Da Ali G Show is hilarious. Can't wait to see this!
Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was said to be an immigrant touring America. Speaking in broken English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd - it was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places - that he supported the war on terrorism.
"I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards," he said,
"And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq," he continued.
By then, a restless crowd had turned downright nasty.
"If he had been out there a minute longer, I think somebody would have shot him," Jaymes said. "People were booing him, flipping him off."
Rodeo producer Bobby Rowe, who by then had figured out that he was the victim of some kind of hoax, had the man escorted out of the civic center. By Saturday afternoon, Jaymes had observed that Sagdiyev looked a lot like the title character of Da Ali G Show, a Home Box Office production that often catches its guests and audiences unaware and then records their reaction to "shock value" material such as Friday night's performance.
The show has a character named Borat from Kazakhstan, according to the HBO Web site.
Borat Strikes!
Wev
Let me introduce you to one of my favorite words: wev.
Wev is what Shakespeare’s Sister says when she has too much contempt for something to even bother uttering the full three syllables of whatever.
Michael Chertoff, Bush’s new nominee for Homeland Security Chief, is, if one’s mind is elastic enough to stretch its levels of credulity yet further, an even worse choice than Kerik. His dubious qualifications include: overseeing the initial 9/11 probe, approving and defending the indiscriminate and indefinite detention of “hundreds of ‘material witnesses’ of Arab descent -- even though it would later be determined that none—that's right, none—of the detainees had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001,” lobbied for and encouraged the expanded use of domestic surveillance, and—drum roll, please—was responsible for the botched prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui. Sounds like he’s due for a medal, too.
Of course, our Dems in D.C. are jumping all over this:
"Judge Mike Chertoff has the resume to be an excellent Homeland Security Secretary, given his law enforcement background and understanding of New York's and America's neglected homeland security needs," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.Oh. Well. Not exactly the firm opposition I had in mind. But then again, perhaps we should listen to Schumer, since he obviously knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Bush’s Dept. of Homeland Security nominees:
New York should always be the focal point of homeland security activities, and Bernie Kerik is a tried and true New Yorker who understands our city, our state, our problems and our needs. We look forward to working with him to bring greater help in terms of dollars and security for New York.
Wev.
Gay Rights in Illinois
As I've mentioned before, I love living in Illinois!
Today the state House approved a bill that will add "sexual orientation" to the state law that protects people from bias based on race, religion and similar traits. It applies to discrimination in jobs, housing, public accommodations or credit. Governor Rod Blagojevich has already pledged to sign it.
Cook County and 15 other cities already had a similar provision, but I am especially happy because I do not live in that county or one of those cities.
Of course the Repubs' panties are all wadded up. They're worried it will allow transvestites to use women's restrooms and open the "Pandora's box" of gay marriage. Zzzzzzzz - somebody wake me when they come up with a good argument. The last I heard, the only state to allow gay marriage - Massachussetts - hasn't exploded yet and, oh yeah, it has the lowest divorce rate. Nice try, though.
New Links
I’m not foregoing Blogrollin’ Fridays, I promise, but I have two links to add that are long overdue. I’ll return to regularly scheduled additions on Friday.
First up: The Alternate Brain. Not just because of The Fixer’s and my bloggy love fest, or Gordon’s spectacular taste, but because it is consistently smart and enjoyable to read.
Second up: Piercing Wit. For general coolness, and for sharing interesting things like this.
Go read’ em.
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UPDATE: I'm moving this post up to the top again, because it got buried under a flurry of posts from Mr. Furious and me, and these guys deserve a bit more time than they got the first time 'round.
Gimme a B....
All right. I’ve just about fucking had it with these people.
Let’s recall, shall we, the lack of even the most cursory repentance from the administration about the torture that took place at Abu Ghraib. It was, they said, merely “a few bad apples,” which is about the most juvenile excuse imaginable for such horrific behavior. Rush Limbaugh managed to infantilize the defense of the perpetrators even further:
This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?Just a few bad apples blowing off some steam. It was impossible to think that the analysis of the dreadful situation could actually get any more preposterous, but along come the fantastical legal stylings of Guy Womack to scrape clean through the bottom of the barrel and into the dirt below:
Forcing naked Iraqi prisoners to pile themselves in human pyramids was not torture, because American cheerleaders do it every year, a court was told today.Mr. Womack, does this look like a scene from Bring It On to you, you miserable scumbag?
[…]
“Don’t cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year. Is that torture?” said Guy Womack, Sergeant Graner’s lawyer, in opening arguments to the ten-member military jury at the reservist’s court martial. (Link)
(By the way, that’s head cheerleader Charles Graner himself at the back of the pile.)
That picture makes me want to scream. That people (many of whom turned out to be innocent of the charges of which they were accused) were put through this, that it was orchestrated by Americans, and that a large part of America seems to think the whole thing is a fucking joke is just about more than I can bear. And the machiavellian architect of the entire debacle is our next Attorney General. Quite a reward for determining the dubious legal loopholes that allowed this revolting behavior to commence.
Ultimately, though, even the charming Mr. Gonzales has a boss. Every cheerleading team has a head cheerleader.
(An actual photo of George Bush during his cheerleading days.)
Hip hip hooray.
Books Are Burning...?
Wait, hold the match.
Apparantly the Mississippi library that banned John Stewart's "America" book because of the "nude" photos of the Supreme Court, has reversed their decision in a 5-2 vote by the board.
"We have come under intense scrutiny by the outside community," said David Ables, board chairman. "As a board, we don't decide for the community whether to read this book or not, but whether to make it available."
Board member David Ogborn of Hurley opposed to lifting the ban. "I haven't heard anything but a good response by our decision to keep this material out of our libraries," Ogborn said. "Our libraries are not a trash bin for pornographic materials."
Pornographic? Honey, it's going to take more than a medium sized fake photo of some withered up Supreme Court tits and penises to arouse most red-blooded Americans. Better check the sex ed aisle - oh wait, those books are probably in the porno trash bin, too.
Take a Stand!
Since many great thinkers contribute to this blog, I thought I'd share this. Stand Up Democrats is a site that is collecting ideas about fixing the Democratic party. According to them:
"As a first step, we are collecting ideas from December 14th through January 14th. We will take the best 100 ideas and submit it to the new Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman and to every Democratic U.S. Senator, Member of Congress and Governor.
After another disappointing performance by Democrats, it's time to act. It's time for us to stand up and fix this party. Stand up and give us your ideas to fix the Democratic Party."
At least we're not the only ones who want change!
A Little Depp'll Do Ya
This story about Johnny Depp is not political, but it made me laugh out loud:
"Looking 'exhausted and worn-out' and filmed on what looked like the back of a moving truck, the 41-year-old star said: 'Hey listen, I wanted to thank you all very, very much. I'm sorry I couldn't be there. It's a great honour. I'm on a mad trek through the Carpathian mountains searching for Vlad the Impaler who I'm hoping to hook up with. There's rabid dogs, wolves, all sorts of squeaky things, weird stuff. First I want to say thank-you to the people because you are the employer, you are our boss. I hope someday to make you all a cup of coffee.'"
Brilliant!
Demand Reform
Since the delicious possibility was laid before me, I have supported Howard Dean’s potential appointment as DNC Chair. (Here’s just one reason why.) And although the majority of my endorsement of Dean is based on his suitability for the role and his perceived ability to effect reform, a sliver of it is attributable to a vote against the other contenders. Right now, it appears that Tim Roemer is the new establishment favorite (read: getting the anti-Dean vote).
I can assure you, being a Hoosier myself, that any Indiana Democrat should be considered suspect in terms of his or her liberal bona fides. That is not to suggest that our Dems in D.C. aren’t good representatives, especially considering their constituencies in a very, very red state, but I must admit that when I hear the name Evan Bayh being floated as a potential ’08 candidate, I get shivers up my spine. It’s not a condemnation of Bayh, who is by all accounts an ethical politician and a decent man, but he’s only the answer to your prayers if you believe the solution to the Dems’ problems is moving toward the center.
Tim Roemer is another matter altogether. (Roemer on the issues here.) Kos describes him as “an anti-abortion, anti-Clinton budget, anti-social security, fellow at a right-wing think tank status quo candidate,” and I can assure you it’s not an exaggeration.
On the Left, we often wonder why moderate Republicans don’t take a stand against the Bush Administration’s continual bastardization of traditional Republican tenets. It’s fair game for discussion, but it shouldn’t be examined to the exclusion of holding our own party accountable for contributing to the momentum of the country’s rightward slide into Bush’s radically conservative agenda. Dems racing toward the center only adds to that momentum.
Step #1: Stop worshipping Clinton.
Step #2: Stop ignoring your base.
Step #3: Elect Dean as chair and reform the DNC.
More to come. Watch this space.
Lordy Begordy
D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.How did this consciousless buffoon win the presidency?
Whaddaya Know
It turns out that Mel Gibson liked Fahrenheit 9/11 and Michael Moore liked The Passion of the Christ.
Mel: I saw the film. I liked it … I feel a kind of strange kinship with Michael … I mean, they're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but this is all just a hologram, you know. They've really got nothing to do with one another. They were used as some kind of divisive left-right thing.
Michael: I thought it was a powerful piece of filmmaking … I'm a practicing Catholic, and you know I think Mel and I may be from different wings of the Catholic Church. My film might have been called 'The Compassion of the Christ.
The Freepers are going bonkers, in truly hilarious style. It’s interesting that supporting an anti-war view has suddenly called his religiousness into question for some on the Right. It seems to me like someone who subscribes to and genuinely believes in the teachings of Christ would tend to be anti-war, although a little thing called the Crusades tends to undermine that assumption; it appears that some things never change.
Our Bodies, Ourselves
The asinine legislation being peddled in Virginia, which would have required pregnant women who failed to report fetal deaths to the police within 12 hours to face a possible misdemeanor sentence, will be withdrawn. Once again, I wonder why any woman would vote Republican.
Al's the Man
Say what you will about Al Sharpton—I know he’s got baggage—but I love him. He says what Dems in elected offices never seem to want to say:
African Americans were taken in by a "con" game by Republicans last November former presidential candidate Al Sharpton said. Speaking to parishioners at Atlanta's Butler Street Christian Methodist Episcopal on Sunday, Sharpton said Bush manipulated the gay marriage debate to draw attention away from the Iraq war and his domestic problems.I’ve written about the issue of using homophobia to fracture the black community before, and I think it’s just the beginning of an ugly trend. Between Rev. Al Sharpton’s fiery speech at the Democratic Convention and his support of gay acceptance in the black community, I don’t know if we realize how much we owe him for standing watch at a border that the rest of the party seems to ignore.
"I think George Bush manipulated a lot of religious feelings about marriage when the president has little or nothing to do with marriage," Sharpton said. "The president cannot order what marriage is for men or women," Sharpton said.
"It was the place for a debate on Iraq, he's in charge of the military; health care, he's in charge of that; on Social Security, he's in charge of that," he told church goers. "But we should not relinquish the morality of the church to the office of president. He has nothing to do with that." (365Gay.com via Pam’s House Blend)
Consider the Source
More often than not, I think Atrios is a pretty good commentator, but I think he misses an opportunity to get to the bottom of the issue with this post:
Someone pens a letter to Romenesko which says:
Can we please dispense with the non-debate over blogs? They are nothing more than the Web's version of talk radiio. [sic]
I think this comparison is worthwhile enough for discussion. It's meant as an insult to both, but for years the rest of the media ignored talk radio (they still do). I wish a tenth of the attention given to dissecting the meaning of blogs had been given to talk radio. I wish all the media people tut-tutting bloggers would listen to a bit of talk radio every now and then. That would give them some perspective that they are sorely lacking.
The key difference between talk radio and blogs is sourcing. Even when audio clips are played on the radio as source material for a particular point being made, they are edited, and it’s often not simple to find the original source material in its entirety. One could argue that bloggers edit articles in a similar way, but the difference is that usually such edits are accompanied by a link to the original source material, which makes discerning context much more easily and immediately accessible.
Simply by nature of blogs being an internet property, readers have huge amounts of information at hand, if they are interested in contextualizing content. On the other hand, talk radio tends to depend on listeners’ distance from the source material. By the time the clip has been played, the discussion has been had, and opinions have been formed, any desire to authenticate the veracity of the clip on which the point was based is likely long gone. Many a time have I read a blog post only to click through to the sourced article and discover that I draw a much different conclusion from the details than did the post’s author.
Of course, not all information is reliable; just because there’s a link to something doesn’t make it true. But it seems to me that there’s something inherently more indicative of a pursuit of truth in blogging than in talk radio. There are blogs that are fonts of misinformation to be sure, but generally, talk radio personalities are entertainers first and information disseminators second, whereas political bloggers depend wholly on information to power their engines.
As in all endeavors, there are good bloggers and bad, but I don’t think the poorest of the lot undermines the difference—we encourage our audience to seek the source, whereas talk radio seeks to dazzle the audience with bombast until source is of no concern at all.
The Right Was Wrong
In a recent interview with the Boston Globe, Sean Penn was asked about being on the receiving end of some fairly nasty attacks (see here, here, and here, as examples) when he was speaking out against the Iraq War preceding its commencement:
How do you feel about people who say actors shouldn't take stands?I won’t suggest that Penn isn’t prone to some uncomfortable hyperbole, but nor will I concede that his open letter to President Bush was inflammatory or unreasonable, or deserving of the vitriol with which it was received in many corners. Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to critique or defend Sean Penn in particular, but to address all the people who suggested pre-war the possibility there were no weapons of mass destruction, for a start.
I wrote a letter to the Washington Post a couple of years ago before we went into the war. The very things I was criticized for saying then are now being reported by Bill O'Reilly. I was criticized for suggesting the possibility there were no weapons of mass destruction. But the bigger issue is that it's an absolutely stupid notion that you should take the title of someone's profession and attach it to what they should not do. It has nothing to do with citizenry. I think they should shove it with their hypocritical Ronald Reagan standard . . . .
Patridiot Watch’s Poppy hits the nail on the head:
Opponents to the Iraq War, at least those of us who did so from before the invasion, are constantly frustrated when new facts are unearthed supporting our position and beliefs from 2002 and 2003. We said there were no WMD, and there were none. We said Saddam's army was weak, and it was. We said Saddam had no connection to 911, and he did not. We said the initial invasion would be easy but would result in an ongoing guerilla war, and it did.I remember in the days leading up to the war saying that I did not believe that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (particularly not of the ilk that could do damage significant enough to the US, even if handed over to terrorists, to warrant a preemptive strike—a distinction that has been lost along the way); I felt it in my gut, but more importantly, I read everything on the subject I could, which gave me practical information about and psychological insight into Hussein and his rule. It just didn’t make sense for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being Colin Powell’s half-assed and bizarre presentation to the UN, which I found the opposite of convincing), and despite being told outright that I was a pompous idiot for thinking I knew more than the administration, I held firm to my instinct that we were headed to war on false pretenses. And I was only one of many.
Yet the pundits we see on the television talking about the war are always its supporters, suggesting that even though opponents were right about everything no one could have known things would turn out the way they did.
Except there are hundreds of thousands of people who protested, rallied, wrote letters, signed petitions and fought against this appalling war who did know things would turn out this way.
Yet here we are, and not only, as Poppy suggests, is the war-supporting TV punditry refusing to issue apologies for their relentless attacks on those who now have more than enough right to claim “I told you so,” but is indeed acting as though opponents’ now-borne-out-as-accurate forecasts are complete rubbish, because, in an incredible fit of circular logic, no one could have predicted things would turn out this way.
I’m sick to the teeth of this administration, their Congressional minions, and their media operatives being demonstrably incapable of apologizing for or even admitting they are wrong about anything. The truth is, war opponents were right, for all the right reasons—no one suggested that Hussein was not an evil tyrant, or that Iraq wasn’t a problem that needed a workable solution; our differences were in what that solution was, and why a preemptive strike was not a viable or appropriate solution—and yet there is not a smidgeon of acknowledgement that the millions of Americans who were lambasted for espousing such views have turned out to be spot-on.
And what of the Congressional Dems who supported this war? I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation from them as to why a not-insignificant section of the American populace was able to discern the realities of the situation in Iraq, but they were not. It has been suggested that, rather than indicative of a misunderstanding of the realities of the Iraq situation, Dems’ votes in support of the war resolution were instead simply another anxious attempt to avoid a controversial vote coming back to bite them on the ass in an election year (a suggestion, I might add, that is likely accurate).
Well, let me point out to Dems the folly of casting a vote that seems politically wise instead of one that seems morally firm: the Iraq War Resolution vote did come back to bite you on the ass. Because you voted for the President’s folly under the threat of being called a traitor, rather than standing up for what you believed in as a true patriot does, you ceded the moral authority to effectively criticize the war. Now the administration and its war machine runs rampant, without an uncompromised opposition to hold it accountable.
That’s the whole problem with letting the desire to stay in office guide your principles; you’re often left without both principles…and your office.
Playing Two Different Games
We're not just playing by different sets of rules; we're playing entirely different games. Read it and weep.
Tidbit of Disaster
If you missed it, there was a bit of discussion following my post "Recapping Disaster" on whether or not there was significant proof that the election in Ohio (and elsewhere) had been tampered with, been influenced by fraud, etc. Some aren't so sure that the proof was there, contending that Kerry & his lawyers would have seized the situation if there had been. I theorized that Kerry is perhaps too politically reticent to get his hands dirty, and suggested readers look at www.blackboxvoting.org and the list of incidents they've put together.
On Democratic Underground, in the current Top 10 Conservative Idiots list, they point out an anecdote that, while not in itself is proof of Bushco's misconduct, is certainly an interesting tidbit:
"The White House - While we're on the subject, here's one more incident to chew on. The Arizona Republic reported at the start of last month that "Several of Arizona's leading GOP muckety-mucks secured treasured invitations to Bush's swanky Christmas party Thursday." They name a few names, and then mention that "Also spotted, petition gatherer to the stars Nathan Sproul." Who is Nathan Sproul? He's the head of Sproul & Associates, a company which registered voters during the run-up to Election 2004, but misrepresented themselves as non-partisan while refusing to register Democrats. (See Idiots 177.) In separate incidents, Sproul & Associates employees allegedly tore up Democratic registration forms and threw them in the trash. Yup, that's the same Nathan Sproul who was spotted hanging out at the exclusive White House Christmas party. But don't worry, there's absolutely nothing wrong with America's electoral system."
We Are Your Base; Hear Us Roar
The Fixer, in discussing the Dem’s apparent inability to pull together the never-ending stream of administration scandals to illustrate its complete crookedness, asks the question that we all seem to be posing lately:
And everyone asks the question, 'why is it just us?' Is it just the bloggers who are ranting and raving about this? Where is the Democratic leadership? Where are Kerry, Pelosi, Ried, Edwards, Kennedy, Leahy, and yes, even Dean, and the rest of them? I mean shit, bloggers connected the dots for 'em as early as '03 (long before I even dreamed of having a blog).A lot of us on the Left bemoan the decision of so many red staters who seem to vote against their best interests. We don’t understand how someone who struggles to make ends meet, who worries about healthcare coverage, funding their children’s educations, finding a decent job, can vote for an administration that seeks to dismantle the very programs that assist those upon whose votes they have come to depend. We wring our hands and wonder how such voters can be so foolish. These people don’t really understand their leadership.
[…]
And why aren't the leaders listening to the bloggers? We are the voice of your base, you idiots. If you stand up, we got your back.
We suffer from the flipside of this problem on the Left—our leadership does not understand its people.
Bloggers are perhaps the most obvious example of this regrettable situation in which we’ve found ourselves, as our views and expectations of our leadership are easily accessible. Yet, despite our near-unanimity on many issues, the Democratic leadership continues to disappoint, continues to act contrary to the wishes of blogging rank-and-file Dems, as if we are somehow not representative of the larger whole. (My experience with this is that, in fact, bloggers’ views are an accurate representation of the non-blogging rank-and-file.)
They seem to think that the voices on these blogs are the exception to the imaginary Democrats they keep telling "my father was a millworker" stories to. Most of those people now call themselves Republicans, I'm afraid.
The disdain they show for their blogging rank-and-file betrays a deep lack of understanding about who we are. We don’t blog because we like to hear our own voices—we blog in the increasingly futile hope that they will hear our collective voice and conduct themselves in a manner befitting representatives who are actually listening.
Dammit, we’re your base, and we’re worth listening to.
Koufax Awards
Shakespeare's Sister has been nominated as a semi-finalist for Best New Blog.
I'd love to tell you to vote for me, but I'm up against AMERICAblog, BlondeSense, Blue Lemur, BradBlog, Majikthese, Pam's House Blend, Sirotablog, and James Wolcott, among others, none of which I would feel right trying to steal a vote away from.
I'm not even sure my little blog deserves to be on the same planet as James Wolcott's.
