On May 12, Simon Ng wrote on his blog that his sister's ex-boyfriend had dropped by unexpectedly: "He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon." Hours later, the man allegedly killed him.Blogging is a lot of things for me—a catharsis, a community, a way to keep my always-racing brain engaged…but I hope it never serves as an eyewitness account from my fucking grave!
Blogger Identifies Own Killer
Culture of Life: Indiana-Style
Red State Values, from my own Red State:
The Indiana Parole Board voted unanimously Friday against a death-row inmate's request that his execution be delayed so he can donate part of his liver to an ailing sister.The gist is that the board feels that staying his execution would undermine the facts of the case—that he had brutally killed a defenseless and elderly woman—and the victim’s relatives feel that if he were allowed to donate the liver, he would remembered as a hero for saving his sister instead of a murderer.
The board recommended that Gov. Mitch Daniels deny Gregory Scott Johnson's request for clemency or a 90-day reprieve from his execution, scheduled for early Wednesday.
Johnson, who was convicted of the 1985 murder of 82-year-old Ruby Hutslar, said he wants time to donate part of his liver to his 48-year-old sister, Debra Otis, who lives in an Anderson nursing home.
I feel great sympathy for Ms. Hutslar’s relatives, and I admittedly don’t know the torment of losing a family member in this way. I can only imagine their anguish, and so perhaps I am wrong when I say that my imagining of how painful such a loss is makes it all the more inexplicable to me that they could now be so indifferent to the life and death of Ms. Otis. That they are willing to condemn her to death by not supporting a 90-day stay of execution for a possible organ donor that could save her life seems cruel, a punishment on a killer—that he should lose someone close to him as they lost someone close to them—which conveniently ignores the innocence of Ms. Otis.
This decision is also predicated on their assumptions of how others would remember Johnson, which I believe is, frankly, not something over which they have control. (And something they are egregiously misjudging—a convicted murderer suddenly being championed as a hero for donating part of his liver seems incredibly unlikely; a tragic example of someone who ignored the better parts of himself in a fit of evil is about the best he could muster out of anyone, I think.) They do, however, have some influence on how others will remember them, and denying life to someone because they had the extreme misfortune of being the sibling of a killer doesn’t seem particularly better in my estimation than someone who picks up a gun or a knife to end the life of another. Does it matter so much whether he dies Wednesday or dies in 90 days? Is it so important that another life should be lost to expedite his death?
Perhaps I am unqualified to comment, having never been put in such a difficult situation, but I would hope that if faced with the same choice, I would choose give Ms. Otis the chance that her brother had not given my loved one. It doesn’t seem that creating more grief helps anyone.
Irritated by Ignorance: A Rant
So I’m reading this series called Addicted to Hate, which is an exposé of the rotting crypt keeper Fred Phelps, on this website, authored by Deborah Levinson, and after I’m done reading about the hatemonger Phelps, I notice that she’s got a hate mail section, so I click through, because the spewing vitriol of homobigots is usually good for a laugh because they’re all generally one IQ point away from clinical retardation.
Well, I’ve gotta tell you—Deborah’s mailbag sure didn’t disappoint. Here are some of my favorites (as it were):
I hate you as much as you hate me.Diference is I don't go around handing out redicule religios context twisted to fit yourselvs(whcih by the way is bullshit to begin with).Is a fagget a French faggot?
First of all, I am a 16 year old male, and I have lots of friends. NONE OF THEM ARE GAY, MOST OF THEM HAVE BEEN PAIRED UP WITH MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX!!!!!!! I am after a preety girl at my church. Everyone in my family, including MY Aunt Deb say it is wrong. I belive them. You are wrong in thinking that it is right.
[Well, if Aunt Deb says it, it must be true! – Shakes]
I don't have hate for you people, I have disgust and pity for you. Because believe certain morals and in preserving the white race I am labeled a racist.
I mean think about it, if God meant for a man and man to be together why did he create Adam and Eve instead of Adam and Steve???!!Why can women only have babies??!!Why does men only have a penis and a anus instead of a penis,anus and vagina??
[Ahh, the old “Adam and Steve” chestnut. The hermaphrodite argument is a new one, though! – Shakes]
you faggot scum are the lowest slime that ever crawled out of a sewer or what is lower than a sewer to slime up the earth with your filthy dispicable presents
[Hey! I never got any filthy presents from the faggot scum I know. What gives? – Shakes]
sick faggets
It’s truly amazing—whether reading the hate mail at a site like Deborah’s, dealing with trolls at a lefty blog, or reading Freeper comments, it’s all the same…one ignorant, uneducated idiot after another, who can barely string together a coherent sentence and is in desperate need of a second-grade spelling course. These are the same people who whine and moan about “liberal elites” and how we on the Left think we’re “so much better” than they are.
Well, you know what? We are meant to be literate. We are meant to be able to communicate using an agreed-upon set of grammar rules and spelling. Failure to learn the language beyond its most basic applications, leaving one barely capable of stuttering out a marginally understandable thought now and then, is ridiculous, and it does make one inferior to the vast swath of adults who are able to function at a level higher than that of a drooling moron.
If you don’t like the plain old simple fact that there are those who are superior to you because they use their intellect for more than fashioning bongs out of household items, then pick up a fucking book, you knob-ends! And if you can’t tear yourself away from the television for two bloody seconds to try reading, then wean yourself off NASCAR races and re-runs of the Jeff Foxworthy show by changing the channel to PBS or Discovery or C-SPAN once in awhile!
Good lord. Free education for every American, and this is what we’re churning out? Pitiful.
And, by the way, one would think if the radical homosexual agenda was as influential in American schools as they claim, they’d at least be able to spell faggot correctly.
At Least We've Still Got the Market Cornered on B.S.
Today, Ms. Julien discusses a report issued last week by the United Nations social justice and work rights agency the International Labour Organization (I.L.O.), which noted in part that
Over three-quarters of the 12 million people worldwide who are exploited in forced labor conditions are in Asia…Yesterday, the AFP reported:
Defining forced labor as “work extracted under threat and against a person’s will,” the report has assessed the Asia and Pacific region as heading the worldwide list with 9.5 million people…
Total global profits earned from the exploitation of men, women and children have been calculated as being $32 billion, the first time such an estimate of the illicit industry has been made.
Need a plastic White House? How about an "I love Washington" sweatshirt or a Stars and Stripes for the car? Well, thanks to communist China, you won't break the bank.I know the president doesn’t like big words, but at this point, I’m not sure that it’s possible irony hasn’t yet made its way into his vocabulary.
[…]
Tourists can choose a "President of the United States" baseball cap, with a pirated official seal across the front -- good value at 12 dollars. Or plump for a pewter-style handheld statue of Abe Lincoln or a model of the US Capitol for eight dollars. Even more ironic is the seven buck scene of one of the quintessential moments of American mythology, the raising of the US flag by marines at the World War II battle of Iwo Jima. In one of the most patriotic nations on earth, each of these pieces bears a "Made in China" sticker on its base.
And given that according to latest statistics, Washington hosted 16.4 million domestic visitors in 2003 compared with only 0.8 million foreigners -- most of them are being
snapped up by Americans.
Only a few garments have a "Made in the USA" label, and some of those were woven in the Dominican Republic with American material.
[…]
Controversy also erupted when it emerged that some yellow ribbon car magnets honoring US troops in Iraq were also made in China.
First They Came for the Media…
Found this article from a Kansas (the state that is abandoning science so that their students are the biggest dumbfucks in the country) web site. The full report can be found here…The thing I find most amusing about the “power of bloggers” as a concept is that any power (or, more appropriately, influence) held by any particular blogger is given, not taken. A blogger’s sphere of influence is only as big as her or his readership, plus any media attention afforded to the blogger’s work, particularly new information and/or new ideas. So to suggest that “we need to be cautious with respect to” the power of political bloggers is really a thinly veiled acknowledgement that control of information simply isn’t what it used to be, which is the ultra-secretive Bush administration’s worst nightmare.
“The blogosphere is clearly a major addition to the national discourse,” said Dr. Michael Cornfield, senior research consultant to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “But we need to be cautious with respect to the power of particular political bloggers. That power waxes and wanes depending on the sort of information available, the behavior of other public voices, and the tendency of internet forms and formats to evolve in a very short time.”
Isn’t it exciting?
They’ve pretty effectively castrated the mainstream media; guess who they’ll come after next?
In the words of our fearless leader, Bring It On.
He Might Be My Brother, But He’s Getting’ Pretty Damn Heavy
It’s no secret that the Blue States carry the Red States—they pay more per capita in federal taxes and get less back—and now they’re being rewarded for their trouble by collectively losing out on the Pentagon’s plan for US military base closures and associated job transfers, to the Red States’ gain. The Pentagon claims that it’s not playing politics with the base closings, but Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is calling bullshit:
In a carefully worded statement, [Lautenberg] questioned why states that supported President Bush's reelection (red states) had a net job gain of 11,000, while states that opposed Bush (blue states) lost nearly 25,000 positions.In total, Red States gain a net total of 11,852 personnel/jobs. The Blue States lose a net total of 24,289 personnel/jobs.
"My hope was that [Base Realignment and Closure] decisions were completely removed from politics but the total numbers do raise some questions," Lautenberg said.
What makes this even more disgusting is that the Blue States also provide more of the soldiers to fight in the war that is overwhelming supported in greater numbers by Red State voters, as one can see from this map pinpointing the homes of soldiers killed in action (as of February; hat tip Angry Bear):
You’ll note there seem to be a whole lot of pinpoints along those ever-blue coasts (and Chicago). It certainly seems like the Pentagon ought to do better than this pitiful explanation offered by spokesman Glenn Flood:
"It's based on the law that Congress passed given us the authority. The internal deliberations of the Pentagon are not based on any outside influences."Of course not. Because we all know there’s never been any undue pressure put on formerly independent parts of the government by this administration before.
Shrub Scrub
Ms. Julien, posting at Big Brass Blog, reports:
Galloway's Senate Testimony Scrubbed from Official Subcommittee Website!Unbelievable. (And on a side note…damn, Brad is good!)
Chairman Coleman's Office Passes Buck for Explanation!
The stunning testimony given by British MP George Galloway before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on Investigations is apparently so hot that it seems to have "gone AWOL" from the subcommittee's website according to the British newsite VNU Network.
The BRAD BLOG can confirm that all witness testimony -- except that of Galloway's -- from last Tuesday's extraordinary hearings is available in PDF format on the subcommittee's webpage on the hearings.
Details, Screenshot, Comments from Coleman's Office:http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001407.htm
Looks like Galloway hit too close to home!!!!
We need to be SCARED that we are living in a place that can arbitrarily 'scrub' public record testimony from its websites.
I paid my taxes for that website, damn it - I want NOTHING left out!
Fed Up
Jack at CommonSenseDesk with a little common sense:
Let's see ~ Newsweek publishes a story about desecration of the Qu'ran and The Sun publishes pics of Saddam in his tighty wighties. Our president excoriates Newsweek for causing a deadly riot. But he doesn't believe that some pictures inspire murderers.Hmmm indeed.
Now what seems to be the only difference between The Sun and Newsweek? Rupert Murdoch owns The Sun and WaPo owns Newsweek.
Hmmm.
You know, for a long time, I would have been satisfied if the media had pointed out the inconsistencies in the president’s positions; after awhile, I wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less than a snarky comment on what could be politely described as cognitive dissonance; at this point, if they don’t start calling this guy out for the opportunist and bald-faced fucking liar that he is, I consider it no less than treasonous. This man, his entire whack administration, and the out-of-control GOP-controlled Congress are further sullying our already dubious international reputation, endangering our soldiers, tanking our economy, destroying our social safety net, trashing the environment, undermining our democracy, and in every other conceivable way hurting this country, and a media that refuses to tell the truth is complicit in our collective ruination. Damn them all for their cowardice.
Friday Cat Blogging
Big Jim checks out the camera.
Matilda does her squeaking
thing under the table.
Olivia offers up one big,
ferocious yawn for the camera.
Hitler Couth
By now, you’ve no doubt heard that the always-pleasant and non-crazy Senator Rick Santorum recently compared the Democrats to Hitler. There’s so much hypocrisy in this turn of events, it’s hard to know where to begin, but John at Blogenlust’s got a handy recap of the Republican statements made in response to the independent ad submitted to MoveOn.org’s contest in which Bush was compared to Hitler, and The Green Knight notes:
Ten weeks ago, Rick Santorum said this:Yeesh.
Senator Byrd's inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with Nazis are inexcusable....These comments lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should retract his statement and ask for pardon.
Today, Rick Santorum said that the Democrats' use of the filibuster is
the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine.'
Quote of the Day
Justin Cognito of The Evil Petting Zoo:
It makes perfect sense that a party that keeps railing about "the sanctity of marriage" and pushes abstinence programs riddled with more errors than an Ann Coulter book would invite a porn star and her boss to talk to Bush and Rove.Totally.
Hey, religious right! Do you get it yet?
[Link may not be work safe.]
I See London, I See France…
I see Saddam’s underpants.
I was going to write something about this story, but John at Upon Further Review… has already said everything that needs to be said.
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
…in an effort to recruit new bodies to replace the tens of thousands already lost to the War on Terra through death or injury. And Dave Wagner, of WLWT in Cincinnati doesn’t like it:
I would say, “I can’t believe this crap!” but, of course, I can.Wagner: "But as Target 5 discovered, those military pitches can turn from fact to fiction in a matter of seconds. Target 5 sent four young men, with hidden cameras, into every Tri-state armed forces recruiting center. The conversations began with talk of job security."
Recruiter: "We guarantee you a job."
Wagner: "Signing bonuses."
Recruiter: "Up to $20,000."
Wagner: "And cash for college."
Recruiter: "Up to $70,000 for college."
Wagner: "But when the questions turn to safety, some Tri-state recruiters make Iraq sound more like a trip to Tahiti than a journey to war."
Recruiter: "You have more chance of dying here in the United States at, what is it, 36-percent die, kill rate here in the United States, people here just dying left and right, you have more chance of dying over here than you do over there."
Wagner: "The U.S. does not have a 36-percent kill rate. If that were true, more than 100 million people, one-third of the U.S. population, would be killed each year."
[…]
Wagner: "And if that recruiter thinks Columbia, S.C., listen to what this GI Joe Isuzu says about the danger of driving around Dayton, Ohio."
Recruiter: "Dayton area alone, which is about four or five counties, Dayton area alone, 1,500 people died in two weeks. You know what that was from? Car wrecks. Those numbers that we get, we get from the actual highway patrol. So, I mean, all that stuff's factual. So, you look at that way. We've lost 1,500 soldiers so far over in Iraq. We've been over there for three years. If you add it together, 1,500 people died in five counties alone within two weeks, just from car wrecks."Wagner: "The truth is, there aren't 1,500 deaths from car wrecks in the entire state of Ohio for an entire year."
Isn't this criminal? These recruiters need to be thrown in jail. If depraved indifference to the very real possibility of losing one's life at the business end of a suicide bomb isn't illegal, it should be.
Kudos to Wagner for calling them on their horseshit. Although, I hope he knows that he’ll never go anywhere with reporting skills like this. The major networks don’t want anything to do with your “facts” and your “honesty,” Mr. Wagner!
Revenge of the Sis
I haven’t seen Episode III yet (and if you have, please, I beg you—no spoilers!), but I’m already loving that the Right’s got their collective panties all in a wad over it:
Conservative Web logs were lacerating Mr. Lucas over the film's perceived jabs at President Bush - as when Anakin Skywalker, on his way to becoming the evil Darth Vader, warns, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy," in an echo of Mr. Bush's post-9/11 ultimatum, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."Forget ILM, forget THX, forget the 28 years of unmitigated joy he’s brought to my life and countless others’ with these films—if George Lucas has managed to accomplish making what is likely the last Star Wars movie ever unenjoyable for conservatives, it will be his greatest achievement EVER!!!
A little-trafficked conservative Web site about film, Pabaah.com - for "Patriotic Americans Boycotting Anti-American Hollywood" - added Mr. Lucas to its list of boycotted entertainers, along with more than 200 others, including Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks.
And so it begins.
Wow. That didn't take long.
White House Condemns South Korean Research
WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday condemned research in South Korea for producing human embryros through cloning and said President Bush would veto any legislation that loosens federal restrictions in the United States on embryonic stem cell research.
White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said the work in South Korea amounted to human cloning for the sole purpose of scientific research. "The president is opposed to that," Duffy said. "That represents exactly what we're opposed to."
Do I need to point out how fucking stupid, insulting, and 50's Sci-Fi movie this "human cloning" bullshit is? No? Good, thank you. My head hurts enough.
Bush began the day at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast where he was cheered for urging people to "pray that America uses the gift of freedom to build a culture of life."
HOW IS STEM CELL RESEARCH NOT BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE? THEY'RE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.
Bush recalled the legacy of the late Pope John Paul II and said, "The best way to honor this great champion of human freedom is to continue to build a culture of life where the strong protect the weak."
And to keep people stupid, fearful and ignorant, and to catapult us back into the fucking middle ages.
You goddamned Koreans... how dare you... research anything? How dare you use science to try and improve people's lives, rather than just put your faith in the invisible man in the sky to make everything awww bedder?
Bush won 52 percent of the Roman Catholic vote in last year's election and got the support of 56 percent of white Catholics, defeating the first Catholic presidential candidate from a major party since John F. Kennedy. In 2000, Bush narrowly lost the Catholic vote.
But of course. The King of the Narrow Margin needs that 2% to keep his non-job.
Jesus Fucking Flipping Flapjacks Christ.
(Cross-posted. Pardon my French. This just infuriated me.)
Friday Limerick
The media, as usual, appalls,
Jim West, at young men, catcalls,
Bush is an ass,
Frist’s got no class,
But George Galloway’s got some balls!
