Do What Now?

Also, Ron Paul would have given the slaves low cost medical exams, so it's okay

2012-01-21T15:19:00.000-06:00

This came across my G+ stream today. In case you don't want to sit through it, it's a video put out to show support for Ron Paul's opinions regarding the Civil War (he didn't think it needed to come to war, but since it did, he supported the Confederacy), and apparently the best way Ron Paul supporters have come up with to respond to the inevitable "What the fuck" reaction by sane folks is to claim that Lincoln was the biggest racist ever and he just started the war because he's just a big old federal asshole and if he'd just left everything alone the confederacy would have abolished the institution of slavery the following Tuesday or something along those lines.

The sad thing is that I can't even tell anymore if this is sincere or a pretty brilliant attempt at trolling. I'd like to think it's trolling, I mean, you have to be at least a little amused by a smug-looking Lincoln hovering over images of dead confederates (I realize that some of these folks were roped in by other means, but still, it just reads "Aw damn, look at all those poor dead slave owners being all dead and shit!" to me). It seems kind of strange to put out a video pushing the idea that Lincoln was the real racist and slip in an "inspiring" speech by Ron Paul set in front of a confederate flag, talking about what a total waste the civil war was. And the jokes kind of write themselves - printed quotes that are pretty racist from a political actor in the 1800s should have you shaking your head at the shame of racism in this country but quotes from the 90s from a political actor? IT'S JUST AN ATTEMPT BY THE HATERS TO DISCREDIT A GOOD MAN IT WAS A GHOST WRITER GOD WILL YOU JUST LET IT GO ALREADY IT WAS LIKE 20 YEARS AGO.

But much like they do every primary season, some Ron Paul supporters become so unhinged that it becomes parody. So I'm thinking that this is sincere, yet another attempt convince the idiot public made up of folks like myself that blindly accept things called "facts" or "voting histories" or "published newsletters", that we are not thinking these things through - so certainly this YouTube video that features emotional images, inspiring quotes, and heart-string pulling melodies will free us from the confines of simple-minded propaganda. And people, if we just accept Ron Paul's completely false and re-written history of the Civil War, then we will totally see that he's not a racist, and that ending slavery was actually one of the biggest abuses of civil rights that the federal government has ever carried out!

Right. So let's just clear up a few things really quick before we get back to basing our entire political philosophy on inspiring 5 minute YouTube videos.

Yes, the civil war was costly, damaging, and devastating to human life. So perhaps one should ask why the Confederacy decided that keeping and expanding slavery was so important to them that they had to wage it. A funny thing that Paul and his supporters keep failing to mention is that the Confederacy started the Civil War, when they fired on Fort Sumter. I suppose you could say that the North goaded them into it, which in turn I'd have to point out that you could easily make the argument that the South goaded the North into goading the South into war what with the ownership of human beings and.... whatever. The idea that slavery would eventually just go away if we did nothing not only makes no sense at all (if someone starts a war to keep and expand slavery, doing nothing obviously would not have made it go away at that point), and the claim that everyone else avoided war in getting rid of it is false. What is really hilarious here is that Paul's claim that we didn't need a war, that we could have ended slavery by buying the slaves and freeing them? Well, Lincoln actually tried to do that, with little success.

Yes, the civil war was about protecting the right to enslave the black population. That this was based in economics (obviously the loss of free labor would mean a huge hit in profits) does not change this. Alexander Stephen, the Vice President of the confederacy, put it pretty fucking plainly in what we know as the "Cornerstone Speech" back in 1861:

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

I have a hunch that this one won't end up in any of the YouTube videos.

And yes - the idea that we could just wait around is a statement of extreme privilege, to the point that it is too absurd to even entertain. If you are not in any danger of every being enslaved merely by the virtue of where and to whom you were born, it's pretty fucking easy (and incredibly lazy) to just ask those that are to be patient, grin and bear it as their spouses and children are raped, killed, or sold off to the highest bidder (funny how in that video we don't see any of those pictures) because eventually we think that society will totally figure it out, you know, maybe in a few decades or centuries or so. What is amusing is that I have a feeling that those that support Ron Paul because of his "Liberty!" shtick would be the first to scream bloody murder if I even suggested that perhaps they should do that.

Anyway. The rewriting of history that claims it was over "State's Rights" or an abuse of the federal government came decades later, because apologists for the white supremacist movement realized that blatantly supporting slavery and racism just wasn't as appealing to the public anymore and instead, they needed to code that shit into dog whistles. And what a successful PR move that was; for even though the history is right there for anyone to read, it appears that once you throw in a Hot Air Balloon and an avalanche of emotionally tear-inducing YouTube videos that feature inspiring images set over dramatic music and randomly cherry-picked and out of context quotes about liberty and then some scary pictures of police in riot gear, it apparently can dupe a lot of people even today.

Is it really so much to ask that people at least learn a little bit about this subject before they attempt to appropriate it? For a movement that claims to be so intellectually above it all, that portrays itself to be the truth-speakers throwing us a rope to save us all from drowning in the a sea of propaganda, they sure set themselves up as useful little tools for the white supremacist attempt to turn this country back to a time where your basic civil rights ended at the state line.

But no war, and weed, and all that old shit.

Someone ought to set up a benefit concert for the absorbed zygotes

2011-11-08T11:36:00.010-06:00

Big day today for the reproductive rights battle in Mississippi (and possibly the country):

Mississippi voters are casting ballots Tuesday on an amendment to the state constitution that would define life as beginning at the moment of conception.

Initiative 26 would define personhood as "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."

Though the text of the amendment is simple, the implications if it passes couldn't be more complex. If approved by voters, it would make it impossible to get an abortion in the state and hamper the ability to get some forms of birth control.

If the amendment passes, it will end up in front of the Supreme Court as a direct challenge to Roe v Wade. Naturally, this can put reproductive rights supporters on edge, but it's inevitable this would happen. Anyone that has followed this debate closely knew that it wasn't ever a question of "if", instead one of "when". If Mississippi doesn't pass this amendment (the last poll I checked this morning had it fairly tight), another amendment will come along, and another, and another. The goal among some of the factions of the anti-choice movement, no longer content with just bullying women by passing legislation that treats them like idiots (waiting periods), makes reproductive health a luxury of the rich (Hyde) or forces unwanted medical procedures on them (mandatory ultrasounds), is the quest to up the ante by taking on Roe itself. I'd argue they always have wanted this, but the tight structure of the establishment GOP prevented them from gaining too much ground. When a party uses these issues as nothing more then political fodder, the worst thing in the world would be to get what they claim to want. However, with the rise of movement conservatism and a bizarre sense among the right that nothing could possible be too fringe to pursue, anti-choicers are starting to eye the ultimate trophy to their own self-righteous grandstanding. And Roe is, overall, a pretty weak ruling.*

What they are missing is that there's a reason the more institutionalized, old guard misogynists are staying far away from personhood amendments such as the one coming out of Mississippi - this could end up spectacularly backfiring on the anti-choice movement, who has seen some great gains within the last decade when it comes to oppressing women. It's not that the ultimate goal is to overturn Roe, it is, but if the court is presented with the question of whether or not a zygote is a legal person, and as such, a protected entity, it's not going to be able to make exemptions here and there based on the whimsy of anti-choicers on a state level. This could be a major setback. The more activist wing of the anti-choice movement are prematurely banking on SCOTUS agreeing that zygotes are persons; but the truth is that bestowing personhood on nothing more then the requirement of something being a fertilized human egg leads to so many legal quagmires that SCOTUS would have a hard time handing the anti-choice crowd a victory. This would hold true even if we had reached a point where the courts stacked with right-wing ideologues in order to favor these sorts of rulings (which we haven't yet, although we are moving in that direction quickly, because Republicans, unlike Democrats, understand the importance of the court system while liberals stupidly vote for Nadar or don't vote at all so they can pat themselves on the back and feel all awesome and non-conformist and shit).

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour amusingly points out some of the legal problems with Initiative 26 (while naively chalking them up to a problem with word usage):

“Some concerns that I had were about out of what I call ectopic pregnancies where the fertilized egg lodges outside the womb, say the fallopian tubes,” he said. “But there’s no question that the wording down here is what concerned people, not the idea that life begins at conception, but that the wording of it is.”

It's not a problem with the wording, Governor. It's a problem with the idea that you can establish legal personhood with something that is so fickle. Yes, if we legally define "person" with the fertilization of an egg, ectopic pregnancies are indeed legal persons. As are Hydatidiform moles. There is no way around that. And let's not even get started on the legal issues that will arise when we consider twinning (one fertilized egg dividing and developing into two separate entities long after personhood is granted) and chimeras (one fertilized egg absorbing the other, can we charge zygotes with murder yet? Probably not, but I bet we can charge the mother with creating a "hostile womb environment" that led to the death of that legalized and now absorbed dead person or something).

That's probably why it's a really fucking bad idea to classify "person" in this manner. And unfortunately for the anti-choice crowd, as it stands now, SCOTUS is probably going to agree.

I also feel that once we start taking it to the federal level it will start getting the attention that has been long lacking in recent years. My mother and I were discussing the Mississippi amendment this past weekend, she expressed frustration over the success of the GOP War on Women and the seemingly lack of care that these issues are getting - "I don't think women today realize how hard we fought for those things" is what she tells me. I realize some will think that statement is ridiculous, as we are seemingly embroiled in never-ending culture wars and abortion is just one of those topics where everyone needs to put in their two cents while at the same time really wishing you'd just shut up about it already. But it did stall for a while. I liked to joke after Obama was elected that hey, at least we might have a few years of peace where I don't have to talk about Hydatidiform moles again. And we did get that, if only briefly.

But a false sense of security or complacency often leads to apathy. Although the anti-choice movement is flawed in many ways, their ability to organize is not one of them, they never tire out. Which is why, as 2010 saw a massive wave of social conservatives flooding back into public office, we saw an increase of legal barriers to reproductive rights targeted at women even when it seemed absurd to do at a time when the concerns about the economy seemed to transcend the culture wars. In fact, the timing seemed so absurd that pro-choicers didn't really do anything to prevent it. 2010 was an election that was touted as being about the poor economy and job market, yet I think we saw more legislation passed regarding reproductive issues then we did any other issue. And the reason this happened was because while pro-choicers were trying to be the responsible ones, focusing on the things that matter instead of this culture war bullshit - the right wing was still doing the culture war bullshit. The fact that we set it aside because we were just too serious to deal with it right now just made it all the easier for them to be successful.

I feel this pattern has been consistent since the days after Roe. I mean, technically women have the right to an abortion, so we can relax now, correct? Like with most issues in this country, progressives have this stubborn idea that if we won it in the past, it can't be taken away. We won, fair and square. So we stop arguing, we stop fighting, we start to make a base camp at the bottom of whatever the next uphill battle will be and let the fire at the old camp burn out. The losers of history, however, have no need to do this. In fact, being the underdog is an amazing motivator. So while the slogans and campaigns and soundbites and protests for reproductive rights fade from the public eye and disappear from pop culture, the slogans and campaigns and soundbites and protests of the fight against reproductive rights have saturated it. And this is why you have so many well-meaning, starry-eyed teenagers of the newer generations waxing poetic about saving babies and posting this on The Facebook:

While having no clue what this sign means:

We are so accustomed to living in a society where we can take our reproductive rights for granted that it is hard for us to go back and remember what it was actually like without them. We can take to heart the pleas for "compromise" with anti-choicers because we have easily been able to ignore what the darker consequences of their movement really means for the rights of women, and what that says about their actual motivations. And we can cringe slightly while reproductive rights are chipped away at but be okay because after all, Roe is settled law, is it not?

Not really. For now, it's fine, but eventually, we cannot depend that it will just always exist to protect us. We need a wake up call. So perhaps the time is perfect for the anti-choice zealots to jog our memories about what sort of society they really want us to live in. So all I can actually say in regards to to Mississippi's Initiative 26 is this: Bring it.

*I'd rather pass the ERA. I feel women's protections in regards to reproductive health are due to their equal rights as citizens rather then an interest in protecting their privacy. Which is why, when discussions of personhood became repetitive and less of a challenge for me, I started arguing from the standpoint of zygotes being people - because hey, why not? - and found that it's not that clear-cut, you still have to argue successfully why special laws are necessary that ensure that pregnant women, and only pregnant women, are required to waive their rights away in order to sustain the rights of another. We see this demand for sacrifice in no other area of law. I think Ruth Ginsberg is attempting to create a safety net for women using this same sort of logic in case we do eventually lose Roe, her dissent in Gonzales v Carhart leans strongly towards the angle that this is overall an issue of equality.

30 Day Music Challenge: 01

2011-11-04T12:48:00.006-05:00

I'm not sure where the idea originated, but I'm stealing it from Stereophone, which I should point out will probably feature better music choices and better writing than this little blog will, so perhaps if anything you can use these music posts you'll encounter for the next 30 days as a reminder to go read Stereophone. I won't mind, as I'm really just doing this as a distraction while I give up some of my vices this month and I feel this will be better for my overall mental health than screaming at someone about how I will totally find out a way to reach through my monitor and rip their fucking eyes out if they use the words "job creators" one more goddamned time (although that will be quite necessary at times as well).

But ahem, I am reaching to transcend the anger and cynical nature and run-on sentences that have consumed my life up until this point, so for now, it's thirty days of tunes. Thirty days of meditation and healing, thirty days on a deep and spiritual journey full of love for the self and for others, and thirty days of introspection and self-examination eventually leading up to fulfillment and inner peace. And so we dig in and start our travels off with:

Day One: Your Favorite Song.

WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BULLSHIT.

No seriously, did I just go back to 7th grade? Oh, I'm going to go buy posters and hang them on my wall because this song is like my favorite song ever and then I'm going to make a mix-tape with just this song on it because if my heart could write lyrics they would sound like whatever is at the number three spot on the billboard top ten list for this week and fucking seriously. Who the hell actually has a favorite song? How do you even define "favorite song" for something like this? I mean, I have a favorite song on a daily, weekly, or sometimes hourly basis, but there's never really "one" song to rule them all for ever and ever. I would actually go so far to suggest that if you have a favorite song, you just have it to tell people that it's your favorite song in hopes they'll be impressed by it. I don't feel a need to impress any of you fuckers.

Look, I have songs that I love because they remind me of my favorite places, or my favorite people, or my favorite seasons, or years, I have songs that I love for the melody or instruments used and songs that I love the for they lyrics or even songs that I love for those brief four measures where everything jives just so perfectly before going back to being utterly forgettable, I have songs that I love when sitting in Irish bars and songs I love when driving my car at night and songs that I love when dancing around my house and songs that I love to sing to the dog and songs that I love to daydream to and songs that I use to unwind.

But no, I don't have a favorite song. I'm honestly at a loss for what to put here. I guess I'll just go with this one because (a) it's Greg Dulli (b) there's a wicked piano in the background (c) it's naughty (d) so it's fun as hell to sing along with and (d) I just heard it while driving today.

~~More deep thoughts and self-discovery tomorrow!~~

The lost art of civility

2011-11-02T19:27:00.004-05:00

There's an interesting article up in the Times today regarding the decline of "Southern Manners". Interesting due to where it starts off:

One August night, two men walked into a popular restaurant attached to this city’s fanciest shopping mall. They sat at the bar, ordered drinks and pondered the menu. Two women stood behind them.
A bartender asked if they would mind offering their seats to the ladies. Yes, they would mind. Very much.

Angry words came next, then a federal court date and a claim for more than $3 million in damages.

The men, a former professional basketball player and a lawyer, also happen to be black. The women are white. The men’s lawyers argued that the Tavern at Phipps used a policy wrapped in chivalry as a cloak for discriminatory racial practices.

And where it ends:

“I will not give up,” she said, firm in her belief that Southerners still want to raise children who are kind and well-mannered.

“They must,” she said, “or my classes wouldn’t be full.”

I'm not sure how you start off with the use of civility/chivalry for racist means and then end in a wistful tone about how the South is fighting to keep this culture alive. Anyway, Amanda Marcotte tears down this bullshit quite well, so I've really nothing to add to that aspect of it.

But I have encountered the "civility" argument time and time again, and after being accused countless times of being uncivil myself (I'm pretty blunt. I swear. All of which, I'm informed, is quite unladylike), all I really have to say to that is, you know what? Fuck Civility.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about this in the sense of just being decent to your fellow human beings (this is a good thing). Not in the sense that we should just be inconsiderate as hell to everyone (although this seems to be the trend). Just that civility, as we commonly define it, is quite meaningless. I find that overall, it's not about being a decent person, it's about appearing to be a decent person while being kind of a scumbag.

Once upon a time at a site I wrote at I decided to run what I thought was a clever experiment. This was back when the John Edwards affair scandal broke, and as usual, Republican pundits had some very trenchant analysis of the situation. Rush Limbaugh, for example, speculated that perhaps if Elizabeth Edwards used her mouth for other things other than talking, poor Johnny wouldn't have had to bang the assistant, or babysitter, or whomever he was banging at the time, I forget.

This is what we would call an offensive statement. Now, I don't care much about Rush Limbaugh, he does what he does. Nor am I an advocate for censorship (I prefer to let things like this stand as starting off points for discussion). But keep in mind that during this time on the site, we were lucky to have the "conservative coalition outrage patrol", who felt their main purpose was to find offense at swear words on the site written by liberals and would shriek and scream about them until the article was changed or pulled down.

So I thought I'd do a little light trolling with this one. As someone that is aware of all internet traditions, I pulled a shorter, and although I went into detail in the article as to why Rush Limbaugh's statement was offensive, my title was fairly direct:

"Rush Limbaugh to the Ladies: Less talking, more dick sucking".

Oh god, the outrage. You'd be amazed as to what a title like that can do for your page views. Naturally, many folks came on to tell me that wasn't what Rush Limbaugh was saying at all, that I was putting words in his mouth to make him look worse then he was, that the title was vulgar, that it needed to be changed. It was actually one of the few articles that the site pulled from me (although it was reinstated). And for every complaint, I just asked the same question - is it the words that you find offensive or the idea behind them? Is your beef actually with me, or with Rush Limbaugh? Because let's face it, "Less talking, more dick sucking" and "Perhaps you would keep your man if you used your mouth for other things besides talking" are very similar statements - so much so that they are actually the same statement.

So I asked the outrage police - if I change the title to reflect Limbaugh's actual quote, can we then talk about why what he said was offensive? I was assured that we could. If I just took "dick sucking" out of there, we could have a nice, "civil" conversation about it. So I changed the title. As predicted, once that happened, no one came back. Tumbleweeds. The offensiveness of the statement that women need to shut up and sexually pleasure their men because that's all men really want from them anyway was magically eradicated with the removal of the words "dick sucking".

Anyway, I just bring it up because when it comes to civility, this seems to be the pattern time and time again. This is not to say that there aren't things that people say that are offensive. Just that I find what they are actually saying is to be more offensive then how they say it. I can't even begin to tell you how many "civil" debates I've sat through with some folks pontificating the inferiority of certain biological traits that some other folks have. And I guarantee you, even if there's not a racial slur or blatantly misogynist statement or any disagreeable language to be found anywhere, they are some of the most vile discussions I've ever sat through. They are usually worse for the fact that the folks discussing them assume somewhat of a intellectual superiority over everyone else merely for their ability to not swear, they'll gather in a circle jerk, grab out their thesaurus and discuss why members of group X are weak, or morons, or illogical, or violent, or whatever other negative trait you can muster up in such an educated and civil tone, and then it's back pats all around because of how civil and rational and totally objective the discussion is and aren't they all just awesome for being so intelligent and discussing these sorts of "touchy subjects" so civilly?

At which point the observer is pretty much tearing their hair out and wondering, in all caps, WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED THERE? There really is no other response to this situation then to tell these folks to fuck off. But that's the other nifty thing about pretending to adhere to a standard of "civility" - Would you like to take a guess as to what you are called when you go that route? Yep, that's correct. If you dare to actually take on a certain "tone" when responding to people that have just talked about how your biological traits automatically make you inferior to them, well, then you are just being totally uncivil and are not worth listening to. Perhaps you should choose your words more wisely next time if you want to be taken seriously, thanks for proving my point about how I'm totally better then you (snicker snicker nudge nudge).

And this really hits to the heart of why I find the whole civility debate tiresome. It's never about civility. Instead, it's about shutting down conversation. It's about getting away with being a douchebag while still coming off as a good person. It's a way of dismissing someone without ever actually addressing what they are saying. It's about what benefits you, and only you, not about what is beneficial to others.

Which I don't find civil at all, really. Good riddance.

The 53% is part of the 99%, whether they acknowledge it or not

2011-10-10T18:15:00.007-05:00

Oh hey, I have a blog! I probably should use it again at some point.

So, as we've learned from the great "I'm sorry"/"I'm not sorry" debate of 2004, Republicans tend to get real pissy when a bunch of liberals start a Tumblr blog. And, because pretty much 95% of Republican attacks narrow down to just stealing talking points from liberals and throwing them right back at them in an amusing display of psychological projection, the response is a typical "Oh yeah? Well I'll just start a Tumblr too! Suck on that, LIEbrals!".

As such, we now get the "We are the 53%" Tumblr, in response to the "We are the 99%" Tumblr that has had a nasty habit of tugging on some heartstrings and making folks sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street protests. Obviously, once people actually start having feelings like empathy for their fellow Americans, it needs to be shut down at all costs, and drinking champagne from a balcony overlooking the protests just wasn't cutting it. So, the 53%. This is a reference to the percentage of the population that pays income tax. It's a totally awesome burn, because it's really not fair that people that are too poor to pay income taxes don't have to pay income taxes and instead just pay things like sales taxes or payroll taxes, or something like that. Either way, it's a percentage! That we can use to title our Tumblr blog! Roll with it.

So in the spirit of fairness, and by that I mean, in the spirit of sarcastic mockery that serves no purpose other then my own amusement, I took a look at what the "We are the 53%" are saying.

We are the 53%

Here is every conservative's wet dream. 22 years old and a business owner! Pays all of his taxes, and doesn't play bongos. He never gets any time off, nor does he have health insurance, but that's okay, because he doesn't blame Wall Street, just elitist career politicans. Who aren't funded in any way by Wall Street lobbyists.

We are the 53%

And here's a guy who works three jobs, can't sell his house, and whose insurance costs are outrageous. And might be Erick Erickson, who has never been handed a cushy job on CNN that he really didn't deserve but only received for the sole reason that he's a blogger that really fucking hates liberals and we need "balance" in our media.

We are the 53%

Here is a former Marine that works 2 jobs, and has no health insurance, and is bragging about not having more then four days off in a row for over four years. So, you know, ha ha, guy that works two jobs with no health insurance... ha ha... you know what, guys? I don't think I can do this.

We are the 53%

Here we have a guy that makes his way through life without "luxuries". He has a low-paying job, a truck with 200,000 miles on it, no health insurance, and can barely afford his rent, who is pretty much one unfortunate random incident away from catastrophe.

I'm going to go cry now.

I mean, is this some sort of parody? Is this actually a Tumblr blog in support of the 99%? Because the only difference I see between this guy and this guy is a medical condition. All of these people I've linked to above, all of the people that have thus far shown up on the "We are the 53%" Tumblr blog, are all very hardworking, self-driven, inspirational people. And are all one small financial catastrophe away from ruin.

And that is exactly what the problem is.

For what it's worth, I don't feel bad for the person that is $100,000 dollars in debt for her M.A. in Art either. The idea passed down to my generation that to succeed, you only need to spend a ton on a degree is something that needs to be re-evaluated. But that isn't what these protests are solely about. What I'm actually seeing here is a need to paint the Occupy Wall Street protesters as entitled little brats, and not real, hardworking people, so that at night, we can tell ourselves that they are not us. That it won't happen to us. That in the end, the "American Dream" will work out for us if we just try hard enough. To make it through the day, we need to believe that. But I don't think the American Dream is working three jobs just to keep your head above water. I don't think it is doing everything "right" and "responsible" to ensure your stability in this society, yet still ending up in financial desperation because of things that are out of your control. I think the American Dream, as we romanticize it, is dead.

Look through both of those blogs. When you look at their paths, and their concerns, they are essentially the same. Some are just not so "lucky".

If you can even call the posters on the "We are the 53%" blog "lucky". From what I've read, blindly prideful, yes. "Lucky", no. Not really.

It's now 9/12, can I go back to being an asshole?

2011-09-12T18:53:00.000-05:00

Hey, at least I waited a day.

So another 9/11 has come and gone, and we say goodbye to yet another day of watching chaos and horror and destruction on a 90 minute loop so that we "never forget", although what we aren't supposed to ever forget by being shown this footage I'm not quite sure of. I'd think that those that choose to honor instead of forget the dead do so by celebrating their life rather than their untimely demise, but that never really seems to be the theme with the media, does it? So the only thing I can really come up with is this idea that America is not secure and we should be afraid, very afraid, or that sick motherfuckers exist, which is something I don't think we really would ever forget even if we tried.

So again we are subjected to lectures from very serious right-leaning pundits about the proper way of conducting yourself on this day, which apparently involves eagle gifs and flags and tales about how they learned on 9/11 that voting Republican is the only way to go to keep us safe because after the attacks Bush had a bullhorn and that was really inspiring and all. And all of this they figured out as they were watching it unfold on their televisions that were hundreds to thousands of miles away from Ground Zero, which is why they can tell people like 9/11 widows and first responders when they are being totally out of line and doing things other than shutting the hell up and posing for patriotic photo ops - that sort of distance they were lucky enough to have gives one perspective on the real way to grieve, you see.

But even with eagle gifs, wingnuts can't completely feel in touch with this holiday without finding some sort of faux-outrage to scream about how liberals hate America, as it's tradition. And normally this would be targeted at the head liberal usurper in chief, because really, is there anything you can't blame on Obama these days? But sadly, if you mention Obama and 9/11 in the same sentence now, it might just bring up the fact that it was Obama, not Dick Cheney, not Erick Erickson, not John McCain, and not George W Bush that actually got America's Public Enemy #1, instead it was the America-Hater himself, and that shit is just awkward.

Luckily for them, Paul Krugman stepped up to the plate, and will now be your representative as to what is really wrong with America this year (psst! Spoiler Alert: It's liberals again!). Let's see what radical, extremist, America-hating tripe KThug managed to bust out to make American Baby Jesus cry this time:

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity

And now there must be screaming and shouting and moral grandstanding up to volume 11 because it's just not right if there's a liberal out there somewhere with a column that we haven't completely made into a pariah for daring to suggest that perhaps some people might of had the wrong reaction after the attacks, because as we all know, if you say love America enough, you can't possibly ever be wrong. Even if you were horribly, disastrously, and completely wrong. But fuck you, it's 9/11, and you are not allowed to point that sort of thing out. Feelings, and all.

So let's look at some of the reactions of some of those directly affected by those attacks that were hurt by Paul Krugman's heartless comments. And by that I don't mean victims or families of victims or the thousands of New Yorkers or folks in DC that were smack in the middle of what when down that day. Instead, I mean right-wing bloggers.

Erick Erickson:

If he speaks for liberals, liberals are truly disgusting. I assume and believe that most liberals reject this and hope many of them will be vocal about the disagreement. And the New York Times might want to rethink using Krugman’s conscience as that of a typical liberal.

Flopping Aces:

“Years of Shame”? Mr. Krugman has exhibited an unconscionable moment of shame for which he should forever be embarrassed. As you can see, he is as cowardly as the terrorists themselves… a hateful hit and run on a day of remembrance and mourning, demonstrating that he, himself, is guilty the accusations he levels at others.

And I just have to link this one because I absolutely love that someone has the gall to lecture Paul Krugman about his "partisanship" on this holiest of holy days and then two posts later comment on the very serious event that was cheering George W Bush and not Barack Obama (because everyone hates Obama, amirite?), which isn't partisan or petty at all guys, really.

Your more nuanced, "serious" conservative is merely clucking their tongue and talking about how Paul Krugman totally shouldn't do things like point out that for all the chest-beating idealism about "freedom" that came from the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, we sure did fuck that up quite a bit and put the country on a road for the worst. But it's okay because they are sure that other, more rational liberals would never reflect on 9/11 through this sort of prism that accurately reflects the reality of the situation (so don't even think about talking about it, liberals. You don't want to be an asshole like Paul Krugman, do you?).

(Side note: At first I thought it was kind of strange that they decided to go with "Sounds of Silence" for the tribute song this year. I mean, I know that interpretations differ, but the song seems to be making a pretty strong point in regards to living in ignorance or "silence" while the truth is right there staring at us in the face, and warns against society turning away from it and towards comforting falsities for guidance instead. But seeing the reaction to Krugman's column, and considering how critics of the handling of the aftermath of 9/11 were treated as if they were borderline treasonous, makes me think that the choice was perhaps quite apt. Sorry, just something I was thinking about today)

I feel if anything, I've earned the right to be cynical while watching what has unfolded during the past ten years. And I feel no need to keep quiet about it, because the effects of these mistakes are still with us to this very day. Find me one thing in Krugman's post that is not true. Tell me one mistake Washington or the DC media reflected upon and learned from. People did behave badly post-9/11, and often for selfish reasons. We did take a moment of national unity and turn it into one of the most decisive partisan issues of the past decade. And yes, some of them know damn well that is what happened, and they really don't like it when you make it a salient point in their minds. I have a hunch these are the same people that are shrieking the loudest about what Krugman said. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

I'm obviously not going to take the high road here. I'm not going to reminisce without partisanship, or without politics, because the fact is that what happened cannot be divorced from these things. I'm not going to fake my way through that, or forget anything that has happened since for the sake of protecting the feelings of those that were wrong, tragically wrong, about the path this country should take at that point. And those who are still taken as credible to this day, as if their full truckload of fail from that time never existed.

Perhaps for a while, the politics and the bickering could have been separate from the memorial. I know that in the aftermath, we did have this euphoric sense of national unity. I know that some of this is an attempt to find that unity again.

But I also know that it was squandered for political reasons then, and I know that it's often squandered for political reasons now.

And I know exactly who I hold accountable for that.

How to survive a bear attack

2011-08-18T18:35:00.005-05:00

I have a great love for camping. There's always something about setting up a tent, throwing on a hoodie and laying on the ground to view all the stars in the night sky that has a calming and peaceful effect on me. But as anyone in Bear Country knows, one must take a cautionary approach when camping. So a few weeks back, in preparation for a camping outing with the husband, I brushed up on my bear knowledge. Not that I haven't read these things a thousand times or more, but it's almost enjoyable to look into all the ways you can meet your end on a dewy morning (I've always had an absurd fascination with things that can kill me). So given what I've gone through the past week, in the spirit of being helpful, I've decided to share some of these tips with you.

Now, first, just relax. You don't really need to go out of your way to avoid a bear, even if you've had negative interactions with them in the past. Bears aren't really built for drama and try to avoid it. Instead, they'd just like to amble along their way, eating berries and generally just being lazy in the summer months. Odds are, you won't even encounter a bear, not only is the bear usually two steps ahead of you anyway, there's also the fact that you just don't do many things that are interesting enough to catch the bear's attention. But make no mistake that this sort of aloofness is somehow an indicator of weakness. If the bear feels a need to, they will attack.

And bears hit very hard.

If you shock or surprise a bear in its own territory, it will respond to let you know who is really the boss. Do not get between a bear and something that the bear holds dear to them. Do not randomly jump out of nowhere and piss off the bear, because when bears are just looking for something like berries or a warm sunny spot to lay in and they are subjected to bullshit, they find that sort of thing to be kind of annoying. But this is not the usual scenario with bear encounters.

Keep in mind that most of the time, the bear is just curious. Bears are well aware of everything that goes on in their surroundings, and learn quickly (you may think you are offering up some new sort of contraption, but trust me, the bear has probably seen it used already). Bears are remarkable in that they learn the habits of humans and pick up on their patterns. Do you think that unopened can of beer is safe to leave on your table? Think again. The bear, through its interactions with humans, understands what certain things signify, even if there isn't an obvious giveaway (like scent) to tip it off. And man, you do not want to mess with a bear that's had a few. In short, the bears have been doing this for a long time, and they learn. So they understand these things, they've seen the patterns time and time again, they can often anticipate your steps before you even are aware of them, and it's probably not a good idea to underestimate them. Do not assume you are clever enough to pull one over on the bear.

So when encountering what is most likely a curious bear, do not lose your shit. No panic is necessary, simply talk to the bear in a rational tone and do not escalate the situation. Let the bear know you are there, that you are human, but do not draw too much attention to yourself in order to avoid becoming the bear's main focal point. The solution here is not to freak out and scream "AHHH A BEAR IT WILL EAT MEEEE" and run away. Do not try to do something as silly as bullshitting the bear that you're totally not camping, and instead just doing a study on bears when the bear fucking knows better, because it will not end well for you. Seriously, the bear has no patience for that sort of shit. Keep calm, stay honest, and eventually the bear, after knocking over your cooler and taking a nap on your tent in order to get its point across, will tire of you and leave.

But let's say you've ignored all the other advice and decided to piss off the bear.

And now you imagine that you have a tonnage of fury directed your way, and are fully aware that you haven't any tools to deflect it. So you pretty much have no choice but to use what is the only thing you have left - unhinged, angry emotional outbursts. Flail. Scream. But stand your ground. Bears will often do what is known as a fake charge in order to intimidate the intruder, as a means of testing their resolve. Any sign of weakness on your part could cause the bear to react, because at this point, the bear is sick of your ass. But rejoice! At some point, the bear will more then likely decide that you just aren't worth it, as it wasn't looking to be bogged down in camper drama. Camper drama is the worst. I mean, perhaps the bear really likes where it is and doesn't want to be forcefully removed by the authorities that run its nature reserve. Perhaps the bear is worried that it might get that sort of "bad bear" reputation among the campers and has to spend each day knowing that it will eventually be shot by the forest ranger. Or perhaps the bear just doesn't feel like dealing with your scared and defensive ass when there are lots of other tents to sleep on that aren't inhabited by people that will flip out and misjudge the bears actual intentions (wasn't that an unopened beer just sittin' out on your cooler? Just askin').

But even if you discount all the above advice, know this. Once you cause the bear to lose interest in you, or once that bear has decided that the potential harm from the situation maybe isn't worth mauling your ass, just let the bear go.

For real. There's really no reason to hide behind a tree and throw rocks at the bear while it is *awesomely* sauntering away.

If you got through an encounter with a bear without too much permanent damage, congratulations! Not too many people do, so perhaps the bear was feeling generous that day. But even so, you don't really want to rely on that and continue to poke the bear.

The second attack is usually more gruesome then the first.

*It's an analogy, bitchez.

**Although all of the above facts that aren't based in anthropomorphic assumptions are for the most part true, I'd rather you not use me as the bear expert. I mean, I pretty much wrote this because it amused the hell out of me to write it and if you decided to go strolling through the woods because of your new found bear knowledge and get dead, I'd feel pretty fucking bad about that.

***No bears were harmed in the making of this blog post.

"And we’re going to hurt some people"

2011-07-27T12:24:00.003-05:00

Movie quotes that apparently motivate GOP huggy times:

"House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party's vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, "The Town", trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.

One character asks his friend: "I need your help. I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later."

"Whose car are we gonna take," the character says.

After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides."I'm ready to drive the car," West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full-throated support for the plan."

One of the things that always struck me about how the GOP presents their policies is the frequency in which they rely on the idea that the ends always outweigh the means (the most glaring example of this, in my opinion, is the propaganda leading up to the Iraq War, in which the 9/11 heartstrings that were tugged and the misinformation regarding the threat that Saddam Hussein posed was all really in the name of regime change rather then making the US "safer"). Now, for the most part, this is intentional: The Iraq War was hard enough to sell to the public as it was, and the idea that we needed to go bomb a country that had nothing to do with our current state of affairs probably wouldn't fly except among the most tribal of the GOP's party. If your ends and your means are both useless and damaging, you probably aren't going to get a ton of takes. So "trust me" becomes the only option.

But even if you assume it's a genuine sentiment, that sometimes you just have to shut up, not ask questions, and just go along with the scheme because in the end it will pay off, it still doesn't really follow when you look at the GOP's own dogma. Essentially the GOP is asking their members to pipe down and go along with it because the GOP establishment knows what's best for them, and assumes everyone else is too stupid to understand the complicated means that take us to a desirable end, so just trust that your betters have your best interest in mind and will take care of you.

Which, as astute observers of political rhetoric know, may be fine if it's Republicans, but could you even imagine the screeching that would take place if this sort of "Trust us, we are doing what is best for you" rhetoric was manifesting on the left? All our favorite talking points about liberal elitists would be rampaging across the internet and various opinion columns of Very Serious newspapers.* We've heard that type of accusation before, in fact, it's a major staple in the rhetoric that paints the GOP as the defenders of the little guy, the people, against Washington busy-bodies (and conveniently masks that they are really the party of the aristocracy). So I can't help but be a bit amused by a party that constantly accuses Democrats of being composed of elitists that yearn for a nanny state to control the masses and thumb their noses at those stupid American folks because they are just too simple-minded to understand what's at stake here, then turns around and actually supports just such an effort, and probably for dishonest means and ends to boot. Once again, the GOP shows itself to be a master at psychological projection tactics**.

And all this is just an observation assuming the movie quote from the WaPo is correct. It gets worse, because the WaPo actually misprinted the quote (and if this was done intentionally, we are actually starting to get all inception-like up in this shit here, aren't we?). Here is how Ben Afflick's line actually reads:

I need your help. I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we're going to hurt some people.

There really isn't much to add to that. No wonder the Republicans are all fired up about it. We are ruled by grifters and sociopaths.

(via MNPublius)

*And should I get started on the Hollywood aspect of this? Funny how liberals and Hollywood are always sittin' in a tree, and warpin' the minds of the folks, yet it seems to only be the GOP that seriously uses movies as political arguments (they did this with the whole "We must torture, because it worked for Jack Bauer" talking point as well). I could seriously do this all day.

**I really need to start a series on this. You can take pretty much any talking point Republicans use to slam Democrats and discover that it's actually something they are already doing themselves, or really want to start doing. It's so predictable at this point that it would almost be comical, if it weren't so damn effective.

Stabbing the baby before throwing it out with the bathwater seems to be the current strategy

2011-07-06T17:36:00.004-05:00

Gilda: Would it interest you to know how much I hate you, Johnny?
Johnny Farrell: Very much.
Gilda: I hate you so much that I would destroy myself to take you down with me.

My emotions the past several days have been volleying between blinding rage and cautious optimism what with the shutdown here in Minnesota and the debt ceiling talks in Washington. The rage stems from what I already knew - we are dealing with a Grand Old Party of grifters and sociopaths, who have managed to wrap themselves so tightly in their own ideology that they are suffocating themselves. They really have very few choices now aside from sinking the country or losing their precious little jobs (and obviously, they chose their own jobs, because they know damn well how badly they've been fucking the unemployed and wisely want no part of that).

It never should have gotten to this point. The tongue-bath the media has been giving the Tea Party the past few years has been an utter and complete joke on the country, and I'm sure Tim Russert's great grandson will tell us as much in about 70 years while assuring us that all the Very Serious people in Real America agree with cyborg-McCain's plan to blow up the moon to defeat the terrorist alien babies.

At the same time, I'm a bit optimistic. David Brooks of all people came down hard on the Republicans this week:

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post simply sums it up by observing that the modern GOP has become nothing more then a cult. Are these opinion columns all that significant in and of themselves? Not really. It's nice that they've finally caught onto what some of us have been pointing out for over a decade now, but these guys have always been weak idiots that illustrate perfectly why old media is dying. What I think it does illustrate, however, is that the latest antics from the GOP is beginning to cause concern for what is normally their largest group of apologists, the Very Serious Elite Pseudo-Moderate DC pundits.

The GOP is getting so outrageous, in other words, that the pundits can't find any comparable Democratic proposal to misinterpret in order to play the false equivalency game to show how "fair" they are. And once you start to worry a media that is pretty much primed to constantly allow you to run your crazy-train uncontested less they be accused of "liberal bias", it shows just how far off the tracks the modern GOP has gone. I've had a hunch in the past that the Republicans are falling victim to their own livelihood, that they can't survive without pandering to the extremists that both turn out strongly in election years yet alienate everyone else, much like what happened with the Democrats in the 70s. In time, even the most ardent supporters that still have a few brain cells circling somewhere in their cranium can't just grimace and pull the lever anymore. In time, the party they opposed in the past starts to look like the lesser of the two evils.

The party that could never die is, in my opinion, dying. If history is any indication, even if the GOP manages to survive, they will have crippled themselves for decades (we still use 60s/70s-era talking points against the Democrats; all the Hippy Punching/angry liberals/anti-government leftists/hey doesn't Carter totally suck came from somewhere). And I think the old guard knows this, which is why you have two types of old-school Republicans in congress these days, the types that are retiring to get the fuck out of dodge before they are chased out and the ones that have embraced the Tea Party Patriots wholeheartedly even though they know damn well their politics and rigid ideology is toxic, not only to them, but to the country. Somewhere down the line, "America First" ceased to matter, and zealotry took over.

I think in the end, the massive restructuring and/or demise of the modern GOP will be a good thing for the country. But in the meantime, it's going to be an absolute disaster. If they are going to go down, they are going to do everything in their power to drag the rest of us down with them. The Republican Party used to stand for something (and could again, in the future). But today, they stand for nothing more then the fact that they hate you, they will not compromise with you, and as such, if you are not part of their tribe you must be eradicated at any cost. Although this is damaging to their party, it does not bode well for the country as a whole. But what else can be done at this point? You cannot compromise with people like this, even if they would let you. Which they won't.

And I know, I know, it's really fucked up to look at the current political climate and find optimism in respect to the policies that will probably be enacted. That there are actually people being affected, that these aren't mere numbers and statistics. I'm fully aware of my own privilege in these matters, that the loss of government services are really nothing more then an annoyance for me so far.

But I'm not going off of an idea of "Fuck you, I win! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!". It's not a game. It is just getting harder to deny that the current Republican Party just cannot exist inside the frame of what we know as a Democracy. The GOP has given no indication that they will tone it down anytime soon (like I said, I don't think they can at this point, movement conservatism has spiraled out of their own control). And as much as I will continue to disagree with true conservative principles, even I can realize that it does me no favors to have an opposition party that is insane and unwilling to compromise.

Of course, in the end, my optimism could be misplaced. We do get the government we deserve, and sometimes I fear that. And perhaps that's more where the rage comes from.

(Opening quote from Gilda, 1946.)

Fun Stuff is Offically Closed

2011-07-01T00:14:00.003-05:00

You know what Kurt Zellers? Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck Amy Koch and fuck all you other stupid ideological motherfuckers that decided to waste the entire fucking year on culture war bullshit (and actually had the nerve to go on MPR a while back and giggle about "The budget deal? But where did all the time go? Tee hee!") and then act shocked, shocked(!) when the governor of the state doesn't accept your "Fuck education who needs it when we have rich people that can't be taxed?" bullshit "deal" after fucking campaigning and winning on that very fucking same issue.

This is a gigantic fucking waste of money for the state. Pat yourself on the fucking back. Or maybe hire one of the state employees that is now out of fucking work to do it for you.

Fuckers.

Nothing to say, just messing with Google+

2011-06-30T22:08:00.005-05:00

For testing purposes, y'all. Here's some Fisherman's Blues:

Squee! And I was going to be all productive this weekend (in a non-internets way), too.

Circle me!

Please stop making me defend these assholes

2011-06-27T17:19:00.005-05:00

I'm starting to get that sickening feeling with Michele Bachmann that I did with Sarah Palin in years past, that feeling that no matter how much you despise them, you are going to end up sticking up for them more then you would normally care to. A prime example would be the "are you a flake" controversy over at Fox News this past weekend.

It's pretty disappointing, and here's why.

It's gendered.

A constructive answer to that question does not exist.

The overall point Wallace was getting at was an important one, and now we are just talking about how he insulted the candidate.

Bachmann is a moron and a hypocrite, but what people tend to miss is that she's been in the political game for a long time, and she's proven that she knows how to survive. She knows how to work these sorts of things to her advantage. The best thing to do with candidates like her is give her enough rope, because it's guaranteed that she will eventually hang herself. Think of what worked with Palin - The narrative works best as "candidate x said something stupid, and is now whining about it", not as "candidate x was called stupid, and is now upset about it". Bachmann would be terrible for this country, and if allow her message to be heard loud and clear, I think the country will eventually pick up on that.

Instead, Bachmann came out of this looking like (a) the "underdog" victim of a cruel media (WHICH IS THE POINT PEOPLE) and (b) professional and serious because of how well she handled the attack (I would not have responded any other way. Unless I punched the fucker). This sort of thing is not helping.

Not that I expected Fox News to help.

U Mad, officer?

2011-06-26T10:07:00.005-05:00

I found it interesting that the LulzSec leak of documents from the Arizona Police Department coincided with the FBI's decision to drop the case against Minnesota's most notorious gang, The Metro Gang Strike Force, investigating their 2005-2008 asset forfeiture free-for-all. Not that the two are related in any way, just that despite the negative press online anarchist groups such as LulzSec garner, there seems to be an increasing need for their actions.

The public would like to believe that citizen abuse in law enforcement is minimal, or that the actions of one good cop can take down even the most embedded hierarchy of corruption. We like to believe that in the end, the bad guys will lose, and the good guys will prevail. But as we saw with the Metro Gang Strike Force, which was brought to an end by a "good cop", this isn't necessarily the case. Sure, the Task Force was disbanded after the destruction of public's trust in them made doing their job impossible. But as for the consequences for the members of the Task Force that preyed on the public for years, there are none to be found. The abandonment of the case comes on the heals of the US Justice Department's announcement that no more charges will be filed against the members due to the lack of evidence against them. This would be the same evidence that was destroyed, in the middle of the night at their New Brighton office that just so happened to have it's security surveillance system disabled while the mass shredding of documents took place. All of the officers are presumably free to keep their jobs within law enforcement. Meanwhile, the public has coughed up a cool 3 million so far to pay off the civil lawsuit against the task force for harassment and theft.

Is it any wonder that the citizens are starting to become upset about this sort of thing, or are taking matters into their own hands? As technology allows citizens to document police abuses in real-time, the myth that the benefit of the doubt should always fall on the side of the boys in blue is slowly fading away in the eyes of an increasingly cynical public. Demigod Officer Friendly has been exposed as nothing more then a mere human, prone to the same flaws the rest of the populace is prone to, yet held to a noticeably much lower standard then civilians are for their mistakes and misdeeds.

But he's fighting back.

The Rochester story (in which a woman was charged with "Obstructing Governmental Administration" for standing in her own yard and filming what she believed to be a questionable traffic stop) just took a juvenile turn:

Basking in the viral glory bestowed upon one of its officers this week, the Rochester Police Department resorted to petty retaliatory and intimidation tactics against citizens attending a community meeting Thursday afternoon.
The citizens were attending a meeting to discuss the arrest of Emily Good, the 28-year-old woman who was jailed for videotaping cops from her front yard, when they realized cops were outside issuing tickets for having parked more than 12 inches from the curb.

Know your place, citizen. Or we will give you really silly parking tickets.

I think my favorite part of this story is the police officer claiming that her recording is a "threat" to his safety because even though we never hear it on the audio, he claims she was making "anti-police" comments. Because making "anti-police" comments is all it takes to waive your rights away. I do really like that her neighbors stuck up for her (one called 911 when they perceived she was being harassed, because if for nothing else, there at least would be a record of the incident). I don't know if you would of seen the same citizen camaraderie 10 years ago.

At least she got some footage (and was able to pass her phone off to a neighbor), which is more then I can say for the Jim Tucker from The Fight Back, the reporter who last week produced the largest threat America has ever seen by trying to take a single cell phone photograph while covering a public meeting regarding the DC Taxi Commission. Reason Blogger Jim Epstein, who was also arrested when he filmed the harassment and arrest of Tucker, talks about the arrests:

About 30 minutes into the meeting, I witnessed journalist Pete Tucker snap a still photo of the proceedings on his camera phone. A few minutes later, two police officers arrested Tucker. I filmed Tucker's arrest and the audience's subsequent outrage using my cell phone.

A few minutes later, as I was attempting to leave the building, I overheard the female officer who had arrested Tucker promise a woman, who I presumed to be an employee of the Taxi Commission, that she would confiscate my phone. Reason intern Kyle Blaine, overheard her say, "Do you want his phone? I can get his phone."

But at the very least, the two reporters (I'm assuming) received their phones back in one piece. Narces Benoit's cell phone was smashed to bits after he recorded a Miami Police shootout earlier this month, which you never would have known about if he didn't act quickly to hide his SD card inside his mouth.

I could play this game all day (hey, at least Benoit wasn't charged under wiretapping laws that would throw him in prison for 16 years!). Law Enforcement really, really doesn't like it when you film them. Recording the police is now basically illegal in three states (Illinois, Massachusetts, and of course, Maryland), loosely based in wiretapping and eavesdropping laws that require two-party consent for filming. If the law isn't on their side, or if they are ignorant of the laws that are in place, officers are often able to threaten or detain citizens and confiscate their equipment with little to no recourse for violating citizen's rights - in fact, as we've seen in the past (and will more then likely see in the Rochester case) the burden is often on the citizen who, if they cannot be charged with filming the officers, will be charged under various other bullshit charges instead, which will more then likely be dropped or cost the department money when a civil case is eventually filed. But instead of training officers on conflict resolution and the legal rights of citizens in regards to record police, it appears they'd rather train officers on the dangers of OpenWatch instead. And if an increasingly skeptical public cannot obtain justice using those routes, is it any wonder that eventually, they would turn to vigilantism instead?

In reality, the attempt by law enforcement to prevent any sort of civilian documentation of their interactions of the public makes them look fairly suspect on it's own (it's almost as if they know the job tends to attract a certain type of personality that could cause problems down the road). I've often thought that all interactions between police and the public should be documented on film, as it not only protects the public from the police, but also the police against the public (dash cams in patrol cars exist for this very reason). And if there is still a segment of the population that honestly believes that the bad guys always have it coming, with or without due process, at the very least they should support these sorts of safeguards if for nothing more then the fact that corrupt law enforcement is costing the taxpayers millions in civil litigation payouts. If an officer conducts themselves with full accordance to the law (and many do), I see no reason why they wouldn't want the extra protection of filmed interactions, as a quick and false claim of assault has the potential to destroy that officer's career and rob him or her of their pension. This is an easy way to keep both the public and the police safe without violating anyone's civil rights, without any sort of vigilante actions that have the potential to expose classified information, without draining away city budgets through lawsuits. So what's the holdup at this point?

This post is 100% accurate because I say so

2011-06-24T18:47:00.004-05:00

Is there anything more gratifying then watching a woman smack Scott Adams around? No. No there is not.

A little back story - Sock Puppet master and Dilbert creator Scott Adams, he of "arguing with women is just like arguing with four year olds and mentally handicapped folks" (because when he writes bullshit, women have the audacity to call him out on it) fame decided to pontificate of the sad sate of American males, and how they want to be all rapey and shit because that's their natural instinct but they can't because society set up the rules to favor women's natural instincts, which I guess comes down to not being rapey because he never really describes what he means by that, which means "society has evolved to keep males in a state of continuous unfulfilled urges, more commonly known as unhappiness", because they can't rape people or cheat on their wives, which is totally the same thing.

Basically what I'm taking from this post is that we should probably just chemically castrate males (his suggestion) because Scott Adams has urges to rape people. I mean, you really have to wonder about folks that argue these things as "natural instincts". To me, it's just screams "Hey, I want to do shitty things, so I'm going to assume everyone else does too BECAUSE OF TEH BIOLOGY so I can convince myself I'm not a shitty person". And no, Scott Adams, we aren't going to castrate every male just because you want to rape people. The men in my life are fine. Leave them alone and get help dude. Seriously.

Now, like pretty much all his femimist-trolling posts, the standard response here is that this is not what Scott Adams meant at all, and if your little ladybrainz would just understand Teh Logic, you would realize that he is telling it like it is, sorry about your hurt feelings and all. Yet note that he never really provides any evidence to his claim that men are all rapists, his argument is instead that rape is merely a product of horniness, men are horny, therefore they all must want to rape, they can't, so they are sad. Leaving aside obvious examples such as the use of rape as a war crime or the use of prison rape as dominance and just looking at the horniness factor - rape is not a product of "I am horny, I want this, I rape". It has an extra step - I am horny, I want this, it is for some reason denied to me, but I am for (insert reason here) entitled to this, I rape". To conflate the two (horniness/desire to rape) is just creepy, full stop. As is his notion that sex (and all gender issues) are zero sum and about "winning" and "losing", that just screams "sex is a way to dominate" to me. I'll take a detour into jackass speculation land and venture a guess that Adams probably really sucks in bed. Unless she's into it, I suppose.

But I'm not going to go too deep into his failed arguments, because Mary Elizabeth Williams covered them quite well, and pretty much the only thing he's arguing here is "But hey, wouldn't these goal posts look so much better if I moved them over here by a few hundred feet? Also too people at the HuffPo agree with me so there and women that disagree with me are crazy". It's an amusing read. It's quite amazing how quickly these fuckers fall apart and cling to their logical fallacies. Scott Adams is under the impression that those less then him can't see this. Scott Adams is wrong. I mean, the strawman is pretty much the most well-known fallacy there is, and he humps it as if his life depended on it - his latest post whining about how mean women are (no, I'm not linking to it, google it) presents a "reading comprehension test" which contains gems like this:

If I say Dutch men are the tallest in the world, which of the following facts have I implied?
I'm a racist.
Every Dutch man is taller than every other man.
I have a low opinion of women because I didn't even mention them.
None of the above

Because empirically observable traits such as height and jackass musings about the hard-wiring of men's brains being all rapey from the guy that created Dilbert are equally on par in terms of scientific validity. Yeah. So now you know what we're dealing with.

Adams is one of those guys that builds himself a shield of logic and then cowers behind it. And by that, I don't mean that he uses arguments based in logic, just that he claims his arguments are based in logic, because he's just one of those logical guys, he's a certified genius, so the only way you could possibly disagree with him is if you lack basic common sense. He's already stated that he's logical, you dig? So if you disagree, you are not. QED.

I used to see these guys quite a bit back in my Duty Calls days, they usually take the handle of "Common Sense Mike" or "Rational Thinker" or some other such nonsense*, and they are always amusing as hell because they are usually the one person on the thread that lacks those traits. And I think that's the point. There's really no reason to put that sort of label on yourself, because the quality of your argument is going to be judge based on just that - your argument. Not how awesome, realistic, or intelligent you claim you are. If you make poor arguments, sure, perhaps you do have to attempt to paint yourself as some sort of unbiased observer that's just going off of the hard cold facts. But the same people you are trying to appeal to with that sort of self-labeling are the same people that are actually going to judge you based on the content you provide. If you are awesome, realistic, intelligent, a rational thinker, or someone chock full o'common sense, well, that's going to come out based in the arguments that you make, isn't it? And if not, that label isn't going to convince anyone otherwise.

I actually take these sorts of labels as a warning sign at this point.

*I feel the same way about people that claim political labels such as "Independent" (sorry mom), "Moderate" or "Centrist". A buddy of mine still has my favorite political label on the Facebook - it simple says "Partisan". And I'll trust his viewpoint over most "independents" any day.

They also replaced your coffee with Folgers

2011-06-20T20:53:00.002-05:00

lolwut?

U.S. Sen. John McCain is blaming illegal immigrants for starting some of the wildfires that have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres in Arizona.

"There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally," McCain, R-Arizona, said Saturday at a press conference. "The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."The Arizona senator, however, did not say what the evidence is, prompting a swift rebuke from Latino civil rights advocates.

Illegals! Is there anything they can't do?

McCain said that illegal immigrants set such fires either to send signals,

Because when you are sneaking into a country, the best thing to do is use a bonfire to signal to other folks that you are sneaking into a country.

keep warm

Because Arizona is freezing in June, y'all. Freezing.

or distract law enforcement agents.

You'd think this conflicts with the above charge that the fires are being used to signal others, but it doesn't. See, when they are signaling others, the smoke is in Spanish. English is used to distract. Ha ha, stupid gringos.

This dude really needs to retire.

(via)

Unicorns gather in Minneapolis to move forward with "Operation Annoy Obama" plan

2011-06-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

So, Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis this past weekend, and I had that 4th of July feeling when you don't go see the fireworks because it's just silly and not worth the hassle but then come ten o'clock you hear them going off and you feel kind of sad in a way even though you know it's silly and kind of a hassle but you still get that urge to run out and maybe you can just see a few but you know you won't make it in time anyway so you just get drunk and eat macaroni instead and the feeling eventually passes.

It's not like I really missed anything other then the opportunity to throw shit at Andy Breitbart ("Right Online 2011" was also in Minneapolis at the same time), because the videos are starting to come out, and from the few I've watched, can I just say I wasn't very impressed with (Angry Mouse) Kaili Joy Gray's interview with White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer like everyone else seems to be?

Not that there weren't good parts, or that I could do any better (I'd be hiding under the table passing him notes, because that's how I roll) but I sensed a chance to really set the whole DFH bashing straight and I feel like it was missed. Like I've said in the past, I feel one of the major problems between this White House and the Netroots is that the actual arguments aren't really being taken seriously and instead subject to strawman arguments - it's "the Left", and we know how they are.

For example, when Gray touches on the tenancy for Democrats to cave on liberal values in response to Republican obstructionism, she brings up the Hyde Amendment in regards to Health Care reform. At which Pfeiffer goes into lecture mode and says simply - it wouldn't pass. Bipartisanship, bitches. It's all about compromise, don't you silly little kids know that? You can't always get what you want.

Well, for one, what's not touched on here is that the major stumbling block was a Democrat in the Senate - Ben Nelson. You know, one of those guys that we had to bite our tongues and support back in the aughts because Howard Dean's liberal utopia is so close, guys, and if you ladyfolks would just shut the fuck up about your rights and shit, everything would just be peachy? That worked out really well for us.

This does highlight a problem within the Democratic Party. You know why Republicans tend to vote in lockstep with each other? Because if they don't, their asses are in trouble, and they know it. And although they do it to excess, which I'm not advocating, I do believe there are certain issues that the party should be united on. And Health Care is a major one, it seems like a no-brainer to me. Instead, Democrats have become the party of "Not Republicans", which allows every single drama queen in congress to steal the spotlight and obstruct their own party's legislation. This is a problem. Any "Democrat" that honestly tried to derail Health Care reform should seriously have their committee memberships reviewed.

But rambling on that aside, the I probably wouldn't of brought up Hyde. What I would bring up is the Public Option. Because that, my friends, is where Democrats really screwed the pooch. And it is a solid example of where the White House is, deliberately or not, strawmanning the arguments surrounding it, and offering up this idiotic "bipartisan" lecture as an excuse. Oh, those whiny leftists, they won't take anything but a plan with a public option in it, they will end up tanking the whole project, they are so unreasonable.

Except that's not really why people are upset about it. I'd argue that although it was a desired outcome in many circles, most liberals never really believed we would have a single-payer system in health care after this legislation was passed. Instead, it's because it was never considered. Never on the table. Didn't exist. And for those of us that are understanding of the need to compromise, this never made sense. The White House gave away what was probably the best bargaining chip we had in the Health Care debate, for nothing.

Perhaps they have good reasons. I suppose, if the Public Option was seriously considered in the Health Care debate, it would have caused the Republicans to don funny hats and run around that summer screaming about socialism.

Oh wait.

And I think that's what the Dirty Fucking Hippies are really upset about. It's not a matter of them stomping their feet and holding their breath until they get what they want. It's that what they want doesn't currently even exist in the debate. They don't currently exist in the debate. And they should - starting negotiations absent solidly liberal input is a bad idea for a number of reasons, the whole "deficit" fetish when the middle class is desperately gasping to stay afloat should provide a solid example as to why.

"The Left" exists for a reason, and Democrats would do well to pay them a bit more heed; they present a starting point for compromise. Real compromise covers everyone, it starts with extremes and settles in the middle. As it stands now, the only debate we have in this country is between the center left and the extreme right.

Want to take a guess as to where the "compromise" is always going to land within this nice little frame we've created?

I know I shouldn't go for the low-hanging fruit like this...

2011-06-12T15:29:00.003-05:00

But it's just too easy.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

That is all.

Jesus and John Galt fistfight in Hell

2011-06-10T12:25:00.003-05:00

The religious right is starting to catch onto fact that they are being suckered for political gain, and the ensuing slap fight is amusing:

GOP leaders and conservative pundits have brought upon themselves a crisis of values. Many who for years have been the loudest voices invoking the language of faith and moral values are now praising the atheist philosopher Ayn Rand whose teachings stand in direct contradiction to the Bible. Rand advocates a law of selfishness over love and commands her followers to think only of themselves, not others. She said her followers had to choose between Jesus and her teachings.
GOP leaders want to argue that they are defending Christian principles. But, at the same time, Rep. Paul Ryan (author of the GOP budget) is posting facebook videos praising Rand's morality and saying hers is the "kind of thinking that is sorely needed right now." Simply put, Paul Ryan can't have it both ways, and neither can Christians. As conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently stated, Christians can not support Rand's philosophy and Christ's teachings. The choice is simple: Ayn Rand or Jesus Christ. We must choose one and forsake the other.

I was wondering when Rand's militant atheism would become a public relations problem with the social conservatives. Not that this whole "Jesus is love" vs "Fuck you, I got mine" divide wasn't glaringly obvious to anyone that wasn't a hardcore tribal partisan to begin with, but this recent group humping of Ayn Rand's dead corpse is really exaggerating it lately.

Of course, the boilerplate response to this by right wingers is that it's unfair to point out that their purported moral values and their ideology completely contradict each other, because while Jesus was totally about the whole caring for the less fortunate thing and not so much on the protecting massive amounts of wealth that is being hoarded by the few thing, he would never advocate for "forced charity" via taxation for things like social safety nets. We know this because he dined with tax collectors and prostitutes, and while one would assume that he was doing so to save them, he was really only interested in saving the prostitutes and just like to hang out and talk commodity futures with the tax collecters, because shut up, that's why. Bottom line - Jesus never attempted to coerce or force people to be charitable like the government does.

Aside from that whole "accept my teachings or burn in eternal hellfire" thing, I suppose.

Personally, I think being presented with the threat of never-ending fiery-pitchfork torture could coerce a motherfucker into coughing up some quarters for the needy once in a while - for the true believers, it really comes down to a question of eternal hellfire or being "forced" to pay for food for poor kids, right? I mean, sure, you can whine about societal leeches or theft by government, but when compared to damnation? God isn't fucking around, and I just feel like getting on his bad side would pretty much trump any other concerns one would have.

Unless of course, you don't actually believe in that nonsense and are merely using it keep the rubes at the polls to vote you into office, so you can continue giving out handsome payouts to your wealthy business buddies at the expense of everyone else.

In that case, yes, the IRS is probably worse.

(via)

Bachmann: 1 Pawlenty: 0 Minnesota: Zzzzzzz...

2011-06-03T11:17:00.001-05:00

Hold on to your hats kiddos, because it is so fucking on:

On Tuesday, ThinkProgress Health reported on Tim Pawlenty's past flirtation with enacting universal coverage by mandating insurance, expanding Medicaid and reforming the health care system. During a November 11, 2006 health care forum, Pawlenty — fresh off a close election victory for his second term — said his administration has been "studying very diligently the Massachusetts model about how that would apply to Minnesota" and pledged to "move in stages" toward "universal coverage." "Everyone should be in a health plan of some sort…but I think as a goal we should start with covering all kids," he said.

Yesterday, the other potential presidential candidate from Minnesota — Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) — criticized Pawlenty for his 2006 remarks:

"I think it will concern the voters," she told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham….Bachmann said that it's important to have candidates who have been consistent on issues like healthcare reform, saying she has been consistent in opposing President Obama's healthcare law.

A fine example of the climatic Minnesota bitch-slap. Bachmann isn't a hater; she's just concerned about the voters, you see.

It's going to be so awesome watching these two concern-troll each other to death over the summer. No one does passive-aggressiveness better then Minnesotans. No one.

Fight the real enemy

2011-06-01T20:50:00.006-05:00

I have to admit to watching John King's interview with Michele Bachmann on CNN a few nights ago. I was just flipping through channels, and had to stop because I noticed Bachmann didn't look as insane as she normally does (which kind of worried me, I'd like to keep my Bachmann appearing crazy as hell), but Mr. Stacy assures me that it's only because she wasn't smiling as much.

But Bachmann's mental health is not the point of this post. Naturally, since the most astute commentators on the Israel/Palestine situation are always pious christian right-wing republicans, the topic came up. And Bachmann, well versed in her culture war talking points, had plenty to say about Obama's statements on Israel last week:

BACHMANN: We are looking at unprecedented unrest in the Middle East. I completely stand in opposition to what President Obama's remarks were last week regarding Israel, saying that Israel must shrink borders to 1967 borders and to allow a passageway for Palestine -- that would be the wrong thing to do. It would bring greater hostility to the Middle East.

KING: That's not exactly what he said. He did say with mutually agreed to -- mutually negotiated land swaps. Now, it is very rare for any president of the United States, of course, to use the term 1967 borders. However, he did say and clarified it in the AIPAC speech that just as they had a plan in the table late in the Clinton administration, you essentially go back to 1967, but then you negotiate land swaps. Israel says --

BACHMANN: John, you can defend, you can stand here and defend the president's remarks. I will not defend the president's remarks.

KING: I'm not defending. I'm not explaining*.

So now apparently pointing out what a Democratic politician actually said on the record instead of just letting your right-wing guest straight-up lie about it is "defending" his or her remarks, and if you dare question that, you are not to be trusted.(CNN transcript via RealClearPolitics, but I'm pretty sure King said "I'm not defending, I'm explaining". Could be wrong on that though)

Meanwhile, Republicans are still getting the vapors over the fact that Democrats, the "liberal media", and basically pretty much everyone else in the country are interpreting Paul Ryan's budget plan as a plan that does away with Medicare completely in order to give the wealthy more tax breaks, which is totally unfair because all his plan really does is do away with Medicare completely in order to give the wealthy tax breaks, and hey, he's calling those vouchers that won't come close to covering the health care costs for the elderly "Medicare", so obviously, this is a partisan attack. Stop being so mean, liberals.

So now apparently pointing out what an unpopular Republican-proposed policy actually does instead of just letting right-wingers just piss on your leg and call it rain is the worst partisan attack ever.

And of course the cruelest people of all are gay people that go around being all gay and shit, instead of being properly shamed into never showing their faces anywhere but gay clubs (which should be underground and unnoticed, thankyouverymuch).

So now apparently choosing to exist despite strict authoritan rules that Republicans have so nicely laid out for society in order to protect the feelings of bigots is the worst partisan attack ever.

And then there's Caribou Barbie, who still has a major bug up her ass about how the media was so mean to ask her questions and all, enough so that she has to plan a secret bus tour as a big "FUCK YOU" to the press because this one time? Katie Couric asked her what newspapers she reads?

So now apparently asking softball questions that your conservative demigod is too stupid to answer is the worst partisan attack ever.

For a group of folks who are constantly screaming about "PC Culture" and "censorship" because they can't use racial slurs anymore, they sure get some major butthurt over some silly (perceived) slights, don't they?

Too bad for us the media is completely willing to run with it. "A Republican was outraged over some clouds in the sky! More at 11".

Day After the Day After Saturday Links

2011-05-28T20:39:00.010-05:00

Oh hey, it's raining again. Here's some links.

This is cheesy as hell, but I love it. All my boyfriends in Grand Rapids, MI respond to Newsweek's allegation that they are a "dying city" by putting together a 5,000 person strong LipDub.

Twitter now allows you to view people's feeds in real time. You could always see who they were following, but it's just more interesting, from a voyeuristic point of view, to look at say, my boyfriend Keith Ellison's Twitter feed.

Via my boyfriend Mark over at Norweiganity, whites apparently think they are the most oppressed people in society these days because of the belief in the zero-sum pie. Which is racist in of itself, if you honestly believe there is a zero-sum goal, and you just deserve more of it because... you're white, well, that makes you kind of a dick, doesn't it? I've seen this argument too many times to count, and it always reminds me of my boyfriend Louis CK's bit:

On his 100th birthday, my boyfriend Rick Perlstein remembers "America's Forgotten Liberal", my deceased boyfriend Hubert Humphrey:

Humphrey could have been excused for quietly backing down. Instead, the man who had earned the nickname the Happy Warrior gave one of the greatest speeches in American political history.

“To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights,” he thundered from the convention podium, “I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

The motion carried. The Southerners walked out and ran Strom Thurmond for president. When Harry S. Truman won nonetheless, Democrats were on their way to becoming the party of civil rights. Hubert Humphrey catalyzed that change.

Some awesome Tumblr blogs put together by my boyfriends that might make you lose a bit of faith in humanity: Facebook reactions of people that take The Onion seriously and unhelpful customer tweets.

This is not a pleasant story to read. But you should read it, because it perfectly illustrates what the anti-choice crusade is leading to. (via)

This is not a pleasant video to watch. But you should watch it, because it perfectly illustrates what the war on (some classes of people that use) drugs is leading to.

In case you did the sensible thing and got the hell out of town for the holiday and didn't obsessively read political blogs like some sort of dorky political misanthrope and therefore don't get the boyfriend joke, here it is. But it should probably be noted that although making fun of the half-assed logic of idiot right-wingers is hilarious, the fact that my failed anger management candidate and raging alcoholic boyfriend Andy Breitbart's minions are yet again harassing some random citizen that just so happens to yet again be a black woman isn't very funny at all.

Oh, and in case you missed it, my girlfriend Michele Bachmann is still very, very stupid. Stupid enough that kids are actually schooling her at this point.

Far below, the city burns...

2011-05-18T18:49:00.006-05:00

Ha ha, I get to go see The Twilight Singers tonight and you don't.

This actually causes me quite the dilemma, as I have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed early tomorrow morning to put the finishing touches on the garage sale from hell I'm having this weekend. This will not dovetail well with seeing one of my ultimate favorite musicians the night before, as it is important for me to consume mass quantities of beer while doing so. But it's Greg fucking Dulli, people:

And if the missing-in-action Rick McCollum shows up, past experience leads me to believe I will get a mini Afghan Whigs reunion, and will more then likely get to hear this:

And in that case, I'm totally screwed, because the awesome will kill me.

The Twilight Singers
Dynamite Steps

The Twilight Singers
Blackberry Belle

The Afghan Whigs
Black Love

Too nice to be sitting at a computer....

2011-05-17T19:05:00.003-05:00

So I'm going to ignore this asshole and this asshole and this asshole and this asshole and these assholes and these assholes for now and let you know that The Twitter is informing me that the Surly Bill has made it's way out of the conference committee.

Peace.

Too little, too late

2011-05-07T19:29:00.007-05:00

There's a new trend around the right-wing internets that's kind of amusing me. Via Outside the Beltway:

It’s aggravating that Birtherism managed to get even the amount of traction that it did. But it’s a relief that, once the hard proof was out there, only the truly wacky fringe are holding onto it. As Prof. Jacobson put it, “what is clear is that the evidence mattered, much more so than skin color.” It shouldn’t have ever required this extra level of proof, but once it was available, Birtherism was done for.

So, henceforth, anyone who insists upon holding onto their conviction that opposition to Obama is purely motivated by his race will find themselves joining Birthers as personae non grata. At this point it’s at least as irrational.

Yes, you read that right. Anyone that suggests that racism has anything at all to do with the batshit crazy opposition against Obama is now on par with people that think there was some Islamic/African plot formed almost 50 years ago to forge a birth certificate so that an "outsider" could destroy America from within. Apparently the right now wants a cookie because those amazing numbers from a few weeks ago showing how many of them are birthers dropped once Obama released his birth certificate:

Chart courtesy Washington Post/ABC News

Never mind that he actually did that years ago.

Dodd links to Ben Smith over at Politico, who also pushes the idea yeah, that birther stuff was like, totally crazy yo, but there's crazy to be found everywhere, like in "leftist" 9/11 truther theories, so this whole birther thing had nothing to do with racism.

A couple of thoughts.

First, like I've said a thousand fucking times, the problem isn't that crazy people exist. The problem is that the Republicans have a pattern of mainstreaming their crazy for political gain to the detriment of the entire country. Not only do I not recall any Democratic candidates over the past ten years expressing doubt over President Bush's complicity in the 9/11 attacks, I don't recall the mainstream media ever asking them about it at all, because it's a fucking fringe conspiracy theory.

Second, I don't know how the question was phrased in the truther poll; the idea that we shot our own missiles at the WTC is pretty much grabbed out of the records of nothing or someone's ass. But as far as the "Bush knew" theory? That actually has a bit more credibility, because do we know that:

There was already a conspiracy theory centered around letting an attack on the United States happen in order to justify our involvement in a war that served as a primer for conspiracy theories regarding the former president.

The focus of attention after 9/11 turned abnormally quick towards warring with Iraq, a county which had nothing to do with the attacks on the US.

We know that 9/11 was indeed used to justify a separate goal of removing Saddam from power.

Remember that whole "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" memo? Yeah.

Now let's look at the rational behind the "Obama is not an American citizen" theory.

His father was from Kenya

Obama grew up in Hawaii.

Obama is black, Africans are black

Obama's middle name is Hussein

And there's that.

Third, that blatant, in-your-face facts have changed minds says nothing about why this became an issue in the first place. Look, it's wonderful that after cowing the president into doing something no other leader of this nation was forced to do, the Republicans are changing their tune. Perhaps now that this is out of the way, we can go back to discussing the real things that are destroying our empire, like women or gay men fucking. But the fact that the Republicans, after being made to look like fools, are now dismissing birtherism (after Donald Trump has pretty much successfully framed his current gifting scheme around it) says little about the origins of the conspiracy theory in the first place, or why it took off like a wildfire when it should of been laughed out of the room a long time ago.

You don't get to say now, after you've been made fools of, that this change of heart somehow proves the Republican party is in a sane place, or that this whole moronic debacle would have totally happened if the elected president was the typical, old southern boy white guy. Clinton always had the conspiracy theorists after him as well, but there's really nothing that compares to this level of stupid. Besides, all that's really happened is the screech box has been cleared for newer, more exciting, "deather" theories, because there's apparently something suspicious about the President of the United States hunting down America's Public Enemy #1.

I realize that this whole birther issue is now a complete embarrassment, and it only reinforces the assumed racism within the Republican party, and that it looks terrible for them. But after all the identity politicking they've pulled, what did they really expect? That the same people that they've been deliberately priming with racist dog whistles would take a rumor that the president isn't "one of us" and magically reject it once it got to the point of the absurd? Of course not. This is the beast they created. Everything since Nixon's Southern Strategy to Reagan's "State's Rights" speech to Jessie Helm's "Hands" ad has been leading up to this spectacular moment in xenophobic stupidity. Republicans wanted the Dixiecrats, they courted the Dixiecrats, and now those Dixiecrats are Dixiecons, through and through. You own them, Republicans. Enjoy.

So sure, I'm glad you finally joined the rest of reality when it comes to Obama's nationality. But it was your framework that allowed this nonsense to flourish in the first place. So sadly, there is no cookie for you today, right-wingers. Just more examples of why you'll be impotent and obsolete in another 10-20 years.

It's shit like this that makes me really wish Karma existed.

2011-05-06T20:38:00.006-05:00

Oh fuck you, Texas:

The Supreme Court this week refused to hear the case of a teenage girl who was kicked off her cheerleading team after refusing to cheer for the boy who sexually assaulted her.

As a result, she now owes the school $45,000 in legal fees.

This really only happens if the lawsuit is deemed frivolous. And what possibly could be more frivolous then a lawsuit regarding a cheerleader that foolishly thought she had a right to free speech, who was kicked off her squad for the high crime of refusing to cheer for the man that (admittedly!) attacked her, even though she was willing to cheer for the team as a whole?

But let's not lose sight of what's actually important here. Obviously, her refusing to cheer for the man that raped her might hurt his feelings, be a total downer to sports-lovers everywhere, or possibly bring the morale of the team as a whole down for pointing out the small crime of allowing an admitted(!) sexual offender to keep playing as if nothing ever happened (I mean, it wasn't like he did something serious like smoke a joint or anything that would actually be deserving of suspension from sports). But it's fine, folks, we showed that bitch (and any other potential troublemakers that might find themselves in a similar situation) her place, because we wouldn't want something like youthful indiscretion or his god-given rites of passage to ruin this poor young boy's life, now would we? He's one of our star players!

So now that this silly little case is settled, let's keep rolling our eyes and talking about how feminists are all hysterical and shit when they talk about the rape culture that's completely condoned and embedded in America.

Via

This is why David Weigel is my favorite person on Twitter

2011-05-01T21:40:00.008-05:00

Well, one of them, anyway.

Don't worry, folks, even though the White House is taking it's sweet-ass time and driving the anchors on Fox9 insane, there aren't any zombies.

Well, unless it's zombie Osama Bin Laden. Man, that would suck.

Damn you and your awesomeness, Rick Perlstein.

2011-04-28T21:34:00.002-05:00

So I've been puttering around with a blog post this week regarding the alternate reality that the Republicans seem to live in these days. Felt this one was important, did a shit-ton of research on it, was preparing to publish it to all five of my readers this weekend. Even thought about throwing it up on Newsvine, just for funsies (and because lately, I just feel like a fight).

Basically my main point was regarding the failure of our current news outlets to keep the public informed on relevant issues, which I chalk up to this bizarre obsession with being "objective", which inevitably leads to a failure to report facts, as they increasingly have a liberal bias and the potential to hurt feelings. Ever since Richard Nixon decided that the media was (a) liberal and (b) elitist, there's been a strong pattern of media-folks choosing to run from the truth if it benefits a liberal mindset. And from this we get this idea that "both" sides need to be presented, even it one side is working off of nothing but fumes.

It is under this sort of media climate that moronic conspiracies are allowed to flourish, every crank has some sort of legitimacy now, in the name of fairness, and America has become stupider for it (and sweet flying spaghetti monster, given the signs we already have, is this summer of stupid going to be painful to watch or what?). Although people may argue otherwise, partisanship in of itself isn't the problem (partisan publications have always thrived here in America, and I'd argue the phenomenon was worse in the past). No, the problem began when we decided that partisanship and "bias" was polluting our media, and that an effort must be made to counteract it. Not that it isn't a noble goal - just that, and this is an echo here; the ideal of it cannot possibly exist (even choosing what stories to run with will show bias). We cannot possibly hope to fully eradicate this from our reporting, so why not be honest about it?

But instead, we have partisanship masking itself as objectivity, facts are not facts anymore, we exist in a realm where the only thing that matters is how convincing the opinion you present is. And all opinions, no matter what, need to be given the same gravitas. Which is why we now have "debates" on global warming pitting a climate scientist against the local leader of the Tea Party with little to no fact-checking involved - we "report", you decide.

People, it was going to be awesome. And seriously, the thing was pretty much a novel at this point (I was in the final stages of narrowing the typical rambling down). But guess what? Rick Perlstein, whose works I relied on heavily for my research, decided to beat me to it. So DAMN YOU RICK PERLSTEIN GET OUT OF MY HEAD

I kid, I kid. He's a hell of a lot smarter and well-researched in this area then I could ever hope to be. So seriously, go. Read. Like all things Perlstein, it's a little long, but well worth it.

I would have liked a bit more discussion on how the internet plays into the phenomenon today (these days any crank can raise an army of followers, and the way the media plays it now, the amount of truth in a statement is based in the amount of people that believe it). But Perlstein has always had a gift for looking at the past for answers, this insane idea that history is relevant in how we understand our society today, and he lays out a strong case for how things got to be as bad as they are.

Everything in our current political discourse traces back to Nixon. Did you know that?

Think you got away with something boy well, see his hand and feel his staff

2011-04-24T09:45:00.008-05:00

In honor of Zombie Jesus Day, I give you the most bad-ass Christians ever.

I think I can say with confidence that is was this band that made me realize that the genre of "country" doesn't actually have to suck.

And also - not that it matters to me (because it's just the music that matters, man!), but there actually is good "Christian" music to be found, so long as you aren't looking under the cheap marketing label of "Christian Music".

16 Horsepower
Secret South

I guess the only logical conclusion is that I'm a dude

2011-04-22T18:08:00.013-05:00

Doop-de-doo, surfin' the internets. Wonder what magical things I'll find on the inter...OH MY GOD WHAT SORT OF PAGE-VIEW WHORING FUCKERY IS THIS

I'd rather my man paid for sex than had an affair... a deeply provocative but thought-provoking confession

Thank god she tells us that it's gonna be deeply provocative but thought-provoking right off the bat. I mean, at first, I was like, dude, this doesn't seem very provocative or provoking at all (good lord, does the daily mail not have editors?) but then I scrolled back up, and I was all, Oh! My bad, it's totally provocative and provoking. Know how I know? Says so in the title.

I’m not here to debate whether or not the rich and famous should be able to keep some vestiges of their lives private. But I am here to say something quite controversial.

Yeah, I got that from the disclaimer in your title. Let's just get to it, lady. I don't have all day. What scandalous, internets-shaking revelation do you have for us? I'm quaking with anticipation.

I believe that sex with a prostitute doesn’t really, in the greater scheme of things, matter one jot.

Oh. Well... I mean, oh.

Yes, of course it’s seedy, it’s exploitative, demeaning and risky healthwise, but as far as damage to a relationship goes, I believe an affair is so much worse than your husband sleeping with a prostitute.

Because really, what's worse then finding out that not only does your husband see women as disposable cum-dumpsters to be purchased for his sexual enjoyment, but you also have herpes because he straight up lied about that whole "we don't need protection if we're monogamous, baby!"?

I'll tell you. It's that he might actually see women as people he could form an actual relationship with.

An affair means he loves someone else more than he loves you. An affair means a man is intimate with another woman — and by this I don’t mean sex. They read together in bed, they share poetry, they giggle and they talk. They share memories.

I mean, it's not the sex, or the deceit, it's that he might actually like and respect the person he's fucking. THE HORROR

I am now going to write something that will enrage feminists the world over, and provoke an outraged backlash in the columns of online feminist website Jezebel

Ha ha feminists, she's totally tied your hands here. It's kind of like when I was talking to my buddy the other day, and I told him that I was about to punch him in the face and it would totally piss him off, and so I punched him in the face, and he was like, totally pissed off, but I was all "Ha! You have fallen into my trap. I already said you'd get pissed off if I punched you in the face, and you did. Therefore, your point about how shitty it was for me to hit you is irrelevant".

It's the best logic ever.

(which already has an entire section that monitors me, entitled Keeping Up With Jones).

So I figured, shit, I need some page views. Why don't I post a bunch of nonsense since I know I'm guaranteed to be linked to by Jezebel? Dolla dolla bills y'all.

What I have to say makes a mockery of all those glossy magazine features telling us how to ‘get that multiple orgasm’.

I'd say most people over the age of say, 15 are in agreement that those magazines already make a pretty good mockery of themselves, but okay.

I don’t believe women are like characters in Sex And The City.

Yeah! Take that, feminists! In your face! In your face!

We don’t shout and writhe and pursue sex as heartily and relentlessly as men do. It does not occupy our every waking moment.

She may have a point here. I honestly don't know any women whose mad writhing skills gets them laid on a regular basis.

The truth is: we don’t really enjoy sex that much.

Wait, what?

And we definitely don’t want sex as often as men do. That is a cold, hard fact.

I see what you did there.

And women most definitely, incontrovertibly, do not want sex once they have children

Which is why everyone only has one kid.

or so my friends who have children confess to me.

My friends agree with me. QED, motherfuckers.

Particularly once their stomachs develop a texture akin to cold porridge.

So in other words, women's body issues, which could be argued are brought about by statements on Daily Mail articles (and, you know, pretty much the whole of entertainment media) about how hideous they are after they give birth, may just interfere with their sex drive because they are too self-conscious about what a hideous cow they apparently are to be comfortable enough in their own skin to just enjoy the experience. Perhaps if we didn't promote such strict beauty standards for women, this would help with the problem.

Naw, how silly. Let's just assume that all women just don't like sex, instead.

The only reason we do have sex is to get a man, keep a man, steal his sperm and flatter ourselves that we are attractive.

Holy shit.

Once we have a man, his children, his name on a piece of paper, his youth and his house, we no longer want to indulge in that ridiculous, time-consuming, horizontal dance.

Also, the only reason there's a successful market for vibrators is because women often mistake them for bowling trophies and/or dog toys.

the millions of dishonest features in magazines like Cosmopolitan, have misled us.

Oh. My. God. Are you telling me, actually telling me, that it's not all about the taint? My life has been a lie.

We are not equal to men when it comes to libido. We grow up.

Unlike men, who apparently stay as idiot children.

I really can't understand why this woman's marriage fell through.

We have other priorities.

Like trolling Jezebel.

Sex slips onto a backburner, sliding to the bottom of an almost endless list of things to do that day.

Which might indicate that lower sex drives among women may be due to social conditions such as the lack of shared labor in things like child-rearing or homemaking which can tire a person out after also working a 40 hour week, as opposed to something innate in the female gender that dislikes sexual activity. But you know, let's not even consider that. It's not like there's a shit ton or research out there showing that yes, that's exactly the problem or anything.

It would be easy to write here that what women want, and enjoy, is the relationship — the love, companionship and closeness.

But I choose instead to take the more difficult road, like re-hashing tired themes about how women are frigid and men are animals, which just so happen to be common entertainment-fodder in sitcoms and link-baiting "articles".

Most of my friends find the men in their lives a mere annoyance to be hovered over, bossed, and moved around as we Hoover under their giant feet.

Well, I'm glad we are using them as a representative sample to prove the theory that women don't like sex, then.

When I used to creep upstairs to surprise my then-husband in his office, just so I could catch him watching porn and tell him off

Yeah. Really can't figure out what went wrong in this relationship here. I'm almost starting to feel bad for the guy.

he explained his compulsion thus: ‘Sex to men is like going to the lavatory. We have to do it.’

Okay, maybe not.

Well, charming. And not very romantic. But true.

Well then. I didn't realize that was so convincing, but if it is I'm totally using that logic when I inevitably get interventioned. "Drinking whiskey to me is like going to the lavatory. I have to do it. BECAUSE OF THE BIOLOGY."

I’d got married thinking this was it. It was going to be perfect: it was real love.

Real love = I slept with you before we got married in order to dupe you into marrying me. Now move your goddamned giant feet so I can Hoover around them, my darling yet incredibly infantile and stupid husband. Then read some poetry with me so I know you don't think I'm a hooker.

I would never dream of cheating on a man, not even with an indiscreet text message, a thought or a daydream.

Really? Yeah, got to call bullshit on that one. If thoughts and daydreams are cheating, I'm the whore of Babylon. Just sayin'.

I considered men who did so to be disgusting, weak, disloyal, dirty and disease- ridden. The truth is, they are just being men.

And I'm sure your outright hatred of men has nothing to do with your lack of desire to fuck them.

My husband admitted openly — in fact, wrote about it in his novel — that he had slept with a prostitute before we met. I found his candour refreshing, and I have to say that I found his high sex drive a turn-on, at first. Later, after a 12-hour day in the office, I found it annoying; yet another chore to be ticked off along with emptying the dishwasher.

Jesus woman. The correct answer is staring at you right. in. the. face.

He wrote to her in the exact same way he used to write to me, with lots of lower case kisses. Going through his wallet (I became crazy once I suspected he was fond of this one), I came across her passport photo. He stuck up for her, when he should have been sticking up for me.

And I was all, god damn you, I totally used to sleep with you, so now I own you for purposes of stealing your sperm and making me feel pretty. How dare you act like you still have some sort of free will that can reject the fulfillment I bring to your life?

I became obsessed with her. I went to her place of work in Manhattan, wanting to confront her (luckily, she was on holiday).

I would have confronted him, since he was the one that was, you know, lying and cheating on me, but hey - idiot child, remember? Poor thing can't help himself. And obviously, since women don't like sex all that much, this woman's goal was only to fuck me over. She must be destroyed.

I followed her on Facebook.

Facebook! For all your stalking needs.

I have a friend who works in book publishing. After the birth of her first child, the depression she had suffered on and off, since a teenager, returned with a vengeance. She kept on top of work, but she failed to keep on top of her husband — a nerdy chap who is a teacher in a tough, inner-city school.

I realize that their careers are not at all relevant to my point, but I had a word quota I needed to reach.

I decided to do some more research into the subject of men who stray. I asked seven of my girlfriends all of whom are either married or living with a man, when was the last time they had had sex.

Wow, seven of them this time?

*headdesk*

One , a mum-of-four in her mid-40s, said she hadn’t had sex since her last child, who is now three, was born. She told me, laughing, that her husband had asked if they could go on a tantric sex weekend, and she had responded with a tart ‘**** off’.

I'd probably respond the same way. But that's more because of the "tantric" then the "sex" part that would do it. Because we can't all be Sting.

Another said she couldn’t remember when she had last done it with her husband.

Stop drinking?

Another said that she and her boyfriend had stopped having sex years ago, and it was only when, in tears, he threatened to leave her, that they broached the subject. He told her he felt ‘like we are best friends, or brother and sister, rather than lovers’.

Who... who does this? I'm not going to say I've never been in a rut, everyone has, but years? And you didn't talk about it at all? For years?

She told him she felt too overweight and unattractive to do it, and found, to her surprise, that he didn’t really care how she looked: he wanted, needed, to do it anyway. Once again, here was a woman who had bought into the fiction that we have to look perfect to be attractive to a man in bed.

Gosh, maybe that has something to do with the lack of sex rather then some mysterious gender-linked trait inherent in all women.

Each woman I spoke to said they put their children before their husband. Only one told me she tried to be as nice to her husband as she is to her female friends. So, what is a man to do?

Run far, far away from this woman and her friends.

Maybe, just maybe, they don’t want another relationship, to fall in love, because they don’t want to lose us, or their children, or their home.

Aw, poor things. Better to just stay together and cheat on your partner because dieing alone is scary.

(They probably don’t want another relationship where they are monitored within an inch of their lives, either.)

Gee, do you think that's why your own relationship... you know what? I can't do it anymore, guys, I just can't.

Yet I know women who don’t even want their men to fantasise, inside their own heads, about anyone other than them. It’s ridiculous.

But when I claim with a straight face that women like me don't fantasize because we are not "disgusting, weak, disloyal, dirty" beings like men, that's completely reasonable.

It’s a lie; our own perfect domestic fantasy that doesn’t exist except in books and movies.

And I'm just going to stop there, because the last few paragraphs are just about how she found out her dad watched a porn but her parent's marriage lasted 60 years anyhow because her mom was fine with it and she feels that was too forgiving even though she's pretty much spent the entire article making excuses as to why you should let your SO use alternative sexual outlets because men are uncontrollable animals and women should just get over that because they don't like sex anyway and to sum up, I really have no idea what point she's trying to make, perhaps it's "My marriage ended and I'm miserable here's some advice to sink your marriage too so I can pretend that this isn't somehow the fault of me or my ex but something that was out of my control plus I need more "friends" that are all bitter and hate men and sex for my "research" for my articles in the Daily Mail so I can write more "provocative" articles and troll Jezebel for page views".

I'd actually feel kind of bad for her if she wasn't trying to push her own relationship problems on the entire female gender instead of accepting who she is as an individual. What's odd is that she actually does stumble on some good points when it comes to why relationships fail - a lack of an equal division of labor, body issues, a naive notion of what love and attraction actually is, and ironically enough, the damage done by the idea that you can wholly possess a person, to the point where you police even their inner thoughts and desires.

And I have to wonder if that's not what's really freaking her out when it comes to the prostitute/willing affair aspect of this. If sex is nothing more then a commodity, to be purchased with money or the promise of marital commitment, then it is subject to control. But no matter what you do, not matter what factors you control for, you can never force someone to love you the most. Buying your partner some prostitutes isn't going to change that.

Your yearly reminder: Easter and Bunnies do not mix

2011-04-21T19:51:00.002-05:00

As most of us know, Easter is this weekend. A time of Easter egg hunts, ham, little chocolate smeared little white dresses, awkward family dinners with your devoutly Christian in-laws, and a growing stockpile of those Jellybeans that no one likes. But there is a darker side of this celebration, one that is rarely mentioned in the mix of all the merry-making and doesn't manifest itself until quite a few months after that joyous day. I am referring to the tradition of the thousands of bunnies that will be purchased for this day and then forgotten soon after.

Sure, they are quite the gift on an Easter morning. The squeals of the kids while surrounding a tiny little fluffball of fur with only two large ears and two beady eyes sticking out makes it a memorable day. And baby bunnies can't help but make great photo ops with your young ones while wearing their Easter best. But what happens after Easter? When the novelty wears off, and the kids are more interested in the latest game for their Wii than with their Easter present? What happens when the care becomes a hassle, or when the fluffy coat of youth fades and that tiny ball of fluff and cuteness is suddenly a five pound gnawing machine that refuses to sleep through the night, and feels that you have no right to sleep either? Will your bunny then meet the fate that so many other Easter bunnies have met before? Will he end up sitting in rabbit hutch in the garage, or in a shelter or rescue home, unloved, bored and forgotten by his former family? Will you set him "free", not realizing that a domesticated rabbit doesn't stand a chance against the elements?

Many people purchase rabbits without realizing the responsibility that comes with them. Being that rabbits are usually seen as hutch animals, we tend to feel their responsibility is equal to that of purchasing pets from the rodent family. However, while many rodents can be perfectly happy never leaving the confines of their cages or interacting with people and other pets, a rabbit never will be. Rabbits are intelligent and inquisitive animals that require physical activity to stretch their legs as often as possible. To keep them in a hutch for the majority of the day, let alone their life is close to animal abuse. Not only is a dull and joyless existence, it can create health problems for the rabbits as well. A rabbit hutch should be utilized much in the same manner as a dog kennel would be, the more time spent outside of it and interacting with a larger environment, the better it is for bunny.

Rabbits are not the type of animal where you can just fill up a food dish every couple of days and forget about it. The digestive system of rabbits is very delicate, and a healthy diet is necessary. This means fresh fruit and veggies along with the normal rabbit pellets and what is probably the most important staple of the bunny diet – hay. Hay needs to be provided at all times for rabbits to munch on throughout the day, otherwise their digestive systems will break down. This means hay in the cage, hay in the litter box, hay scattered about the play area, lots and lots of hay. Seriously, you've never seen so much hay.

Having second thoughts yet? Sounding like a bit more work then you expected? Well, that's only part of it. So before you daydream about how cute little Sally or Billy will be while holding that baby bunny on Easter morning, consider what you are actually getting into. From my own experience, I can tell you that:

Your house will never be clean again. Yes, you can train rabbits to use a litter box, but rabbits also use droppings to mark territory, and you will be greeted to a stray pile of rabbit pellets on a daily basis. Hay will be everywhere, because rabbits have a knack for interior design and love to throw hay around almost as much as they enjoy nibbling on it.

An unprepared owner can kiss their baseboards, windowsills, and another woodwork they have in thier home goodbye. It only takes a second to rip a nice chunk of wood out from the wall in an area that has not been "bunny-proofed". Not to say that this is a good reason to never let your bunny out of it's cage, it's really not the fault of the rabbit if you designate it's home to be right next to Grandma's old china hutch.

Your friends will not borrow you books. Staring at a bookcase contained with books with corners gnawed off, missing pages and covers, and shredded paper tucked in the corners sends up a red flag for any book lover, and if you think for a second they are going to put their first edition Great Gatsby in jeopardy, think again.

Carpet? Not anymore! Not only do rabbits love to dig up carpet, they eat it as well, which has a nasty habit of making them very ill, to the point where it can kill them. And while you're at it, take care to cover all those electrical cords with tubing, otherwise you'll have nothing to watch in your living room but an electrocuted bunny. And I doubt he's going to do much.

Now, don't get me wrong, although a good buddy of mine calls them "the most evil animal ever to exist on this earth", rabbits are actually awesome animals that can make great companions. I never regretted owning mine and would like to own one again someday. You'd be amazed at how quickly these guys just hop into your life and your heart. If you have the time, space, and love for a rabbit they will never stop making you laugh with their antics, from playing "I stole your underwear, catch me!" in front of guests, to dancing like no one is watching by jumping five feet up in the air and flailing every available limb, to lovingly grooming you while you read the newspaper (after deciding that the editorials are much better eaten than read). Every rabbit is different, some love to play constantly, some love to cuddle and get pets, some love to attack my dad's feet, and some like to make sweet, sweet love to the cat. They all have their own unique quirks. If you are up to the task, you will not be disappointed, and will probably be surprised by the bond you can have with these often-underestimated animals.

But it is important to stress around Easter time that rabbits are not an easy pet, a hassle free pet, a cage bound pet, nor are they a great first pet that can be discarded in a few years. Think less "hamster" and more "puppy". Many people underestimate the lifespan of a rabbit, in reality; you are looking at a 10 year commitment. Rabbits also need more social interaction with their humans than most cage-bound rodents, they need love, attention, and lots of playtime with their human friends to keep them happy and healthy.

So if this scare tactic has worked, and you are now wondering if this might not be the right time for a bunny in your life, then make the compromise that works out the best for your family – bring home a chocolate bunny instead. These bunnies require much less work, no ten year commitment, and are still adorable next to your tot on Easter morning.

More: House Rabbit Society

MN Republicans hard at work to increase rate of overdoses, abortions for teens

2011-04-19T17:17:00.010-05:00

More anti-choice bills this week coming from the Minnesota State Legislature. That's 12 and counting, necessary because you know, jobs. None will pass, of course (I actually wonder if most of them would come up at all if the state didn't have a veto-ready democratic governor at their disposal). But you really have to question the sanity of people that support things like this:

A GOP proposal in Minnesota would require parental consent before minors could seek treatment for pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases or drug and alcohol abuse, undoing a 40-year-old law that lets minors see doctors without a parent's knowledge.

Such a change would set Minnesota apart from most other states, according to one group that tracks sexual and reproductive health issues. And opponents warn the measure could prevent some young people from seeking care because they're embarrassed or afraid to talk to their parents about their situation.

Naturally, they have an "exception" for cases of abuse so long as it gets the okay of a judge, because what you really want to do when you are a teenager being sexually abused by a family member on a regular basis is go through a bunch of legal bullshit so they can judge you to figure out if you are being honest or are just a lying whore. But perhaps I'm just being over-dramatic, I'm sure those kids will be just fine in the magical fairy land that Republicans inhabit where bad things only happen to bad people therefore real victims would never fall through the cracks and be fucked over by the legal system.

Even setting aside sexual abuse, this is just a bad idea, straight up. There are kids that will do anything to keep things from their parents. I remember once back when I was a young'un, and a couple of my girlfriends attended a concert downtown (I was not allowed to go). Long story short, they missed their ride home, and ended up stranded downtown. They were young, they were from the suburbs, and it was way, way past their bedtime at this point. They were essentially an assault/robbery/kidnapping report just waiting to be written. The first girl called her mom for a ride, who told her it was basically her problem. So no help there. She then begged the second girl to call her mother for a ride. The girl refused. Would not do it (apparently had told her mother she was sleeping over at a friends house, not at a concert downtown). Would rather spend the night wandering around or sleeping in a part of the city that neither was familiar with or felt safe in. There was nothing the first girl could do to convince her otherwise.*

And, although this seemed like a really big deal at the time, it is really nothing compared to issues like reproductive health or substance abuse. Point being, if your kid doesn't want to share these things with you, there is no power on earth that will make them. And the point they will go to to avoid that, to the point of putting themselves in danger, cannot be ignored. So when it comes to issues that can cause real danger to them, it's time to drop the PollyAnna act and deal with the reality, because I promise you, no matter how horrible it is to have your ideal world-view shattered, it is nothing compared to having real harm befall your child.

If your kid isn't telling you about the need for reproductive or mental health services, there is probably a reason why. And it probably has nothing to do with your kid, or evil liberals, or over-reaching government or any other boogeyman you can conjure up to absolve your own complicity in the manner. No, if your kid is too scared to come to you with these sorts of things, there is only one person to point the finger at, and that person is you.

Made the mistake of reading some of the comments on that pioneer press article, and it really only confirmed my suspicions. A lot of pseudo-righteous grandstanding from the usual suspects, talking about how parents have to "put the fear of god" in their kids and they will magically stop "having sex like rabbits" or that anyone that doesn't support these sorts of parental consent laws have "failed as a parent" and that maybe these "punishments" of disease or suicide will "scare" the kids straight. The sad irony is that the kids of the folks like this, the people that honestly feel like they own their kids as if they were fucking property (the rights of teenagers really are the last civil rights battle, aren't they? Yet no one touches it) and rule their families with a draconian fist, are the kids that will be hurt the most by laws like this. In short, people don't support these laws because they are bad parents and feel their kids might need to go under their parental radar. The concern is that *you* are a bad parent, and *your* kid will probably need to go under the parental radar, because you are an idiot that would disown or abuse your own kids because they've sufficiently failed at absorbing the "fear of god" in your rose-color-glasses-wearing eyes.

And your kids know it. And that is why these things are necessary, because we care little about you and your precious, unattainable ideals - we care about your kids, and who they can turn to when your sanctimony, and your cluelessness and your apparently eager desire to trade your kid's life away in order to preserve your precious, self-righteous posturing starts to have serious consequences in their lives.

I'm sure you don't see it that way. But that's the reality, folks.

*You know what they did? They ended up calling my mom. Who went and picked them up, because of course she went and picked them up. Because unlike some of these other fools, my mom is awesome, and has enough wisdom to know that sometimes kids fuck up, and sometimes they need outside help. Didn't stop her from basically calling them stupid on the ride home though.

Motherfucking Libertarians on a Motherfucking Train

2011-04-18T18:03:00.006-05:00

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." (via)

I honestly meant to have this up on Friday so that it would coincide with the release of the Atlas Shrugged movie and I could be all "Go me I'm so relevant and timely" but whenever I spend time and think about all things regarding libertarianism my eyes start to glaze over and I either start drinking or go take a nap, so there's that.

Anyway, the long awaited release of "Atlas Shugged: You've read the book, now let me bore the hell out of you by making you watch actors struggle with my incredibly bad dialogue that makes it appear I've never had an actual conversation with a fellow human being" was ~~today~~ Friday. Actually, just the first part of what is supposed to be a trilogy. Based on initial reviews, we may never see the completion of that trilogy, which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to "John Galt's speech, the musical!" in the upcoming years.

They probably would of been better off just remaking "The Fountainhead". Atlas was basically written because Ayn Rand honestly believed that everyone but her is a moron, and thus had to drag out The Fountainhead's message and repeat it over and over and over and over again. And over again. And shame on the director, because really guys, the first part of that book should be easy. It's just trains and fucking and thumbing noses at evil politicians, and really, who doesn't like trains and fucking and thumbing noses at evil politicians? But it sounds like they even managed to mess that up.

But I can't honestly say I'm too upset with the massive fail this movie is drowning itself in, because could you imagine if it was a hit? Since ACORN elected that socialist Kenyan dictator into office and the Tea Party Patriots bravely donned funny hats to save America, John Galt is all the rage. I honestly don't think I could take any more Very Serious discussions about how we have to bravely drop Grandma from Medicare in order to give the wealthy larger tax cuts in the name of patriotism anymore. For a lack of a better political philosophy to leech off of, Randians decided to latch itself onto the Libertarian Party, and "Fuck you, I got mine" is very popular these days, so libertarianism is in, folks, and once you add a dash of social conservatism (which, it should be pointed out, Rand would of despised) it's just plain sexy to all the Serious Pundits in our media.

Poor libertarians. To be fair, I owe libertarianism debt of gratitude. I find it a useful lens in which to observe policy, because at its best, it's devoid of any moral-based motives. I'm told often that socially, I am a libertarian (they like to recruit). But I feel that is really only because liberalism has violated its own social contract in that regard, it's funny how we can scream about government overreach unless we feel that we know (better then you, obviously) that this policy X will be "good" in some moral sense for everyone so just ignore this little intrusion into your personal decisions. It would be nice if liberals would pause and consider that morals are subjective, and that attempts to insert them into government policy can only lead to disaster in the end, even if the immediate results are pleasing to them (mention religion, and they seem to get that shit right away. Why wouldn't the same logic apply to trans-fats or the free speech rights of Fred Phelps as well?). Libertarians can be very convincing when talking about their ideology by just focusing on these things.

But then, there's the economic side. And this is where they get tricky. They will often pit the ideal form of libertarianism against the applied (and as such, flawed) form of other ideologies. Isn't the tax code confusing? Do you know how much potential for fraud social safety nets have? Do you really trust career politicians with your tax dollars? But they never really talk about the flaws of their own philosophy if applied (the running joke is that libertarianism is awesome, so long as you don't take into account people or the entire scope of history). They often cite and ridicule a naive and total trust in the government, which in fairness, is an apt critique. But they fail to miss the other half of that equation, that a naive and total trust in capitalism is just as easily ridiculed. If anything, the legacy of "the biggest asshole in the universe", former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, should show that libertarianism indeed has some major flaws. Even Greenspan himself appeared bewildered at the recent economic meltdown, admitting in a rare moment of honesty that he was perhaps wrong about that whole "profit-motivation is all the regulation we need" outlook:

The 82-year-old Mr. Greenspan said he made "a mistake" in his hands-off regulatory philosophy, which many now blame in part for sparking the global economic troubles. He quoted something he had written in March: "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity (myself especially) are in a state of shocked disbelief."

He conceded that he has "found a flaw" in his ideology and said he was "distressed by that." Yet Mr. Greenspan maintained that no regulator was smart enough to foresee the "once-in-a-century credit tsunami."

Naturally, he got over it, and is now back to work making sure our economic policies continue to lead to disaster, while the pundits block out that massive failure of judgment and fawn all over him.

The main problem I have with the economic model of libertarianism (Aside from it being naive, the idea we can fund the country on nothing more than a sales tax or "fair" tax is ludicrous) is that, unlike its social stance, it appears to have a pretty strong moral value undercurrent running through it. Mainly, that the value of a person is dependent on their wealth, in the sense of how much influence that person is able to have on society. This isn't explicitly stated for the most part. But in a philosophy that assumes that greed, and not regulation, will produce the best outcome for society cannot be based in anything but the assumption that those with wealth are the best citizens for determining the path of the country. The voice of the people does not exist, merely the use of their dollars. The more wealth you have, the larger influence you will be able to have.

As someone that is invested heavily in social and economic justice, is there really any confusion as to why I can't buy into this model? I can only assume that the logical outcome of this is not a democracy, but an aristocracy or oligarchy.

I should probably go into that at some point on here, but I'm done for now, promise.

(Title shamelessly stolen from here, and that shit better become a meme or I quit the internets.)

Real Americans don't have foreskins

2011-04-16T12:47:00.003-05:00

This is just bizarre:

Apparently, requiring presidential candidates to provide a long-form birth certificate before allowing their names on the ballot in Arizona -- despite it already being a federal requirement to run for president -- was a bit too much for a few GOP lawmakers. So they made some amendments: if you can't find your birth certificate, and you have a penis, a document describing your lack of foreskin will suffice.

Oh, Arizona. Perhaps it's time to wall you off from the rest of the country.

Aside from the glaring fact that allowing circumcision records would, you know, favor men, it's also jarring that people of (some) faiths will have more options to get on the ballot as well (you can also provide your baptism certificate).

But silly me, being that this would only put up barriers to females and atheists/non-preferred people of faith being allowed on the ballot, I suppose it doesn't matter.

It actually seems to make the desired goal weaker. You already have to be a US citizen to run for President. The overkill on this, which led to things like circumcision records, baptismal records, census records, and the like to be included appears to have made it more open to fraud, which one would think would be concerning if that was what people were really worried about.

Ha! It's not. I'm just being silly again.

Magical Minnesota Pony-Fairy strikes again to provide public transit to Republicans

2011-04-07T17:37:00.005-05:00

Again, why I just can't take Republicans seriously anymore:

Something caught our eye below the headline yesterday that Tim Pawlenty's soon-to-be campaign staff had leased 5,000 square feet of office space in a swank downtown Minneapolis office building.

They liked the site because of the Hiawatha Line light rail link to Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport.

I used to joke quote a bit in the past about the magical Minnesota pony that farts up public services free of charge, because of the mentality of some folks that live here because Minnesota is (or was) such a nice place to live due to things like quality education and community programs and parks and such. So they move up here to take advantage of all these things, and then scream about all the taxes they pay, because apparently they are not able to form a connection between good public services and adequate taxation.

I can't really joke about it anymore, because it's become so irritating (and on a national level, as well). I realize that some folks are not the brightest and honestly believe that things like welfare or NPR suck up all the money while rail lines are somehow free. I realize that some folks cannot understand the idea of community unless that community stops whining about things they want and only pays for the services that personally benefit the folks (or just don't care unless it only benefits them). But politicians I can't really give a pass to, because they know better. They are merely using this to win elections, because at this point, that seems to be the only thing they have any interest in, country be damned. So they talk about the things that the public reacts favorably on - cutting taxes, and providing services. That these things are completely incompatible with each other is not a pressing concern, because it's about the marketing, not the reality. And yes, it sells. Damn well.

And I can't give a pass to the idiots that keep voting in "fiscal conservatives" time and time again, because no really, this time they are totally going to give you all the public services you rely on while cutting taxes and spending for other, mysteriously unnamed things, and if/when they don't, well then they weren't a real fiscal conservative anyway - but hey look at this guy, he is totally going to give you all the public services you rely on while cutting taxes and spending for other, mysteriously unnamed things, and I bet this time he's totally for real. Rinse and repeat.

The idea of Lucy and the football is often used to describe liberals that naively believe the promises of Democrats only to be suckered in the end (and we are. Constantly). But it appears conservatives have their own football as well, and that football is the fiscal responsibility myth.

It's just a damn shame that their football will end up taking down the damn country. We cannot keep up this farce of being able to spend without raising revenue to do so.

(via Norwegianity)

Please let me have my Surly Brewery of Awesome. Please?

2011-04-06T18:29:00.005-05:00

Surly is currently presenting it's case in front of the Senate Commerce Committee (right at this very moment) for the ability to serve beer at the restaurant in their proposed Brewery of Awesome . Representatives of Surly Brewing, LiftBridge Beer Company, Fulton Beer, Vine Park and Four Firkins Liquor have all showed up to challenge the law (the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association is opposed to any change in the law, natch).

If we lose this, we lose Surly (and the jobs they will provide) to Wisconsin (and create an unfavorable environment for future start-ups). Any politician that is serious about getting Minnesotans back to work will support this bill. Cross your fingers.

I'll like to do more thorough write-up on this later (if I did, it would replace this post). But in the meantime, if you are interested (and you should be), follow @ScottPampuch on Twitter, because he's live-tweeting the whole debacle.

Update: Yay! One hurdle cleared! The MLBA scaled back their opposition based on a few reasonable requirements. So long as they are sincere in this compromise I see no reason why this bill won't sail easily through Congress. I actually wonder if they folded on this one in order to come out stronger in regards to the bill currently going through congress that would allow liquor sales on Sundays. Two downers in such a short period of time would make the MLBA look overly-fussy, and the Surly Bill had such strong public support (not to mention, was proposed when the country is obsessed with job creation, something Surly has promised will happen) that they would look pretty bad if they fought this one tooth and nail. I have a feeling that they made the decision to put all their efforts against the Sunday sale bill instead, as they claim this would result in a loss of revenue for them (the same argument cannot really be made about allowing companies like Surly to serve their own beer at the Brewery of Awesome).

You don't know what the sound is, darling

2011-04-02T21:26:00.005-05:00

Too nice outside today to do any real blogging. So here's Gayngs, with an awesome cover song and a chance to test your hipster cred - how many of these underground local celebrities do you recognize? I see you, POS! I see you, Dessa! I see you, Scott Seekins! I see you, Maggie Morrison!

So essentially Gayngs is a collaboration mostly local (but also some west coast) musicians here in the Twin Cities (and some past folks as well, it was nice of them to let Har Mar Superstar play too) and their album is well worth checking out if you are into our music scene here.

I thought that it was a neat project.

Gayngs - Relayted

Pissed off about something stupid? Run for president! (Let's all run!)

2011-03-30T18:39:00.003-05:00

See, this is exactly why I can't take modern Republicans seriously:

Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who lost his job after erecting a monument of the Ten Commandments outside the state's courthouse, plans to announce in mid-April that he is setting up a presidential exploratory committee, an aide told CBS News.

The aide, Zachery Michael, said Moore's platform will be focused on repealing the health care overhaul law, replacing the progressive income tax with a flat tax and bringing "commonsense solutions" on immigration and border control.

Michael said Moore is entering the fray because "we're just seeing the same type of politicians run for president." He said Moore is someone "who can connect with over 300 million Americans across the country, which is something we've been lacking with today's leaders across society."

Michael said Moore should not be thought of simply as a culture warrior, arguing that he has been a strong advocate for limited government.

"He not only stood up for his faith, he stood up against the tyranny of government," he said.

So to recap: Judge that promotes his own personal religion in the people's house? Not tyranny of government. Upholding the separation of church and state to ensure one religion isn't seen as favored by the government over another? Tyranny of government.

But you know, don't think of him as a culture warrior or anything. When his religion isn't involved, he's totally for limited government. Like with taxes. Unless those taxes go to building monuments of the Ten Commandments outside your local courthouse. Then it's cool.

And no dude, surveying the confederacy of dunces that is going to turn the 2012 primaries into a reality TV show, you are the same type of politician. Exactly. The. Same. By the way - 2008 called. They want their "commonsense solutions" non-solution talking point back.

(via)

"You can bet your ass, I'm not going to be mean to Willie Nelson"

2011-03-29T16:12:00.001-05:00

Nice.

Email thugs

2011-03-26T20:55:00.005-05:00

Couple o' stories out of Wisconsin that I wish were getting a little more coverage nationally:

Indiana prosecutor encouraged the Wisconsin governor to use staged violence to discredit unions:

After praise for Walker, the email — sent Feb. 19, during union demonstrations against Walker’s budget repair bill — then took a darker turn. It suggested that the situation in Wisconsin presented “a good opportunity for what’s called a ‘false flag’ operation.”

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.

“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.”

(via)

After trying to deny the email was his, the prosecutor (prosecutor!) resigned.

It's pretty much conventional wisdom among political activists at this point that plants are often used to disrupt peaceful protests and discredit those participating in them, eyewitness reports of these plants are numerous in personal accounts (I even ran into one myself during the RNC protests in St Paul a few years back, think he was just an observer though). But as the public tends to see protesters as Dirty Fucking Hippies, these first-hand reports are often taken as unreliable; the narrative always leans hopefully to the idea that protesters are inciting violence. It's much more of an exciting story that way as it reinforces premeditated beliefs about the nature of political dissent. So to have it in writing that yes, this sort of tactic is at the very least, considered (actually in audio too, as the Governor himself admitted during his fake conversation with David Koch that "we thought about" Fake Koch's suggestion of "planting some troublemakers" in with the protesters) is kind of a big deal. I'd actually speculate that if it weren't for that call being spread all over the media (which was a major hit on Walker's own credibility), you might of seen more of this, the push to smear the union protesters as violent thugs was so desperate in some circles it became almost comical.

As Walker & friends have had some embarrassing email incidents, they seem inclined to share the love. Their target now is William Cronon, a History Professor at the University of Wisconsin that committed the high crime of blogging about the potential power-players behind the recent legislation in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Republican Party has requested access to all of Cronon's emails through his personal university email account, on the argument that as it's a state email, it's public record. They make no pretense of what they are after (they specifically request any emails that may contain keywords relating to unionization), they are not so much looking for incidences of misconduct (the correct usage of the FOIA) but instead looking for conversations that can be used to discredit the professor's own character. After praise for the FOIA and the acknowledgement that universities are fair game, Professor Cronon questions the motivations and criticizes what he sees as an act of intimidation from the Wisconsin Republican Party:

When should we be more cautious about applying such laws to universities?

Answer: When FOIA is used to harass individual faculty members for asking awkward questions, researching unpopular topics, making uncomfortable arguments, or pursuing lines of inquiry that powerful people would prefer to suppress. If that happens, FOIA and the Open Records Law can too easily become tools for silencing legitimate intellectual inquiries and voices of dissent—whether these emanate from the left or the right or (as in my case) the center. It is precisely this fear of intellectual inquiry being stifled by the abuse of state power that has long led scholars and scientists to cherish the phrase “academic freedom” as passionately as most Americans cherish such phrases as “free speech” and “the First Amendment.”

Might be time for Cronon to meet up with PZ Myers at the border and share some survival tactics, as right-wingers have been trying to get his ass fired from the University of Minnesota for years now because he has a nasty and hilarious habit of pointing out bullshit spewed by fundamentalists. Because remember kids, you aren't allowed to hold down a job and have political opinions unless, of course, you lean right.

(via)

The ongoing class war I'm not supposed to talk about because it's rude

2011-03-25T21:27:00.004-05:00

Okay, I'll mark this:

A catastrophic fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory 100 years ago today. By the time it was over, 146 people had died. Many lay dead on the sidewalks off Washington Square in the middle of New York's Greenwich Village, having thrown themselves out windows to escape the flames. Many of the terrified victims — mostly young garment workers, as young as 14, and nearly all Italian or Jewish immigrant women — were engulfed by the devastating flames, unable to escape through the stairways that had been padlocked by the factory owners, and trapped beyond the reach of the firefighters' ladders.

But you keep telling yourself that it would never get that way here. That we've progressed, and can't go backward. That the people that fought for these rights will magically, after their deaths, protect us. Or maybe because this is America, dammit, and we just don't treat people that way.

I burst your bubble. Yes. We do. And yes, we will, if it turns a profit. Because you should never underestimate the fact that they see you as shit.

The class war never ended. We were just shamed out of fighting it.

And then when you leave I'm wondering when would be too soon...

2011-03-25T20:32:00.003-05:00

Tried to get a new blog post up today but I'm feeling lazy. So how about some Dessa instead? Dessa's our latest Twin Cities gem. I really, really fucking love Dessa's latest album (and you should listen to it). I'm not sure if she's got nation-wide exposure yet.

Just understand, non-local peeps, that after all the hip-hop battles and teases, Minneapolis has been waiting for this album for years. And awesomely enough, it delivered in a major way.

Dig the Portishead feel of that song. This next one is amazing too:

Dessa - A Badly Broken Code

If you can't beat them, smear them

2011-03-22T18:35:00.003-05:00

Fresh off the major butthurt Fox News has upon discovering that when people actually want news and not some hot blonde chick or paranoid middle-aged dude screeching about unpatriotic non-Fox types, they tune into CNN instead, Fox has decided the best way to compete and boost their ratings is to do some more screaming about unpatriotic non-Fox types. Namely, CNN's foreign correspondents, and their annoying habit of actually trying to go out and report on a story instead of lounging around in their hotel rooms waiting for someone in the studio back home to tell them what to say.

Which is why Nic Roberston had to step up and lay the smack down:

I mean if they had actually been there - Steve Harrigan, the correspondent here, is somebody I've known for many years. I see him more times at breakfast than I see him out on trips with government officials here.

BURN!

And seriously, good on him. Even though I tend to go online for my news, ever since I lost cable CNN has been on more often when one feels like receiving the news in a more mindless and passive manner. Which, admittedly, can turn into a snark fest because it's still CNN (did you catch CNN's trenchant analysis the other day about reporters who report on things? They even cut to Sanjay Gupta to see how he feels about reporters reporting on things. It was riveting). But overall, I've been pretty impressed by CNN's coverage of the uprisings in the Middle East and the earthquake in Japan. It's not really a surprise, as one of CNN's strong points is that they have a large international network to work with, and employees that actually studied things like, you know, journalism, and it helps that their network stars will actually get on a plane once in a while to do some reporting on location.

So basically, these guys have been working their butts off the past few months, and then the laziest name in news decides to suck on some sour grapes and accuse them of being shields for Gaddafi because they are fully kicking their ass at this whole "news" thing. I think if anything, Robertson held himself back pretty well. Not that it will stop the screeching, however, because now it's the delicious "Never mind that I hit him first he hit me back and that's just meeeeeeeean" whining and that's pretty much Fox's bread and butter. And yes, Steve Harrigan did just respond to Nic Robertson's awesome and totally deserved burn by basically calling him a boring old pussy. Because Fox is too lazy to even figure out how to insult people in a meaningful way.

Fox News can gloat about their successful business model, because it has worked well for them. The majority of the time, people are going to go to them merely because they can fabricate a major-threat-to-the-way-of-life-as-old-white-people-know-it-so-be-overly-paranoid-and-watch-Fox-all-day story out of pretty much anything, like Michelle Obama looking at a fat kid all funny. But this type of model has a price; People aren't going to utilize Fox News for something like the earthquake in Japan for the same reason that they wouldn't utilize the Daily Show for it - because they have shown themselves useful at providing entertainment based on the news, but not so much useful at providing the news itself. All Fox ever really does these days is editorialize instead of report, so in a situation where there's really no editorializing to be done (except for, perhaps, how awesome nuclear power plants are), there just isn't a lot that Fox has to offer. They don't have reporters. They don't have journalists. All they have are pundits. And yes, eventually that's going to cause your credibility to take a hit.

Just a name on the map, sounds like heaven to me

2011-03-22T17:24:00.003-05:00

Anyone here for the politics should probably just skip this one, because it's really only for one person anyway.

I can't say that I'm proud of every choice I made fifteen years ago. High schoolers, as a rule, are quite stupid things, and if I could have a do-over in some situations, I'm sure I'd probably take it.

But there is one thing that I have no regrets about, and it was the realization that I could spend forever just walking with you down those train tracks in R-Dale and finding alligators in the clouds.

I have no profound insight on this, and I know if I did, you wouldn't want it on this blog anyway. I believe that we were, all in all, just straight-up lucky to have found each other, and even more so that we matured into adults that could still truly respect and enjoy our ongoing conversation throughout all the changes that come with life.

So happy non-anniversary-anniversary, baby. I love you and I thank you for every day of the past fifteen years, and am so very grateful that I have a lifetime to continue to laugh, love, and figure out this whole thing together with you.

And because you knew I had to:

Maybe if the teachers put out, we could save the economy!

2011-03-22T12:25:00.001-05:00

Even though we had to do a little union busting to "fix the budget" in Wisconsin, Republicans were able to scrape together enough money to give the girlfriend of one of the Senators a cushy little job. Gosh, one almost gets the impression that Republicans are completely full of it when they claim they are for "fiscal responsiblity" and instead might be using that talking point to push other types of agendas.

I wonder if she gets to keep it after they recall that Senator, because at this point, that dude's toast. National media has overall forgotten about Madison, but the local papers there are out for blood.

(Via)

Deep thoughts on bitches

2011-03-21T19:28:00.004-05:00

Wow, quality judge here. Maybe he was busy playing Angry Birds during "Logical Fallacies 101".

Seriously, if the first place your brain goes to is "Female with opinion I dislike" = "Bitch!", I think that really says a lot about your ability to argue from any sort of logical place (I'd assume that if he's a judge at this point that somewhere down the line, someone had to teach him argumentation). Because that's really the laziest intellectual response one could have. I don't even bother with people that call me a bitch at this point because it's so tired. Once you call me some easily accessible sexual slur, I know I've won, because you've obviously got nothing. How the hell did this guy get into law school?

Enjoy frying in your own misogyny, bitch.

But if we make France bomb everything first then we can pretend we didn't just enter into another war, right?

2011-03-21T15:41:00.001-05:00

Fear mongering, flowery freedom-y promises and Whiskey! Sexy! Democracy! rhetoric aside - At the very least, when Bush and Co. decided to stupidly leap headfirst into a war without thinking through the possible consequences, they still had the balls to admit that it was a damn war.

Downplay it all you want - you're not fooling anyone, you assholes.

As if the week couldn't get any crappier...

2011-03-18T22:21:00.002-05:00

Netflix will tease me by giving me season 1 of "The IT Crowd" on instant view (and season 4, for some strange reason). Yet, when I go to watch season 2? Nope. YOU WILL WAIT FOR SEASON 2

I've had a bad week, Netflix. Don't play me like this. Maybe it's a technical glitch. Did you try turning it off and on again?

This is the most pointless and self-centered post you will ever read on this blog. You're welcome.

She was pretty cool, too.

2011-03-15T17:06:00.004-05:00

You get Morphine this week because Chevy's been playing it in one of their ads and it's been stuck in my head as of late.

Still amused that the best music on TV these days usually comes from car commercials. Not that I blame Chevy for swiping this one, the horn/guitar riff on this song is painfully bad ass.

Morphine: Cure for Pain

Day After Saturday Links (Now with tractors!)

2011-03-13T13:04:00.005-05:00

Thanks, Duluth. You really did the state proud with this one.

Love this - Colbert on Pawlenty's AWESOMELY EPIC ads. (via Norwegianity)

Update on the neighbors: Police estimate the crowds in Madison yesterday were the largest yet, "85,000 to 100,000 people — along with 50 tractors and one donkey". (via Michael Moore)

(Photo by Jeff Miller for SEIU)

I keep hearing a strange argument against unions since shit got real in Wisconsin, it goes something like "We needed unions in the past, but they are irrelevant today". It seems to assume that there's no way to rollback the gains labor has made, because there's no way someone would seriously suggest we get rid of things like child labor laws, right? Wrong.

Gee, I really can't figure out why health care costs in America are so absurdly high. I wonder if there is something we could do about it.

Looking back, if I had to do it over again, I probably would of supported Clinton in 2008. Not that she would have been any better on issues like this, just that I went with Obama because I though he would be.

The monster Glenn Beck panders to is starting to turn on him (this is also why despite all the hype, Mitt Romney will never get enough votes to be a viable presidential candidate).

Sorry to bring it up, because I'm just as sick of her as everyone else, but the next time someone starts whining about liberal identity politics, throw this in their face.

This is pretty incredible: CNN reports that the earthquake in Japan moved the island over by eight feet.

Rare moment of clarity from our Galtian overlords.

Finally, in case you missed it, Michele Bachmann is still very, very stupid.

When reality and false compassion collide

2011-03-12T16:30:00.014-06:00

Sometime during the last decade or so anti-choicers decided they really had to change their rhetoric when it came to demonizing abortion. Just screaming about babies all the time brought up some uncomfortable counterpoints for them, like when it was pointed out that criminalizing the procedure would take women back to the age where many died due to unsafe abortions, and they never really had much of a response other than to insinuate that consequence was at best irrelevant, at worst, deserved. Being that most people just don't hate women enough to see them as disposable in this way, the anti-choice movement started to lose the public to images of coat hangers and accusations of hypocrisy over why "life" was so sacred when it came to the unborn, but not their carriers.

Trying to pretty up a political position that is so heavily based in misogyny isn't a simple task. Many still avoid the issue of the existence of women and instead soldier on and discuss the issue as if humans gestated in pumpkin patches. But a few others realized that in order to complete the picture of the compassionate "pro-lifer" and win the public back, they would have to at least try to fake some sort of concern for women when it came to that issue. So instead of arguing for a no-tolerance, draconian solution, they began to argue for paternalistic ones. The woman seeking abortion services was no longer a sinister and malevolent person, but rather a stupid and easily manipulable one that needed to be saved.

And that's how obstacles like waiting periods or mandatory ultrasounds set up for the sole reason of burdening an woman's time and resources became "safeguards" against alleged rash and ill-informed decisions to abort, how those that wished to police female sexuality and control the bodies of women became the real "feminists" standing up for their sisters, how a made-up disorder called "post-abortion syndrome" was touted as rampant even though it was discredited by the APA, and how the notion of needing to criminalize abortion in order to protect women from their fickle selves made it's way into the discussion on reproductive rights. While the idea of concern for women in this debate was unheard of years ago, it caught on in a big way, and today it's one of the main arguments being presented by the anti-choice movement.

Indeed, when a major piece of successful anti-choice legislation, the partial-birth abortion ban of 2003, was upheld by the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy used the "concern" for a woman's mental health in his majority opinion in favor of the ban:

Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child. The Act recognizes this reality as well. Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision. Casey, supra, at 852–853 (opinion of the Court). While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. See Brief for Sandra Cano et al. as Amici Curiae in No. 05–380, pp. 22–24. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.

Would you like to know what the end result of all this "compassion" for women is? I'm sure by now, you can guess where it's going to lead:

Nebraska’s new abortion law forced Danielle Deaver to live through ten excruciating days, waiting to give birth to a baby that she and her doctors knew would die minutes later, fighting for breath that would not come.

And that’s what happened. The one-pound, ten-ounce girl, Elizabeth, was born December 8th. Deaver and husband Robb watched, held and comforted the baby as it gasped for air, hoping she was not suffering. She died 15 minutes later.

So in case you are keeping track - we must prevent all late-term abortions because even though we "find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon", we will just assume that it would be emotionally devastating for the woman involved to give her wanted yet doomed child a release from suffering, so instead we will force her to carry and birth that child so the parents can watch it struggle for breath and eventually die in their arms, because this apparently won't seriously mess someone up as much as an abortion would.

I have no words for this type of cruelty.

(via C&L)

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, sure, whatever.

2011-03-12T13:05:00.004-06:00

As expected, the new videos out by O'Keefe and Co. turn out to be heavily edited. Good thing the liberals and the media have wised up to the fact that this guy is nothing but a smear artist and didn't do anything rash like jump to conclusions and make themselves look guilty by running around screaming "OH GOD SOMEONE FOUND OUT THAT LIBERALS WHO AREN'T ACTUALLY LIBERALS AT ALL MIGHT HAVE PERSONAL OPINIONS THAT HURT TEABAGGER FEELINGS" and firing everyone on the spot like they did with the whole Shirley Sherrod and ACORN stings...

Oh wait.

The worst part of it is that this story was broken by The Blaze. That's Glenn Beck's site, folks. Even Glenn Beck fans have caught on by now that these guys are a bunch of hacks. I now have to admit that I've linked to Glenn Beck's site from this blog for reasons other than outright mockery and scorn.

I'd like to rant against O'Keefe and his financial daddy and spew hatred at them, like I usually do, but you know what? I can't this time. They keep doing this because they are genius at selling it to a increasingly lazy and easily distracted media, so the shit works and becomes entrenched in our political narrative. You can't fault them for keeping it up. I mean, it's to the point that it's these stings are becoming parody, they've successfully convinced everyone that a woman giving a speech about the immorality of racism is a racist, a community organization that tried to help a woman escape from her pimp supports teaching people how to get around the law to be better sex traffickers, a health organization that called the FBI about suspected underage sex trafficking supports and encourages underage sex trafficking, and now a news organization that sent a Republican fundraiser to meet with a group that they didn't know was supposedly connected to radical Muslim extremists and rejected their donation anyway is a news organization that is biased towards Republicans and takes money from radical Muslim extremists. I'm almost in awe at this point.

As is the media, apparently, who eats it up time and time again and never really bothers with issuing corrections once it is made known the "stings" are fake. As long as they are being perpetrated by right-wingers, that is. When a Republican is made to look a fool without any sort of editing or pimp costumes, like we saw in Wisconsin, it's just a local story or blog fodder. At this point I'm not sure why they just don't sit James O'Keefe down in the CNN studios, let him say that "Union thugs sacrifice teachers to their nefarious god because they hate them, pinky swear, y'all" and then hold a discussion panel afterward with David Gergen and Erick Erickson to discuss the real story: "Unions: Sacrificing teachers to Allah or Satan?" At least that way we wouldn't be subjected to watching over-privileged douchebags run around in pimp costumes anymore.

But it's not just media's lack of basic journalism standards (like, you know, actually reviewing all the material before you report on it) that allows for these types of smear campaigns to be successful. It's also incredibly stupid way liberals cower and flee at the first line of attack, even though this pattern keeps repeating itself over and over again. And it is the over-reaction and preemptive bed-wetting that reinforce whatever lie these guys are currently spreading, because where there is smoke, there's fire, right? They never seem to understand that those that are targeting them will never be sated with short term gains, or the concessions of their targets. They are targeting you because they want to eliminate any credibility you still have, and until that's accomplished, they will never let up. Ever. So despite the outright dishonesty of a group of sleazy right-wing pranksters that take perverse joy in attacking the most desperate of targets, despite the reality that what serves as "news" these days is a complete joke, the real damage, the final blow, is coming from liberals themselves. So to hell with you, liberals. The truth is you deserve whatever comes to you at this point, because you keep playing right into the hands of those that only have the goal of destroying you and everything you stand for. And so long as you keep doing so, I have no sympathy for you. I only have it for those whose causes you claim to champion, who are the ones getting screwed over and over again by your frustrating lack of a spine.

Those police union votes were nice while they lasted, right?

2011-03-09T21:49:00.006-06:00

Wis. Republicans bypass absent Dems, strip collective bargaining rights from public workers

Congrats, GOP, you've just created a class war. Which you will probably lose. Why? Because I'm not sure if you've ever noticed, but pretty much every time you attempt to disenfranchise a group of Americans that commit the crime of not being you (the poor, women, gays, people of color, etc), you always lose. Sure, it takes time. But we're patient, because in the end, we always win. I'd of thought you would have learned this by now, being that you are pretty much always on the wrong side of history. But don't worry about it, enjoy it while you can, and try not to think too hard about the fact you have handed over all your populist cred, you know, that thing you ran with to get votes over the past decade, to the Democrats.

Just a couple of favors. First, please don't do that whole "No, we were totally on the side of workers!" shtick 50 years from now like you always do with civil rights. You can't keep up this attempt to revise your own history and claim you were the patriots in the past when you are so set on repeating it as the assholes in the present again and again. Second, no whining in 2012 when you realize, yet again, that when we are paying attention, the country really doesn't want anything to do with your asses. I'm afraid that there are going to be more people then just your Tea Party who show up at the voting booth next time in 2012.

Go to the Mardi Gras

2011-03-08T19:29:00.003-06:00

Not a fan myself, as I'm not a believer, but it does give me the opportunity to post this:

Enjoy it, folks. Eat a few steaks for me.

Title stolen from here.

10 Things Right Wing Pundits Have Taught Me About the Madison Protests

2011-03-06T21:04:00.000-06:00

Elections have consequences.

Wouldn't Democracy be just peachy if we could only find some way to prevent certain people from participating in it? Like these hippy infiltrators out in Madison, who just cannot accept that they weren't politically savvy enough to pick up on Governor Scott Walker's non-existent union-busting plan before they all voted him into office. He ran on fiscal responsibility, people. Everyone knows that means "I'm going to destroy unions", duh (liberals are so stupid). And they are completely wearing out their welcome now in the ~~Governor's Palace~~ State Capitol whining about how he isn't listening to the people, as if that mattered once you get elected. It's like these people think the Governor is a public servant that is supposed to work for them or something, and that the fact that poll after poll that shows the growing disapproval rating of the governor or the public siding again and again with the unions should make him rethink putting his own personal agenda over what is best for the state. Obviously, these people don't know how democracy works.

But only when Republicans win them.

But do you know who does understand Democracy? The Tea Party. Remember back when that Kenyan Muslim Socialist stole the presidential election with ACORN and the opposing party said "Sorry America, our bad" and slunk quietly off into that good night? Of course you don't! Know why? Because the real patriots of America stood up and said "Not so fast with your whole 'reforming health care' thing, dude that ran a strong campaign and won on reforming health care!" And true to their word, they sacrificed it all to come out by the hundreds (so long as food was provided) to wear funny hats and yell about how they don't understand why the opinons of people that aren't Tea Partiers count at all and then were home in time to watch Bill O'Reilly.

When Republican abuse congressional loopholes to appease the minority, it's Democracy in action. When Democrats abuse congressional loopholes to appease the majority, it's thwarting Democracy in action.

As the representatives of true America, Republicans have made painful sacrifices to stave off this injustice of not being in the majority by doing things like placing anonymous holds and filibusters on pretty much every bill in congress before they left early to start their golf weekend. Some may point out that this was a cynical abuse of existing parliamentary rules, but when protecting the people from the very policies the majority of them supported, sometimes representatives have to fight dirty. Compare this to the lazy workings of the Wisconsin State Democrats, who are supporting the tyranny of the majority by doing trivial things like leaving their homes and their families to whoop it up over on the borders of Illinois and Indiana, which we all know are major party hotspots. So make no mistake - The Republican habit of abusing the filibuster on the federal level cannot possibly be compared to the dirty tricks of the Wisconsin Senate Democrats, who fled the state to avoid a quorum. For one, "quorum" and "filibuster" aren't the same word. You can tell because one starts with a "q". Also too, one was on the federal level, and one on the state level. So they are completely different, people.

The protests in Madison are exactly like the protests in Egypt.

Because Americans are more important then everyone else in the world, it's important to take global events and frame them in a way that is relevant to Americans so that they might be a little bit interested in it. So naturally, when the protests in Madison first hit their stride, there were comparisons. And rightly so. For instance, one similarity was that everything in Egypt and Madison were going just fine until a few outside professional trouble-makers decided they should actually have a say in what their dear leader should do. And in both situations, we know that the protests were filled with violence and destruction, because the leaders who were being challenged by the people told us so, and it's not like there's a history of those in power to lie and smear their own people in order to discredit the grassroots organization against them. So obviously this situation is an exact parallel to.... wait, what do you mean Mubarak wasn't the good guy? Never mind. Let's move on.

If someone has ever given money to cancer research, then you can't ever say anything bad about them.

Everyone knows that the real victims of this whole Madison massacre are the nation's beloved Koch brothers, who have been smeared by the ~~mainstream media~~ ~~CNN~~ some obscure news outlet run out of someone's basement somewhere. But do you ever hear about how these selfless servants of the people do so many things that are great for the nation, like give money to cancer research? Sure, maybe it's to literally save your own ass, but still, when you give money to cancer research, that automatically cancels out everything else you've ever done. Okay, maybe you hear about it in the New York Times, but anywhere else? Okay maybe on Fox News or in Reason Magazine, but anywhere else? Of course not, all you hear from the whiners is "Oh they are Birchers" and "Oh they want to destroy the quality of life for American workers" or "Oh they spread misinformation about climate change" and such. But you know what? So what if they are self-serving assholes that dupe people into thinking they are grassroots populist heroes? We all know that greed is a virtue as long as you aren't a teacher (more on that soon). And really, if we can't spend a bunch of corporate money to purchase elections and then sit back and wait as our shiny new politician sells us the public's property for pennies and gives us tax cuts at the expense of the middle class, then what is democracy good for, really? Maybe if you wanted a say in your country, you should have inherited a shit-ton of money from your dad, too.

Teachers are the most privileged people in our society

It's true, the people that teach your kids are greedy little bastards who, when forced to purchase basic supplies for their students because the district has no money to provide basic necessities, always go with the cheap scratchy toilet paper. And really teachers, no one is buying this lie that you might have this strange thing you call PTO time, or that you might have time after work or on Saturdays to show up to protests to protect the interests of your colleagues and your students. Don't get me wrong, greed is normally considered a virtue in America, because it really turns on women in Ayn Rand novels. Plus, without greed, we would never have an abundance of business majors that perform such important services like gambling other people's money on the predicted values of commodities or figuring out new ways to bundle mortgage shitpiles so that they appear to be profitable investments. Obviously, these people need to be wooed in with the promise of ridiculous wealth, because if not, they might refuse to blow up bubbles and then demand a taxpayer handout when things predictably go horribly wrong! But the people that teach our children? Seriously, fuck them. It's not like we should offer pensions and job security for a job that actually pays less than a basic baby-sitter or anything. How hard could it be dealing with all of the issues with America's youth? And if you do find it hard, maybe you shouldn't spend so much time giving a shit about the next generation, or drink on the job, and it would be easier (Plus the worse you do, the easier it is for me to claim you are doing a shitty job and we should just get rid of you!). And let's be honest - Obviously being an educator, a counselor, a trusted guide, an inspiration, a bookkeeper, a mediator, and a babysitter takes no effort on anyone's part and is nothing more than a lazy, sweet-ass job. Anyone can read answers out of the teacher's textbook edition, so why offer perks for that sort of thing? Your gravy train is over, teachers.

American workers are the most violent people in our society and we should really bust their heads open to teach them a lesson.

You know what Madison has been rife with? Violence. Hatey-hateful bullhorn violence. Towards Fox News members. I mean, how can one explain away the pain of being told that "Fox News Lies" when all Fox news wants to do is pretend that shoulder taps are equivalent to being punched in the head or reverse poll results to make it look like the majority of the country agrees with Fox News? They are just trying to do the jobs they were hired to do, people. Which is lie. So stop pointing that out and hurting their feelings. And if you don't, well then you just deserve to be shot, don't you? After all, you struck first by making that bitch-face at that reporter. We are just protecting ourselves against your extreme hostility. We all know that the real bullies in this situation are the ones without authority. Sure, maybe Scott Walker is in a position of power and is using it to do things like violate court orders, threatening mass layoffs, or taking away the Democrat's sweet parking spaces. But you know who the real bullies are? Regular people that aren't in the most powerful position in the state with mean signs, that do things like stand there, and hold up their mean signs:

Just cruel.

If Beyonce doesn't show up to your protest, it doesn't mean shit.

The guitarist from Rage Against the Machine? Please. Give me a call when your silly liberal protests start pulling in real talent, like former 90s SNL star Victoria Jackson or former 70s one-hit-wonder Ted Nugent.

Union Workers are too biased to have their opinions heard.

Union workers are completely biased. You can tell because whenever you ask them about the union, they always have fairly decent things to say about it and never say "please take away that pension I've been working my whole life for" like rational people would. It's absurd that we'd actually let union members partake in polls about unions. Or allow them on news shows to talk about being in a union. They are so biased that they even suckered in the police and firefighters unions, who are fighting for them even though we assured them that we weren't going to take away their collective bargaining rights, because they vote Republican! Or used to, anyway. It's like people think that there's some rational motivation behind keeping public employees content, or something. But I for one am so tired of people that have an agenda other than "Morality and importance should be assigned based on your checking account balance" being allowed to voice their opinion! This madness needs to stop. Obviously, the people that have no opinion (which means of course, that they hate unions), are the only ones whose opinion should be taken seriously.

Wisconsin has Palm Trees.

Oh come on. After all the accurate information you have been given, who are you really going to believe. Fox News, or your lying eyes?

It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods... will not save you.

2011-03-04T19:11:00.005-06:00

In which I remind you about the best show that ever was - The Wire.

What's really messed up is that clip reel doesn't even contain the best quotes from the show. That is how good this show is, people.

By the way - Season 2 of Treme starts in April

It's fine if you don't like corporate agenda mushrooms. You don't have to eat them.*

2011-02-22T17:15:00.008-06:00

This is what I imagine a corporate agenda mushroom would look like.

Moving this here from Facebook because Facebook is just hell to try to debate on. But I should probably try to make it into some sort of blog post.

But let's do a little background. So we have my buddy, who is always getting all up in my face and shit**, getting all up in my face and shit about how he believes that the two parties are working for the same corporate masters, and as such, voting is currently a futile act.

So it's a statement I agree with (corporate money is a major problem in US politics) and strongly disagree with (so don't vote). But it kind of sparked a response in me that I've been kicking around for a bit, as to why I'm a strategic voter instead of an ideological puritan. And this goes for non-voters (which I can't respect) and third party voters (which I can respect, but often strikes me as misguided) alike.

So let's break this down into two parts, first, why I have no problem voting for the "lesser of two evils" and second, why I feel the Democrats are usually the lesser evil.

A while back, I was discussing a past election with an acquaintance of mine. This acquaintance is usually pretty vague with their political beliefs, but always stressed that no matter what, they vote for some obscure party, and it takes a lot for them to actually vote for one of the big two. The acquaintance was obviously very proud of their voting purity, but when pressed as to why they do this, they couldn't really give me a solid answer, just that the two parties suck, so they couldn't vote for them. They wanted to tear down the system.

Now, I don't want to disrespect their personal ethics. But it did make me wonder. I thought back to the support for Nader in 2000, how close that election was, and how drastically different our country would probably be today if Al Gore had actually won that election. When it comes to values themselves, my acquaintance and I line up pretty closely on what we believe is right for the country. So it was confusing to me as to why, in an election that could possibly hand over power to the same group that had almost destroyed the country (this was 2008), they would still give their vote to a party that could only lose, instead of making sure that we didn't repeat the same mistakes we made in 2000 and 2004.

And then I wondered why I was the one playing it safe while my acquaintance, whose interest in politics isn't great, was the one trying to rebel. I mean, it should be the opposite, right?

But then I kind of stumbled on the answer - I think it's about ego. It doesn't really help anyone in the country if you vote for the Constitution Party, but it makes you feel like you've been true to your own ideals. And it's all fine and well to brag to people that you voted for that third party because you are going to shake up the system, man! But do you ever notice that the system isn't ever really shaken? It's going to take the death of a party to do that (and granted, we may see that soon). Even libertarians have to latch on to the GOP to survive, and they are the strongest third party we have.

And I think that's where I've kind of changed from my younger, more radical self to the half-assed politico I am today: I don't think I can remain stubborn in my ideals at the expense of people that are hurt by it. So these days, I vote strategically. And as a result, I tend to vote Democrat***. I do so because elections have consequences.

So to tie this into the discussion at hand, let's address what is a valid complaint - that the parties are both wholly owned by corporate interests. I don't disagree that they are, to an extent. For example, we are never going to see real change when it comes to regulation of Wall Street. The asshole gamblers that brought this country to its knees are free to do so again and again in the future, because no one will ever call them out. I think what a lot of the ideologues fail to realize is that this isn't breaking news. We know.

But at the same time, I'm going to place my bets with the party that at the very least, is still torn between becoming a purchased and well-groomed product to showcase the corporate brand and the one that sold out a long time ago. The Democratic soul is still up for grabs, and I'll tell you why I can state this with the utmost certainty: The union protests in Wisconsin.

Tell me who is doing the union busting in places like Wisconsin (and Indiana, and Ohio). Then tell me who is doing everything in their power, including leaving the state, to ensure that unions do not lose their collective bargaining rights (which would, simply put, destroy them). We know whose interests the Governor is serving - the extremely pro-corporate Koch Brothers spent a *lot* of money during the last election to ensure Walker had a good chance to win the office, and for good reason: Unions are pretty much the only obstacle at this point to the complete corporate takeover of politics, as they are the only organized group that has enough clout to stand up to corporate dollars. It was Democratic Senators that fled the state due to this attempt and although one could argue that they are serving the interests of the labor unions, you'd be hard-pressed to argue they are also serving corporate interests. Destroying labor unions is the main corporate interest in this country. And it was a Democratic President that threw his support behind the unions, something which he has been soundly criticized for. Will the National Democratic Party follow suit? We'll see. They do like their corporate money and are sometimes stand-offish when it comes to supporting unions. But they also like their union voters, so unlike the Republicans, they at the very least have a reason to not go a full-metal corporatist just yet (although if the Republicans successfully destroy the unions, they sure as hell will, won't they?) So let's not pick nits here. If Republicans were not the majority in Wisconsin right now, the unions would not be in danger. You can't honestly tell me that that is not a significant difference.

We must also remember, and this might seem a little off topic, the power of the vote. Money can be used to influence politicians, but it cannot technically purchase votes. The public can still hold their representatives accountable through their right to vote. Yet, there is one party in this country that is actively trying to suppress the votes of the lower and working classes, by putting all sorts of obstacles in front of them that wouldn't affect the upper class (removing same-day registration, voter id requirements, etc). And they are accomplishing this by scaring folks with trumped up tales of "voter fraud" which I have to give some props to for being the ultimate in psychological projection. So tell me which party it is that is trying to pass voter restrictions that will end up affecting those that already have little time or resources to partake in their right to vote (i.e. the working class), tell me which party is using fear campaigns in an attempt to suppress the votes of those people, and tell me which party has been fighting tooth and nail against it. Again, I'm not saying they do this out of the goodness of their Democratic hearts, it's because they know that this affects their own base. I don't deny that it is strategic. But it shows that at the very least, the votes of those that aren't corporate overloads still matter to some.

And those are just two reasons out of many that I have (I didn't even bring up the abortion issue, are you proud of me?). But I think they are pretty damn good ones, particularly when we are talking about the power of the people, and who is attempting to water down that power to nothing.

To sum up: Pretty much every person that has an interest in politics has gone through a stage where they felt political purism is the only true answer. At the risk of sounding condescending; we grew out of it. I am not interested in political grandstanding at this point. I lost the urge to make it about my ego years ago. So I'm perfectly fine with voting strategically, because I find even the smallest attempt to improve on what's happening in the country beats out patting myself on the back because I've refused to compromise any of my ideals. Perhaps you think this is wasteful. But it is no where near as wasteful as sitting back and letting them win merely so you can lecture everyone else about how you were so above it all when Rome fell.

*Sorry, you just had to be there (on the Facebook). I really hope that "mushrooms" can serve as a nickname for for the corporate agenda from here on out?

** No, not really. Just trying to be humorous.

***On the national level. Locally, I'm all over the damn place. A huge reason politics is such a mess right now is that we are pretty horrible at paying attention to our own state governments, myself included.

When you meet me in the garden with your horns all hung with cedar

2011-02-21T20:46:00.000-06:00

I missed another weekend of this, but srsly guys, I'm really going to try to do this every week. And since it's snowy and I can't go anywhere, tonight seems like a good night to post.

So I decided to do some Okkervil River for this evening. I can't believe how long ago it was that I was bargaining with Mr. Stacy about going to see them at our dinky little 400 Bar (or seeing Esthero at some club, don't recall which one). I think that was 2005? Mr. Stacy won, and off to the 400 Bar we went, and believe that you are witnessing a rare moment when I tell you that Mr. Stacy was, you know, right. One of the best shows I've seen. And you will never see these guys in that tiny of a venue ever again.

So then I ran head-on into the problem that picking only one song by these guys is pretty much impossible. Even though the band line-up changes constantly, I can usually find a handful of songs on each album put out that I absolutely adore. So do I go with an official music video? I don't think they made actual videos for their best songs. Go with some of their newer stuff? I like a few of those tunes. Or should I just go all hipster and play the older stuff, because man, they were just so much better back then? Yeah, let's do that one. Even though they are still good.

They are just a good band. It's really that simple.

Okay, why don't we just do two.

Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy Appendix

Okkervil River - Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See

We might have to re-visit these guys at a later date.

Day After Saturday Links

2011-02-20T11:36:00.004-06:00

Have you heard it's snowing in Minnesota? I know. Crazy. Let's devote all the local news coverage to it. Sorry, I know it's a big storm and all, but come on. There are more important things happening today.

Speaking of local news coverage, this Pioneer Press article is hilarious. Breaking: A tiny group of Teabaggers showed up in Wisconsin. So tiny, in fact, that we won't even say how many there were in the article about their protest. But you can tell by this tight camera shot that it was pretty close to that 80,000 number of pro-union protesters, give of take 70,500. And hey look: cute little kid! (via Norwegianity)

As far as national news coverage of #WIUnion goes, want to take a guess as to which group did not have a representative on the Sunday morning shows this weekend? They didn't even throw Kthug on, which means there is no one to counter-act the stupid. But no worries. I'm sure the elite DC pundits can totally relate to union workers in Wisconsin and speak for them, because they've discuss the little people all the time at their cocktail parties.

In case you haven't heard this yet, our anti-union hero is completely groomed and paid for by Koch Industries. And yes, unlike the idiots that scream "SOROS!" every time a liberal so much as breathes: A corporate political powerhouse that has devoted pretty much all of it's time and money to getting rid of unions caught pouring millions of dollars into an election of a Governor whose first priority is getting rid of worker's rights is actually pretty damn newsworthy and relevant. Particularly since Citizen's United, which benefits Koch Industries so handsomely, also has that nasty side effect of benefiting unions - meaning they are one of the last barriers Koch has to purchasing complete political domination.

Now that it's become apparent that the protests in Wisconsin are having a positive effect for unions, the all-out hatred of teachers is starting to surface. The usual suspects will always be assholes, of course, no matter how hilariously ironic it becomes for them. But check out this bit of hackery over at Outside the Beltway, which is normally a decent right-leaning blog. One of their bloggers attempts the "all teachers are shitty so they are lucky to have jobs at all" argument by citing a study from 2009 that he claims shows Wisconsin is failing to teach their students math - when in reality it shows that Wisconsin is actually above the national average for proficiency levels in math. But why bother reading through your own sources or look for alternate sources that might discredit your point when you can just find something that reinforces your own views - teachers suck - and carelessly run with it?

GOP priorities. Cervical cancer screening for low-income women? Nope. Nascar funding that the military says is unnecessary? Of course! But remember kids, it's not about politics. It's about the deficit. See, we have to save money by getting rid of worker's bargaining rights. However, if Walker's buddy and political ally's pops needs a job after being fully rejected by voters, Walker is there to help!

Middle East: There's a cautious hope that the tide might be changing in Libya. There have been numerous reports that the army may be starting to side with the protesters against the government. It's been absolutely brutal there for the last 48 hours.

Surly Brewing needs your help. It would be a damn shame if they had to move across the border, guys.

Finally, in case you missed it, Michele Bachmann is still very, very stupid.

Fun with Google Analytics and Hrny Chrstians

2011-02-18T20:05:00.004-06:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks, yeah? Odd that a month ago I was wondering what I could blog about and now it's just coming too fast for me to keep up with. So this is just something that has been amusing me for a while, and I've been kicking around this post for a few months now, figured since I don't want this blog to be all doom all the time, I'd finally just post and share it.

So - My favorite thing about Google Analytics is the traffic search keywords. For this blog, they are pretty tame - my favorite is probably "[name withheld] is an asshole", because really, who searches for that? Like someone is just sitting around all "Man, that dude is such an asshole! Imma google it and see if anyone else agrees with me". I've never told them, either. Thought it might hurt their feelings (Don't worry, it wasn't you). And for the record, people that searching for "spackle smell"? I apologize. I have no idea why google feels a need to send you here, or why so few people blog about the smell of spackle.

But Newsvine, where I used to write, is a different story. See, even though I haven't written for Newsvine for over two years now, my column is still active and I have Analytics tracking it. Amazingly enough, I still get quite a few hits on it. Enough so that I can safely say that my Newsvine Column still kicks this little blog's ass on a regular basis. I mean, damn. There is something to say about that level of exposure. I'm still not sure if I miss it or not.

Anyway, my insanely overblown ego would love to believe this is a result of Viners missing having me around, and checking the column occasionally. Or perhaps newer readers have grown an appreciation for my mad debate skillz, and are checking out my stuff for the first time.

But sadly for my ego, this is not the case. You want to know why people are still visiting my column even after two years of inactivity? Google Analytics holds the answer:

This goes on for about 48 more pages.

So, yep. So after all the flame-wars and debates, all the painstaking research into social issues, health issues, political issues, etc, after writing my little heart out, fighting tooth and nail in comment sections, and devoting pretty much more of my life then I'd care to admit to that particular column, my legacy comes down to this: Pervy* Christians looking for certain sexual/punishing acts of dominance (or the spiritual justification for participating in them) are apparently my biggest fans.

And it wasn't even an article, either. It was a seed. But thanks for the pennies anyway, I suppose. They do add up. So let that be a lesson to everyone, if you want to increase your web traffic, just blog about this particular subject, which I will not actually name because goddammit, I don't want those types of hits here.

* Not that there's anything wrong with being pervy. At all. Seriously. It's a good thing in most cases. But if I recall correctly, the article wasn't really regarding the fun type of that particular act, it was more of a 'How can I beat the hell out of my wife with a belt while still being a good Christian (and by the way if I can get off on even if she doesn't even better)' type of act. Which I gave them some shit for. Which probably explains that the average time on the site is about 19 seconds. I don't think they were looking for a scolding. And now I'm getting all gloomy and doomy again. Sorry.

** In all fairness, I should point out that this is probably my Newsvine legacy. It has come back up for two years in a row now. And years after it was posted, I still had someone show up to inform me that it needed to be "unchecked from all of Newsvine", which is just awesome.

Viva La Cheese Heads!

2011-02-17T18:05:00.011-06:00

Wisconsin's post-election walk of shame has been pretty painful to watch. Have you heard about what's going down in our dairy state today? Of course you have. But if not, TPM has been doing some great coverage.

And all you really need to know is this:

Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

That's right folks, it's "union busting for the sake of union busting" time. Someone is eying a national spotlight, methinks. Luckily for us, Wisconsin is so. not. having. it.

Naturally, Governor Walker seems to be okay with some unions, like the police union, which is pretty hilarious, because the only reason he's okay with it is because the police union* is insanely powerful and would destroy him if he tried - which means this is probably the union you should be focusing on if you want to frame unions as wasteful and abusive. I challenge you to find any example of abuse in the teacher's union that even comes close to absurdities such as this.

I have hopes that given the coverage, this ends up working out in the union worker's favor. And it very well could, these protests are doing the thing that corporate shills fear the most - matching up human faces with the term "union". We like to pretend that unions are some sort of monolithic evil, that they are somehow separate entities from the people that they support - it's much easier to hate on the "teacher's union" then it is to hate on your kids' 5th grade teacher, for example. Oh, it's not that I hate teachers, I just hate the teacher's union.

Once it's pointed out that these are actually people, the people that teach your kids, plow your streets, collect your garbage, and treat your ailments - public opinion starts to change. Back in 2005, for example, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted the same thing - attacking unions as wasteful in the name of "fiscal responsibility". However, the nurses union fought back with a brilliant campaign - as Arnold was rambling about the need to cut off "special interests" like unions, the nurses union made their case to the public that "He's not fighting special interests, he's fighting us". Schwarzenegger lost that battle, because once the human stories were identified with what Schwarzenegger labeled as some obtuse, evil, special interest group, the public realized that, hey, they actually kind of like nurses.

So best of luck to the folks in Wisconsin - not only are you fighting a good fight, you are also my neighbors, and although I reserve the right that every Minnesotan has to mess with you relentlessly, when it comes down to it, I'm quite happy you're my neighbor (let's go grab a beer at the bar and talk some major shit about the Dakotas, shall we?).

And more seriously, labor really needs to win this one, guys. If they don't win, this is going to set a very dangerous precedent in this country in regards to worker's rights. I suppose the libertarian in me knows that there is an argument to be made against them. But the liberal in me never wants to live in that country where those arguments work.

Also too, this:

See, I knew I liked you, Wisconsin.

* In all fairness, the local Wisconsin police and firefighters unions (also exempt from Walker's bill) have been amazing at supporting their fellow union members in Wisconsin. It's rumored that the brats actually came from the police union. So I'll forgive you for your unmarked cars at the border this one time, I guess.

South Dakota jealous of all the attention other anti-choice legislation getting, attempts to up the ante by legalizing Jesus-approved terrorism

2011-02-16T14:56:00.003-06:00

*Update: While I was finishing this up it looks like Jensen, upon much soul searching and screeching about how those mean old pro-choice liberals were trying to make him look bad when all he wants to do is let some people shoot doctors, has decided maybe it's actually not a great idea to insert language into state law that would allow for the legal assassination of abortion providers by citizens. What a brilliant idea, I suppose it time to give credit where credit is due.

Oh wait, no. What I meant to say was are you kidding me? What the hell is wrong with people that this would even be something that is up for discussion?

Apparently this blog is just going to turn into an all-abortion-all-the-damn-time blog.

I suppose I should give you the back story here - South Dakota State Representative Phil Jensen decided a few days ago that the state's self-defense laws needed to be changed in order to extend them to protection of the unborn. Jensen claims:

"Say an ex-boyfriend who happens to be father of a baby doesn't want to pay child support for the next 18 years, and he beats on his ex-girlfriend's abdomen in trying to abort her baby. If she did kill him, it would be justified. She is resisting an effort to murder her unborn child."

The law as it stands now:

22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.

Jensen would like to make the following (in bold) changes:

22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.

South Dakota, like many states, already has fetal homicide laws in place (these are also problematic, but we'll tackle them at a different time). The unlawful termination of a fetus is already considered a felony, and as such, Jensen's example is already covered. I'll repeat - there is no logical reason for Jensen's language to be added to state law.

Jensen's answer to that annoying question of whether or not this is a threat to abortion providers is as follows:

"It would if abortion was illegal," he told me. "This code only deals with illegal acts. Abortion is legal in this country. This has nothing to do with abortion."

Well, not exactly. First, we know that a whole crowd of well-known rabid-anti-choice groups testified in favor of these changes. So I don't think we can quite state that it has nothing to do with abortion and be taken seriously. Secondly, the extension of this protection to acts that are considered legal in some circumstances is the only thing that is being changed in this law.

I've read Jensen's changes over and over again, and I honestly can't see how it doesn't allow justifiable homicide in regards to abortion providers. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but to me it appears to state that homicide is justifiable if someone is attempting to murder you, or if someone is attempting to commit a felony against you, or if anyone is attempting to harm an unborn child to a degree that might cause death to that unborn child. Obviously murder and committing felonies are illegal acts. The destruction of an "unborn child", in the case of an abortion, however, is not. But there's no language that specifies that - if he had gone with "unlawful" harm to the unborn, I suppose it would work, even if redundant.

And South Dakota is basically mecca when it comes to the Anti-Choice movement. They've already pushed the "women are stupid" waiting period to 72 hours, force women to be read a "no really, women are stupid" script informing them that they are terminating a "unique human being", and even had a great time straight-up lying to women about mental health risks until it was smacked down by a judge in 2009 (but is being appealed). Mistermix over at Balloon Juice, a South Dakota native, points out that given the culture there, it's really not surprising that South Dakota would be the first attempt to pass legalized terrorism towards abortion providers, being that they've already successfully chased permanent doctors out of the state:

Buck [Williams] retired sometime in the late 90's. Since then, Planned Parenthood has been flying in doctors from Minneapolis to work in their Sioux Falls bunker. Unlike Williams and Munson, who delivered babies and saved women's lives as part of their regular practices, these "abortionists" have no connection to the community. For better or worse, Munson and Williams were household names, and it just wouldn't have been decent for the legislature contemplating an open season on the men who delivered their kids and grandkids.

Digby also points out recent legislation and reminds us that this is also the land of sodomized-christian-virgins-only exceptions and the ever so creeptacular purity balls.

So let's not pretend this is about "legal consistency" and not abortion. And being that Jensen only started to backpedal after the media flipped the switch on the large, white-hot spotlight and aimed it directly at his bill, being that we are talking about a crowd that has managed to reinforce the notion over and over again these past few weeks that death of actualized persons is now fair play in the "fetus > you" game, and being that whenever violence does happen anti-choicers find a way to place blame for the tragedy on the evil profession instead of the terrorists, I can't really give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. I have no way of knowing what's in their hearts of these guys. It's possible they are really that stupid and didn't think about the consequences of leaving something like justifiable homicide laws vague, particularly when dealing with at topic that is well known for bringing out violence in the past. It's possible that this was meant to be a a clear thumbs up to encourage domestic terrorism. But personally, I think it's a blatant attempt at intimidation - clinic workers are already fully aware that they are putting their lives at risk every day, but at the very least, they know law is still on their side. This bill to me seems to be an attempt to upset that balance, sending a clear warning to abortion providers that they are not protected by law in South Dakota - so stay the hell out.

Happy Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T20:05:00.007-06:00

Yeah, you know I'm not a fan. Sorry, just can't get behind a cheap "holiday" which plays on the most desperate of emotions in order to create a consumer feeding frenzy.

So anyway, so here's your Valentine, my personal contribution, for my lovely readers, to honor this day:

And I have to feature this one too, because hee:

Also too, Bill O'Reilly:

Cheers. I truly do love you all.

Amazingly enough, the whole "Driving to Wisconsin on a Sunday to Get Beer" tradition isn't as much fun as you'd think it would be

2011-02-09T10:15:00.006-06:00

You know, once in a while I'm sympathetic to the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, our absurdly powerful alcohol lobby here in Minnesota, like when they talk about how selling beer and wine in the grocery stores will severely damage our little local liquor stores* here (which is a valid complaint, although the "But what about the children who will now be drunk and stumbling and hitting on your sister and singing karaoke at the top of their lungs in the aisles of our grocery stores?" way they try to sell it annoys me). But most of the time I just want to tell them to go to hell because they tend to act like such spoiled little brats with other things, like the apparent injustice of being able to be open on Sundays if they so choose:

"It's foolishness," says Phil Colich, owner of Hennepin Lake Liquor Store in Uptown. "I can't think of one [store owner] that would want to be open on Sundays. It's basically our only day off when you're in the wine and liquor business."

Oh no, not your day off! How horrible for you that you might have the option to be open and compete on Sundays just like pretty much every other business in the state? You poor little things.

Pretty simple. If you don't think it's beneficial for you to be open on Sunday, go on ahead and don't be open. Maybe your customers will continue being faithful to you and stocking up on liquor for the weekend, maybe they will choose to instead patronize a business that puts the convenience of it's customers over the convenience for it's owners. That's the chance you take.

Because see, that's what we here like to call the free market. Again, the beauty of it is that you don't have to be open if you don't want to be. The only thing that would make a store feel they have to be open is if they were worried about losing out on revenue to the competition that is open. Which pretty much makes the "There's no point because there's no revenue to be had" argument fall flat on its face, doesn't it? Meaning that the reality here is that you are being lazy jerks that not only want a government-mandated day off in order to level the playing field, but are also willing to take that "perk" at the expense of liquor stores at the border that are losing revenue on Sunday.

So do you want to take a guess as to how much sympathy I have for this alleged injustice?

*Edit - Oh, it just gets better. Mr. Stacy pointed out to me that MPR had a story up yesterday about the same guys throwing a fuss because Surly Brewing wants to open up a brewery full of awesome in Minnesota.

For those that aren't local, Surly is a local beer that is just killing it right now. They are an amazing success story. You probably haven't tasted it or heard of their products, because their tiny little brewery in Brooklyn Center just isn't providing them with enough space to brew enough to distribute outside the state - the demand in-state is just too high.

But oh no, Surly might want to do what pretty much every other major brewer in the United States does, and feature an area where you can visit their company, eat, and maybe grab a beer! And we all know, to be able to grab a beer at a brewery is absolute madness, which of course Minnesota had to clamp down on:

The only problem is that Surly needs to change the law in order to build the brewery and have a restaurant. That's because a law prohibits large brewers from owning a restaurant and bar for fear that they'll sell their beer at a lower prices than other bar owners.

And guess who wants to make sure that law stays the same?

A lobbyist for the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, which represents bar owners, told me they're against changing the law.

Because that's right folks, if I go to Surly's new brewery of awesome and have a Coffee Bender, this means that I will never patronize another bar or liquor store ever again.

Once again, it's completely petty of the MLBA, who ups the ante by offering this bit of thuggery:

It's even more simple if you say it the way my retailers say it: "you make it, we'll sell it"...you make it 'and' sell it, we won't buy from you".

Nice beer you got there. Would be such a shame if no one sold it.

And again, after blabbing on about "three-tier" distributing structure that most other states have abandoned due to the fact they are ripe with corruption, the MLBA again tries to promote their own selfish interest as some sort of noble cause, claiming that by not allowing Surly to serve beer at their brewery they are promoting "moderate consumption" because... what? That doesn't even make sense. None. And I have no idea why they are even trying to appeal to that, because the Lutherans** just don't care that much anymore - the moral reasons for Minnesota's silly liquor laws don't have any sway anymore. In reality, the only reason that MLBA has as much power as they do is that no one can get together a large, wealthy enough, and organized enough counter-strike to challenge them.

So honestly, Surly? Call that bluff. Because unlike a lot of other local brewers, you guys have enough clout that you can.

*Of course is should be pointed out that the liquor stores that actually try by keeping interesting stock and helpful staff on hand, like Surdyks or France44, would probably be fine.
**Inside joke, sorry.

Anti-choicers in a heated battle to prove who can hate poor women the most

2011-02-05T21:36:00.002-06:00

So now that the Tea Party has proven themselves to be the useful idiots we know them to be by voting the same establishment assholes that screwed up the country back into office, Republicans can now say "thanks, suckers!" and get back to the all important business of hating on groups that don't fit into their definition of "Real Americans".

This week, it's apparently all about the ladies. It started out slow. First it was kind of an amusing "Hey look at this crazy idiot talking about abortion" situation, brought to us by RedState blogger and CNN media whore Erick Son of Erick, who decided to take some downtime from lecturing the Very Serious TV pundits about socialism in order to blog at you because he has something he'd really like you to know: We really need to stop pretending that women are people in this country instead of merely the "physical locations" of fetuses, and if we don't, well, he's totally going to pull out his Photon gun and go all Civil War II on your asses.

Believe it or not, from there it just got worse.

Local governments, empowered by newly elected Republican governors, salivated at the thought of ignoring things like unemployment in favor of passing that anti-choice legislation wishlist they've been carrying in their front pockets for the past few years because fuck you pro-choice liberals that's why.

Even my state, Minnesota, has the culture war fever. Correctly or not, Minnesota is considered a bastion of liberal politics (probably because of this map, which I will admit, is my favorite red state/blue state map ever). But now, for the first time in 40 years, Republicans have managed to take control of both of the legislative bodies of congress. So what will they propose in order to start the dismantling of the entrenched liberal agenda? How about using our favorite emotional knee-jerk issue in order to discriminate against poor women! And the number one issue that is on every Minnesotan's mind: The opportunity to purchase "choose life" license plates in order to funnel taxpayer money away from the state and into the hands of fringe special interest groups!

Republicans on the national level, meanwhile, have decided to pretty much send the "stupid vs evil" meter off the charts by making it a priority to propose the most cynical, divisive, and ugly piece of red-meat legislation we've seen in a while. Redefine rape so that we can force low-income 12 year-old girls that weren't beaten enough during their sexual assault to bear children? Sure, if it pisses of liberals, why the hell not?

The good news is that the language was taken out of the bill. So instead of the requirement that your rape be violent enough to give you financial access to a legal medical procedure, we'll just go back to the old standby that you must get raped in order to gain financial access to a legal medical procedure. Um, yay? You know it's not a great era for reproductive rights when the good outcome is that the language from Hyde Amendment was upheld. Which, guess what? Was the entire point.

See, now that the Republicans have done the reasonable and sensible thing and not redefined the definition of rape, the Democrats are expected to respond in kind and be reasonable and sensible and now support the entire "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act". Never mind that this legislation actually goes farther then Hyde could ever dream of, ensuring that the majority of health insurance plans offered through private employers will not be able to offer abortion coverage. But hey, even if that is an absurd abuse of the health insurance market, they took the forcible rape stuff out, Democrats. Stop being all ungrateful and shit and vote to ensure that abortion will never be covered by insurance and will remain a privilege of the wealthy only.

But where are the Young Republicans? Without them, it's not a real culture war, it's just sitting on your porch and yelling at people to get off your lawn. Luckily for us, James O'Keefe's BFF Lila Rose, who meets the wingnut standards of 'female that is allowed to express opinions by being one part super hot and two parts raging misogynist', has been doing some sleuthing (ie having people dress as pimps again) in regards to those medical clinics that have the audacity to deal with sexual health matters like testing for cancer or STDs. To people like Lila Rose, it's important that these clinics are shut down and leave thousands of women without adequate medical care, because we all know that a purity ring and faith in Jesus will always protect you and there's no reason for anyone to ever see your vagina unless it's to put a baby in it.

It's true, folks. If you loved such hard-hitting journalist triumphs like "ACORN Loves Pimps (especially when they don't and when the pimps aren't actually pimps at all)", "Hey look I can totally make Shirley Sherrod sound like a racist if I edit out the majority of her speech" and "I think it I were to make a rape dungeon and trap some reporter on there it would prove that the mainstream media is totally lame", you are going to love the newest feature featuring a manufactured fake scandal that right-wingers will jump on not matter how absurdly false it is: "Planned Parenthood: Hey look we have footage of one person that we edited the hell out of so that it looks like Planned Parenthood is totally into underage child trafficking".

Sadly, Lila Rose's expose was forced to be released to Fox News a bit prematurely, not fully complete, because wouldn't you know it, that annoying Planned Parenthood that totally aids in child prostitution rings had the nerve to call the FBI to inform them that some crazy assholes were showing up to their clinics talking about child prostitution rings. Bummer. Even worse for Rose, the heavily edited tapes she is slowly leaking out don't actually show the employees doing anything wrong, unless you, like Rose, are under the opinion that (a) clinic workers have a legal duty to withhold information regarding legal rights for minors and (b) it is unethical to not go all John Wayne on people's asses and step into the middle of a potentially explosive situation to perform a citizens arrest.

Not only are these things untrue, they are irresponsible. As Jill over at Feministe points out, this is probably the worst reaction you could have. If the concern was, you know, actually protecting underage girls caught up in sex trafficking rings. But ha! Of course it's not. No one cares about girls once they are born and can't be used to control the sexual behavior of women anymore!

Did I mention that defending Planned Parenthood is on the do list of the Republicans this session? Odd coincidence, that.

And it's only the beginning of February. It was such a nice break from the culture wars for a while, wasn't it? Not that they ever actually went away, but at the very least we got a little bit of distance from the insanity for a few years. But now that Republicans have more political control, it means they actually have to do things in congress again, so of course the culture wars are back. It's all these assholes know how to do. This and tax cuts.

We are falling behind the rest of the world in terms of technology, innovation, and education. Our infrastructure is crumbling around our feet. We are bleeding jobs and no amount of tax cuts are going to bring them back from overseas. We have almost successfully destroyed the middle class in favor of a permanent underclass. We are bound by the whimsy of reckless wall street lobbyists and corporate oligarchies. Yet somewhere, out in the world, there just might be a woman who thinks she can get away with fucking without being punished with disease, pregnancy and forced birth. And this is the focus, which tells you all you need to know about Republican priorities here. Like I've said before - Republicans aren't going to actually do anything about the country's real problems. Because they don't know how. They are incompetent as a governing body. Which is why instead, they choose to go after the weakest, most desperate targets, those in society that are easily thrown aside in favor of scoring some easy, cheap political points. Their incompetence demands that they do so, in order to create the illusion that they can do something.

And they get away with it, time and time again, because this is just one issue few are willing to touch. We are told we have to respect the opinions of those that would re-define rape in order to make it seemingly non-existent, those that use the lives of women as cheap political pawns in order to preserve their own political career, those that lie shamelessly and attack the neediest people in this society while proclaiming themselves to be noble, because, you know, even though they don't seem to care about real, existing people at all, they swear they care about unborn babies.

I just wonder how far we will let them take it.

And about Egypt...

2011-02-03T19:14:00.009-06:00

I still don't have anywhere near the basic amount of expertise required to thoroughly analyze about this situation, but here is what I do know.*

Mid-week, the "pro-Mubarak protesters" moved in and started making some major problems, beating and harassing protesters and trying to take over their spaces. Understand that the anti-government protesters were not resorting to violence at this point, it wasn't until these "pro-government protesters" moved in that the atmosphere become one that condoned and encouraged violent behaviors. And even then, the anti-government protesters stood tall and resisted, mostly retaliating for self-defense purposes only.

These "pro-government" protesters are anything but. Not only have anti-government protesters been pulling their government/police IDs off of them all day, not only have government workers been threatened with lost employment if they don't participate, not only has the telecom company claimed they were forced to run pro-government messages, the sudden arrival, intense organization and precise coordination of these "protesters" shows that as a whole, they can only be paid government thugs (not even the most organized protests I've been to had some hourly molotov cocktail delivery system. But for some reason, pro-government protesters in Egypt do).

Around 5am in the morning on Thursday (our Wednesday night), the lights in Tahrir Square went dark, and snipers on rooftops began shooting at protesters. Thirteen are estimated dead from that attack, hundreds more are injured. The military did nothing.

At the same time, call goes out for all Americans to leave Egypt that night if they want to leave at all - last call. I understand that's not a big deal to my non-American friends. But as far as American media goes, that is pretty significant.

On Wednesday, the government put out a stooge, otherwise known as the Prime Minister, who claimed he had no idea where all this violence came from and assured the people that the government would look into it. Those government-owned camels and horses the thugs rode in on to make it seem all dramatic and shit? Well... that was just angry tour guides! Angry about the lack of pyramid tours going on! Also too, if you people would just go home, Mubarak promises he'll end his dictatorship in August or September. Pinky swear. No one is buying it.

But at the same time, the military suddenly had a change of heart that coincides with the government PR campaign, and are are now being touted as feeling kind and protective towards the protesters. There have been a few reports of the military protecting the anti-government protesters, except when they, you know, aren't, and are running over protesters with government vehicles instead. The military really is the wild card in this situation. No one knows for sure where their loyalties actually lie.

Journalists are being attacked and detained, and have been all day. Anderson Cooper is on the phone only, refusing to disclose his location. As are the rest of the journalists that are still there. Al Jazeera has gotten it really bad, the attacks on their equipment and reporters have been interrupting their coverage. This is the main media vehicle for getting information out to the world, which apparently makes them public enemy #1. We are told that the attempt to detain journalists is for their own safety, due to rumors that they are Israeli spies (rumors started by the government). No word yet in how the beatings are supposed to help them. The Hilton in Egypt, where many reporters are staying, has been raided, equipment destroyed or stolen, and there are now snipers on the roof. Humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International have also been targeted and detained.

One almost gets the sense that the government is actively trying to leave as few witnesses as possible for what they might have planned tomorrow.

That would be the same tomorrow that kicks off the the largest day of protests, the "Day of Departure" where all Egyptians are encouraged to come out and stand for democracy by getting their corrupt government to finally step down. This is what the entire week's madness has all been boiling down to.

Please, please, please keep vigilance over Egypt this tonight and tomorrow. At best, Mubarak steps down. At the worst, we, the world, can at least bear witness to what may happen here. Odds are, it will still be a waiting game.

*I can provide links to all these things. Just ask if you need them and I will find them for you.

Just another isolated incident...

2011-02-03T17:56:00.007-06:00

This is older news, and obviously what's going on with Health Care and what's going on with #Egypt is taking precedence right now. But I just needed to document this:

Roger Stockham, a 63-year-old California man, was arrested on explosives charges last week after police allegedly found him with M-80s in the trunk of his car in the parking lot of the Islamic Center of America, a Dearborn, Michigan, mosque.

The short of it is: Crazy dude from Southern California decides to drive all the way to Dearborn, Michigan, to blow up some Muslims with firecrackers. So you might be thinking, are there no mosques in California? Why would this crazy asshole drive all the way to Michigan to try to blow up some Muslims with M-80s?

Indeed. Why would he?

"We're talking about a militant terrorist situation, which I believe it isn't a widespread thing, but it is enough that we need to address, and we have been addressing it."

"My thoughts are these, first of all, Dearborn, Michigan, and Frankford, Texas, are on American soil, and under constitutional law. Not Sharia law. And I don't know how that happened in the United States," [Sharron Angle] said. "It seems to me there is something fundamentally wrong with allowing a foreign system of law to even take hold in any municipality or government situation in our United States."

Emphasis mine.

And this is what we talk about when we talk about eliminiationist rhetoric. It's not about "gun-sights" or taking "killing" out of bill names. It's not about saying "fuck". It's not about nodding ever so politely and saying you "respectfully agree to disagree" when you'd really like to tell that evil motherfucker he's a crazy asshole.

It's about this conspiracy-theory-pushing, paranoia-inducing, threat-to-the-America-way-of-life-screeching, nationalist-chest-thumping, let's-point-fingers-at-those-people-that-look/sound/pray/fuck-different-from-you-it's-their-fault-othering, better-to-eliminate-instead-of-compromise-solutions bullshit that keeps being put out by the usual suspects looking to build an audience over resentments and fear.

I'd throw up a link to Beck now, just to show clearly what it is. Because he is the perfect example. But I think you already know that by now.

Day After Saturday Links

2011-01-30T16:19:00.001-06:00

So I'm eleven days deep into this whole non-smoking thing, which I'm assured will turn out awesome for me in the long run, but in the meantime I find it just makes me irritable, sweaty, stupid and unable to concentrate on anything for more then 30 seconds, which doesn't bode well for this whole existing thing, let alone this whole blogging thing. But I thought maybe I should give it a shot, so here's some links:

Hawaii finally throws up its hands in frustration and decides to troll the fuck out of birthers for profit instead. Sure, why not? I've long thought that if I have to sit back and watch the stupid destroy the country, I may has well try to make a small profit off of that stupid before it all goes down. If Glenn Beck can do it, whey the hell can't Hawaii? (via Pandagon)

Oh great, Katherine Kersten is writing about sex again, and it's predictably as gross and uncomfortable as you'd imagine it to be. The big giveaway here is that Kersten apparently considers being fucked hard and being raped as equal offenses to women - which tells me her overall concern isn't an atmosphere that leads to a disregard for meaningful consent, but instead that people might be having all sorts of awesome, freaky, non-catholic-church sanctioned fuck-marathons without Kersten's approval. And filming it! Because ironically enough, if we are going to talk about where to place the blame for dismissive attitudes regarding rape, I'd say an article that condones pro-rape attitudes by arguing it's understandable that men might be dismissive towards rape because women wear lingerie and it just confuses men so gosh-darn-much that they can't be held responsible for their actions is a great place to start.

I can't wait for the inevitable backpedal on this one. Or maybe Bachmann should just go full-blown Tea-Party on it instead? Hey, maybe if you didn't want to be bankrupted by your medical bills for military-related injuries, you shouldn't of joined the military. Why should I have to pay for your desire to sacrifice yourself for the country? God. I am so sick of people looking for a handout all the time!

Palin Jr. gets booted from a speaking gig at an abstinence event due to her "lack of expertise" in regards to that subject. Okay, there's a little more to it then that, but that line cracked me up. (via Balloon Juice)

It's been pointed out before that libertarians of the Randian stripe seem to only dig libertarianism because they automatically assume *they* will be the ones going all Galt and banging Dagny Tagart. I think this is a pretty good example of this mentality. I just don't think having "...a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion" is really something most people would turn their nose up at, or are willing to trade for "booms and busts" or the "widespread embrace of risk taking" that, as Roy Edroso points out, pretty much fucked over those that decided to achieve the American Dream by honest, hard work instead of just dipping their hands into someone else's pocket and gambling on their future. If you feel like you would never be one of the ones that are screwed over, and instead the one making the profit off of the screwing, I suppose you would mock the little people that merely want a simple and sustainable life.

This is all kinds of fucked up. Apparently if you are a pharmacist in Idaho you can refuse to prescribe a drug called Methylergometrine under "conscious clause" laws, because this drug halts uterine bleeding, which happens in cases of abortion. Oh, it also happens during childbirth. And, you know, miscarriage. It really is amazing what we will let people get away with if we just attach the knee-jerk "abortion is bad!" sentiment to a cause. If some hippy vegan pharmacist refused to fill insulin prescriptions to diabetes patients because they believed that ailment should be regulated by diet and exercise instead of meds they would be shut down in a day. But denying medication because of personal moral judgements on the assumed devious sexual activity of women? No worries, you can put them in their place and put their health in danger, and the government won't do a damn thing to stop your crazy ass from doing so. (via Echidne)

I know it's a shitty thing to say, but I kind of wish Balko would just stick to the subjects he does best (abuse by authority issues) and stay away from the political commentary. I can't really decide what annoys me more about this little blurb. Is it the assumption that even though the teacher that was actually wronged by discrimination never got her job back, one rich dude was upset about the whole deal so yay! and therefore this situation applies to all other discrimination cases because hey, isn't there always an angry rich dude that can sorta/not really save the day? Or is it the dismissive "Hey, I think anti-discrimination laws were okay in the past but today we don't need them" word salad he tacks on at the end? Say what you will about Rand Paul's statements regarding the civil rights act (I sure did), at the very least he was consistent.

As for the elephants in the room:

- Yes, I'm aware of the GOP plan to redefine rape in order to ensure you earn that abortion by being beaten within an inch of your life first. Yes, I'll have something to say about that, after I clean out all of the caps-locked enhanced rage-filled rambling, veiled threats and obscenities and/or hexes.

- No, I don't have anything meaningful to say about Egypt, simply because I don't feel I'm informed enough to do so. Juan Cole, however, is.

Maybe it's time to let go...

2011-01-29T21:06:00.006-06:00

So hey, remember a few weeks ago when I was like "I'm totally going to post tunes!" and then I didn't? Actually, you probably don't, because I totally deleted that shit. But hey - I'm totally going to post tunes. Every Saturday. Because I like tunes.*

No, really. I'm doing this. And yes, I realize that every "weekly" trend I pick up on I abandon after about a month, but... let's just see how long this one lasts.

Hey, wanna know about a song I like? Here's one:

I know, I know, they all old and shit. Get used to it. I'm old.

Carissa's Wierd was around in the mid-nineties and disbanded in the mid-aughts.** I found them right before they disbanded. But I always loved this band, even if they were a bit... sad most of the time. Their last album was called "Songs About Leaving". Chock full of songs about leaving. Great album, and solidly advertised. So yeah, you get their vibe. But, if you can handle it, and I won't lie, there will be times you can't, it's still one of the prettiest violin-based bands I've heard, their violinist has a very signature sound. And now, just for you, they have a "Best Of" out, which has the most emo name ever. Which is just perfect, for them. And although I have the full albums, I'll vouch that this best of is a good collection if you are unfamiliar with them.

This is the song that really got me into them:

I really miss them. And yes, I believe that lion on the cover is vomiting blood. Because he's sad, y'all.

Carissa's Wierd - They'll Only Miss You When You Leave on Amazon.

Carissa's Wierd - Songs About Leaving on Amazon

Carissa's Wierd - You Should Be At Home Here on Amazon

*And that's it. I'm not an insufferable music snob (although I adore those that are), so you will be hit with Roxette at some point. You've been forewarned.

**Hate this term. Someone give me a substitute?

2011-01-17T20:11:00.002-06:00

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I don't think I actually have a point to this post. I tried, but lost it somewhere.

2011-01-15T15:33:00.000-06:00

There's been a lot of discussion centered around Obama's speech at the Tuscon Memorial Wednesday night, some of it interesting in terms of the impact it will or won't have or the nit-picky linguistics of it, and some of it of the useless "Ha ha he told your side off/nuh-uh he told your side off" variety.

Some is more of the "Hey, there's that guy I voted for" angle. tristero over at hullaballo does this, looking at the speech and realizing that he this was the same Obama s/he recognized from the presidential campaign, the same Obama that has an uncanny yet masterful ability to make his opponents look petty and immature:

I also noticed these things during the campaign, and until I understood what was going on, it drove me (not to mention many other people) almost crazy with despair. But I think it ultimately played a central, if usually unheralded, role in Obama's spectacular victory. I’m talking about Obama's uncanny skill at setting traps for his political opponents, traps in which they themselves - ie, not Obama - act foolishly or so otherwise poorly that they disqualify themselves as serious opponents, who emerges from these fiascos looking not only like the only rational choice but, more emotionally, as the only conceivable choice.

I caught on to this during his campaign as well, and found it pretty impressive. Every time I'd get a bit nervous back in 2008, or think that this was it, this was going to be the next right-wing "scandal" freshly pulled from their collective asses that puts McCain in the White House, Obama was not only able to bounce back immediately, but turn it around on it's head so that it played badly for his political opponents instead. The "scandal" with Pastor Wright turned into one of Obama's best moments of the 2008 election, his "A More Perfect Union" speech. When it came out that this was actually something Obama himself had written, only the night before, it cast him in an even more impressive light and made his detractors come off as even more irrational and bitter. (What I see) as the biggest threat to his campaign, in other words, turned out to be his strongest moment.

tristero continues:

Exactly how Obama does it is unclear to me. I know that his timing is very unusual, radically so within the current political context. He responds slowly to crises, and very, very calmly. This was, and is, very unnerving to me as an observer; I can only imagine how it struck a hothead like McCain who was directly affected by it. But surely there are other things he does to help bait and spring traps to hoist enemies on their own petard.

I've puzzled over this as well, but for different reasons. Mainly, this guy was a powerhouse during the campaign. And then he took office, and fell flat. It seemed very inconsistent with what I saw on the campaign trail. But I think tristero answers his own question here - what is consistent is Obama's calm approach to these events. Of course, I rather think it overall describes a major difference between the two parties as well. "Go with the gut" has long been preferred to rational decision making ever since we decided as a country to turn our backs on intellectual pursuits. And instead go with feelings.

So I think that is all there is to it. And I don't really think it's a calculated ploy. It's just who the President is. Most Republicans (or at the very least, Movement Conservatives) don't seem to have this same disposition when it comes to politics. Instead, there's a tendency to appeal to and rely on emotional reactions in everything instead of logic. As a result, we don't get a conversation that is actually useful to the country, we get some nasty snips of attack fodder to throw at those we dislike. In the health care debate, for example, the main sticking point against it wasn't exactly based in controlling costs, but instead whether or not Nancy Pelosi wanted to strangle your grandmother.

With our current media, that emotional grab can be beneficial. It's about winning news cycles, something that the Republicans have been very successful at. If you have the best sounding soundbite, that's what people are going to remember - advertisement figured this out eons ago. Americans often seem to have the attention span and memory of a goldfish when it comes to politics, and as such, the slower, thought-out approach doesn't always work; People just don't have the time or patience to listen to someone explain the complexities of hospice care or default credit swaps. Particularly if they don't feel it has a direct connection to their own lives. But it is an immature way to deal with the country's issues, and I feel that when the public thinks something really matters, it's not going to appeal to them as much as a solid, rational voice will.

Because when these news cycles stick around for longer then a few days, that is when those that are relying on the inattention of the public get into trouble. People that don't follow politics as obsessively as someone like myself still tune in every four years for the presidential election; even if it is somewhat of a sick reality show the public is still invested in the characters. And obviously, everyone was paying attention to what happened in Arizona last weekend, because if there is a national crisis, people start to tune in.

Republicans, while very good at creating fake crises out of thin air, aren't as adept at confronting real crises. This was most striking to me during the protests in Iran during 2009. While McCain was running around screaming his fool head off about how Obama has to say something, stick up for the protesters, Obama did nothing of the sort. He couldn't, you see. The second Obama said something like "America stands with the protesters", what did you reasonably expect would happen to those protesters? That Iran would suddenly say, "Oh, our bad, America!" and embrace their cause? Not at all. They would have been killed. Because at that point, once Obama connected the protesters (which the Iranians were sympathetic to) with America (which Iranians are most definitely not sympathetic to), it's all over for them. It's not the people of Iran against the government of Iran anymore, it's the government of the United States against the government of Iran. It was probably difficult, because really, how could you not feel for those protesters?

But the truth is, it would of only served to make us feel better to go all cowboy tough-guy on Iran's ass. We like simplicity. We like having bad guys that we can point fingers at. We like screaming FUCK YOU as a cathartic release when the frustration becomes too much. These things, irrational as they are, are enjoyable for us personally. They feel good to do. But beneficial as a whole? Not so much. Obama, being not a reactive but more of a reflective person, was able to see this for what it was. I've had many "man, we dodged a bullet" moments since Obama took office. This was the strongest one. I truly believe that had that election gone differently, we would be at war with Iran.

Unfortunately, the talking points to discredit a more rational approach have already been set in stone for decades now, that the more rational approach is the bad approach. The pussified approach. The snobby approach. That Obama is able to have success in taking the rational approach is promising, but I think its just that his approach is more effective depending on the situation. I doubt it will have an impact beyond his own presidency.

And I'm just rambling at this point. I had a point, I think I had like five, but whatever. At any rate - it's not a surprise that Obama is able to make his political opponents sound foolish when he chooses to do so. It's just how the different ideologies are set up to be sold, and depending on the situation, sadly either can be successful.

"The Founding Fathers would've hated your guts"

2011-01-15T11:44:00.003-06:00

I'm not normally a fan of Bill Maher, but this is pretty good:

This is probably something that needs to be repeated on a regular basis before it becomes yet another piece of right-wing dogma. That the Tea Party seems to think they own the Constitution now is absurd on it's face, being that they don't even really seem to like Democracy itself most of the time (that whole bill of rights thing would be perfect if we just got rid of the 4th and 14th amendments, allowed the 10th to take precedence over stupid things like civil rights, and added more to the 1st so that it would be illegal for bloggers to hurt Sarah Palin's feelings, amrite?).

Ever notice that they always rely on the supposed opinions of the dead to back up their arguments? They don't argue back, I suppose.

(via)

Because it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt

2011-01-08T15:17:00.004-06:00

No snark this week, sorry.

Those that know me know that I've had a passing interest in the increasing pattern of violent and eliminationist rhetoric coming out of the political sphere in the past few years, and concern over the dangerous effect it may have within our political culture. Part of it is my background in the reproductive rights debate. When you deal with extreme anti-choicers on a daily basis, you learn that people just aren't as rational and decent as we really want to believe. You learn that people that feel they are justified in their violent fantasies will do things. Part of it is my background in psyche, in which I know that we aren't actually the unique wonderful snowflakes we pretend to be, but are instead a horribly boring, predictable species that is easily led astray. And part of it is that I probably read to much Dave Neiwert, whose been doing the yeoman's work on political extremism in this country since the 90s.

Which is why, in the ramp-up to the 2008 election, I had some concerns about the path that the right wing political machine would take. When the footage from the McCain/Palin rallies started making the rounds, I grew even more nervous. And when no one seemed to bother with pointing out that maybe it's not cool to joke about killing your political opponents, I grew even more wary, because this couldn't possibly end well. And this was why I was able to predict how this would end up playing out back in 2008.

I was told by a colleague that I should elaborate on the point. I never did, because I wasn't sure how to without being guilty of what I was condemning. How do you point out that a faction of American politics is ripe for violent acts without tarring them with the same brush you are attempting to wipe clean? Logically, we know that the majority of people would not resort to extreme violence, so it would be unfair to say something like, "The Tea Party are a bunch of violent motherfuckers". It's just not accurate. But I think what's being missed is that it doesn't take the majority. It just takes a few psychos to that feel they've been given a justification. So I'd just point out what I have continuously done in the past, that the problem isn't that crazy people exist. The problem is that they are being given a justification for violence against their fellow Americans. And I'm sorry, guys, but it's not the left-wing of the country that has mainstreamed this sort of rhetoric this time.

And as we saw yesterday, another "isolated" incident has occurred in Arizona, which Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, along with thirteen other people. As of this posting, five are dead. And the assumptions begin, starting with a book list that includes Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler, and The Communist Manifesto, and ideals that include flag-burning and a refusal to adhere to anything but a gold standard. In short, perfect fodder for pretty much any political assumption one really wants to attach to it, we are warned. So already the serious people are urging not to turn this into a political event.

As if it can be discussed as anything else.

It's only about the psycho that carried out the act, they tell me. We can't know for sure what his political leanings are. We can't know for sure what the actual motivation was. This was more then likely a random act of violence that has no bearing on the country at large; to point out otherwise is nothing more then a cynical political ploy. But you know what? I can't take their advice this time.

Because it was the same thing they told me when Joseph Stack crashed his plane into a federal building in Texas after composing a screed against the government.

Because it was the same thing they told me when Jim Adkisson shot up the Knoxville Unitarian Church because of his "hatred of the liberal movement".

Because it was the same thing they told me when Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in the head after years of harassment egged on by those that called him a murderer of children.

Because it was the same thing they told me when Bryon Williams was caught on the way to shoot up the Tides foundation, which few had heard of until it was promoted by a pundit on Fox as being dangerous to America.

Because it was the same thing they told me when Tom Perriello's brother had the gas lines to his house cut after his address (assumed to be the congressman's) was posted on the local Tea Party website over anger regarding Health Care reform.

Because it was the same thing they told me when Richard Poplawski ambushed and fatally shot police officers because of the fear of an upcoming gun ban by the Obama adminstration.

Because it was the same thing told to me when they shot up and mailed fake anthrax to Congressman Raul Grijalva's headquarters, when Lauren Valle was curb stomped at a Rand Paul rally, when they were faxing pictures of nooses to Congressman James Clyburn, when they threw bricks through the windows of Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's headquarters and warned of waiting snipers.

And I'm sure it's the same thing they told Gabrielle Giffords when they vandalized her offices last March, or when she was included in Sarah Palin's "political crosshairs" map, or when her opponent Jesse Kelly encouraged supporters to come on down and shoot guns with him as part of a "get on target" event to "remove" Giffords from office.

And all the after-the-fact pleas for prayers for victims, all the half-hearted suggestions to not partake in political violence after explaining (wink wink) how liberals are the number one threat to America, all the assurances that these are merely lone wolves and not part of some larger pattern do nothing to for the dead. Nothing. But perhaps a commitment to discontinuing the all out support for those that preach this type of rhetoric will allow these tragedies to be rarer in the future.

And I'm not talking about legal band-aids that merely hide and never address the actual undercurrent of these acts. The problem isn't that pundit X can say what he wants, the problem is that for some reason Republicans react as if it is right and true, and maybe we should give him a talk show or a book deal: Sure, he may go to far sometimes, but he agrees with me politically that Obama is trying to destroy America, and his extreme hostility is so understandable - he's just reflecting the legitimate anger the populace currently has. And we will tell you where to direct that understandable and legitimate hostility you carry around - it's them. The Democrats. The liberals. The gays. The Mexicans. The Muslims. The blacks. They are to blame for your lost job, your lost home, your economic uncertainty - it's their fault. Them.

And with that, a hundred nutjobs get their wings. It's not just me. It's everyone, and only the brave ones are telling it like it is or doing something about it. Sure, it might be extreme, but it's understandable. In the name of liberty, sometimes extremism is warranted.

This is what needs to change. But this is not a job for over-reactive censorship or the violation of civil liberties for political dissidents. It can only be accomplished by the willful decision to be a decent person, for once, and do what is right for your country, not what is right for your fund-raising efforts, your book sales, or the ratings for your radio show. This is something the public has to step up on and hold politicians and pundits accountable for. Maybe it means that you don't vote for the guy even though you agree with his views on progressive taxation. Maybe it means you don't buy that book. Maybe it means you pull your advertising. Or maybe it means that you just speak up and call it out for what it is.

During the 1960s and 70s the newly minted "age of liberalism" crumbled to the ground thanks to the acceptance and embrace of left-wing radicals and extremists that took it too far, and thought of it as the opportunity to push for a revolution of their own desire. The public turned against the liberal movement, even if they had similar goals (namely, the ending of the Vietnam War). This in turn allowed the Republican party to play off of the fear and uncertainty of this seemingly anti-American movement during the 80s (and well into today), and caused liberals to not only run from the radicals themselves, in order to not be seen as condoning it, but to run from liberalism as a whole, because the brand had all but been destroyed by extremists. We are currently seeing a parallel to that history, the overbearing conservatism of the 80s has in return, created a faction of the right-wing that cannot accept a rule by any other, and once again, their own radicals and extremists in the movement are pushing that envelope to create a revolution of their own desire. It is well past time to own up to these elements in their own party, even if the damage done is irreparable in the near future. It will be.

But so far, the alternative of embracing the radicalism has proven to be very beneficial to Republicans in recent years. They've managed to tap into populist anger and direct it at their political foes, and are rewarded with votes and fund-raising opportunities. We're already seeing a hell of a back-lash from right-wing pundits that are taking outrageous offense at the mere suggestion that maybe the rhetoric should be toned down. That this is nothing more then a hit job on Palin (because obviously, she's the real victim here). That this is an attempt to squelch the voices of conservatives. That "both sides do it". So odds are, this will continue until the public itself reacts against it and it becomes a liability, much like it did with the Democrats in the past. Is this assassination attempt the spark that wakes people up?

I'm not optimistic. But then again, I never am. I implore you to prove me wrong this time.

Nothing to fear but pretty much everything.

2011-01-03T18:09:00.004-06:00

This is a fun one:

Scientists have found that people with conservative views have brains with larger amygdalas, almond shaped areas in the centre of the brain often associated with anxiety and emotions.

On the otherhand, they have a smaller anterior cingulate, an area at the front of the brain associated with courage and looking on the bright side of life.

Naturally, the actual study isn't available online yet, so until it can be picked apart (which I assure you, it will be), let's just have some fun with it. Ha! Republicans all scared and shit. That's hilarious.

In regards to pop psychology, it just makes so much sense, you know? I can fall asleep at night without worrying that terrorists or Black Panthers are hiding out under my bed. I don't know if some right-wingers can say the same, based on some of the shit I've read by them. Wasn't there an actual children's book put out a while back about liberals hiding under the bed? I think there was, but I'm too lazy to look for it.

And yes, that's all a bit hyperbolic. But the actual examples aren't any better. Think of the hullabaloo over trying terror suspects in civilian courts, for example. It's odd that the same group that preaches American exceptionalism on a regular basis would piddle themselves at the thought of actually having our institutions tested. I mean, is there really anything that shows that we are the United Fucking States more putting these terror suspects through our own justice system, because goddammit, this is America, and we do that shit right? But no, the critics cried, trying them in our courts and putting them in our prison systems might lead to exposure to their radical world-view, either by recruitment of convicts or allowing them to testify on the stand, and apparently we can't handle such things, because we are so fragile. But you know, America! Fuck Yeah! and all. Makes no sense.

Now, as interesting as it may be, it should be said first and foremost that any study that is promoted as showing something "hard-wired" into the brain should send up a red flag instantly. It could be that the "hard-wired" conclusion may not actually be featured in the study (this is often an assumed conclusion that over-zealous publications will tack on because they feel it makes for a more interesting read). But even if this is so, a study is still pretty worthless if you can't go in and look at the methodology used. So I can't really delve into the merits of the study itself at this point. I'd just caution that most of these things are for entertainment value only.

But still, it did make me pause, because it fits nicely in with a pattern I've picked up on in regards to conservatives (or probably more accurately, Republicans). It's this idea that punishing the wicked takes precedence over protecting the innocent. Have you noticed it? It's a theme running through most of their arguments. For instance:

~ We must do everything we can to make voting as difficult as possible - harassing people we find questionable at the polls, pushing for ID requirements, etc. That this actually leads to massive voter suppression is an unfortunate yet necessary effect, but it is still more important to catch those that might be defrauding the system than to ensure that every American can exercise one of their most fundamental rights in our society.

~ Courts are not perfect, societal biases can influence cases and sentencing, and sometimes innocent people are put to death by the state. But it's better to have a few innocent people wrongly executed then to have one actual murderer get life in prison instead of the death penalty. You can also apply this to due process objections as well, even though protections are in existence for the sole reason of preventing abuse and fraud by the justice system, they can also lead to "technicalities" which may let a guilty person go free, which is why we need to do away with them.

~ Even though the majority of women that seek out late-trimester abortions have a really damn good reason for doing so, there may be a few that don't have a reason that we've agreed is acceptable, therefore the whole procedure must be banned; tough luck if you are one of the women that are desperately in need of those services.

~ Sure, it sucks when law enforcement shoots people that are protecting their families when the door of their home is busted down by gun-wielding strangers during to a no-knock raid. But sometimes when you knock first, drug dealers can flush drugs down the toilet, which means they might get away with it. And drugs are bad, okay? Sorry about having the wrong house address, though.

~ Hardship in life is inevitable. There will be times when families are desperate for funds to put food on the table so their children can eat. But sometimes, some people abuse the welfare system. Better to get rid of the social safety net entirely.

And so on. I think it comes down to what we consider to be the worst-case scenario. I've always held the opinion that it is better to let a few bad people get away with things rather then risk punishing the truly innocent. But I hear a lot of arguments that are willing to sacrifice the innocent to get the bad people, and we see this idea play out time and time again. Maybe it's due to fear. Maybe it's due to empathy, or a lack thereof. Maybe it's due to perfect-world syndrome. Or maybe it's merely the politics of ressentiment. But there are definitely patterns.

Obligatory New Year Blogging

2011-01-01T13:12:00.002-06:00

I really wanted to play the "top-ten [blank] of 2010" game this year, because everybody's doing it and all I really want in life is just to be cool. Other obligations got in the way, unfortunately, like the frantic process of obtaining my bitchin' new ride after my Olds decided to straight-up die on me (being a one-car household sucks sometimes) and naturally, the holiday frenzy.

So here I am on New Year's Day cursing other blogs for totally reading my mind and stealing all my ideas, like reminiscing about the decade (ten years ago I was putting the final touches on my backpacking trip around Europe while unaware that I was about to be ~~fired~~ laid-off from my job, still went, ended up in debt, but totally worth it), posting clips from C-Span (THE GENTLEMAN WILL SIT! THE GENTLEMAN IS CORRECT IN SITTING! is still one of my favorites, but how the hell does Maddy the Anti-Socialist Baby not make that list?) or just being all fucking meta about the whole deal just to show how aware of all internet traditions I am. But alas, this is all said and done (better) by others.

So should I go into resolutions? I think I have the same general ones that will never be accomplished like most people (quit smoking, drink less, exercise more, become a chef, etc) and always some that are just personal to me (stop snarking about how much politics sucks and figure out some resolutions for the problem, start putting your writing out there again, get back into the social justice debate, contact your goddamn friends and family more, don't fear the break room, that piano isn't going to play itself you know, finish "Nixonland" for fuck's sake). But I never saw the point in stacking all these life changes up for one day and yelling "GO!", I feel like that just dooms you to failure*.

So it comes down to this: I started 2011 the same way I ended 2010 - Pushing some random dude's car down the street (this one happened to be out of gas). And maybe that's really all there is to it.

Or, as my husband just walked into the room and cheerfully said, "New Year, new toothbrush". I suppose I'll leave it at that.

Have a great year, everyone. Be excellent to each other.

*Had to include a link to this, by far my favorite comic of the year.

Obligatory Holiday Post

2010-12-25T11:51:00.006-06:00

I'm not a huge holiday person. Not that there aren't things I enjoy, like spending time with family, but I'm just not into the whole grand production of Christmas. I honestly do not think I own any Christmas decorations (okay, I may have a decorative plate somewhere that is currently being used as a cat food dish).

It's not a "bah-humbug" type of mentality. I don't have any hostility towards the holidays, and I grew bored with the war on Christmas a long time ago. I don't slip into a rage if I see a fake Santa running around or see that other people enjoying these things. Good on them if they do, whatever makes you happy. If it's a blow-up Frosty doll, go with it. It's just that for me personally, I don't have a lot of interest, because it's not my thing.

But music is! And the holidays do provide me an opportunity to post this song, which I've always loved.

There's probably some deeper meaning in regards to my love of this song and my emotional disconnection from things like tinsel, reindeer, and everything else that encompasses the holiday spirit. But I have to go visit family and eat some stuff right now, so I'll refrain from the psychoanalysis. If you want to read a lovely write-up on the song, I suggest you go here.

Have a good one, and stay safe out there.

Day After Saturday "Fuck Yeah, Snowpocalypse!" Links

2010-12-12T11:08:00.004-06:00

Another day, another glaring revelation that Fox News is nothing more then a propaganda outlet for the GOP. But who cares, right? We all know a direct order to slant the news coming from the managing editor at a news organization isn't actually news - Perhaps if they had found, say, personal emails among friends making fun of political opponents in private this would be a real story that indicates bias (bias!) in the media.

So as you've probably heard, Obama was really pissed that the Professional Left decided to take him up on that whole "Hold me accountable" thing. The Village, of course, is besides themselves with glee over the hippie punching. KThug notes that the villagers' memory of past 'centrist' victories is a bit off, and wonders if Obama has bought into the same history. I understand that there's not much Obama can do about the tax cut issue now. But I do hold him accountable for not pushing this issue when it should of been pushed - long before this lame-duck session, before it came down to a "do this or I'll shoot this dog" situation. And I really wish he'd learn from these things. It doesn't seem like he is.

With that said, no matter how much grief I give the current administration for their horrible negotiation skills and their naivety when it comes to dealing with the opposition , this whole "Let's primary Obama in 2012" thing? It's a really stupid idea. No guys, seriously. It's a really, really, stupid idea.

Bill Donahue, who is always mad, is now mad that the NY YMCA is betraying its religious roots by replacing Santa Claus with Frosty the Snowman this year. Yeah, I don't get it either.

This is quite possibly the stupidest "exposé" ever written by a Republican (and that's saying a lot). Did you know that food stamps can buy... FOOD? And that if you decide to max out all your funds for the month in one shopping trip, government-hired ninjas will NOT drop from the ceiling and instantly revoke all welfare-related luxuries? Quality reporting from Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller. This is right up there with the ever so trenchant "Obama isn't the type to go to the Applebee's Salad Bar" observation. Hey rich, over-entitled motherfuckers? Perhaps it would be less embarrassing for you if you'd just stop trying to pretend that you know anything at all about being someone other then a rich, over-entitled motherfucker.

Ah ha! I knew they were messing with me.

Star Tribune: Calling having sex with an unconcious person rape is "unusual"

2010-12-08T21:17:00.007-06:00

Holy shit, this is really starting to piss me off.

In light of the rape charges against Wikileaks spokesperson Julian Assange, The Star Tribune has an article today about Sweden's "Liberal" laws regarding consent (those wacky Swedes with their egalitarianism!). I thought that was bad enough, but I shit you not, people, underneath the subtitle that actually says "Tales of flings at center of Assange case spotlight Sweden's unusual rape laws" it contains this line:

A minor threat or force, such as pulling an arm, can be enough to result in charges. Sex with a person who is unconscious, drunk or asleep can be classed as rape.

Yeah, it's usually classed as rape here in America too, you fucking morons. Because it's fucking rape. Really have to love how the author frames it at the same level as "pulling an arm". Because pulling an arm and fucking unconscious people without their consent? Totally the same thing.

You know, I have no idea what went down with Assange and those women. And if people want to try to find inconsistencies in story, or point out that the timing seems a bit suspect, fine, go for it. I'm skeptical myself. But you know what? Stop acting like the charge is bullshit on its own merits. It was bad enough when people were saying it was a farce because apparently if someone agrees to protected sex, they're to blame if their partner is a complete asshole and fucks them without it. This idea that withdrawn consent is somehow irrelevant, that someone's need to finish/not use a condom/demand acts that their partner does not want somehow overrides anyone's right to their own bodily autonomy is disgusting enough.

But now it's apparently "unusual" to call fucking someone that is unconscious what it is: rape.

Major fail, Star Tribune. Seriously, fuck you.

Don't Make Boehner Angry. You Wouldn't Like Him When He's Angry.

2010-12-03T19:06:00.005-06:00

Oh hey! Guess who's all butthurt again about that fact that sometimes Democrats are actually still in congress and, you know, do stuff?

No. Guess again. And shame on you. She's a child.

Ding ding ding! That's right, we've all made Orangey McGee cry again because he is madder then hell that the Democrats might actually push something through the House that he doesn't personally like. He's so mad that he's tempted to use vulgarities to express just how really friggin' mad he is, so you best fetch your smelling salts before you read the ultimate smackdown on Democrat foolishness:

"I'm trying to catch my breath so I don't refer to this maneuver going on today as chicken crap, all right," the top-ranking House Republican said sarcastically, "but this is nonsense! We're 23 months from the next election and the political games have already started trying to set up the next election.

"We have an honest conversation at the White House about the challenges that we face to get out of here. ... And to roll this vote out today, it really is just ... it's what you think I was going to say," he said.

Oooo! You're in deep shit now, Demoncrats! Wait... "Chicken Crap"? Really dude?

Whatever. Anyway, Boehner's has a major sad because a wrench has been thrown into his bipartisany politicking. See, everything was going so well with his dealmaking with Obama and Co., in which Democrats will give anything and their grandmother so that Republicans can scream "syke!" and get their Bush Tax Cuts extended for the rich folks forever and ever. Perfection, and then sure enough, comes that damn Hell-Fire Pelosi to fuck everything up by actually acting like a leader and not sitting in a corner weeping silently while congressional aides throw spitballs at her like you are supposed to do, Pelosi. So as a result, Middle Class tax cuts passed the House, people. And now Republicans might have to argue keeping wasteful tax cuts for the wealthy that haven't done a damn thing for the economy on the merits of "Rich people rule, poor people drool" instead of just holding the rest of the country hostage for them. So unfair.

Harry Reid is also giving at least the illusion of playing hard ball with this issue, which means he will issue some sternly worded letters and frown a lot before he folds completely. And if he doesn't, we are in luck: Mitch McConnell has announced it dead on arrival in the Senate, as he has all 42 Republican senators sworn to vote against it. Which means it has no chance of passing, because to use something like reconciliation for this issue would be a low down dirty act that only the crappiest of people would ever attempt.

But back to Boehner and his hurt feelings: Why, Democrats, must you ruin the integrity of the congress with this vile act? Things were going so well and bi-partisany! Like when Obama screwed over federal workers in the name of sacrifice and the Republicans responded in kind by sacrificing some of their own priorities, like allowing the Democrats to pass legislation this session, allowing low-income children to eat lunch at school, or allowing the currently unemployed to keep up with their utility bills this Christmas. That's three (and counting) sacrifices for the price of one! How could you possibly turn your back on this wicked eleventy-thousand-dimensional chess Obama was working on?

Shame on you, Democrats. See, we need to freeze salaries and cut unemployment benefits to reduce that deficit that no one actually cares about. I supposed some could argue that keeping the high end tax cut would add trillions to our debt, but it's worth it because JOBS! And I'm sure that even though those tax cuts never created any job during the Bush years like they were supposed to, they will now with 9.8% unemployment and expiring unemployment benefits, because businesses with no customers will have the incentive to hire people to stare at the wall.

So to ask the rich to sacrifice the tax cut on their income above the amount that they are already getting a tax cut on? No way. And in case the waste and uselessness of these tax cuts aren't enough of an argument for you, won't you think of the will of the American people? After all, Republicans have assured us that the last election showed there is mandate on tax cuts, because don't we all remember the 2010 election, and how tax cuts were the most important issue for voters after jobs, health care, jobs, the war, jobs, low voter turnout, jobs, dissatisfaction with Obama, and jobs? Sure, polls consistently show the mandate does not actually exist and the overwhelming majority of people don't want to expand useless and wasteful tax cuts, but Republicans won the election, and obviously they did so because the public was able to read their minds and know that this would be the major issue they would push for.

But all in all, the drama is unnecessary because the White House will set this injustice straight by screwing over the Democrats in congress and their constituency by staying the course in their bi-partisan goals. This has worked out very well for them in the past, as we know from the last election. It's a brilliant move: By extending those olive branches to the Republicans, the Republicans wouldn't dare turn around and blame the Democrats for the utter failure of the economy, as that would be rude and unseemly, something the Republicans never are. It's not like trying to create a worse environment for the 2012 "Palinpalooza" election is their goal, or anything.

So relax, Boehner. Obama has promised you that he was wrong in not folding to you guys completely in the past, and he's learned from that. And he knows that gesture of goodwill will pay off in the future, when you join him in this national sacrifice by cutting entitlements to your own voter base, right? Guys?

David Simon fills people with despair, not hope. Get it right, WaPo.

2010-12-01T16:59:00.002-06:00

I love this newspaper correction almost as much as I love the "9/11 is a joke" one.

The Big Picture

2010-11-30T20:24:00.003-06:00

This just bums me out:

Webb has pushed for a onetime windfall profits tax on Wall Street's record bonuses. He talks about the "unusual circumstances of the bailout," that the bonuses wouldn't be there without the bailout.

"I couldn't even get a vote," Webb says. "And it wasn't because of the Republicans. I mean they obviously weren't going to vote for it. But I got so much froth from Democrats saying that any vote like that was going to screw up fundraising.

I honestly can't think of an idea that would be more popular. It throws some red meat to the liberal base, it would boost up the Democrats populist brand, and the Tea-Party-influenced Republican party would have a tough time arguing against it considering the lingering anger over bailouts, both real and imagined.

A lot of people get really pissed off at the "There's no difference between the two parties" mentality that a lot of those that have given up on politics seem to carry around on their backs. And yes, to an extent, it is annoying (I feel that a main difference between the two parties was aptly summed up by ED Kain a while back - at the very least, Democrats have some interest in governing). But when it comes to the Banana Republic in process that is killing our country, neither party is going to save us. At this point, you just wait until Alexander the Great decides to show up.

Hell, as much as I hate to say it, the Tea Party may be our best bet to break that trend. Not that the GOP can't find some way to temper the anti-Wall Street hostilities while holding on to the sentiment that they are on the peoples' side, the DNC has pulled off that dog and pony show very successfully for decades now. But at the very least, Tea Party populists have a voice in the current discussion, whereas we've framed the national discussion in a way that a Democrat will never be seen as a credible ally against monied interests (because of Teh Socialism). Odds are, actually making some leeway at dissolving the Wall Street/Government marriage is probably going to have to be a Nixon Goes to China situation.

I sure as hell don't know how to fix it.

Meh. Maybe I'm just bugging off this Sinfest comic.

Via ObWi

Because it's a seasonal internet tradition...

2010-11-25T19:55:00.003-06:00

You need to watch at least one video of cars sliding down an icy hill. And this one has a bus!

Do What Now?

Also, Ron Paul would have given the slaves low cost medical exams, so it's okay

Someone ought to set up a benefit concert for the absorbed zygotes

30 Day Music Challenge: 01

The lost art of civility

The 53% is part of the 99%, whether they acknowledge it or not

It's now 9/12, can I go back to being an asshole?

How to survive a bear attack

"And we’re going to hurt some people"

Stabbing the baby before throwing it out with the bathwater seems to be the current strategy

Fun Stuff is Offically Closed

Nothing to say, just messing with Google+

Please stop making me defend these assholes

U Mad, officer?

This post is 100% accurate because I say so

They also replaced your coffee with Folgers

Unicorns gather in Minneapolis to move forward with "Operation Annoy Obama" plan

I know I shouldn't go for the low-hanging fruit like this...

Jesus and John Galt fistfight in Hell

Bachmann: 1 Pawlenty: 0 Minnesota: Zzzzzzz...

Fight the real enemy

Day After the Day After Saturday Links

Far below, the city burns...

Too nice to be sitting at a computer....

Too little, too late

It's shit like this that makes me really wish Karma existed.

This is why David Weigel is my favorite person on Twitter

Damn you and your awesomeness, Rick Perlstein.

Think you got away with something boy well, see his hand and feel his staff

I guess the only logical conclusion is that I'm a dude

Your yearly reminder: Easter and Bunnies do not mix

MN Republicans hard at work to increase rate of overdoses, abortions for teens

Motherfucking Libertarians on a Motherfucking Train

Real Americans don't have foreskins

Magical Minnesota Pony-Fairy strikes again to provide public transit to Republicans

Please let me have my Surly Brewery of Awesome. Please?

You don't know what the sound is, darling

Pissed off about something stupid? Run for president! (Let's all run!)

"You can bet your ass, I'm not going to be mean to Willie Nelson"

Email thugs

The ongoing class war I'm not supposed to talk about because it's rude

And then when you leave I'm wondering when would be too soon...

If you can't beat them, smear them

Just a name on the map, sounds like heaven to me

Maybe if the teachers put out, we could save the economy!

Deep thoughts on bitches

But if we make France bomb everything first then we can pretend we didn't just enter into another war, right?

As if the week couldn't get any crappier...

She was pretty cool, too.

Day After Saturday Links (Now with tractors!)

When reality and false compassion collide

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, sure, whatever.

Those police union votes were nice while they lasted, right?

Go to the Mardi Gras

10 Things Right Wing Pundits Have Taught Me About the Madison Protests

It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods... will not save you.

It's fine if you don't like corporate agenda mushrooms. You don't have to eat them.*

When you meet me in the garden with your horns all hung with cedar

Day After Saturday Links

Fun with Google Analytics and H*rny Chr*stians

Viva La Cheese Heads!

South Dakota jealous of all the attention other anti-choice legislation getting, attempts to up the ante by legalizing Jesus-approved terrorism

Happy Happy Valentine's Day

Amazingly enough, the whole "Driving to Wisconsin on a Sunday to Get Beer" tradition isn't as much fun as you'd think it would be

Anti-choicers in a heated battle to prove who can hate poor women the most

And about Egypt...

Just another isolated incident...

Day After Saturday Links

Maybe it's time to let go...

I don't think I actually have a point to this post. I tried, but lost it somewhere.

"The Founding Fathers would've hated your guts"

Because it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt

Nothing to fear but pretty much everything.

Obligatory New Year Blogging

Obligatory Holiday Post

Day After Saturday "Fuck Yeah, Snowpocalypse!" Links

Star Tribune: Calling having sex with an unconcious person rape is "unusual"

Don't Make Boehner Angry. You Wouldn't Like Him When He's Angry.

David Simon fills people with despair, not hope. Get it right, WaPo.

The Big Picture

Fun with Google Analytics and Hrny Chrstians