From a 2004 Bush campaign ad
Disappointment
You can imagine how excited I was to see this headline:
What?! The Bushes have been evicted from the White House?! Does this mean the Gores will finally be able to take their rightful place now the squatters have been kicked out?
But, unfortunately, it was just Reggie Bush.
Sigh.
ARGH
This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say this shit doesn’t happen in a void.
”I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English.”That was President Bush, today, in the Rose Garden, in response to questions about the National Anthem being sung in Spanish.
It is, undoubtedly, a wise move to learn English when one lives in America, since English is the predominant language of government, business, and cross-cultural social interaction. But to make these blanket statements associating English-speaking with patriotism is just sickening. We are a nation of immigrants. This constantly, compulsively repeated refrain, emanating from the mouths of conservatives so regularly that you could set a clock by it, which amounts to the smugly issued, “This is America; speak English!” that gets barked even at recent immigrants by thoughtless nitwits, contributes to the kind of race-driven hatred that I’ve been bitching about all bloody day. I started out taking the GOP to task for their use of these tactics, and now here we have our president doing exactly what I criticized them for doing.
Bush mutters some stupid comment about how people who want to be citizens “ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English,” and it reinforces the deep hatred of “foreigners” that is so prevalent among a scarily large swath of Americans. And it doesn’t stop with people who don’t speak English; they direct the same “Speak English!” ire at people speaking English with accents. As I’ve mentioned, Mr. Shakes whose native language is English has been told to “learn how to speak English” by assholes who couldn’t understand his brogue.
Bush could have just as easily said, “A National Anthem sung in Spanish would be a nice complement to our English version, recognizing the second most spoken language in America.” He could have just as easily said, “The National Anthem can be sung in whatever language American citizens, who come from a variety of backgrounds, would like to sing it in. We are flattered that people chose our country as their home, and we welcome their choice to sing our National Anthem in their native tongues.” He could have said a whole lot of things besides what he did, but he chose instead to play the politics of division, making thinly guised accusations that people who don’t speak English cannot be patriots.
The Decider has made his decision—and it’s casting Spanish speakers as unpatriotic on the day the nation reads a story about white supremacists beating and raping a Hispanic nearly to his death.
Bush also had this to say this morning:
“I’m going to keep working hard for the American people to get results,’’ Bush said. “There’s a lot to do… we’ll continue to be results oriented… I’m a results-oriented person, and my goal is to achieve results for the American people.’’And I have this to say in response: Your results stink, you fucking prick.
Meme Day
Found this one at Rana’s place… As always, I won’t tag anyone, but if you pick it up, leave a link to yours in comments.
Accent: I’ve always been told I have a weird accent, probably because I was raised by a mother who was a Queens transplant and had been in Indiana less than a decade when I was first learning how to tawk. Mostly, you hear her influence when I say words like “horrible,” which comes out “hahrahble.” I remember being a little kid and thinking the word “spatula” was actually “spatuler,” because I associated words ending in Rs with being pronounced as though they end in As.
Booze: I’m not much of a drinker, but when I do, it’s usually amaretto or whiskey sours.
Chore I Hate: Cleaning the kitchen. I love cooking and hate doing dishes, even if it’s just putting them in the dishwasher. Thankfully, Mr. Shakes usually does this, since I do all the cooking.
Dog or Cat: I love both and had both growing up. I’m too erratic and lazy to be a proper dog owner, though, which will be further explained at the letter T, below.
Essential Electronics: Computer; water heater. I hate cold showers.
Favorite Cologne: Don’t wear any.
Gold or Silver: Silver. Or white gold, which is what my wedding band is.
Hometown: BFE, Indiana.
Insomnia: Often. I’m either asleep in five seconds or wide awake all night. I don’t really mind; I get a lot done.
Job Title: Unemployed douchebag Blogger.
Kids: None, although I have one nephew who I love more than words can say.
Living Arrangements: Cape Cod style home with a Scotsman and two cats.
Most Admirable Traits: Honesty. Desire to learn.
Number of Sexual Partners: Seven.
Overnight Hospital Stays: The only one I can remember is when I had back surgery in Sept. 2001. I was there five days.
Phobias: The dentist.
Quote: “Just do your best and don’t worry.”
Religion: None.
Siblings: One younger sister.
Time I Wake Up: Depends on when I go to bed. If I can fall asleep easily, I generally get up early. If I have insomnia, I may sleep a bit later, if I manage to sleep at all.
Unusual Talent or Skill: I can do perfect forgeries of other people’s handwriting.
Vegetable I Love: I’m hard-pressed to think of one I don’t like.
Worst Habit: Using “always” or “never” when I really mean “often” or “rarely.”
X-Rays: ??? The last x-rays I remember getting were of my lower back (and slightly lower) before surgery, and Mr. Shakes found great amusement in pointing out that you could see “my bits” on the x-rays.
Yummy Foods I Make: I try to make everything yummy, although I’m particularly proud of my homemade sauces.
Zodiac Sign: Taurus. And that’s no bull.
Dem Congresspeople Arrested at Protest
"The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., a Holocaust survivor who founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said from the embassy steps before his arrest.Sure, it’s a political stunt, but it’s for a worthy purpose—and as far as political stunts go, I’ll take four Dems getting hauled away to call attention to human rights abuses over Commander Codpiece posturing in a flight suit in front of a Mission Accomplished banner any day of the week. Good for them.
Four other Democratic Congress members — James McGovern and John Olver of Massachusetts, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jim Moran of Virginia — were among 11 protesters arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor subject to a fine. (Link.)
A Much-Needed Lighthearted Break
I’ve spent the morning alternatively fuming and teetering on the edge of sobbing over what those two disgusting little drips of dogwank did down in Texas, and I need a breather. Thanks very much to the coffee-challenged, pacing…
…
…
… pausing, unnecessarily humble, wisecracking, rule-breaking Mannion for giving me an excuse to engage my mind with more pleasant things for a bit.
That Could Be Called Weird
1. I’m a trichotillomaniac, which is a compulsive hair-puller. Not figuratively, like “George Bush makes me want to pull my hair out!” but quite literally. People who suffer from trichotillomania compulsively pull out their scalp hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, etc., generally due to stress, and most (80%) trichotillomaniacs are female. I have a pretty mild case and only feel compelled to pull individual hairs out of my scalp, and I can generally control myself by sitting on my hands, when I even realize I’m doing it. But there have been times in the past when I’ve been really stressed out that I’ve given myself a small bald spot. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I do this, but it’s also such a ridiculously strange habit that I also find it rather amusing.
2. I point at something before I pick it up. Others noticed this about me, rather than my noticing it about myself, and even now that it’s been thoroughly mocked so that I’m aware of it, I still can’t help doing it. (I also do this if I stumble across something worth picking up that was dropped by someone else, like a $5 bill on the street, at which I was pointing before stooping when this habit was first pointed out to me.)
3. I knit my brow very tightly and stick my tongue out while I’m reading or concentrating intently. This habit I discovered because it has provided endless amusement to coworkers and bosses who have loved to tease me about it. One of my former bosses used to say, “Oh, the tongue’s out—Melissa cannot be disturbed!” Which, by the way, wasn’t a commentary on my agitation at being disturbed, but on the near-impossibility of disturbing me while I’m in that state. I hear nothing, see nothing, except that on which I’m focusing. Anything short of nudging me rather roughly will fail to get my attention.
4. I can fall asleep just about anywhere, anytime. And I tend to fall asleep in about five seconds. The only time I have trouble falling asleep is if Mr. Shakes has fallen asleep first, because he snores so incredibly loudly that it feels like he’s trying to saw my head into two via my ear canals.
5. If I’m talking about my Londoner Andy, my speech takes on a vaguely London accent as I start to drop my Ts. Again, this is something I’m totally unaware of doing, but Mr. Shakes and our pal Mickey Mouse recently pointed it out to me (much to my embarrassment). I have no idea why I do it, but I suppose it has something to do with subconsciously recalling the billions of hours we’ve spent talking on the phone or in person and channeling his “voice” into a conversation about him.
Speaking to the collection of bizarre idiosyncrasies that passes for my personality, these probably aren’t even the top five of my weird habits, but they’re the first five that came to mind.
More on Leopold and Loeb 2.0
Holly forwarded me some recent local coverage of the earlier-mentioned savage beating and rape of a Hispanic teen by two white teens in Texas. This contains disturbing details.
"They stomped his head with their boots," said Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Denholm. "They stripped him naked and sodomized him with the PVC pipe used to hold up a patio umbrella."[David Cook, a former football teammate of the victim] said that one of the perpetrators, David Tuck, is known as a skinhead and “has seen Nazi swastikas painted on the fence at Tuck's house.” Some of Tuck’s neighbors confirm he has “long exhibited a fascination with neo-Nazis,” and that he “paraded around the subdivision with a flag of a swastika on Martin Luther King Day.”
Tuck then kicked the pipe, causing even further damage, prosecutors said at a Thursday morning hearing.
"I don't mean just a little bit," Harris County prosecutor Mike Trent told District Judge Michael McSpadden. "He kicked it in and shoved it so far in that he has caused major internal injuries and organ damage."
Richard Rogers, who lives next door to the family, answered his door Thursday night with a .357-caliber Magnum in his hand. He said he was carrying it because he was concerned that Tuck would be out on bail.The white supremacist movement is also overtly hostile to gays, and we should make no mistake that Tuck’s—and his partner Turner’s—decision to brutally anally rape their victim was not a coincidence, but in fact representative of both the anti-gay sentiment rife among white supremacists and the propensity of oppressors of any flavor to punish their victims, male or female, using sexual torture.
"The kid is a white supremacist," Rogers said.
This is what happens when hate is allowed to flourish, when a group is reassured through policy, punditry, and pop culture that they are superior to others. Tuck and Turner are not a disturbing aberration; they are a portent of more ugliness to come if we allow hatemongering to continue to hold its place as a reasonable part of our public discourse. We as a society have turned a blind eye to the inescapable consequences of letting bigots hide their hateful rhetoric behind politics and religion—and so-called progressives who resist race, gender, and sexuality issues as “third rail topics” or “identity politics” are as much to blame as the purveyors of this lunacy. There’s a fucking reason that some of us talk about this stuff day in and day out, and this is it.
An Authentic Asshole
Allen turns away and spits a long brown streak of saliva into the dirt, just missing one of his constituents, a carefully put-together, blonde, ponytailed woman approaching the senator for an autograph. She stops in her tracks and stares with disgust at the bubbly tobacco juice that almost landed on her feet. Without missing a beat, Allen's communications director, John Reid, reassures her: "That's just authenticity!"
— From Ryan Lizza’s TNR profile of Senator George Allen, R-VA, presumptive GOP presidential candidate
The article is called “George Allen’s Race Problem,” but it reveals a lot more than that. Allen’s not just an unapologetic racist (although, like all those like him, he won’t apologize for his racism, but he’ll certainly perform all sorts of contortions of logic to justify it); he’s also a sadistic bastard.
Allen is the oldest child of legendary football coach George Herbert Allen, and, when his father was on the road, young George often acted as a surrogate dad to his siblings. According to his sister Jennifer, he was particularly strict about bedtimes. One night, his brother Bruce stayed up past his bedtime. George threw him through a sliding glass door. For the same offense, on a different occasion, George tackled his brother Gregory and broke his collarbone. When Jennifer broke her bedtime curfew, George dragged her upstairs by her hair.Allen dismissed his sister’s book by saying, “It's the perspective of the youngest child, who is a girl.” So, apparently we can add sexist to the list of his defining characteristics.
George tormented Jennifer enough that, when she grew up, she wrote a memoir of what it was like living in the Allen family. In one sense, the book, Fifth Quarter, from which these details are culled, is unprecedented. No modern presidential candidate has ever had such a harsh and personal account of his life delivered to the public by a close family member. The book paints Allen as a cartoonishly sadistic older brother who holds Jennifer by her feet over Niagara Falls on a family trip (instilling in her a lifelong fear of heights) and slams a pool cue into her new boyfriend's head. "George hoped someday to become a dentist," she writes. "George said he saw dentistry as a perfect profession--getting paid to make people suffer."
And as for the accusations of having a “race problem,” which seems an undeservedly nice way to describe these particular predilections, Allen—whose father was Midwestern, mother was French, and grew up himself all over the country as the fortunate son of a football coach—claims he simply has a fascination with the South and the West, which he uses to explain the Confederate flag he used to display in his living room (“part of a flag collection”), the Confederate flag pin he wore in a yearbook photo (“It could be some sort of prank, or one of our rebellious--we would do different things. But I remember we liked Texas.”), and the Confederate flag pinned to his Mustang as a young man, which he doesn’t remember but acknowledges “is possible.” You know, because he liked Texas—and “generally bucked authority and the rebel flag was just a way to express that attitude.”
Allen was also discovered, along with some of his friends, to have spray-painted graffiti on schoolgrounds the day before his “almost entirely white Palos Verdes High” was set to play “a major basketball game” against mostly-black Morningside High. The graffiti was “racially tinged and meant to look like the handiwork of the black Morningside students.” Clever Allen and his cohorts used phrases like “Die Whitey” and “Burn, Baby, Burn” to try to implicate Morningside students as racists. Allen recalls the incident differently and says it had nothing to do with race, but even a “school administrator, who says he is a Republican and would ‘seriously consider’ voting for Allen for president” describes the graffiti as racist.
His career as a legislator has been spotty as well.
In 1984, he was one of 27 House members to vote against a state holiday commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, "Allen said the state shouldn't honor a non-Virginian with his own holiday." He was also bothered by the fact that the proposed holiday would fall on the day set aside in Virginia to honor Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That same year, he did feel the urge to honor one of Virginia's own. He co-sponsored a resolution expressing "regret and sorrow upon the loss" of William Munford Tuck, a politician who opposed every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress during the 1950s and 1960s and promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation.Lizza says that “None of this means Allen is a racist, of course. He is certainly not the same guy today that he was in the '80s,” but in spite of his protestations that he is a changed man—going on a civil rights pilgrimage, championing anti-lynching legislation, visiting the Holocaust Museum, and bonding with a former Black Panther over football—what I never saw in the article was an apology.
On the Confederate flag in his living room: “I have a flag collection.” On the noose hanging in his office: “It had nothing to do with anything other than the Western motif in my office.” On his teenage “prank”: “It was something like ‘Eat Crap’ or something like that. ‘Your School Sucks’ and so forth. It wasn't racial.”
“Life is a learning experience,” Allen says. One would assume if he’s learned anything of real value, he’d stop making excuses for his racist past.
Is this really one of the best the GOP has to offer? Can we legitimately expect better from Allen than from the rest of the GOP, which has endeavored to inflame hatred throughout their tenure as the majority party? Mike the Mad Biologist, who gets the hat tip, asks, “Can we please have presidential candidates who are not psychological basketcases? … Is it possible for the Republicans to nominate someone who is not cracked in the head?”
And, you know, that’s a really good question.
Even the so-called maverick McCain is aligning himself with the likes of Jerry Falwell and George Wallace, Jr. Perhaps it really isn’t possible for the GOP to nominate someone who doesn’t have racist, sexist, and homophobic tendencies because they have become so reliant on racists, sexists, and homobigots to put them in office. Could the GOP win with a candidate who wasn’t “cracked in the head”? Probably not. What makes Allen our worst nightmare also makes him the perfect GOP candidate.
"Name that Cult Movie"- Answers A Plenty
Methinks this week was a little too easy; when one person can guess them all in one shot, I might need to dig a little deeper!
1. Chopping Mall- I thought this one was a total giveaway... after all, how many movies feature killer robots in a shopping mall? Movies set in shopping malls are so 80's... there's a genre that definitely does not need a comeback.
2. The People Under the Stairs- I was pretty surprised how many people knew this one. I guess I'm not the only person out there that'll watch anything with Wes Craven's name on it, hoping it will be as good as the original Nightmare on Elm Street. If you haven't seen this movie, by the way, it's a good rental. Not a fantastic movie by any means, but it's a fun little popcorn movie.
3. The Star Wars Holiday Special- Okay, so technically this isn't a "movie," but it definitely qualifies as "cult." It's so bad, that George Lucas would gladly destroy every copy in existence, if he could get his hands on them. (Really!) If you haven't seen it, I don't know if I would even recommend tracking down a copy; it's that bad. Of course, if you're addicted to crap like me, you're now feverishly googling to find a bootleg. Let me just say one thing: Harvey Korman in drag. Yes, that's him in the picture above. You can read a great writeup on the "special" here.
4. Batman Returns- In my opinion, the best of the Batman movies. Yes, Batman Begins was absolutely incredible, but I still have a special place in my black little heart for this movie. It's the only one that didn't suffer from "too many villains-itis," even though it featured three bad guys. No one could deliver that bit of dialogue like Christopher Walken.
5. The Monster Squad- Pair this line with "Wolfman's got nards!" Where the hell is the DVD release?
6. Bad Taste- Another early (read: extremely gory) Peter Jackson flick to inflict upon unsuspecting LOTR nerds. This was actually the first Jackson film I ever saw; we rented it completely unprepared for what we were about to see. The instant the sheep blew up, I knew this movie would be one of my favorites. "Lucky me! I got a chunky bit!"
7. The Dark Crystal- God, I miss Jim Henson.
8. Zardoz- The movie that I thought no one would know, and just about everyone leapt upon this quote. Although I suppose when you're watching a movie featuring Sean Connery running around in next to nothing, lectures on the evils of the penis, and a giant flying stone head, you won't forget it too easily. I think this would be a great shlock double feature paired with Battlefield Earth. Kerbango!
9. Prince of Space- One of the all-time great MST3K shows. Featuring the evil intergalactic chicken-man Krankor. This just was re-released on DVD (sans MST-ing) by Dark Sky Films, my current pick for "Paul's Favorite DVD Company." "We like it very much!"
10. The Creeping Terror- Sure, Princess Leia complained about the "big walking carpet" in her way, but she never had to deal with an intergalactic carpet monster swallowing every person unfortunate enough to get in its path!!
...
Okay, that was a stretch.
If the quote from this movie seemed rather odd to you, there's a good reason for that. You see, the soundtrack to the film was lost, so everything in the movie is explained in voiceover by a narrator. Even the dialogue. I guess it's cheaper than looping; you only have to hire one person to do the voiceover!
Have anything to add? Let me know in comments! Thanks for playing...
UPDATE: The Green Knight, ever alert, points us to these streaming videos of the Star Wars Holiday special. As he puts it, the video and sound quality is poor, but that's "probably an improvement." Don't say I didn't warn you!
(The Cross-Post that ate Cincinatti...)
More Tales of the Tyrannosaurus of Turpitude
Leopold and Loeb 2.0
These two Aryan Nation-looking motherfuckers— David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17—have been charged with aggravated sexual assault after beating, sodomizing, stabbing, and pouring bleach on a 16-year-old Hispanic boy “who they believed had tried to kiss a Hispanic 12-year-old girl at a party.”
The attackers forced the boy out of the Saturday night house party, beat him and sodomized him with a plastic pipe, shouting anti-Hispanic epithets, said sheriff's Lt. John Martin…Investigators say that the attack was prompted because of “the age difference” between the victim and the girl he tried to kiss, and that Tuck and Turner were “being mean and vicious and looking for any excuse to stomp somebody.”
Harris County prosecutor Mike Trent said the attackers also cut the victim with a knife. They then poured bleach over the boy, apparently to destroy DNA evidence, and left him for dead, authorities said. He was not discovered until Sunday, 12 hours after the attack.
The victim, whose name was not released, suffered severe internal injuries, cuts on his chest and head injuries.
"It's about 50-50 whether he lives or dies at this point," Trent said.
Somebody? Or somebody Hispanic?
This shit doesn’t happen in a void. When we read that nearly 20% of American high school students experience physical assault on the basis of sexual orientation, and a doctor who performs abortions—and was already shot by a radical anti-choicer—has become the target of a campaign to hold him “accountable for his actions that have caused untold misery and loss of life,” and a Hispanic teen is beaten and raped within an inch of his life by two residents of a predominantly white Houson suburb as they hurled racial epithets at him, we must necessarily consider what forces legitimize such actions in the minds of the perpetrators. And we need look no further than the GOP, as each is representative of their key wedge issues: gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.
When there are politicians—including our president—spouting off about gays undermining the sanctity of marriage, abortionists commiting murder, and mostly Hispanic undocumented workers threatening both our national security and economy, and those politicians’ words are repeated ad infinitum by their supporters, and the conservative echo chamber comprised of media shills and the rightwing blogosphere led by disgusting characters like Michael Savage and Michelle Malkin, who have millions of listeners and readers, put their own overtly vicious spin, rooted in bigotry and hatred of The Other, on these policies, we should expect nothing less for a disingenuous wedge issue designed by the likes of Karl Rove to exploit the prejudices of the GOP base to translate into action that leaves victims of policy also victims of violence.
This shit doesn’t happen in a void. When real people are used as fodder to garner votes born of bias, those real people are inevitably endangered. Politicians cannot continually demonize a group of people and then claim naivety that the fuckwit homophobes, radical anti-choicers, and racists on whose votes they are dependent for their continued supremacy actually treat those groups as demons, monsters under the bed who threaten our very way of life.
The GOP is no longer a legitimate political party. They are a collection of hatemongers who overtly seek to convince poor white trash that they are privileged, and that their privilege can be used to oppress the weak, scaring them through policy and their loyal shills that life would be better if only gays and feminists and racial minorities weren’t around. They use these people’s hatred of others to mask the real reasons life sucks for poor whites—tax breaks for the rich, rewarding companies who offshore, largesse toward corporations designed by lobbyists at the expense of Americans’ pocketbooks. As long as the gays, feminists, and racial minorities stand between the GOP and their poor base with targets on their backs, the GOP will continue to hide behind them, shouting, “Ready, aim, fire!”
This shit doesn’t happen in a void.
Everyone’s had it with Bush & Co.
Even the press corps, even the WaPo’s Jim VandenHei, who doggedly persisted the McClellatron about changing the TVs in the corps’ view from Fox to CNN until the channel was changed.
Something tells me that the press barking about being sick and tired of televisions that “are paid for with taxpayer dollars” being tuned to “Fox, which a lot of people consider a Republican-leaning network” doesn’t bode well for their reception of erstwhile Fox anchor Tony Snow.
Thursday's "Name that Cult Movie!"
Time for this week's madness! Remember, leave your guesses in the comments. People that cheat with the IMDB are traitors and hate the troops.
1. Ferdy: "Look, I'm sorry if I made you angry, Linda."
Linda: "It's not you, Ferdy. I'm... just not used to be chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots."
2. "Your father's one sick mother. Actually your mother is one sick mother too."
3. "Why do I always think gettin' you home for Life Day is gonna be easy?"
4. "Women. Nothing surprises me Chip, except your late mother. Who'dve thought Selina had a brain to damage? Bottom line, she tries to blackmail me, I'll drop her out a higher window. Meantime, I got fatter fish to fry!"
5. "Creature stole my twinkie!"
6. "Stay where you are then, and I'll give you an eye witness description of this, intergalatic wanker!"
7. "Wings? But... I don't have wings!"
"Of course not. You're a boy."
8. "The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life, and poisons the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill!"
9. "How many times do I have to demonstrate to you... your guns are worthless against me!"
10. "The Sergeant, a shaken man, returned babbling about what had happened. Realizing the full danger of the situation, decided he had only one means left to stop the monster: Grenades. Now Bradford made a drastic move. Acting on his superior authority, he forbade Caldwell to destroy the creature. The Colonel, more concerned with saving human lives than advancing Science, told Bradford to "Go to Hell.""
(Hooray for Cross-posts...)
Random Question: Is Andrea Bocelli gay?
I know I’m not the only nitwit around here who’s desperately addicted to American Idol, so I was wondering if anyone else noticed on Tuesday night’s show that when Andrea Bocelli was meeting with Chris Daughtry, and Chris told him he was going to be singing “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman,” Bocelli responded with something like, “The title is a problem…” and laughed. Mr. Shakes and I looked at each other and I said, “Did he just out himself?”
I guess, upon reflection, he could have been suggesting that he’s just never really loved a woman, but there was something that seemed a bit cheekier about it than that. Did anyone else notice it? Has anyone ever heard that Bocelli is gay? I’ve never heard that, and didn’t find anything online that suggests he’s out.
In any case, I just found it interesting, because with all the subtle and not-so-subtle references to Ryan Seacrest and some former contestants being gay, some of which is exceedingly tiresome by this point, it would be interesting if Bocelli chose that particular venue to out himself.
His performance last night was amazing, by the way, which I know is a little bit like saying, “Shakespeare’s Sister is kinda sarcastic”—in other words, “Duh”—but nevertheless, I really enjoyed seeing him perform.
Oh, and David Foster is a dick.
Emanuel’s Ode to the GOP
This is linked below, but I just wanted to post it in its entirely, because, between this and yesterday’s DNC press release, it really looks like someone has started putting a shot of espresso in the Dems’ morning coffee—and lord knows we’ve waited for it long enough!
Read on the floor of the House:
Mr. Speaker, investigators have recently uncovered a letter from the Republican Leadership to special interest lobbyists -- I'd like to share it with you today.Love it!
Dear K Street Lobbyists,
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth of thy oil wells,
For thou shall have $14.5 billion to drill them.
I love thee to the heights of thy drug profits,
For the Medicare bill gives you $139 billion.
I love thee for thy golf courses, and for thy private jets.
I love thee for thy donations, libations, and vacations.
For now we must part, and I'll call it reform,
But remember, in December, once we get past November,
The travel ban expires, and I'll meet you at the tees.
Yours forever, 'cause I can't quit you,
"The Republican Congress."
Dems Making the Moves
Wyden filibusters.
Feingold introduces amendment to redeploy troops by the end of the year.
Emanuel gets seriously snarky on the House floor.
Breaking News: Karl Rove is a Lying Scumbag
“I would never lie because I know that journalists are reckless beans-spillers, not people who fiercely guard their sources—even when their sources are administration hacks who use them to promulgate propaganda—and will even go to jail to avoid giving up the goods. No, no; I definitely would never lie because everyone, especially me who has never hidden behind the protected source principle to disseminate information as part of a smear campaign, knows what rollovers journalists are. I mean, sure, the president said he had ‘no idea’ whether we’ll find out who the leaker is because journalists ‘do a very good job of protecting the leakers,’ but come on—you don’t think I believe that, do you? Surely not, no. I would never believe such a patent falsehood. I mean, you guys are acting like when the president said that, he was almost laying out our exact plan or something, and that’s just ridiculous. It’s like you think that we consider ourselves above the law. Nothing could be further, uh, from the truth. Really. Geez, is it hot in here? Anyway, like I said, I’d never lie and shit. Dude, who does a guy have to fuck to get a Krispy Kreme up in this grand jury joint?”
Weighty matters and sugar glaze
You're actually salivating, aren't you? Jesus.
A while back, I mentioned that I'd fought my way back down to 200 pounds, this after a period of stealthy personal inflation. This made my doctor very happy. Not much has changed since then. Actually, nothing has changed so far as the scale is concerned. I've been stuck on two-double-nought for a solid month, even after bumping up the old caloric intake a good five or six hundred calories per day. Not the worst problem to have - eating more without putting on weight - but sooner or later I'm going to have to move off this setpoint if I'm to prove worthy of my recently-acquired Piggly Wiggly t-shirt.
All of that comes to mind just now because one of my coworkers brought in a couple of boxes of Krispy Kremes today. Original glazed and some kind of chocolate-covered affair. They will not be long for this world; the chocolate box alone is already down to two doughnuts. I will not be partaking; faithful readers of my own blog (very faithful) already know of my views on Krispy Kreme. There are better options, people, but comparisons aside, I don't have much room for doughnuts these days. Really, I'd need two days advance notice in order to schedule one. "Let's see, Tuesday's really bad for me, how about Friday, say, maybe two-ish?"
It's the kind of talk you expect of the born-again, I know - ex-smokers, former drinkers, the converted and saved and washed clean of sins, the annoying newly pious - and I do apologize for that. It's not that there shouldn't be a place at the table (a small place) for foods whose sole virtue is that fat makes them tasty. It's just kind of strange and novel to be on this side of things, where the very first thought that comes to mind upon seeing the familiar green and white Krispy Kreme box is "Criminy - what the hell is in those things?"
So, uh, here's the answer:
The good news: the most popular doughnut at Krispy Kreme, the Original Glazed, isn't as bad as most of the chain's other doughnuts. The bad news: they're so light and airy that stopping after only one ain't easy.
It's not the 200 calories that'll get you (though 200 times two, three, or four sure might). It's the six grams of saturated-plus-trans fat. That's nearly a third of a day's worth of bad fat in every ring. It's like eating a slice of white bread smeared with a tablespoon of lard (plus a tablespoon of jelly).
A Sugar Coated or Glazed Cinnamon--or Glazed or Cinnamon Twist--will do about the same damage. Even the Chocolate Iced looks the same to your arteries. (The chocolate icing is mostly sugar, so it adds about 50 calories, but no more fat.)
What pumps up the calories, fat, and sugar in Krispy Kreme's filled doughnuts? They're heavier. Krispy offers more than a dozen varieties that do away with the doughnut's healthiest feature: its calorie-free, fat-free hole.
Filled yeast doughnuts--including New York Cheesecake, Chocolate Malted Kreme, Caramel Kreme Crunch, Key Lime Pie, and Chocolate Iced Creme Filled--pack 300 to 390 calories and eight to ten grams of harmful fat. Some weigh nearly twice as much as an Original Glazed. Eating one is like having a nine-ounce filet mignon to tide you over until lunch.
Mm-mmm! That's good eatin', eh?
If They Won't Do It...
...then maybe we can impeach him.
Courtesy of The Green Knight: It's time for Do-It-Yourself Impeachment!
That's right, this is no lousy petition. There's a little known clause of the "Jefferson Manual" which sets forth the various ways in which a president can be impeached. Only the House Judiciary Committee puts together the Articles of Impeachment, but that occurs after someone initiates the process. There are various ways in which the Committee can have the process initiated (most commonly by members of the House passing a resolution). But, one of the other methods put forth in the "Jefferson Manual" is for a citizen to submit a memorial. So, we've researched a successful memorial (memorial of Luke Edward Lawless, from March 30th, 1826 in regards to impeaching Federal Judge James H. Peck), and used it as a template for this memorial. Feel free to download it, print out TWO copies, fill in your relevant information in the blanks (name, State, etc.), and send one copy in.
The other copy hold on to until October 12th when we're having everyone send in a copy.
That's right, we're having everyone send it in on the same date to have the greatest effect. We hope to flood the Judiciary Committee with sacks of mail, and cause a newsworthy event, to further pressure the Committee to act on the memorials.
Who's with me?
(Let's have a party, there's a cross-post in the sky...)
