuses bias, you're obviously biased.

Things I Used To Believe

2005-12-14T10:28:00.000-05:00

Minimum wage laws are harmful to those who make minimum wage. The market will eventually provide wages higher than the current minimum wage laws provide and the only things keeping the wages down are liberal policies. I know, it's ridiculous on its face.

Because my girlfriend said so.

2005-12-13T10:55:00.000-05:00

To my vast readership, please check out this article. My wonderful girlfriend worked on the legal stuff regarding this play starring Chita Rivera when she was interning with a theater law firm. Apparently, it has opened to rave reviews. Broadway, and the rest of humanity, should thank her.

Career choices

2005-12-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Then don't be a pharmacist! Then don't be a doctor!

For the BU alumni

2005-12-12T17:29:00.001-05:00

John Silber, the gentleman who presumably helped Boston University rise from the ashes to become a poor man's Harvard across the river, apparently is not as smart as everyone thought he was. While tooling around the internets, I found an article he wrote for the New Criterion which was cited approvingly on a creationist website to prop up the absurd Intelligent Design theory. Check this out:

A second excellent piece is in The New Criterion by John Silber, the straight shooting former president of Boston University, entitled Science versus scientism. Silber explains skepticism of evolution is met by dogmatic assertions: "The critical question for evolutionists is not about survival of the fittest but about their arrival. Biologists arguing for evolution have been challenged by critics for more than a hundred years for their failure to offer any scientific explanation for the arrival of the fittest. Supporters of evolution have no explanation beyond their dogmatic assertion that all advances are explained by random mutation sand environmental influences over millions of years."

First, "straight shooting" is usually code for bigoted or shallow. In my experience, Silber's "straight shooting" was actually extreme callousness with a side of slight bigotry. I'll try to compile other examples when more motivated but I'm a little too irritated at the fact that he single-handedly destroyed a number of sports teams at BU, including baseball, football and wrestling. Second, there is no excuse for anyone, never mind an intellectual, to be commenting on evolution (not Darwinism, which is the creationists tactic to try to limit evolutionary theory to some cult of personality and hero worship to take it down to their level so they can "discredit" it by calling it just another form of religious faith, which is a strange tactic to use to discredit something, especially when the whole point of ID and creation science is to lend credibility to their faith-based worldview) without knowing basic facts. Evolutionary theory DOES posit theories about the beginnings of life, and they are far more serious than any Intelligent Design guess as to the origins of life. In fact, a recent Nova on PBS discussed how some scientists are getting nearer to recreating the conditions which they believe sparked the first lifeforms, and hope to be able to do so themselves. Let's be clear. Intelligent Design is basically this: I will repeat endlessly how there are gaps in evolutionary theory, then ignore reasonable explanations for these gaps, and further ignore conclusive explanations of why Irreducable and Specified Complexity theories and Probability theory do not disprove evolution, yet continue to parrot these "common sense" theories, then claim that ID is just dispassionate science, while at the same time failing to adress the fact that EVERY ID proponent is a practicing and believing Christian, usually born-again and fundamentalist, and fail to explain their ties to explicitly creationist groups (most of them old-earth creationists, you know, the ones who think the world is 6,000 years old), and, while again claiming that ID is dispassionate science, hysterically accuse evolution proponents of anti-religious bias. There is no one who knows the contrarian itch of an ill-informed conservative better than I, but how does an intellectual fall into these traps? Seriously, how? Because I have no idea.

The first step is admitting you have a problem

2005-12-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

This should lead to the holy war the fundies are seeking.

Too bad he's dead

2005-12-10T20:02:00.000-05:00

Richard Pryor. He was funny.

Lyric Blogging

2005-12-09T16:15:00.000-05:00

Here is a new feature on the world famous Mayberry Machiavelli blog. Lyric blogging. It's in the tradition of irreverent {Blank} blogging sweeping the internets, started by Atrios and his Friday Cat Blogging. I will not have a day, but it will happen when the inspiration hits me. Competent lyric writing is a skill I admire above most. This will never include Linkin Park, Staind, Limp Bizkit or any of those manly rockers who write lyrics which are so literal and sentimental that only a 14-year-old girl or a drunk fratboy who isn't listening to the lyrics anyway except when the part comes around in the hook which tells them to jump or scream or break things but when he's alone in his dorm room and he listens to the lyrics they appeal to him because he's also just so mad at the hot girl who doesn't want to do what he wants so he thinks he can push her or scream at her when no one is looking but that's ok because his immature emotions are validated by what passes for platinum-selling lyrics nowadays. Anyway, this song is a great example of lyric literalism that works.

Do The Evolution - Pearl Jam

Woo..

I'm ahead, I'm a man

I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah

I'm at peace with my lust

I can kill 'cause in God I trust, yeah

It's evolution, baby

I'm at piece, I'm the man

Buying stocks on the day of the crash

On the loose, I'm a truck

All the rolling hills, I'll flatten 'em out, yeah

It's herd behavior, uh huh

It's evolution, baby

Admire me, admire my home

Admire my son, he's my clone

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

This land is mine, this land is free

I'll do what I want but irresponsibly

It's evolution, baby

I'm a thief, I'm a liar

There's my church, I sing in the choir:(hallelujah, hallelujah)

Admire me, admire my home

Admire my son, admire my clones

'Cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast

Those ignorant Indians got nothin' on me

Nothin', why?

Because... it's evolution, baby!

I am ahead, I am advanced

I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah

I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher

2010, watch it go to fire

It's evolution, baby

Do the evolution

Come on, come on, come on

Some just get it way before some others (me) do. By the way, this song is on Yield which was released in February, 1998.

Religion

2005-12-09T13:55:00.000-05:00

I read this article a while back when it first showed up on Huffington Post but worried that it was too hyperbolic to link to. Screw it. This is what every atheist wishes his/her drunken rantings sounded like. And I'm pretty sure the author was drunk.

So, here we go again. The next round of bloodbaths promises to continue on as a bunch of witless barbarians fight over the same goddamn piece of worthless land. And I’m the bad guy for saying religion makes the world a worse place? I posit that the real bad guys, who are going to get the rest of us killed along with themselves, are the Muslim Ayatollahs and the Israeli settlers. Though I think the original Zionist idea – and more importantly, their choice of locale – was misguided to say the least, what’s done is done. Every reasonable person knows what can bring peace – give the West Bank and Gaza Strip back to the Palestinians roughly along the 1967 borders, no right of return to the Palestinians for Israel proper and split Jerusalem in half. I know it, you know it, and the entire world knows it. But we won’t do it because of the religious zealots on both sides. You wonder why I can’t stand these religions. For the love of God, Yahweh and Allah, let’s save the people of the Middle East by getting rid of the absurd religious beliefs of the Middle East.

Charles Barkley, again.

2005-12-08T11:10:00.000-05:00

This guy made the points I wish I had made about Barkley and how he is much more politically complicated than the "I have a black friend" crowd on the right will ever admit. All that matters to them is that he once said he wanted to run as a Republican.

Sit down Carlos Delgado!

2005-12-08T10:05:00.000-05:00

I'm starting a nationwide movement built around the premise that Carlos Delgado, newly traded to the Mets, should sit down and shut up. It's not what you think. By sitting and shutting up during the playing of God Bless America at ballgames since the start of the Iraq War, Delgado has been one of the only prominent athletes playing in any of the American pro sports to take a stand against the War. He got away with it in Toronto and Miami, but the wounds are relatively fresh in New York and the Mets front office has "come to an agreement" with Delgado whereby he will stand during the song and to not discuss his political views publicly. The meatheads are going to boo him regardless so I say stay seated. Since when did playing a game for a lot of money mean that you should abandon your political ideals. History always proves them out. And no matter how big you are, if you are an empty hole of commercialization, you still lose in a lot of peoples' minds. I can see if you are a lobbyist for Big Oil, your firm might have a problem with you going to Greenpeace rallies, but you would have no soul to begin with so it wouldn't occur to you to have a social conscience anyway. He's a ballplayer. It's too bad that we had to wait until they were retired to hear most of what Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Curt Flood, and Jackie Robinson had to say about anything controversial. Why is it usually up to players of non-team sports (Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe) to take stands?

Pat Tillman Opposed Iraq War

2005-09-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

And it's easy to assume the worst given the fact that dissent is seen as unpatriotic now.

Is this good or bad?

2005-09-26T16:30:00.000-04:00

Brian Williams, one of the few non-Fox mainstream talking heads (the only other one I can think of right now is Bob Scheiffer) whom conservatives will accept even a little bit, admits that the press has been soft on Bush.

To sane people, this is further proof that the media has a Republican bias and treats mainstream liberals as commies and far right racists as "men of the people".

To nuts, this is further proof that the liberal conspiracy is one step closer to its goal of shutting down any opposing conservative voice.

The fact that they would consider Brian Williams conservative-friendly is a testament to the vapidity of their views. He has never been political but was critical of Kerry during the campaign. How criticising a terribly run campaign is "conservative" is beyond me. Sounds like good reporting. He criticised Bush, too. Besides that, the only thing that they can come up with is that fact that he's a NASCAR fan. So we have a reporter who likes cars. The left really has a monopoly on brains nowadays.

Funniest thing ever.

2005-09-25T18:49:00.000-04:00

Seriously.

I was wrong

2005-09-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

In a previous post I wrote that the Bush administration would probably defy a District Court order to either charge or release one of the American citizens who was seized in America while Bush was protecting us in the "Global War on Terror". I was hoping for it actually. I NEED this president impeached. I guess I was blinded to the reality that conservatives own the courts also, and it will only get worse. The conservative Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the Bush administration need not apply the Constitition to this American who was arrested on American soil. Who wants to bet me that a Supreme Court with Roberts as the chief and a religio-nazi taking O'Connor's spot will overrule the Fourth Circuit and uphold this man's rights? Any takers? I'll give 10-1 odds.

I guess language is part of the liberal conspiracy now.

2005-06-21T16:03:00.000-04:00

And I guess the only people qualified to interpret British English are conservative American Republicans:

When Hardball guest host David Gregory asked Woolsey about this line, Woolsey stated: "I think that's not what 'fixing' means in these circumstances. I think people are not listening to British usage. I don't think they're talking about cooking the books." But British sources have said that "British usage" conforms exactly to the interpretation Woolsey tried to reject: British Sunday Times reporter Michael Smith, the reporter who first disclosed the memo on May 1, ridiculed the notion that "fixed" has a different meaning in Britain in a Washington Post online chat: "There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the U.K. who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it."

My Mind Is Blown

2005-05-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

The new Green Day album just kills me. At the same time raw and creative and somehow as good as the Clash. The best is a beautiful masterpiece in the middle called Jesus of Suburbia that is an ode to seventies arena rock with its change of pace and lyric structure. And better. I haven't been this excited to listen to an album since Siamese Dream. So both subtely and overtly political. He even sings like Ben Folds at one point in the song. This part of Jesus of Suburbia is a perfect explanation of a bad person finally realizing he is bad. The shame we all feel for the minor things we do, blown up to George W. Bush size.

To live and not to breathe, Is to die In tragedy
To run, to run away, To find what you believe
And I leave behind, This hurricane of fucking lies
I lost my faith to this, This town that don't exist
So I run I run away, To the light of masochist
And I leave behind, This hurricane of fucking lies
And I walked this line, A million and one fucking times, But not this time

This album is as great (and GOOD) as any ever. They somehow managed to take the next step that so many bands are expected to take but never do. I am just in awe of anyone who can do anything this well.

Help me out, am I wrong?

2005-05-20T16:32:00.000-04:00

I really think there is a distinction between the Hitler remarks made by Byrd and Santorum. Byrd makes a decent, if awkward, reductio ad absurdam-esque type point, while Santorum makes a completely gratuitous comparison between two unrelated things.

Santorum said on the Senate floor May 19 that Democratic complaints about the "nuclear option" to ban judicial filibusters are "the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city. It's mine." Even after co-host Alan Colmes quoted the remark on the May 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes and former Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who appeared as a guest on the show, called it inappropriate, Hannity declined to condemn it. Rather, he accused Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) of having a "meltdown" for declaring in Senate debate that the "radical right" is seeking to "take over the independent judiciary," and rehashed disparaging remarks Kennedy made about Bork in 1987.
Byrd referenced Hitler in the filibuster debate on March 1 by exclaiming that, like proposed Republican efforts to ban judicial filibusters, "Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality. ... Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal." Hannity responded on the March 2 edition of Hannity & Colmes by calling Byrd "unhinged," condemning his Hitler remarks as "atrocious" and "disgraceful," asking, "Could a Republican ever get away with comparing Democrats to Adolf Hitler?"

Is it bad that this seems normal now?

2005-05-20T16:24:00.000-04:00

At first this didn't strike me as that ridiculous, but I guess I'm just used to this kind of intermingling by now. The more I thought about it, though...

The associate commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Andrew Biggs – who’s currently on loan, working out of the White House – edited Max’s now-not-so-nonpartisan testimony, making corrections, ensuring it matched the Bush line. Max forgot to erase the evidence of White House involvement in his “independent” testimony.

In plain language

2005-05-19T09:29:00.000-04:00

One of the most straight-forward and convincing explanations of the "nucular option" I have seen from the great Talking Points Memo, in full:

As we wait on the sidelines for the seemingly inevitable chain reaction to take place on the senate floor, it is worth observing and considering the fact that every Republican senator certainly knows that the proposition they're about to attest to is quite simply a lie. Perhaps they have so twisted their reasoning as to imagine it is a noble lie. But it's a lie nonetheless. What do I mean? Whether you call it the 'nuclear option', the 'constitutional option' or whatever other phrase the GOP word-wizards come up with, what "it" actually is is this: the Republican caucus, along with the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, will find that filibustering judicial nominations is in fact in violation of the constitution. (Just to be crystal clear, what the senate is about to do is not changing their rules. They are about to find that their existing rules are unconstitutional, thus getting around the established procedures by which senate rules can be changed.) Their reasoning will be that the federal constitution requires that the president makes such nominations "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" and that that means an up or down vote by the full senate. Nobody believes that. Not Dick Cheney, not any member of the Republican Senate caucus. For that to be true stands not only the simple logic of the constitution, but two hundred years of our constitutional history, on its head. You don't even need to go into the fact that other judicial nominations have been filibustered, or that many others have been prevented from coming to a vote by invocation of various other senate rules, both formal and informal, or that almost countless numbers of presidential nominees of all kinds have simply never made it out of committee. Indeed, the whole senate committee system probably cannot withstand this novel and outlandish interpretation of the constitution, since one of its main functions is to review presidential appointees before passing them on to the full senate. Quite simply, the senate is empowered by the constitution to enact its own rules. You can think the filibuster is a terrible idea. And you may think that it should be abolished, as indeed it can be through the rules of the senate. And there are decent arguments to made on that count. But to assert that it is unconstitutional because each judge does not get an up or down vote by the entire senate you have to hold that the United States senate has been in more or less constant violation of the constitution for more than two centuries. For all the chaos and storm caused by this debate, and all that is likely to follow it, don't forget that the all of this will be done by fifty Republican senators quite knowingly invoking a demonstrably false claim of constitutionality to achieve something they couldn't manage by following the rules. This is about power; and, to them, the rules quite simply mean nothing.

Sounds about right

2005-05-18T07:50:00.000-04:00

Link:

So now there's a bunch of right-wingers who are pitching the desecrated Koran riot story with the line "Newsweek Lied, People Died." Get it? It's funny, because it's making fun of what all the anti-war people said when 1,700 Americans were killed based on lies they were warned about but didn't listen to. What, don't you have a fucking sense of humor? This isn't even not caring. It's beyond not caring. It's taking pride in not caring.

Barkley and Limbaugh

2005-05-17T11:30:00.000-04:00

This morning Air America played a promo for the station recorded by Charles Barkley. I really hope this makes Rush Limbaugh seethe. Years ago, when I was an avid listener of Rush (which lasted pretty much up until a couple of years ago) Rush talked approvingly of Barkley and one of his many un-PC statements (probably regarding the fact that he lived in Phoenix while Arizona did not have a MLK holiday and didn't care). Rush seemed desperate to recruit/brand Barkley as a conservative. I remember thinking, "Has Rush ever listened to this guy talk when he's saying non-conservative things?" Rush even went so far as to call him a "milk dud" and to opine that Barkley should hire an agent named "Whitey". Rush on Letterman:

LIMBAUGH: So, but I learned how the real world worked. I met people I would have otherwise not met. I've gotten to know Charles Barkley of the Phoenix Suns, Paul Westphal.
LETTERMAN: This seems like an unlikely combination, you and Charles Barkley. Here is a guy --
LIMBAUGH: Milk Dud Head. (laughter) That's what he calls himself. You've got to know him to be able to call him that, and I do, so I can get away with it.
LETTERMAN: But he's got kind of an attitude. Every two or three weeks he's punching somebody.
LIMBAUGH: No. Let me tell you about Charles Barkley. He's become the best at what he is and what he does. He did it without any help, he did it overcoming a lot of obstacles, and he admires others who have done that, and, of course, I am one, and so we have this natural affinity for one another. We have a lot of things -- well, I've overcome my obstacles too, and am still in the process of overcoming them -- some in this audience, it sounds like -- but that's all right, that's all right. (laughter and applause)
LETTERMAN: See, I don't think you want to know. Everything is fine. Don't do that. Because then, you know, the next thing you know, we'll be wrestling up here, and we don't want to be wrestling, do we?
LIMBAUGH: No. Why would we do that? Not with you.
LETTERMAN: All right. So now so tell me about Charles Barkley -- No, no, not with me. Oh, never mind. -- Charles Barkley, your relationship with Charles, and he is interested in politics.
LIMBAUGH: He wants to run for Governor of Alabama. Now, it's interesting about Charles, one thing you've got to understand, when he says things like, "I'm thinking of quitting," or, "I want to run for Governor of Alabama," at that moment his agent is upstairs renegotiating an extension of his contract.
LETTERMAN: Right, of course.
LIMBAUGH: But if he is serious about this, I would like to pledge my services to him. I would like to be his campaign manager, and I think if he is going to go to Alabama and run for governor, he needs a guy named Whitey. I will change my name to Whitey, and I will be his campaign manager, and I'll let him run for governor, and we'll win, we'll win.
LETTERMAN: Okay, all right, okay.
LIMBAUGH: Now, you can do that with Charles, you see, you can do that.

He might as well just say, "See, I have a black friend, I can't be racist!" The fact is that Barkley is an incredibly nuanced and savvy public figure who played Rush. It seems to me that he is evolving into a more progressive person. Take this from 2002:

Asked whether women deserve to be members at Augusta National Golf Course, Barkley said, "No, because it's a private club. It's not a public place. Most of the golf courses I play have no black members, a lot of them don't have Jewish members, and some of them don't have women. They don't want them. I mean, that is the ultimate good-old-boy network." Not exactly The Fire Next Time.

And compare it to what he said on Costas NOW this week on HBO. No transcript available so I'll summarize. Costas confronted him with a quote Barkley uttered about the golf establishment trying to keep down Tiger Woods because he's black by lengthening the courses. When Costas pointed out that this probably helped Tiger more than hit hurt him and asked Barkley if he wanted to retract what he said, Barkley said that he would never take back a criticism of golf's racism.

Overruled?!?

2005-05-11T09:56:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that Ridge was just another clown in the administration who was saying and doing whatever was necessary to not piss off his bosses:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says. Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

Just as others have done, he moved into an industry which he played a hand in enriching while he was in office:

In February 2005, Tom Ridge was named to the board of Home Depot. Critics of Ridge question this move, noting that Home Depot experienced a highly profitable run on duct tape and plastic sheeting after Ridge's controversial 2003 announcement proclaiming these items to be viable protection from chemical weapons. Many Home Depot stores set up Homeland Security product displays near the front of the store in response.

It's not the most serious transgression, and it strikes one as amateurish (especially when compared to cynically profiting off of a war, and of course there is the inverse), but he should nonetheless be commended for trying. Good effort Mr. Ridge.

Hillary gets religion ...

2005-05-09T15:00:00.000-04:00

a very long time ago:

The "Hillary moves to the center" story line dovetails perfectly with this character attack. How far will Clinton "go to become president"? So far that she'll radically change what she believes. When Clinton recently said that religion played a central role in her life, New York Conservative Party leader Michael Long told the New York Times, "All of a sudden she is saying she has these deep convictions. . . . I don't believe that. It's clear to me that she is getting ready to launch her candidacy for presidency, and she will become whatever she has to become to appeal to centrist voters." Implicitly endorsing that view, the Times headline read, "As Clinton Shifts Themes, Debate Arises On Her Motives." But she wasn't shifting themes at all. In May 1993, in a long profile in the same New York Times, Clinton spoke at length about her Christian youth group, about theologians such as Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and about her guest sermons for the United Methodist Church. "She is moved," wrote Michael Kelly, "by the impatient conviction that moderates and liberals have wanly surrendered the adjective 'religious' to the right." That was 12 years ago.

Hillary-ous

2005-05-09T12:33:00.000-04:00

Recently, a few people have asked me if I think Hillary would be a good candidate in '08, and I think I feel exactly this way:

Enough is enough. On a purely tactical level, I think Senator Clinton is disastrous. As Peter Beinart writes, she's always been a centrist sort. But as Tim Graham makes clear, she'll never get any credit for it from anyone.

I would add only that part of the reason it would be disastrous is because she would be painted as a power-hungry feminist, which is right up there with a power-hungry gay man, in terms of the level of threat to the whacko agenda/definition of manliness. At least she'll be in her second term when she runs.

Black Sheep

2005-05-06T14:11:00.000-04:00

I don't care who you are, even if you're his son, you DON'T MESS WITH YAZ!

The son of Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski stole his father's identity and ran up thousands of dollars in debt before he died last year.

They're coming to get us

2005-05-06T07:54:00.000-04:00

I have the pleasure of working with the most paranoid person on the planet. He's also a rabid fundamentalist. I guess the two are unconnected. But this is a website, called spychips.com, he wanted me to check out, so I'm passing on his gift. According to my co-worker, this is how the Papal led worldwide devil conspiracy is going to control peoples' brains. I wish I were exaggerating. A little sample:

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, a technology that uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID "spy chips" have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco - and they are already being used to spy on people. ... This technology is rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Now RFID spy chips can even be printed, meaning the dot on a printed letter "i" could be used to track you. In addition, the tell-tale copper antennas commonly seen attached to RFID chips can now be printed with conductive ink, making them nearly imperceptible. Companies are even experimenting with making the product packages themselves serve as antennas.

Too bad no one said this coke bottle activity was universal

2005-05-05T08:08:00.000-04:00

No one said that "most rank and file troops" would commit the crimes Delgado saw. These pro-war advocates only want to believe it is so as to demonize us anti-american complainers. The issue is whether this behavior is acceptable and what the leadership should do to prevent it, and there should be more of a focus on the leadership's lack of accountability. But I suppose I hate our troops.

I'm reading a cacaphony of justifications

2005-05-04T10:18:00.000-04:00

for the soldiers' actions with the coke bottles. The most common is that it's an isolated incident. Of course it is, if you only look for wide spread occurances of coke bottle-over-the-head-smashing. It cannot be denied anymore that abuses as a category (not the limited categories of pantie-head-placing, waterboarding, sleep depravation and the aforementioned coke bottle-over-the-head-smashing) are rampant. But I guess that's ok as long as you mix it up to keep it fresh.

Their version of 'discrediting'

2005-05-04T08:03:00.000-04:00

If this is the level of proof that is required, it's no wonder that Fox News is popular. Outside the Beltway 'attacked' the Delgado story this way:

By his own admission, he didn't fit in well with his unit and it's not inconceivable that his tales are embellished. The fact that the unit in question is the 320th Military Police Company, though, gives credence to his account; they were involved in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.

This echoing monkey actually called the above 'analysis' a discrediting of Aidan Delgado's story.

As Malkin points out, a lot of bloggers have already discredited these stories. (See, for example, OTB, Juliette Ochieng and Blackfive.) I can't add to this and I won't go there. ... It's going to take a lot more than Delgado to make me believe that our armed forces are sadistic nutcases.

Here's a little tip: rational people don't believe that the armed forces as a whole are sadistic nutcases. But there is a reality here that must be faced, that being the fact that abuses are inevitable in ALL wars, especially under a leadership that condones it, so we should be reluctant to subject other peoples and ourselves to that reality. And when that leadership lies on top of all of that, well, it's just a no-brainer. I guess they never heard this definition of stupidity: doing the same thing, but expecting different results.

Why don't they just call him a 'fag' and get it over with

2005-05-04T07:38:00.000-04:00

This man enlisted on Sept. 11 (although before the attacks), and their first response is to doubt him. The only way their doubts could be seen as rational is if there was no precident for this. Oh, now I remember, the Abu Ghraib scandal never happened or was just fraternity pranks. If this isn't the mark of a bully, what is? Here is a translation into rational people language: "Shut up, complainer. Why do you hate America? Why can't you just be the same?" I guess they won't be happy until the military is completely homoginous in its sensibility. No room for dissenters.

This ought to do it

2005-05-02T21:51:00.000-04:00

How can anyone feel deeply in their heart, as some I know do, that gwb can be trusted? He long ago lost the competence competition. What else does he have, a purdy haircut?

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times Reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

Dick Radatz

2005-03-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

Sad to see him go, one of the most colorful and true Red Sox ever, and the only pitcher who Mickey Mantle feared. In nineteen plate appearances, Mantle got 3 hits, 3 walks and struck out 13 times. But to his last days Radatz claimed he struck out Mantle over 40 times in over 60 plate appearances. I can forgive him.

Dick Radatz, whose towering presence and 95-mile-per-hour fastball made him baseball's most dominant relief pitcher in the mid-1960s and earned him the unforgettable nickname of "The Monster" in Red Sox lore, died yesterday when he fell down a flight of stairs in his home in Easton, according to police.

FUH2

2005-03-05T19:27:00.000-05:00

Go here to find out what that means. Here are some hints: poluter and death machine.

Red-faced philistine

2005-03-05T17:47:00.000-05:00

Great O'Reilly clips. Check out the clip from Russert's show, especially. http://www.outfoxed.org/clips_oreilly_lies_qt.php

David Neiwert

2005-03-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

I've decided to read everything this guy has ever written. Here's a good sample.

Bull

2005-03-05T00:17:00.001-05:00

Screw all the bullshit from the right about not giving minorities (usually gays) "special" rights, which only means the right to do what these religious freaks are not prohibited from doing. I've come to the realization that the only groups in this country, THE ONLY GROUPS that get actual, for real, special rights are the rich and the religious. As Noam Chomsky says, "Human rights are subordinated to the overwhealming, overriding need of profit for investors." This is enabled by, "the really existing doctrine of free markets, that means market discipline for the poor and the defenseless, but plenty of protection and subsidy for those who really need it, the rich and the powerful." Also, the fact that the religious can get away with demonizing the "other", an urge that I suppose exists deep within all of us, and in general being able to justify ANYTHING (that's another thing, they are also the only group that is allowed to take no personal responsiblity for anything, but at the same time demonize people like Bill Clinton for allegedly creating a culture of personal license, while he is the only recent president who fully accepted responsiblity whenever a political proposal failed or led to unintended consequences), who wouldn't, in pubic life, turn into a partisan, pseudo-religious hack. They are the only people who are allowed by law to force their beliefs on others against their will, which coincidentally, is exactly what their frigging religion calls for. You could also get rich. If that isn't heaven on earth to a shallow fraud, what is? It's essentially like being plucked by the hand of god, having your frontal lobe ripped out, though painlessly, and plopped down in the garden of eden to gorge your spiritually gluttonous maw with huge, ripe, tempting, soulless apples for the rest of your days then shitting all over yourself and Eve, only to have someone else clean it up.

O'Reilly calls ACLU a terrorist group

2005-03-03T15:49:00.000-05:00

I wrote to someone that one way to discredit fools like O'Reilly is to repeatedly ask him (and Hannity and Coulter and Horowitz, etc...) whether, if he had a choice, which group he would prefer to stay in existence, the ACLU or the KKK. I figured the urge would well up inside of him and in a fit, he would blurt out his preference for the KKK. Some thought that was ridiculous. But, after O'Reilly explicitly calls the ACLU a terrorist group, how ridiculous is it?

Senator Robert Byrd

2005-03-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

As the resident historian of the Senate, there was no one more qualified to deliver the final, elegant blow to the so-called Nucular Option (as our prez would say) on the floor of the Senate. Remember, this is a man whom the right dishonestly criticized for his long-ago association with the KKK, which he has repeatedly and fully repudiated. By implication, they were calling him a good old American fascist. This coming from a party of such obvious tolerance for differing views and lifestyles. Does this sound fascistic to you?:

The Senate was to serve as a “check” on the Executive Branch, particularly in the areas of appointments and treaties, where, under the Constitution, the Senate passes judgement absent the House of Representatives.... When it comes to the Senate, numbers can deceive. The Senate was never intended to be a majoritarian body. That was the role of the House of Representatives, with its membership based on the populations of states. The Great Compromise of July 16, 1787, satisfied the need for smaller states to have equal status in one House of Congress: the Senate. The Senate, with its two members per state, regardless of population is, then, the forum of the states. Indeed, in the last Congress, 52 members, a majority, representing the 26 smallest states accounted for just 17.06% of the U.S. population. In other words, a majority in the Senate does not necessarily represent a majority of the population. The Senate is intended for deliberation not point scoring. It is a place designed from its inception, as expressive of minority views. ... The Senate was deliberately conceived to be ... a “better refuge,” meaning one styled as guardian of the rights of the minority. The Senate is the “watchdog” because majorities can be wrong, and filibusters can highlight injustices. History is full of examples.

For those examples, read the whole speech. I think I've said it before, but DAMN, there are some good senators.

A little on the blog title

2005-02-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

Just in case some aren't familiar with what a Mayberry Machiavelli is, please read this from Ron Suskind on Bush's first director of faith-based something-or-other, John DiIulio. Or you can just read the following:

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Why did I pick that name, beyond the fact that it sounds cool? Because the common theme with any Machiavelli-ish type instict is paranoia. Right-wingers are paranoid, but in a fascistic way, how else could you explain some of the nutty things they believe? And yes, I am paranoid of the right wing, a tad paranoid, if you will, because I was once under its spell.

More on Fox News

2005-02-28T21:17:00.000-05:00

Why can't we start calling its brand of "Fair and Balanced", uncritical, "the right says this and left says this" reporting what it is, namely, affirmative action for conservative hacks and people of middling intelligence? Fox's habit of allowing its talking heads to get away with labelling everything an "interpretation", regardless of its resemblance to the truth, is just them trying to find space in the discourse for people who just aren't up to recognizing facts. Points of view are given weight and time not for their correctness, but merely because a certain number of people believe them. Affirmative action. You know this would REALLY piss them off.

Nothing left but the impeaching

2005-02-28T20:41:00.000-05:00

A judge with balls has started the ball rolling:

A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Monday to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 2 1/2 years in custody.

The administration has 45 days to do so. When (and what reason do we have to believe that he would actually follow the order?) he doesn't, can this finally be something all reasonable people will agree on as a high crime or misdemeanor? It's too bad all the appeals will delay Bush's downfall. I admit it, I'm a little delusional.

Suicide Bombers

2005-02-28T20:29:00.000-05:00

Fox is still standing by its political decision to call suicide bombers, homicide bombers, and has gone so far as to alter AP stories and actual quotes, but in a promo last week for John Kasich's February 26th show examining the motives and roots of suicide bombers, the voiceover actually called them suicide bombers, as did the description on the web site, which I have saved for prosperity:

We’ll also take you inside the disturbed minds of suicide bombers as we talk with the authors of “The Road to Martyr Square,” Ann Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg. (emphasis added)

Is it possible that Fox recognizes the factual insufficiency of calling these killers homicide bombers?

Hey there, sailor!

2005-02-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why this wouldn't be seen as a positive lesson for our armed forces. As this becomes more common, the old justifications of military bigotry will look even more ridiculous. Why shouldn't the leadership take some responsibility for making gay soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines more comfortable, rather than placing the responsibility on gays to make the homophobes they serve with more comfortable, thereby enabling increased hatred toward gays?

Five years after Britain lifted its ban on gays in the military, the Royal Navy has begun actively encouraging them to enlist and has pledged to make life easier when they do. The navy announced Monday that it had asked Stonewall, a group that lobbies for gay rights, to help it develop better strategies for recruiting and retaining gay men and lesbians. It said, too, that one strategy may be to advertise for recruits in gay magazines and newspapers.

Birthday

2005-02-20T00:18:00.000-05:00

People who share my birthday: Colin Firth - my girlfriend would trade me in for him in a heartbeat; Ryan Phillippe - pretty boy; Randy Johnson - evil Yankee; Roger Maris - less evil Yankee; Arnold Palmer - somewhat goofy golfer; Amy Irving - actor, I guess; Joe Perry - Aerosmith guitarist; Jose Feliciano - some singer I've heard of. The lesson here is the only cool person who shares my birthday is Joe Perry.

Holy crap

2005-02-19T23:45:00.000-05:00

I feel like I'm in an alternate universe. I tend to watch Fox News quite often, probably more than CNN or MSNBC, because I have a masochistic streak within me. I'm used to the evil. However, I was not prepared for what I saw tonight. I guess Fox's obsession with propping up all thing conservative and tearing down the mainstream media in the present day wasn't enough because the fools are now going back in time to do the same with the Nixon administration and the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate. The panel of frauds, in laughing unison, attacked Woodward and Bernstein in a discussion of Deep Throat, and accused them of making up Deep Throat, and claimed that he wasn't one person, but a composite of sources. I've heard this theory, as have you I'm sure, but these people didn't cite any evidence to prove their point. Why attack the credibility of W & B on a hunch? Because Fox, in its never-ending crusade to label all non-Fox media as "liberal", is now being retroactively "Fair and Balanced" (don't sue me Roger Ailes). To quote the Sports Guy, "I just threw up in my mouth."

GO SOX!!!!!!!!

2005-02-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

I love this. I'm totally that guy telling his wife, "It's ok, the Sox won the whole thing!" Tears are coming to my eyes.

A mastercard spoof

2005-02-19T14:12:00.000-05:00

Better than the real thing. A little racy though.

The Real Feminazi

2005-02-19T10:51:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter is the single biggest reason why this kind of hate speech is now more mainstream. She gets exposure and encouragement on Hannity, O'Reilly, and other cable shows, most often hosted by men, and is able to say things that no man would be allowed to say on these shows and elsewhere. It's pretty clear that these pious moralizers just have raging hard-ons for her. I can't imagine anyone gets more complaints than her, and it only seems to encourage them to book her more often.

Liberals like to scream and howl about McCarthyism, I say let’s give them some. They’ve have intellectual terror on campus for years....it’s time for a new McCarthyism.

(Via Oliver Willis)

Sinclair and racism

2005-02-18T18:27:00.000-05:00

A deeper take on why Media Matters' crusade against Sinclair is vital:

Funny thing. I'm sometimes accused of blurring the lines between mainstream conservatives and extremists. But that's exactly what Hyman does. Either he's a blunderer of the first order, or he's an extremist mole. So, just so there's no confusion: Christian Identity has nothing to do with mainstream Christianity. It is an extremist racial belief system that adopts the guise of Christianity but has practices and beliefs that are not part of any traditional mainstream church. Most of their beliefs, in fact, constitute heresies for many faiths.I'm hoping this was just a really dumb mistake. Because if it wasn't, and Hyman wanted us to think that Identity was just another kind of Christianity, well ... that's a problem.

But we have no choice!

2005-02-18T18:07:00.000-05:00

He makes a great point, but the landscape has been so skewed by years of conservative media insidiousness, I fear we have no choice but play down to their level:

Democrats have been losing because we're unable to stick a scandal, but we've also been failing because we've lost sight of our strengths. Somewhere along the way, we looked at the Lewinsky scandal, thought "we should do that", and never looked back save to criticize those who weren't keeping up.

One more thing, he says:

We're not going to win by copying the Republican playbook. In football, you spend the week before a game learning the other team's plays. But you don't run them. You learn how to defend against them, and you run the plays you're good at.

But the almighty New England Patriots don't do only that. Sir Bill Belichick has made a legacy of changing what they're good at from game to game based on opponents' weaknesses. At this time, the right is very weak and exposable on the issue of values and hypocricy because they've been so cavalier about not hiding it, as they are shameless egomonkeys.

(Via Yglesias)

This is why Media Matters for America matters

2005-02-17T19:49:00.000-05:00

Unlike the right-wing's alleged media watchdog sites, Media Matters for America extensively quotes its subjects and often provides links to video, audio and transcripts to insure against allegations of taking things out of context. Alas, media wingers still claim that. Why? They suck, that's why. I can't think of a better reason. This entry is quintisential Media Matters. What it does is so straight-forward, merely comparing the right's allegations to the public record, which requires thorough investigation and an honest look at issues. That's why the wingers hate it, and by comparison, the Media Research Center looks absolutely juvenile. I think now that McCain is dead, there's room for a new political god in my life, and David Brock is that person. Dick Durbin is screaming up the charts, though. I've got competing crushes on Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, also. Jesus, there are some good senators out there.

I love this guy

2005-02-17T10:38:00.000-05:00

On AmericaBlog:

Well newsflash Washington. The GOP is the one that rose gay-bashing and gay-baiting and sex-baiting to an art, and JeffJimGuckertGannon willingly joined the family values parade in print and in passion. They're trying to ban condoms, pornography, AIDS education. They take children away from gays, and want to make our very lives a crime. GOP Senators compare us to kleptomaniacs, alcoholics, and man-dog sex. And they can't even handle a bronze breast on a statue.